RMS Weighs in on BitKeeper Debacle 1137
mshiltonj writes "You know its what we've all been waiting for: RMS weighs in on the BitKeeper debacle. An excerpt: "I want to thank Larry McVoy. He recently eliminated a major weakness of the free software community, by announcing the end of his campaign to entice free software projects to use and promote his non-free software. Soon, Linux development will no longer use this program, and no longer spread the message that non-free software is a good thing if it's convenient."
Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree w/RMS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, RMS is all about Free/Free but I see it as an important step for all software. Free stuff that isn't "totally free" is *not* wrong.
I would like to make my personal feelings known that non-totally free stuff that is later taken away because someone didn't learn "no give backs" is lame.
Yeah, RMS is right about a lot of stuff and really does have vision but I just have to disagree w/him here. Not everything has to be free.
Do it again, do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeah (Score:1, Insightful)
Why (Score:3, Insightful)
"Open source is best, paying for software is dumb and evil!"
"Open source is for idiots, you'll live with your mothers till they die then you're on the street. Make money or get out"
Whatever happened to "every hole has a peice to fit it, some peices require different tasks to get them. Some require money, others require some code". It's no wonder MS is calling people communists, it's exactly the same pathetic ideals which no one wishs to adapt to the world.
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
And I think you've missed the point...most people don't give a shit whether it is free as in anything as long as it does what they need.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Me too, and that's OK. I have tremendous respect for RMS, he's contributed more to the computing community as a whole than anyone else on the planet. Sure, he's a zealot, but at least he's consistent. You never get a mixed message out of RMS.
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
hehe, that is funny... but it should be noted that in this case RMS is actually talking specifically about linux, the kernel, and not gnu/linux, the operating system.
Re:So is he saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the priorities are different. For a long shot, he'd consider it more important to create a free tool to do the task well, than to just do it with a non-free tool. It's just that, to him, freedom is more important than anything else. So, it's very natural and consistent that he'd rather first write the free tool and then do the task, instead of the other way round (and probably never get around to writing that free tool, anyway).
Mod parent DOWN (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, sadly, that this is typical human nature. It is also the precise mechanism throughout history by means of which freedom gets lost.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:3, Insightful)
WE GET IT. There are two sides, it's NOT insightful.
Re:The more I hear about RMS... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm afraid that your post smacks heavily of a "me too!" syndrome that is pervasive in the "Free Software Movement". The fact that the economy needs to run and that people should be compensated for their work seems to go right past your head. McVoy apparently did good work in both creating and marketing his product. Thus he is receiving compensation in the form of product sales. Whatever squabbles there are about a Linux version, there is nothing wrong with selling software. In fact, the sale of software is a cog that keeps our economy running.
RMS's comments are childish, and extremely self-serving. I take no issue with his goals of making all software free, as long as he's willing to write, finance, or support others in writing that software. But I do take issue with him attempting to bully others into accepting his idea of how software should be handled.
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
There's tons of people with that attitude, it's just that they're the ones who don't feel a need to scream about it.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:5, Insightful)
they're called visionaries because they have the insight to see things the average person cannot see.
in ten years, we will all be thanking RMS for his foresight - or lamenting that too few people took him seriously enough to avert disaster...
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:5, Insightful)
You no longer have the rights to use the software in your posession at this moment in the manner to which you wish to use it. You can only use the software in the manner to which the developers intended, and to which the licenses allow you. Oh, and the marketing folks have reserved the right to change your license at any time, which means that your right to use the software __in your posession__ can be revoked at any time. Without even notifying you.
___THIS___ is what RMS is fighting against.
Does it really take so much brain power to discern this? Do you really think that non-libre software has __your__ interests in mind when they force an 'upgrade' ?? Say, how about a new Nikon camera? Oh, wait, you can't use the white balance information unless you purchase more software from Nikon, and only from Nikon. You can't use your shiny new Photoshop application. This is not freedom. This is restriction.
RMS fights against restrictions.
He does not fight against the dollar.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole incident is why software should be 100% free. Had BitKeeper truly been opensource Tridge (or anyone, for that matter) could have simply forked it and kernel development would have continued on. All this whole incident proved is that when your development is determined by the whims of a single entity you run a very significant chance of getting burned.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
He's right in my opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
git will get better and one day it will be competitive with the best-of-breed software, and the benefits of this will flow to everyone - from rabif free software gurus to people who just can't afford commercialware.
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
All of this has been proven to be nonsense. Larry while a good guy years ago is basically an asshole taking positions on software that would embarrass Bill Gates. The software used didn't make anyone's job easier with the possible exception of Linus's. It only made Linus's job easier because he is being stubborn not wanted to change a bad work practice. The license wasn't close to fair enough. Linus lost some "approval rating" over this, the next time will be much harder for him.
We just watched David Dawes's and co. unwillingness to listen to their developer's make them lose control of a core open source project that had been amazing succesful well beyond even its original scope. I'm not saying Linux would fork over Linus doing another boneheaded move but he might encounter more opposition this time. There are lots of players that aren't thrilled with his leadership on other issues as well.
The importance of software freedom depends ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Bitkeeper had been a game, very few here would have complained about the fact that it's not truly free, and one wouldn't expect Linus to be terribly annoyed in the face of Tridge's actions.
But Bitkeeper was used in the role of a mission-critical piece of software. This is not really any different in importance than the kernel you run, or the database engine that stores your critical information, or the office suite you use, or perhaps even the web browser you use.
What makes those pieces of software so important are the consequences to you if they should fail to function properly, or if their use should suddenly be taken from you. They're mission-critical, or (perhaps) infrastructural in nature -- their importance is much higher to their users than that of much of the software that's out there.
And so, the importance of them being truly free is also much higher.
I sometimes wonder what the consequences to the Linux kernel today would be if Linus had taken a few weeks off to write the revision control system he wants and needs, rather than to deploy Bitkeeper. He'd have to stop accepting patches to the Linux kernel for that period of time, of course, but the submitters of the patches in question could certainly sit on them until he was ready, no?
In any case, I agree with RMS that there's a lesson here: if you use proprietary software for mission-critical work, you're essentially giving control over that mission to someone else. Think about that carefully before you choose.
Re:A question for RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:3, Insightful)
It was pretty clear early on, as the rules for use were constantly being redefined, that there was going to be some form of conflict down the road. It's fortunate that the positive aspects of BitKeeper have outweighed the negative of having now to seek a replacement, but I sure wouldn't have bet it would turn out this way based on the LKML correspondence over the years on this subject.
There is probably a great deal of convincing but private communication we (and RMS?) are not privy to. The split is being handled pretty well.
So cheap closed/controlled software is okay? (Score:4, Insightful)
IE is free once you get above software.
No matter what tool or code you cite, I can cite closed code that is very cheap or no cost.
We are not in this just to save money, if that is what you are thinking you have missed the entire point of free software.
Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And secondly, why would the software industry suddenly die with open source? We would still need software. Thus software would still need to be written. IBM and HP pay people to write open source software. Now I'm not saying that all software SHOULD be open sourced, I agree that's ludicrous. I'm only saying that it could not kill the software industry.
the cost of innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, BitMover Inc. spent money and did research to determine what features were needed. Now Andrew Tridgell will simply implement thoses features.
Now, equivalent free software is better than non-free software (you get the source code, and many more rights), but we have to accept that kind of incident reduces the motivation of software firms to write software in the GNU niche of the market (unless they can figure a way to make money which does not involve selling the software see SuSE or Red Hat). If I discovered that people running GNU/Linux needed some kind of software, and tried to write it and make money by selling the software itself, RMS (or someone else) would instantly sponsor a "free software alternative". Thus I'd have two options: make the software free from the start (donating the programming effort with no gain) or not write it at all.
In the GNU world, both alternatives are good. The ecology of this market drifts towards all-free software, the holy grail of the FSF. For myself, since this kind of ecology does not always guarantee the software I want being available, I'd love to buy proprietary software when the alternative is no software at all.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:2, Insightful)
It would never have existed...BK makes $$$ off selling licenses, so there would have been little to no motivation to write the software in the first place.
Not quite right, this time (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that the BitKeeper adventure has been, overall, good for kernel development. Linus and a lot of the others liked it, and felt productive using it.
More importantly, the switch to something else seems to go quite swiftly. git and cogito [kernel.org] are already good enough to manage the kernel (if a little rough around the edges yet).
In other words, the price for dumping BitKeeper was pretty low. And so was the risk taken by using it.
And that's exactly the point of free software: nobody can take it away from you. That keeps the risk in using it low.
The risk and cost of using non-free software might be ok if you can live without it. But use free software for important stuff.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:1, Insightful)
This whole 'ethical' line of argumentation. A more mainstream economic argument holds a lot more water.
The negative spin applied to LM's motives, in the case of this article. RMS wouldn't make those statements without evidence, I'm sure; I simply find them in bad taste.
FOSS will turn a maturity corner when it achieves the unbunched panties of the BSD community about other viewpoints, and lets the intrinsic goodness of the GPL do the talking.
I especially hope that this mellowing can occur before GPL3. One thing I figured out fairly early is, if you give the opposition ammunition, they will shoot it at you. Proceed, therefore, with boldness tempered by wisdom.
Delightful (Score:2, Insightful)
How many years did "the community" have to code a replacement for BK again? Does anyone think that Linus would not have switched to it in a heartbeat if it was "free as in everything" and did what he wanted? No. But where was it?
I love RMS. This is all McVoy's fault. "Look, the evil man has been defeated! yay Free Software!" I guess he forgot that no one held a gun to Linus' head to force him to use BK.
And the "GNU/Linux" name dropping? Classic.
Great stuff.
Re:Why (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest are too busy doing actual work to give a crap about stupid "my hammer is bigger than your swiss army knife" games.
I hate "TRUST" (Score:5, Insightful)
For the same reason you get to vote for your President. Do you want to be in control of your environment or do you want to trust someone? The Constitution provides an assurance that you will never have to blindly trust a leader, because in the end this trust is always broken.
Likewise for software - the GPL is an insurance policy against someone else controlling what happens on your computer in a way that requires your trust.
Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The bottom line is that IBM and HP are businesses, and if there is not a business case for developing open source software, they will not do so.
The question becomes:
"Why would IBM develop free software?"
They can't really sell it - all someone would have to do is purchase a copy (if IBM doesn't give it away for free, as in beer), rebrand it (removing all IBM trademarks, copyrights, etc.), and distribute it themselves for free (beer).
The only reason why anyone would then use the pay IBM version would be to sell support services.
In the end, the question of the day is..
If all software was Stallman-free, how would you make any money developing software? How would you attract the top minds of the next generation to the software industry?
My assertion is that you cannot.
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the post I was commenting on talked about people who don't care about ideals but take whatever is given to them as being good enough. You are talking about a less-passive approach, actively taking a step on behalf of your family. Apples and oranges. My point was that if you don't care about freedom, you lose it.
And yes, you can make money from free software. Lots of companies do it. It's not the either/or situation the anti-free software types make it out to be.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate RMS (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, let's not freak out here. A volunteer programmer, by definition, will work towards their own agenda. If they listen to RMS, blame them for their own choice. RMS didn't drain their wills or twist their brains - they made their own choices.
Although I think you happen to be wrong in this case. I don't recall Bitkeeper being reverse engineered on company time as a factor in the decision to yank licensing, although I obviously don't know everything about it. If they did use company time it was inappropriate, but my understanding is it would have made no difference in the end.
I would say Gnome and KDE existing is a good thing - neither can get complacient. And since everyone seems to be having fun working on them (which is, after all, still the whole point of volunteer programming) I fail to see an issue.
You seem to be upset that open source developers aren't marching as an army to take over the world. Sorry, but that's not how it works, whatever the media would like to think. It's people having fun, and anything else beyond that is simply icing on the cake.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep. Just like in the case of slavery it would.
Free=Good, Pay=Bad, therefore Coder Slavery=Good (Score:4, Insightful)
"Why should I do it?"
"Because I pay you to."
"So your question was again?"
Except in the case of FOSS, the reason I should do it is because the users simply insist I should. WTF have they done for me lately? Stroked my ego? Read the docs I custom tailored to their intelligence level? Nope. "Code should be free!"
Fine, you invent it then. I won't write anything. I'll simply schlep others' code around, fixing your machines instead of improving on them.
No? Well then, pay me what I'm worth.
What I want to know is where did we suddenly decide that shareware should go the way of the dodo, and we instead of being upstanding and honorable decided to go with stingy grubbing, however open and honest the gimme gimme mentality is?
If you like to put out work for free, give it some protection, but otherwise let anyone use it for nothing, that's your right. I would do it myself in some situations. But Free != Good. Sometimes Free == Tyranny of the Mob.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:4, Insightful)
How wrong you are. You are free to choose whether or not to use a product based on all factors, such as the license, format restrictions, etc. You are always free to not buy it, and either do without, or purchase a competing product that satisfies your requirements.
Likewise, companies are free to make business and marketing decisions that may harm their businesses.
The important thing to remember here is that freedom ends where government intervention begins. So long as the market is regulated by consumer decisions and PRIVATE efforts at change, freedom reigns and the sovereign consumer will get what they demand. If consumers are truly bothered by the restrictions of (to use your example) the Nikon white balance encryption, they won't buy Nikon, and Nikon's business will suffer. If not, Nikon may continue this practice. I do support the removal of this pointless encryption, but I show that support by buying other brands.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The more I hear about RMS... (Score:5, Insightful)
While bitkeeper was "free as in beer", when someone pissed of Larry, he took away the whole software. Also for a long time he's said people haven't been able to use it if they work on competing products.
If it had been GPLed, then someone couldn't have decided to just withdraw the software just because some did something they didn't like. Now the kernel has been left in the lurch. This kind of thing is exactly what RMS has been telling us would happen for years, and this is the first time I've really seen it happen.
Re:Yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
We should all use free (though poorly functional) things, rather than things that work.
I'm also a bit confused as how 'free software' = 'freedom'. So... you lose your individual freedom if you buy software?
"See ... I told you so!" (Score:4, Insightful)
My one objection to Bitkeeper (Score:5, Insightful)
This for me is an important point. I may be an eccentric, I am certainly a slightly lapsed Quaker, but for me one of the most important things in an ethical business is price transparency.
Before any libertarian gets started, this is not an anti-business attitude. The object of stock markets, for instance, is to provide price transparency as well as liquidity. This is one of the things that makes markets trustworthy: things take place in the light of day, not by private agreement.
I do not have a problem with charging for software and support: I do believe that it should be standard business practice for software companies to have a clean and transparent pricing model so that it is possible both to compare products by TCO, and to know that by using XYZ software you are not paying through the nose while XYZ is doing a cheap deal with your competitor.
My beef with MS, for instance, is that I cannot buy Windows alone for the same price as buying it bundled with a PC, plus the belief that the price of the various Microsoft offerings is related to negotiating ability. It is not a level playing field, and this is probably worse than being a monopoly. A monopoly that screws everybody equally at least encourages everybody to look for a way round it, rather than seeking to produce power alignments that keep it in place.
By following this "the price is what you negotiate" approach. Bitkeeper cannot avoid the suspicion that people who advocate its use might be in a visible industry position and be getting a special deal.
To anyone who says that this is excessive idealism, I would suggest that I do not have a problem with price variation or special offers provided they are freely and openly advertised. I am not in favor of limiting the ability of companies to respond to market conditions. I am opposed to secret deals.
Anybody who questions this might compare the laser printer and copier markets. Historically printers have been engineer-driven and tend to sell to a price. Copiers have been salesman-driven and the vendors have tried to hide the real costs in complex leasing and contract details. It isn't surprising that, as buyers become more aware, power starts to shift to the printer manufacturers. Nobody likes copier vendors.
Scott Adams (who is an economist as well as the creator of Dilbert) has summed it up well by using the term "confusopolies" to describe the vendors of mobile phone contracts etc. who seek to conceal the true costs.
So, in summary: Bitkeeper's business practices as regards the cost of their products causes me not to want to buy them.
Re:Do it again, do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Controller for an MRI scanner? Proprietary is OK. Microcode for an anti-lock braking system? Proprietary is OK. Your company's business logic, web services, email, word processing, version control? Free alternatives exist - proprietary is not OK. That's the pragmatic answer, which just happens to correspond with the ideological one.
If you don't mind living at the whims of a third party who rarely has your best interests in mind, then maybe gratis isn't such an irrational choice. If you want to own your own data, though, then libre trumps gratis in every single case I've ever come across.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:5, Insightful)
This ideology breaks down in today's corporate condition. As we saw back in the 90's, Microsoft was in a position to regulate the market itself. Its regulation was much more targeted and efficient than the government could have *ever* been.
Plus, I'm not a consumer. I am a citizen, and I'm damned tired of being thought of as a consumer.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of inventing an ethical principle out of his head (something theoretical and Utopian like, say, Marxism), he grounded it in the common practice around him: people can do this stuff (disassemble, share, etc.) with the physical objects they own, why not with the software? This reasoning (if I understand it correctly), in this particular instance, seems very old-school conservative / traditionalist to me.
Way to miss the point (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
Human nature, the inborn instinct, doesn't exactly seek out chains. At some point you have to decide whether the absolute theoretical freedom you have is worth not making use of every possible avenue. Would it really have been better for Linux development not to have used BitKeeper and stuck with an older model? Granted, they'd remain freedom-pure, but they probably wouldn't be where they are today.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:2, Insightful)
Software should be Open Source as much as possible, but there is no reason at all that _all_ software should be _Free_. Anyone who says so is a hypocrit (don't conform! er, uh, conform to what I say!).
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me about it. One of the big problems in the FOSS world is that OpenOffice, a very important open source program, is using more and more Java. In OpenOffice 2.0, many of the core wizards and their database components are written in Java. Whereas Java was pretty minor in past editions of OpenOffice, Java is a major dependency in OpenOffice 2.0
Some people have said something on the lines of, "What's the problem? Quit whining and crying, and wake up and smell the Java. Download the JDK, and fall in love with the new-and-improved OpenOffice." The reason why FOSS users aren't too fond of OpenOffice's use of Java is because the Java features are currently Sun-only; the free Java compilers and VMs haven't implemented all of the Java libraries and features at this time. Many of those Java libraries are also underdocumented; even though the core language is well documented, the Java libraries aren't.
Secondly, the Sun JDK is very hard to install. The license is very restrictive. Even if had no problem with the license, if you're running Linux on anything that isn't a x86, or if you're running BSD, then installing the Sun JDK ranges from very difficult to almost impossible. OpenOffice's use of Java could alienate users of "unsupported" platforms that are capable of running OpenOffice, but can't because its dependency, Java, can't run on it.
OpenOffice looks ripe for a fork. Aside from its Java issues, OpenOffice is very big and bloated. Why does it need its own widgets and font-handling system? How come the applications cannot be distributed modularly? Why must it inherit some of MS Office's quirks?
If OpenOffice forks, it should be similar to Firefox; get rid of all of the integrated bloat and start working on perfecting the individual applications. Get rid of Java just like the Mozilla people did when they got the Netscape sources. Separate the interface from the underlying portions.
Re:I hate RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you're fine with proprietary software, expecting open source programmers to stop doing what they do is not reasonable. If BitKeeper had something worth cloning, it would be cloned. In the meantime, Larry managed to bootstrap himself a company using the free advertising Linus gave him.
and thus, R.Stallman was right all along... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bit silly to say 'I told you so" - especially since I didn't actually say it. I thought the arguments made by Linus had some logic behind it too (the technical-merit-before-anything-else approach). Often I thought both sides (Stallman and Linus) had some valuable viewpoint on it, and it was difficult to say who actually was right on the matter.
It seems now, after all, it was R.Stallman all along. Yes, Linus has a good point in chosing for technical superior alternatives...BUT, in the end, as is clearly shown now, you can't just devide the political/ideological/proprietary issue from the mere technical one. When push comes to shove, an alternative that isn't really free, isn't really an alternative. You are always dependend on the goodwill of whomever owns the product- even when buying it, I may add.
So, it would seem the viewpoint of Linus, in this instance, is the weaker one, because now he doesn't have a 'tecnological superior' product anymore, and what is he going to do? Go for another proprietary product, because it's technologically better? And have the same thing happen to him again? I don't think so. I think he learned his lesson, and he will go for the really free alternatives that R.Stallman suggested, which, albeit not as good, at least allow you to continue with it as you see fit.
Stallman can be a nag sometimes because of his gnu/linux diatribe, but in this instance, he was right.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:5, Insightful)
All this whole incident proved is that when your development is determined by the whims of a single entity you run a very significant chance of getting burned.
Sorry, but this arguement just falls down flat. Linus seems to be having no problems moving away from BK to another solution, so the kernels development is NOT determined by the whims of a single entity other than Linus himself. Since BK made a significantly positive contribution to the workflow of the kernel developers, I would offer the opinion that the whole Bitkeeper saga has been nothing but positive from the start to the end, despite what RMS and others may have you think.
I believe that sourcecode should be at the control of whoever created it or paid them to create it, its their investment so why should a random person have the ability to fork it on a whim, unless the codes owners agree to that in the first place by CHOOSING to embrace such a move and opensourcing their code by freewill.
But its the ideology that RMS is all about (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS isn't in this to save money, he is in it to preserve freedoms that are important to him.
Re:Delightful (Score:1, Insightful)
1. Superb marketing. Lots of software houses now use BitKeeper, would they have if it wasn't for Linux' used it? I know MySQL AB wouldn't have used it...
2. Hundreds, probably thousands, of bug reports and requests for enhancements from the Linux developers. For the BK:s developers I'm sure these reports and comments were worth gold since they came from some of the worlds greatest hackers.
Creating a gratis BK for the Linux developers was a brilliant move by McVoy. It enabled him to not oblige with the rules of the free software community (that your software should be free) but still reap the benefits of it (feedback). That is what was lost with Linus decision to go with BK, all the precious feedback went to a proprietary software firm instead of being invested in a free SCM.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:1, Insightful)
RMS, he's contributed more to the computing community as a whole than anyone else on the planet
Turing? von Neumann? Knuth? Dijkstra? Torvalds? Gates? Jobs? Kernigan & Ritchie? Berners-Lee? Cmdr Taco? Anybody else who didn't inflict Emacs upon us?
Re:I hate RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
OSDL should have recognized that Linux is a more important project than reverse-engineering BitKeeper and told their employees not to do that on company time/servers or get fired.
Question: If Linus HAD been using VS, SourceSafe etc, and it had been Microsoft who had been pissed off about Tridge's reverse engineering of protocols, should OSDL have layed down the law against Tridge as well?
Should they have said "Linux is more important than Samba, so Tridge has to stop working on it to make sure that Linus can keep is Visual Studio license"? Since when does a proprietary software developer get to hold the community hostage by threatening to pull its licenses? How stupid do you have to be to consider that a good thing?
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Strictly speaking, that is correct. However, there is a twofold problem with this approach:
Firstly, many consumers simply aren't educated in the issues we're talking about. They do not know, they do not care to know. They'd probably be irritated if you told them. The only time they're going to care about it is when it butts right up against what they want to do.
Which leads me to problem number two. The difficulty of solving the issue is directly proportional to the amount of software out there that's legally encumbered. If we didn't make any free software, and everything was proprietary, then we'd set so many bad precedents and make so much bad and legally encumbered software that we'd be chained to the practice.
It's a simple mental excercise to see how this can come about. Please give it a shot.
Let me give you an example, from real life. If you're a US Citizen, the following story is an example of how closed software is going to cost you money by way of tax dollars.
I work for Lockheed, and thus I am a contrator for the Air Force. I work the RSA project, who's goal is to standardize software and hardware between all the different air force bases that launch things into space.
Several years ago, the decision was made to base a significant portion of the software on Windows 2000. This decision seemed fine at the time, and so the Process that the Air Force requires began to move. Specs were written, schedules drafted, software created, schedules slipped.
Now, years later, we learn that Win2k is being discontinued. This is very bad. Millions and millions of dollars have been spent developing systems around Win2k, and all that work is going to be invalidated because we can no longer get up-to-date security for our operating systems (satellite launch facilities have strict IT security policies, for obvious reasons).
If LMCO and the Air Force had chosen to use Linux as a platform, this problem couldn't occur. At any point in time, we can freeze linux, archive the source, and maintain it until the Earth's orbit around the Sun decays. Moreover, it is certain that at least a few other companies and individuals will have a similar interest in freezing at that version, so they can share efforts (or at least hire someone who can do the maint).
We have no such exit strategy for Win2k, and quite frankly the Air Force has no idea what to do. It's either going to force MS to keep supporting them (probably with huge heaping gobs of tax money) or force MS to turn over the code so that the Air Force can do it itself.
There you go. A real life example of what the FSF is trying to prevent.
Re:RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:4, Insightful)
He believes *VERY* strongly that software is a freedom (liberty) like free speech, the right to assemble, etc etc. His message is becoming INCREASINGLY relevant as computers dominate our lives now.
Most people just want to use their computer and not be hastled. Think of Bill Gates on one end of the spectrum, and RMS on the other. Bill Gates wants you to have *no* rights -- you "license" software, you pay far out the ass for it -- and you get NOTHING for it. Have you read the EULA on your MS products? It basically says -- that MS wont even guarantee that the program you bought actually does ANYTHING at all ("fitness of purpose"). They want your money, and literally want to give you nothing in return.
RMS is the exact opposite -- you get rights and responsibility.
Is RMS right? No. Is Bill Gates right? No. The dialog and pressure each puts on the other arrives at a medium that is about right.
Firm principles aren't always bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, they force me evaluate my own beliefs and principles. Why is democracy good? Why is Free Software worth bothering with? What could possibly be wrong with drinking alcohol?
Secondly, most movements in history was seen as radical or just plain whacky. Don't think you are allowed to sit at the front of the bus, woman. Oh no, the sun is clearly rotating around the earth, Mr. Astronomer. Without them, we would still be living in caves and killing our food with spears. No, not even spears, because that guy or gal probably got ridiculed a lot at first. We would be throwing rocks.
Third, the limits of our society are shaped by the extremes on each side of it -- the nuttier the sidelines, the more stable it is in the middle.
Also, some of these dudes are really entertaining, and it is always completely unintentionally...
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:2, Insightful)
Comments like this baffle me. Why is it software should be free? Are all programmers supposed to just donate all their time for the greater good? It's all well and good to advocate giving stuff away when you don't make your living writing it.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:5, Insightful)
Writing your own version control system is no big problem?! That's a BIG problem in the books of most developers, even though Linus is a great programmer he himself admits that his solution is nothing more than "a stupid (but extremely fast) directory content manager". So going from a really nice SCM like BitKeeper to this is a big deal no matter how you spin it.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that though Free Software has become much more mainstream, that mainstreaming has been led by the Open Source banner, because they are open to economic argumentation. That's the *ONLY* reason there is any support for this stuff from industry, which is of course secondary to ethical concerns for people like Stallman.
Furthermore, it strikes me as strange that RMS focuses on the ethical issues to the exclusion of all others, when the very reason for the success/adoption of the GPL is pure economics - it creates a "you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours" community of participants who contribute back improvements in exchange for the right to make use of a large library of infrastruture components avaialable under these common licensing terms. Forgive my oversimplification, but I don't think that's a radical claim I'm making.
Since the GPL itself is all about economics, why is Stallman so loathe to even mention economics? Especially when the moral or ethical case is one that would leave even most philosophy professors scratching their heads. What is so inherently unethical about separating modification rights from usage rights, or imposing reasonable restrictions on redistribution in order to ensure compensation for the labor of producing a work? And why does the effectively zero marginal cost of production of software somehow make software distribution into an ethical, rather than economic, issue in a way that it doesn't for real goods?
Furthermore, I don't see why I should be guaranteed rights to the source code unless I've compensated somebody for those rights - one way of compensating somebody, in fact, is accepting the terms of the GPL and agreeing to contribute back any useful modifications that I make if I redistribute them.
Re:the cost of innovation (Score:1, Insightful)
I am a non-x86 Linux user so the few commercial apps out there right now are totally worthless to me. If there wasn't an open source alternative to them I would be out in the cold.
Anyone trying to develop software for Linux who purposely excludes many of its users is really dooming themselves from the start. I would say this is true if it's closed or open software. For instance, if you write very x86 specific open code and refuse to accept patches that make it more portable, chances are someone is going to make a new project instead of helping you.
It's supply and demand. If a company wanting to write Linux software isn't comfortable with OSS software they are probably better off writing an OSX version. OSX users are generally more accepting of closed software.
Withdrawal of service (Score:3, Insightful)
However, a thing like this wouldn't have happened with Free Software. By that, I don't just mean something like the free software attitude would have prevented it or anything -- this would actually have been impossible if BitKeeper had been free software.
This is, of course, because even if McVoy had been the only developer and he decided to move to a non-free license for a new version for whatever reason, someone would just have had to fork it. Therefore, things like this cannot happen with free software.
The same, of course, goes with all proprietary software. Now, I don't believe that Microsoft will go out of business anytime soon (no matter how much I'd want it to), but imagine if it did! Suddenly, Windows would be completely unsupported and would never be developed further. Smaller companies can probably go bankrupt for lesser things than that. With GNU/Linux, that literally cannot happen. Someone will always go on working on it, and even if noone does voluntarily, you can always hire someone to do so.
*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter what sort of political or economic philospohy you subscribe to, when pure economics takes precedence over "ethics" then the said economic or political system becomes corrupt and vulnerable to collapse. Slavery did not end in America because someone had a convincing "mainstram economic argument" against it. Nazi Germany did not fall because it had an inferior economy. We triumphed over both because they were morally reprehensible (sorry, but I didn't spot the pre-requisite reverence to Nazis in this
I recently came across an interesting example of a compelling argument for "ethics" in business. The "Chik-fil-A" fast-food chain was founded and is headed by a very conservative, evangelical Christian. This man and much of the staff wear their religion on their sleeves, and unlike most visible personalities of the "religious right" they seem to actually practise whay they preach--their beliefs, faith, religous observances and family are of the highest priority--more so tham profits. The head of this company insists on not doing business on Sunday and on directing a portion of profits towards philanthropic activities as a sort of "tithe". While I do not subscribe to his brand of religious conservatism, I respect him highly for following his beliefs because they are the "right thing to do" even when there was no "mainstram economic" argument to do so. It is in some way like Google's well-known policy (at least in this forum) to "do no evil".
The result? Chik-fil-A has undergone rapid growth and has virtually the best employee retention and customer satisfaction in the industry. And we all know how Google turned out.
As for the maturity exhibited by the "unbunched panties of the BSD community"--what has that achieved for them? The many variants of BSD are certainly excellent from a technical perspective and are popular for web hosting and security, but there is a reason for the "BSD is dead" jokes--it is invisible to the general public and has no presence at all on the desktop. RMS and others might come across as wingnuts at times, but it is their dedication to ther beliefs and their inthusiasm for the free software movement that has made GNU/Linux as successful as it is.
You may view RMS' idealism as giving ammo to the opposition, but I prefer to think of it as a kevlar vest. The key is to stick to your principles while being informed and aware so you don't shoot yourself in the foot.
Re:Do it again, do it (Score:1, Insightful)
RMS is an extremist, because he takes everything to the extreme. Reasonable answer for the above - "depends", not "not ok". Nothing is black and white, there's plenty of shades of gray and that's exactly where everybody, but extremists, are.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't stand up when they came for the free software zealots, because I was not a free software zealot. I didn't stand up when they came for the developers of free-as-in-beer developers, because I charge for my software. Now they have come for all the rest of the developers, and there is no one left to stand up for me... At this rate, someday it will be illegal to create software because of all the patents. If you don't draw a line, you'll only be pushed back forever until you are either irrelevant, or inherently guilty of some crime.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Free Software is not Open Source. Ethics is the whole point behind Free Software. Rarely does a moderate stance drive change.
-------
With respect, ethics may be YOUR whole point behind free software but it is not everyone's point. As a CTO for a small company there are several corporate reasons I use 'free software', honestly most boil down to cost and support.
Linux in a corporate environment is about both free as in beer and free as in choice to switch. BUT both are really a TCO issue. The free to switch or modify is about reducing risk or cost, not about having more toys or supporting an ethic.
My boss doesn't care about the freedom ethics of F/OSS. He cares about his bottomline (that IS his job) and the freedom ethics of F/OSS are a means to an end. The corporate advantage of freedom in F/OSS is about the availability of patches, the replacement of developers, and the long term availability of inexpensive product.
IBM/Novell/HP/? doesn't support Linux because it is cool, they don't support it because of free as in freedom. They support it because they can make money that way. It adds billions per year to their bottomline. If Linux dies off tomorrow and BSD is the new drug of choice, they will support that and my corporate infrastructure will run on that (in fact it did, before Linux). They go where the customer goes, that's where the money is.
What is driving change on the corporate level is the low TCO, good support, and the hype reaching senior management. BSD has low TCO, not as good a support structure (but still good) and significantly less hype. Small companies have used it for years before Linux and some still use it today. The hype reaching management and the availability of 'linux trained staff' in droves off the street (compared to BSD) is Linux's major leg up in the corporate network infrastructure game. Easy to get/use mail server stuff, www server stuff, DNS, anti-virus, anti-spam, file/print share, networking,
Now this is stated by someone that has given away free (as in beer and freedom) software since the early 1980s (waaay pre GPL, I did it public domain:). I like Linux, I've used Linux since about the 0.93(?) kernel. I like the concept of free (freedom) software, always have, that's why I've released tools PD years ago (sadly I push paper not bits now). But my job isn't about what I like, it is about doing my bit to improve profit and reduce costs. As it is in most corporations I've ever worked at. Linux does that, that's the reason to implement it in a corporation.
Oh, well. Mark it off topic and let's move on
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do it again, do it (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that proprietary software meant to control a piece of hardware that a company is selling as a stand-alone "black box" unit would be OK by RMS. In other words, in the cases I mentioned, the purchaser is really buying an MRI unit or an ABS system - the fact that it comes with software is mostly beside the point.
I think Non-Free can be A Good Thing, BUT (Score:2, Insightful)
Any state where non-free is preferable is usually and should be an unstable state:
Either free software will be made, and non-free will no longer be preferred, or free software will be made and the non-free software will improve, so the new, better non-free software becomes preferred.
In the free market, the "more cost effective" product will carry the day. Non-Free products carry several costs, including political costs - particularly when it's a tool used for FOSS-development, the cost of not being able to modify the source when needed, and the costs of vendor lock-in. These, plus licensing fees if any, must be weighed when deciding to use non-free software.
In this context, free is as in freedom, not as in beer.
I think Linux was right to use BitKeeper at the time he made the decision. I think he was wrong to discourage the use of Tridge's work, but given the aftermath, he was right to move to an open-source solution. The time is ripe to use an open-source code management system for the Linux Kernel. One could easily argue this work should've been started a year or two ago.
By the way, there's still non-free code being used to develop Linux, albeit indectly and not under the control of the developers:
When a developer checks in code, his code travels over routers, some of which use non-FOSS code. I'm sure there are many such examples of how non-FOSS code is used to further the Linux kernel.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that's not a third hand. That still falls into doing what you think is right.
On the other hand :) I used to think RMS was just a raging zealot, but I've come around to his way of thinking. It's not that it's a crime to develop or use closed software - it's just stupid to depend on it, because you never know when they're going to screw you around. This is especially true of specialty software, like SCMS, or software for specific markets like child care. Most of this software can no longer be purchased - it can only be licensed. You buy a media set, and you buy a license. The license allows you to use the software until it expires. If they want to change the terms of the license on you, they can do it any time your license expires; if you want to get your information back out of the program, assuming it's even [reasonably] possible, you have to pay the license cost.
For example, the people in the childcare department at the school for which I work (a community college) want to use a program called Childcare Manager. It's written by a company in oregon called Personalized Software. Apparently, this software is licensed, not sold. What does it do? It handles accounting, contact management, child information, instant messenging, and employee information, and it can export to quickbooks. It is currently over a thousand dollars a year. If you're going to spend that kind of money, wouldn't it make more sense to spend it on customizations to free software, so that you A> don't have to pay a recurring license cost and B> can never get stuck in a position where you have to pay a ransom to get your data? I chose this software in particular because it doesn't do anything that you couldn't whip up in a month or so using PHP, and there are strong privacy concerns involved - how can you ever know that the software is secure?
I firmly believe that to use anything other than Free software is to invite disaster. I am not entirely against the use of proprietary software, but I believe that it should be avoided wherever possible. It is true that you can only measure costs of the things you can foresee, but it's the things you aren't expecting that typically cost you the most.
Re:But its the ideology that RMS is all about (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a pragmatist in the sense that I think that truly good ideals can be subtly warped so that they are counter to what they try to achieve. So the measure of an ideal is how well it achieves its goal in the real world.
Now, RMS's concept of Free Software is an ideal which *does* provide for itself quite well in the real world. Indeed the freedom translates into tangible economic advantages. I would submit that these economic advantages emenate from the ideal of Freedom and not the other way around.
Also, it is not about saving money. It is not even limited to getting more for a fixed expenditure. It is about having a flexible setup where the business needs drive the setup and not licensing considerations. It is about having access to the code and the coders. And these are very powerful things for a business.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Allow me to give you insight into the mind of a techie who is NOT a programmer (I'm more the sysadmin type. I can't code C, can't even READ C++, but I'm a demon when it comes to perl).
Relying on ANY software is stupid, by that logic, since if the author decides to screw me around, not fix a bug, or just generally bugger off and move on to a new project, I'm JUST as screwed as if it were MS who did it.
Just because the code CAN be fixed by someone else, doesn't mean it WOULD be. There are hundreds if not thousands of orphaned programs on Sourceforge alone. If I happen to need an abscure bit of code that someone wrote on a lark (and I often do) great! I hop over to SourceForge, grab the tarball and 'make'. Oh... crap. It only works on Linux 2.2.1...
This is a problem with OSS. Despite all the zombie masses shouting "GNU isn't against selling software," the issue is exactly that. If the program gets into wide enough use, people stop paying for it since they just snarf the source and build it themselves. So fixing bugs doesn't become financially feasable anymore, unless you SELL THE UPGRADES, which brings you RIGHT back your #1 argument against closed-source software. Otherwise, the only reason to keep working on it is for the love of the project, and they WILL eventually get bored, move on, and the project will stagnate. Then those who rely on it are equally screwed.
Note: I am NOT anti-OSS. This is just a problem I genuinely think needs to be recognized and addressed, and Stallman is too busy preaching to actually do so.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:1, Insightful)
If it's such a big problem, why doesn't an open source alternative exist? Or, if one does exist, why isn't it considered good enough to use for the project?
Could it be because there is no economic incentive? Or is it because programmers lack the ethics to write a free one?
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Free in Free Software refers to liberty, not cost.
Re:So you hate RMS? (Score:3, Insightful)
People can and do use old linux versions. (Score:3, Insightful)
As a platform for millions of dollars worth of software, this is the only sane way to go.
As for MS extended support? They offer it for some things, not others. And it's very expensive. FOSS OS's would help the Air Force mitigate the long-term expense of keeping their mini-linux distro up to date, because other groups (probably within the government itself!) would be working on similar problems.
Re:Yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
Your definition of freedom is significantly different from mine, then. To me being able to eat is just part of survival; but I'd be hard-pressed to claim that slaves or prisoners (who also generally do get to eat) have much freedom to speak of.
And then there are people who think you are insightful. That's some freedom there -- freedom from rational thought.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a strawman. Nobody's saying people should be forced to license their work as Free software. The onus is on the average consumer to be wise enough not to rely on proprietary software.
This 'all software should be Free' thing people kick around is not the concept of someone like the government mandating that all software be Free, but having a market where anyone who doesn't release their source gets laughed at and their product not even considered by the decision makers.
Will this ever happen? Don't know.
Re:Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
And when the makers of your tools take that capacity to produce away, you cannot eat.
This is not about food. This is about control. The Founders of the United States of America didn't plan for today's corporate world. The original idea was for every citizen to be a yeoman farmer. We would already grow and harvest all the food we needed to eat on land we owned with our own tools and guns. Once elevated from the slavery of needing someone else to make the food on our plate, a cultured and gentile society would form.
Sadly, the corporate/industrial/consumer world of group ficitions (a.k.a. companies) proved to be much more effective at placing and keeping the wrong people in power. These professional politicians were feared because of the ability of the wealthy to influence them. Without them we wouldn't have a 6000 page tax code in the US. But we also wouldn't have ready access super-cheap IBM-compatible PCs without massive companies of scale like Gateway or Dell. It is a trade off, but one many thinkers believe left the citizen short changed.
It is the ideology of a corporate/industrial/consumer world that tells you that wage slavery is good. It is the ideology of RMS that this is bad. Corporate America, et al. would like us to be happy consumers and will stoop to taking their ball away if we won't play the game their way. Linus got reminded that he was playing with his friend's, Larry McVoy's, ball. Larry was unhappy with how other players used his ball. Like a spoiled brat (or corporate professional) he took his ball home.
RMS is correct to thank Larry for showing people the truth behind closed-source licensing and all the sheinanigans closed-source companies ply. Your only inate value is your time, whether used to produce and idea or a thing or another person. Play smart, don't fall into the traps of convineince that take your time away.
----
Plus, I'm not a consumer. I am a citizen, and I'm damned tired of being thought of as a consumer.
-- Tony (765), 25 April 2005
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
It's "RMS's brand of extremism" that is the reason the vast majority of free software even exists today, you ungrateful bastard.
Do you really think you'd be posting on slashdot from a 'Linux system' if RMS was cool with proprietary software?
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you aren't. The difference is, with FOSS you at least have a fighting chance. You may not be a programmer (most people in this world aren't), but if your company is relying on said software to do business you have the ability to pay one or more people who ARE programmers, and they can fix the software for you. This is no big deal for most medium-to-large businesses, or even for small businesses depending on the size of the problem. If it's something that's important to a large number of people it will almost always get taken care of, or a free and often better replacement will be created.
With closed software, you are simply screwed, unless you are big enough to buy the closed source code, and that's assuming the source code still exists in some usable form. With free software, you are NOT "just as screwed" as you are when a closed-source company dies.
You're right about one thing, just because open source CAN be fixed doesn't mean that it WOULD be fixed if it's not a popular bit of software. But "can" is ever so much better than "can't", wouldn't you agree? What you get with orphaned close-source applications is almost always "CAN'T". To avoid getting stuck with orphaned open source software that you can't fix yourself or can't afford to pay someone to fix, you just have to pay a little attention and try to stick with popular software that WILL get fixed. Oh, and taking advantage of actual standards as much as possible is always helpful when you're forced to replace an application with an alternative.
Your statement that developers will ALWAYS eventually abandon a project and that all popular open source software will ALWAYS become non-profitable because everyone will download and compile their own copy is just nonsense. If that were true, Red Hat (and all other commercial Linux distributions, etc.) would have been out of business a long time ago, since you can download their entire OS for free or get the free CentOS or White Box versions. Same software, just relabeled. And yet, companies are still willing to pay thousands per license for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. The reasons range from support to tax write-offs to convenience, but the point being there will always be a market for F/OS software, or at least for quality F/OS software. You're just not understanding the market or the developers.
Mod article as troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people have to work for a living unfortunately since money does not grow on trees and we don't all have rich parents and we cannot all live on welfare.
Software is worth paying for if it performs the job well and is easy to use. I'm sorry but most OSS have craptastic UI's and no offline documentation. Some software does not even have up to date documentation online.
Many of those proprietary software companies (Apple, Adobe etc...) employ usability experts to test the functionality of the UI. They know what works and what does not. You are not going to see many programmers with a knack for UI design working on an Open Source project. They are motivated by "scratching their own itch" rather than creating software for the public at large.
Can you honestly say that you would spend your own valuable time developing a useful UI for everyone to use when a "good enough" craptastic interface only you can understand would suffice?
Where is the motivation to create a better UI for other people?
I grew up poor and so I understand the value of a dollar and the value of work.
Don't give me that "freedom" and "free speech" bullshit. I can exercise my freedom and free speech by releasing software as a closed source binary if I so choose. If I do not provide adequate documentation, a good UI and value added features, people may choose to use an OSS alternative. It's called competition people. If I can provide a better user experience and functionality, I should be able to expect monetary compensation for my efforts.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
The bitkeeper license, last I checked, explicitly stated that users of Bitkeeper could not work on competing source control systems. Git, Linus' new project for supporting linux development, is a competitor, and therefore he's violated the license after the fact.
As far as I can tell, Larry McVoy could go after Linus on a contract violation suit now. (Not that I think he will, that would be mondo bad publicity. *maybe* if he got bought out by somebody else, or if his company goes under and gets sold to someone willing to do anything to extract their dollar's worth.)
Re:Uh - spreading a message? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're curious about how the GPL can and should work for capitalist endeavors, take a look at the way it is being used by business , and maybe you'll grow a clue. IBM, HP, CA, Intel, and NEC all realized that Linux was important to their business. They chipped in a bunch of cash to form the OSDL. OSDL pays programmers to work on Linux. IBM, HP, CA, Intel, and NEC also hire programmers to work on Linux and focus on the issues their customers are interested in.
Then IBM, HP, CA, Intel, and NEC sell shit that uses Linux.
Ok, where did anybody do anything anti-capitalist? Where did it not work in the real world?
Do people buy Red Hat Linux for giggles? Practically speaking, you're wrong. And who says the dominant model for software is pay-per-copy? Shareware authors and Adobe, maybe.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a difference that should be important. With open source you can hire someone else to fix it for you. Perhaps this isn't worth it in your care, but companies go out of business from time to time. If all your data was in a program from a company that goes out of business you cannot expand because you cannot get more licenses for your program.
Maybe you can use what you have (if the license doesn't expire), but as soon as you want to hire someone else you are breaking the law because you lack the ability to get more licenses. For a home user a pirate version is fine. For a business that is a bad idea. You might eventially get big enough that those who got the assets of the old company find it worth their while to sue.
With closed source you are relying on the company to provide updates. What if they abandon the software (see above)? What if they decide you are small fry and ignore you. Microsoft won't listen to my (20 person) company if we need a new feature in Word. With open source we can hire someone if we need something bad enough.
Maybe you can't hack C, but I can. Pay my salary and I will make that old program that last supported linux 2.0.19 work on a modern kernel.
People have offered to pay for the rights to M.U.L.E., and been refused. So those who love the game need to keep an atari 800 (or 400, all other models only support 2 players) and disk drive around. Which sounds easy, but the media is going bad, and the copy protection is strong enough that few attempts at copies work. A great program dies because there is no source. (Yes I'm aware of clones, but they do not change my point)
Linus is not copyright holder for Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Linus cannot revoke the license for Linux. He can't even change them, because he is not the only copyright holder. The copyright is held by a few thousand individual developers (and a few companies) who each have to agree to licenses changes, or their code removed before the license can change.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Insightful)
To be off-topic, Marxism was based in the real world too. It was an extrapolation of observed anti-aristocratic trends.
The tremenous failure of Leninist-Maoist pseudo-communism shouldn't be used as evidence against the accuracy of the theory of which they were perversions. Marx said that communism would come after capitalism, and so far even capitalism hasn't covered the whole world yet. Even if he were right, we wouldn't expect to see the results til later.
There still remains an outside chance that we will end up in a society conforming to his ideals. For example, if corporations along the lines of Wal-Mart continue to grow and manage ever-increasing domination of the economy, they could become tantamount to a communist government.
Revisiting requests to revitalize respect. (Score:4, Insightful)
He's talking about the kernel, hence he respects the name it was given--Linux. He asks people to do the same when speaking of the OS in which the Linux kernel is most commonly used so that both projects get a share of the credit--GNU/Linux.
Time to read the GNU/Linux naming FAQ [gnu.org], perhaps.
That could be quite good... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually that could end up being quite good. It's possible the pressure to use OO2.0 on a totalyl Free system might well be the impetus required to really beef up GCJ! So in that sense it could end up being quite beneficial that OO2.0 has a mcuh stronger dependancy on Java.
GPL Ain't Freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I understand it's a perfectly valid tool when you want your software to be less freely usable, but that's not the path I choose, maybe because I don't view people that want to sell software as evil and I value their contribution to the further development of my code regardless of their motivations or benefit from that.
The whole point is being practical (Score:3, Insightful)
That is pretty much at the heart of what RMS is trying to say, all the time. That ultimatley the only "Practical" software is software YOU control, not another company.
Re:So is he saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. Let's not forget that this is the man who, seeing the need for free software, first started to write the compiler with which to build free software. A more "reasonable" person might have said that "Ah, the development tool chain isn't that important, it's the code that actually gets work done that is. Let's depend on a proprietary compiler for now, after all, the interface to it (i.e. the language) is portable and consistent between vendors".
But not Stallman. He's not one to back down from difficulty. As a result we now have a very capable free tool chain (gcc, gdb, glibc, gmake, flex, bison etc).
I'd say he's got his priorities straight.
Re:and thus, R.Stallman was right all along... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/32618.htm
"Scarcely a month later the clamor on the list about the use of the proprietary tool had become palpable. A petition was begun to stop it before it could get started. Torvalds responded with a withering reply, saying among other things, that "If people in the open-source SCM community wake up and notice that the current open-source SCM systems aren't cutting it, that's good. But it's absolutely NOT an excuse to use them today. Sorry. I use CVS at work, and I could never use it for Linux. I took a look at subversion, and it doesn't even come close to what I wanted." He added that it was "stupid" to use inferior tools for ideological reasons."
So, clearly, when he finds it stupid to use inferior tools for ideological reasons, he prefers to use superior tools even when they don't follow the free ideology. Hence, it's the superiority that counts most for him, not the free software ideology.
Now it's your turn: show me an example or a quote, where Linus choses a technological inferior product because of a more free ideology.
Re:My one objection to Bitkeeper (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:3, Insightful)
And how wrong you are. Government is in the middle of this - period.
I would bet that there are copyrights and patents involved in the nikon white balance example you refer to. And IIRC, Adobe was concerned about running afoul of the DMCA - another case of the government being in the heart of the matter. We are not discussing free markets when the goods are protected by copyright or patent laws. Period, end of story. These are government regulated markets from the get go.
all the best,
drew
Re:Mod article as troll (Score:2, Insightful)
If you don't get that... than FOSS is not a topic you should argue about.