Bill Gates On the GPL — "We Disagree"

Dionysius, God of Wine, writes with a link to an Ars Technica story, quoting Bill Gates: "'There's free software and then there's open source' he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. With open source software, on the other hand, 'there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.' Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,' he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business. (Yes, Linux fans, we're aware of how distorted this definition is.) He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: 'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."

Not radical to charge, just greedy.

[smellsofbikes (890263)]

Nothing wrong with greedy. Just, when you're competing with 'free' you better bring a lot to the table.

Bring a lot to the table

[symbolset (646467)]

You are sooo right.

'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,'

Because if somebody else invents better drugs to give away for free, you're sunk.

Re:Bring a lot to the table

[by Anonymous Coward]

Because if somebody else invents better drugs to give away for free, you're sunk.

Nah, you just give out enough free coffee cups and iPods to the doctors that they prescribe your expensive version anyway - after all, it's not them that's paying for it.

Re:Bring a lot to the table

[pclminion (145572)]

Wouldn't it be great if the patient had at least SOME degree of control over what is prescribed? Obviously, lay persons should not prescribe drugs for themselves, but if there are three drugs A, B, and C which are all considered roughly equivalent, appropriate treatments for some condition, the patient should be able to decide for him/herself which of the drugs to use.

If I know there is a cheap alternative, and I am willing to take responsibility for my decision, I should be able to request that the alternative be used instead of a more expensive one. Patients can already request a generic substitute, but why not take this just a small step farther and allow them to choose between a set of different, but roughly equivalent drugs.

Re:Bring a lot to the table

[metlin (258108)]

Except for the fact that the amount of resources required to conduct research (particularly pharma research) is over the top.

You can't just hire a bunch of folks who spent 10 years going to school and ask them to produce something for "free". Also, that electron microscope or that gene sequencer does not grow on a tree.

Software is a little different, but even then, programmers aren't the same as computer scientists. And while being paid for a service is great, I still do not mind paying for good technology because it pays for someone who loves technology.

I am all for making everything available freely, but I believe that the market should determine if that is feasible. Viva la Laissez-faire!

Except a good bit of the base research

[stabiesoft (733417)]

is paid for by taxpayers. NIH and universities do an awful lot of the research that big pharma repackages into drugs which we pay obscene amounts for. Also unfortunately, big pharma commissions lots of study's and only publishes the ones that are favorable. How many times do I have to read about a new drug that had prior studing buried by NDA's that showed it was lethal, but the study wasn't shown to the FDA. I appreciate the drug companies do some good work. It's a pity it is clouded by all the bad things they have done. I'd also like to prescription drugs prohibited from advertising on TV/web.

Re:Bring a lot to the table

[Hatta (162192)]

Most GPL code is written by people paid for their work. Especially most of the code from the most popular projects. There's no reason you can't pay people for drug research and then open the results. Seeing as the public is paying for ALL drug research anyway (whether through grants, tax-breaks, or just the purchase price of the drug), why not fund drug research publicly and give away the results?

Re:Bring a lot to the table

[by Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, wrong, wrong! There is nothing in the GPL that forces anyone to give anything away for free (money). It explicitly says you may charge a fee for the distribution of the software. And as far as your analogy goes, it doesn't put a burden on the users (owners who use the building) except if they decide to go and build another building based on the first for someone else, they would have to release all the specs of the building.

Anyway, this analogy is ridiculous. Just to put it simply, GPL affects you if you distribute and/or modify the code. Go read the GPL, you can charge a billion dollars for your software, if no one buys it than it's just the market rejecting that price. I'm sick of people who want to spread misinformation because their business model is becoming harder to sustain.

Re:Bring a lot to the table

[PopeRatzo (965947)]

There is nothing in the GPL that forces anyone to give anything away for free (money).

See, that's what I thought too.

I'm a little bit confused by Mr. Gates assertions that somehow there is some gun to the heads of everyone who uses the GPL.

This reminds me of the new standard that CEOs are using for suing their competitors. According to them, if they have a competitor that has cut into their profits, they have a "fiduciary responsibility" to their shareholders to sue the competitor in order to "protect the interests of the shareholders". Even when there is no reasonable cause of action - no damage, no harm, no violation of patent or trademark. Even if there isn't a reasonable expectation of winning the suit, a suit is brought to cover the ass of the CEO for letting the competitor make headway.

I get the feeling that Gates is sort of doing the same thing. Even though he knows his charges are completely bogus, he feels he has to bring them anyway because something he considers "competition" has appeared in his rear-view mirror.

Nice system these "free markets", huh?

Forget about what?

[symbolset (646467)]

Then forget about doing meaningful research on viruses. After all, you can't see them in enough detail without an electron microscope.

How's that working out for you? Find a cure for HIV yet? Dengue? Marburg? Ebola? BSV? Malaria even?

Dr. Salk [wikipedia.org] managed to find a vaccine for Polio without these expensive toys. When asked about the patent for his vaccine, he is quoted as saying:

"There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

Re:Not radical to charge, just greedy.

[ZephyrXero (750822)]

Wanting to make a profit is not evil. However, lies still are. Saying that nobody can improve (read innovate) in open source is a flat out lie, and he knows it.

Also, if he really cared about making a profit he wouldn't still be clinging to his short sided, quick buck mentalities he started the company with decades ago...

Re:Not radical to charge, just greedy.

[pressman (182919)]

Improvement and innovation are two different ideas. Innovate implies a radical change from the status quo, whereas improvement is gradual change to the status quo resulting in a better product.

Photoshop was a huge innovation originally over traditional darkroom techniques. Early non-linear digital video editors were a huge innovation over linear tape-based and traditional film editing techniques, so Avid qualifies as an innovator.

(I'm a video editor and photographer, hence the analogies)

Since version 3, nothing in Photoshop has been terribly innovative though the program has seen numerous improvements.

Direct-to-disk video recording is a huge innovation over tape based recording and it's accompanying tape-based offline workflow. Panasonic, Sony and Red have shown some innovation there, but most everyone else has just improved upon existing technologies and work flows.

Linux, when it was released was a highly innovative OS and method of distribution. Now, however, most of what goes on in the OSS world (as it applies to Linux) is a matter of improvement rather than innovation.

The idea of innovation has become so diluted that it's now meaningless and people simply equate it with "getting stuff done", no matter how small the change.

Innovation isn't so much an active process as it is the result of inspired genius that strikes occasionally. Improvement is an active process of evaluation and execution. Innovation comes in spurts and then the innovations are improved upon and evolve.

Re:Not radical to charge, just greedy.

[CowboyNealOption (1262194)]

Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software'

I think Bill must live in opposite land, because the meaning he is associating with the word "nobody" is the one I associate with the word "everybody".

Re:Not radical to charge, just greedy.

[BasharTeg (71923)]

You're right that his "improve" on OSS argument is empty, because I think what he was trying to say by "nobody can improve on it" is "no business can improve on it." But most importantly, I think OP really dicked up what he was saying. Notice how the word OSS falls outside of the quote. Notice how they were referring to GPL software. Bill Gates is saying he has a problem with the GPL, and the OP's obvious GPL bias translated that into ALL open source software. Bill's point was that businesses can't take GPL software and improve upon it or link proprietary software to it without the viral nature of the GPL taking over. His arguments are against the GPL, not more liberal open source licenses like BSD or MIT.

The proof is in the pudding, they made use of a BSD based TCP/IP stack and TCP tools for many years before they rewrote them. Obviously they don't have a problem with BSD licensed software, only GPL licensed software. Yet OP feels the need to tag the quoted subject of "OSS" rather than "GPL licensed software" into the tiny micro-quote of Gate's words.

Re:Not radical to charge, just greedy.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

You're right that his "improve" on OSS argument is empty, because I think what he was trying to say by "nobody can improve on it" is "no business can improve on it."

Businesses improve on GPL products all the time; IBM, Sun, even Apple. They do it for profit too.

Bill's point was that businesses can't take GPL software and improve upon it or link proprietary software to it without the viral nature of the GPL taking over.

Yeah, that sure is a problem for him. Also, I can't take Stephen king's novels, improve on them and resell them without the viral nature of copyright laws taking over. Gates is just being two-faced. He wants to make a profit selling copyrighted software, but he doesn't want to pay the people developing copyrighted GPL software their required fee (any code added and distributed in future).

The proof is in the pudding, they made use of a BSD based TCP/IP stack and TCP tools for many years before they rewrote them. Obviously they don't have a problem with BSD licensed software, only GPL licensed software.

Microsoft's business model and entire culture is based upon locking in users and making it hard to switch to competing products. Pretty much everything they make includes such a component. They don't like GPL software because it makes this sort of lock in impossible and forces companies using it to constantly offer the best product all the time or lose out to competitors. Actually keeping their products competitive based upon real features and merits is not as profitable.

Re:Not radical to charge, just greedy.

[BlueStraggler (765543)]

Linux and GNU did not invent OSS. They were, in fact, a counter-revolution (OSS v2), in response to the revolution of proprietary software that overthrew OSS v1 in the early 1980s. Proprietary licensing took off with the rise of personal workstations and PCs and the subsequent rise in the portability of software. The GNU philosophy is that the old way of doing things was better, and cleverly co-opted the software licensing model to try and turn the ship around. Unix arose in the OSS v1 world, but right around the time that proprietary software was getting a foothold. As a consequence, it got caught up in the heart of the OSS/proprietary schism, and became embroiled in intellectual property lawsuits, which is why a Linux became necessary. But Linux didn't invent this approach to Unix; it simply capitalized on the fact that BSD was locked down in court battles for years. TCP/IP arose much earlier, before proprietary licensing was a significant force at all, so it is very much a creature of the OSS v1 world. If it wasn't, we either would not be using it today, or we'd be paying a hell of a lot more for it.

Weird disjoint

[by Anonymous Coward]

the GP post never mentioned wanting tesco to give away food.

However, if you have a back garden, you can grow potatoes for ... wait for it ... FREE! So do you think it right that tesco tell you you CAN'T produce food from your own garden and either use it yourself or give it to friends?

Re:Weird disjoint

[cyphercell (843398)]

Tesco disagrees with home gardening, they think people should be able to charge for their vegetables.

Re:Weird disjoint

[bcat24 (914105)]

Home gardening is killing produce?

Re:Weird disjoint

[tonyreadsnews (1134939)]

Gardening isn't really free. It's just grown the way you want it. That's the benifit. If you equated the time it requires to garden, plus seeds/plants, fertilizer and pesticides (if you choose). You'll find that gardening does cost you, even though you don't have to pull out your wallet at harvest time.

Re:Weird disjoint

[Pogue Mahone (265053)]

To paraphrase a sig from groklaw: "It isn't the food that's free: it's you"

Charge for drugs?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn (1126837)]

Isn't this the same guy who says that when they cure cancer, he'll buy enough of the cure to distribute it to everyone in the world for free?

Re:Charge for drugs?

[stoolpigeon (454276)]

That's ok - as long as rich people with lots of money are the ones who decide what is handed out and what isn't. When the hoi polloi start making those kind of decisions, we have a problem.

More drug analogies

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

He must know a lot about the drug business. If you get them hooked on a free sample, you can charge whatever you want, and your users end up "stealing" to get their fix in the end!

What do you expect considering that....

[tgatliff (311583)]

OSS typically goes after mature late life cycle applications, such as OS's, Office suites, etc.. If Microsoft was truly on the cutting edge of innovation, I dont think they would care either way....

Meaning, people can say what they like, but in my opinion OSS is capitalism's way of preventing companies from profiting on a product the developed indefinitely... And this is a good thing, in my opinion.. :)

Open Source does innovate and is innovative.

[xzvf (924443)]

On the desktop FOSS does go after a mature established market. On the server and appliance side it is very innovative. Xen and KVM are innovators in virtualization. Linux and BSD are innovators in appliance and embedded space. JeOS is an innovative idea. FOSS has spawned some innovative business models that wouldn't have been considered a decade ago. Business have innovated on top of FOSS to create billions of dollars in revenue and tons of high paying jobs.

Drugs...

[onion2k (203094)]

He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: 'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."

What if you invent diseases?

Well, viruses.

Well, a platform that viruses thrive on.

Re:Drugs...

[Shakrai (717556)]

Well, a platform that viruses thrive on.

Human beings? ;)

Interesting...

[AndyCR (1091663)]

Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,

It's pretty amazing that anything gets done, since what he describes as impossible is almost the only way Open Source software improves.

Flamebait

[CheckeredShirt (944734)]

This sort of "article" is just flame bait. It doesn't provide any new information nor does it push any sort of point with facts or clarity.

Drugs

[DoofusOfDeath (636671)]

'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,'

Sure, but he has a problem with some people choosing to not charge for them?

Re:Drugs

[AndyCR (1091663)]

I think his point was that if you choose Open Source software to modify and base your commercial software on and it is under the GPL, you must also Open Source your commercial software. He is arguing that that prevents proprietary improvements, and that that is wrong. What he can't seem to understand is that it -isn't their work to make proprietary in the first place-, and you can't base a commercial project off of Microsoft's code unless they specifically allow you to either. He's completely missing the fact that it's no different with the software he himself produces.

You're free to use GPL's tools to write proprietary software (John Carmack used the GNU toolset to write Quake on NEXT, and later donated $20,000 to the FSF as thanks for use of their tools), but you can't take a GPL'ed program, add a few lines of code, and sell it as a proprietary package. Bill Gates sees this as wrong, but somehow doesn't see that not being able to get the source code for Windows, add a few lines, and sell it as a new OS is the same darned thing.

Conversely ...

[gstoddart (321705)]

I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them

Conversely, if you basically steal the idea that other people have come up with, and implement them in a proprietary manner, you shouldn't go around claiming you invented it.

The list of things that MS basically borrowed or copied from Xerox, UNIX, Apple, and general computing research is basically ... everything Microsoft makes. Other than implementation specifics (and, I guess MS Bob) I'm hard pressed to think of a single instance of a technology which they completely invented from scratch.

Mostly I just remember things like Kerberos being hijacked, made incompatible, and claimed as their own invention. Fuck, they'd pretend to have invented TCP/IP if they'd been successful in forcing everyone else to adopt their version of it.

Not to Bill Gates: We disagree too.

Cheers

He said it

[orclevegam (940336)]

'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said

And remember, the first one is always free.

That explains it!

[dreamchaser (49529)]

'Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software'

I've been using Linux since pre kernel 1.0 days. This explains why there is still no IDE support and I am stuck with that damn A.OUT executable format. I really wish they'd at least add support for more than VGA graphics. I know it's asking a lot, but I'd also like DVD and USB support.

Their argument...

[i kan reed (749298)]

Their argument is based off a strictly capitalist view. If you consider the notion that there is no way to claim your work as your own once it is under the GPL and generate a profit directly from it, in this world view, it's a waste. They see GPL as a trap where once entered, there is no escape.
This view is flawed because it assumes there is no such thing as altruism, and that shared benefit from availability can't outweigh the potential benefit of carefully planned and limited sharing. This kind of idea comes from Economists who take the tragedy of the commons and the failures of universal communism to ridiculous extremes, making rules out of specific observations. Society is created from compromises and sharing, and open source is about developing a healthy society amongst developers.
That said, I do personally like to be able to release closed source versions of things, and allow others to do the same. The BSD and Eclipse licenses appeal to me more than the GPL.

Re:Their argument...

[Just Some Guy (3352)]

Their argument is based off a strictly capitalist view.

I think you have that exactly backwards. Microsoft and a few other lumbering dinosaurs really, really wish these upstart punks would quit competing with them. They don't want a free market; they want someone to tell you that you have to buy their products.

Red Hat, IBM, Sun, and other new and old companies that "get it" see this as an opportunity to become more efficient capitalists by competing in real markets, not just ones that temporarily exist due to artificial scarcity.

No, I think you got the roles reversed. Microsoft thinks that you owe them because, darn it, they've tried so hard! If Gates and Ballmer would spend as much time actually writing cool stuff that customers want to buy as they do bitching that everyone else is doing exactly that, then maybe they'd have something better to show than Vista. Competition is too hard, though, so now they're begging for the cozy straitjacket of government protection. Capitalists? I don't think so.

Nobody can improve the software?

[Rik Sweeney (471717)]

Can I improve Windows? Unlikely. Not without getting a job there and spending several years moving up the ranks to be in a position where I can fix* things.

Can I improve Linux? Yes*

Why? Because the source code is there for me to play with and fix the bugs* in the software. I can't do this with Windows. I can file a bug report and perhaps they might fix it in a service pack or just write back and say it's intentional.

*Granted, what I think is an improvement might be a step back in someone else's opinion, but at least I have the choice. Like Neo [wikipedia.org] did.

Troll

[Tom (822)]

Mod Gates -1: Troll.

Also note that he re-defined Free Software, confusing it wizh Freeware. He's either dumb or malicious, and considering his track record, I'm inclined to say that doesn't have to be an xor.

Great Analogy Bill!

[brunes69 (86786)]

He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: 'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."

Sure, so who cares if a few million die [cnn.com] as a result. You made your money!

WTF? Did he just say that?

[zappepcs (820751)]

Did Gates just compare Windows to drugs? huh?

So all the jokes about MS giving software to schools cheaply like a drug dealer are right?

After that, I can't think straight....

the limited viewpoint of a businessman

[v1 (525388)]

Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software

That is an incomplete statement. How about we add a little bit to it: Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software to make money off the original work they got for free

There, that's more like it. When you realize that's the "complete sentence" that's running through his head, it makes sense. Fortunately, not everyone thinks that way. Just because you can't improve GPL'd software to make a profit, does not mean you cannot improve it.

Re:the limited viewpoint of a businessman

[Enderandrew (866215)]

That's incorrect.

You can take my GPL program, improve it, fork it, and make money off it. What do you think Red Hat is doing? Do you think they wrote every line of code in the Linux distro they sell support contracts for?

You can make money off my GPL code, but you can't take my code and include it in a closed-source project.

No Improvements?

[Hellad (691810)]

Well considering that he considers Vista an improvement to XP, I am certainly happy that GPL prevents people from "improving" the software...

Drug Analogy

[Perl-Pusher (555592)]

'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."

Well if I invent the cure for AIDs then I can't give it away? And I can't license my drug patent so that it can't be used unless you plan on giving it away. I realize that selfless acts do seem radical to him. The tax write benefits and goodwill generated by any company agreeing to the terms would be priceless. They would go down in history as the company that saved Africa. Bill Gates is being either a short sighted idiot, or a greedy lying sob. I can't decide which.

Disagreement is bad?

[redelm (54142)]

Of course Gates & MS disagree with the GPL. They have since the 1978 computer-club letter because it undermines their entire business model. MS wants to sell standard programs. They've made a large business of it.

But all businesses face competition, and the most devastating tends to be from competitors who follow different business models. Clones are much easier to see off.

The most interesting thing here is Gates acknowledges the competition and is starting to fight [more]. Entirely following Ghandi's script: "First they ignore you, then they laught at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Error in summary

[CSMatt (1175471)]

Proprietary software, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,

There. Fixed it for you.

Re:And this is...

[ZephyrXero (750822)]

Well, with all Bill Gates philanthropy stuff he does today...sometimes we need to be reminded he's still evil ;)

Re:Drug development != Software development

[Rycross (836649)]

Open source does not have a corporate cost associated with it.

Yes it does. The biggest contributors to Open Source and Free Software are large corporations like Red Hat, IBM, Novell, and Sun. They do it because they don't make their money on that software specifically, but products and services based on it. By sharing contributions, they also receive contributions in return, and are able to make a better product, and more money.

Companies do pay for it. They pay for it because they get value in return.

don't forget marketing

[Reality Master 201 (578873)]

That's one area where (commercial) software development and pharma are a bit closer. Most pharama companies spend significantly more on marketing than on R&D - Merck, for example spent $7.6 billion on marketing vs $4.9 billion on R & D, according to their 2007 10-K filing. Microsoft, similarly, spent $11.5 billion on marketing and $7.1 billion on R & D.

You can think of open source software as being mostly the other way around. There's significantly more spent on development (in terms of donated time, resources, etc) than on marketing.