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."
A question for RMS (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A question for RMS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A question for RMS (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A question for RMS (Score:4, Funny)
His response was that he didn't know which to feel sorrier for: Vim or KDE.
One of these days (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A question for RMS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A question for RMS (Score:3, Interesting)
Even when it's something you wrote by yourself (i.e.: instead of being told to by your boss/teacher/whatever), you might just not be the target market. Around 95 I wrote a nice shareware comm program (for use with BBSs - BRCOMM), which was great for newbies.
Most of the time, I used another comm program myself ({COMMO}), which was *not* trivial
Re:A question for RMS (Score:4, Informative)
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TecoEditor
Re:A question for RMS (Score:3, Funny)
vi obviously. He knows to much about emacs.
KFG
Re:A question for RMS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A question for RMS (Score:4, Funny)
Just had a look [gnu.org]. Not only does it give coding advice but it also clears up the vi/emacs [gnu.org] question:
Re:_Doh_! RMS wrote emacs (Score:4, Funny)
he's being quite modest about it (Score:5, Interesting)
Now let's get back to actually working on this replacement...
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: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.
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.
*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:he's being quite modest about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Free in Free Software refers to liberty, not cost.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:5, Interesting)
Somebody here fails to understand items such as the Java trap [gnu.org] then... and why there's such a furore about the new version of OpenOffice.org having such a dependence upon non-free Java...
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:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Interesting)
Blinded? No, some of us just genuinely don't care.
Sure, it would be nice if all software was free and Free; it would be nice if everything was free and Free. Some of us are just trying to make a living and pay the bills, support a family, etc. Whatever I may personally believe, I don't have the luxury of "fighting for what's right". Don't get me wrong, I'll not stand in his way, but I'll
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:he's being quite modest about it (Score:3, Informative)
You're going to have a very long wait. Love it or loathe it,
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: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.
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: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.
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.
Re:he's being quite modest about it (Score:4, Interesting)
It's "RMS's brand of extremism" that is the reason the vast majority of free software even exists today, you ungrateful bastard.
Ungrateful bastard, eh? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Thank you for adding strength to my argument. I have seen RMS speak in public and have watched first hand as he acted beligerant, abrasive, and attempted to derail the whole thing any time someone disagreed with him by arguing pointlessly over semantics again and again rather than actually providing logical premises for most of the conclusions that he posited. Probably, "ungrateful bastard" may have escaped his lips once or twice.
Many open source conferenecs (such as Penguicon [penguicon.com]) won't invite him as a speaker because they know that their other guest speakers (such as ESR) will refuse to attend if RMS is there. LUGs don't often invite him to speak because RMS will insist that the group change its name before he'll even consider it. Finally, I should point out that even when all qualifications are met, RMS is is ungrateful and rude to his hosts. And yes, I can provide you will plenty of email addresses for people who will verify all of this.
Do you really think you'd be posting on slashdot from a 'Linux system' if RMS was cool with proprietary software?
Unless you have some special powers that I don't know about, we'll never know for sure and it would be pointless to speculate. But I do know that RMS was not the first person to ever conceive of free software and he certainly wasn't the only person working to promote it for 20 years no matter what he'll have you believe. Linus Torvalds did more in 10 years to popularize open source software than GNU did in double that and Linus didn't even try very hard. He just gave out some good code that worked well and treated everyone else as an equal, even those he didn't agree with. Granted, Linux uses GNU for the userland, but there is absolutely no reason that the original Linux developers couldn't have grown their own userland using Minix as a template even if it would have taken longer. Or they could have just waited a little while and used FreeBSD's.
I respect RMS for promoting free software. I don't respect him for being a jerk nor for telling people to fuck off who don't agree with each and every single one of his ideas. He's hurting the free software movement by scaring off 80% of the people and businesses that would otherwise line up behind him in support.
Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah (Score:5, 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: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:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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: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.
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.
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:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:3, Insightful)
WE GET IT. There are two sides, it's NOT insightful.
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:5, Funny)
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: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: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: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:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the suppliers was Microsoft, and I was working for an MS preferred partner. Sometimes business priorities work out that way, sometimes its due to internal resourcing problems even if the supplier is co-operative as MS were.
I've now come to value free(dom). If we had had access to the source, we could have got somewhere.
Sam
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 th
Re:I disagree w/RMS... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do it again, do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Insanity (Score:3, Interesting)
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: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.
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: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: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.
Quote (Score:5, Funny)
"RMS is a madman, but fortunatly he's our madman".
The fortune cookie version of this post... (Score:5, Funny)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.. (Score:3, Interesting)
If all software was "free" according to Stallman's definition, there would be no incentive for students to enter into the software industry (we're already seeing this in the US). That will lead to a lack of skilled programmers, and eventual stagnation and death of the entire software industry (including "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.
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, copyri
Uh - spreading a message? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's sad, but most people nowadays (including me, for that matter) will take the practical way over the idealistic way. RMS gets pissed (if I read this right) because people by and large steadfastly refuse to be idealists. I would be curious to ask him what his take would be on someone who thinks it is idealistic to promote capitalism and the economy (and hence a better standard of living, at least in their minds) by refusing to give anything away free. My guess is he would say they are dead wrong, tragically wrong, or even criminally wrong, but I'll bet he would find that person less exasperating on some level because they were acting on principle rather than expedience.
I don't say I agree with RMS - in fact in general I tend to be rather pragmatic about this sort of thing. But my pragmatic thinking basically boil down to:
1) We live in a highly litigious society
2) I have a finite amount of money
3) Commercial software is expensive for my income
4) Most of my software use is not the kind of use where the software Must Work. A few bugs or missing features aren't the end of the world.
5) Should I happen to create something with software I want to sell commercially (let's say a book) I don't want to have to worry about Microsoft coming after me for improper licensing and demanding a chunk of royalties or something equally fun.
6) Any kind of legal action, even that with little to no merit, is enough to cause major headaches.
7) Hence, in balance, there is no reason for me to either pay $$$ for commercial software or pirate it when there are workable, free alternatives.
This has some exceptions - I use Acrobat Reader for example, which is only free as in beer but allows me to fill out tax forms. But in general I prefer tools with licenses that cost no money, demand no information, don't expire, and at least in theory allow me and/or anyone to fix them when they break. That's what meets my needs.
Maybe, in some sense, it could be argued that ideals ARE practical, because the long term consequences of going without them don't tend to be good.
Re:Uh - spreading a message? (Score:4, Funny)
GPL, no surprises... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think he makes a good point, ultimately, ANY price will exclude SOMEBODY....no matter how cheap. For GNU/Linux, that just can't work. If it's in the Kernel or the basic GNU tools, its GOT to be FREE, OPEN, and unencumbered by patents or IP. The same goes for anything you need to get AT the source, like BK. Besides, what's wrong with using something like CVS or subversion anyway??
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.
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.
You've gotta give the guy credit... (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I agree with him. It makes NO sense to lock open source software up into propietary closed source control systems.
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:the cost of innovation (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong, wrong, and more wrong. You don't understand what you quoted. Tridge didn't write a replacement for BitKeeper. He wrote a tool that allows you interoperate with BitKeeper - to get the source code out of BK without using BK.
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.
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:RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
"See ... I told you so!" (Score:4, Insightful)
Usually incisive, RMS emphasizes the wrong point (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't recall reading this before, but let's assume that McVoy DID deny access to his software to people to whom he had once granted access.
THIS is the reason why non-free software, in its current form, is a scary thing. Most licenses can be modified at any time, without notice, by the licensor. Bill Gates could, in theory, tell the whole world tomorrow "You can no longer use Windows."
Stallman promotes four freedoms; of those, the freedom to run programs as you wish for any purpose is what most consumers are interested in. Consumers could EASILY be persuaded to pursue this freedom through the political process, since this is the one that, if abused, would affect them the most. We have here a classic case of abuse of this freedom: McVoy takes away access to his software that he had once granted.
I would have preferred to see RMS saying "See? SEE? THIS is why I emphasize freedom!I Instead of emphasizing this evidence, he berates those too foolish to believe his dogma. I place myself firmly in the camp of those who believe his dogma, but only because I have seen and believe the evidence that his dogma is correct. Burying that evidence, as he has done, does no one any good.
Re:Usually incisive, RMS emphasizes the wrong poin (Score:5, Informative)
No, he can't.
From the FAQ [gnu.org]
Linus can redistribute code he has written under another license, but he cannot revoke the rights he has already provided. He can also make it so future releases are under a more restrictive license, but someone would just end up forking the last GPLed version.
A good example of this is XFree86. Version 4.4 was released under a more restrictive license that the community did not like. Next thing you know, the last 4.4 prerelease under the old license was forked as X.org.
Re:Usually incisive, RMS emphasizes the wrong poin (Score:4, Informative)
Read the licence. There is no provision for retroactive modification or revocation of the license. It is an outright grant of permission. It cannot be be withdrawn, because there is no basis in the license for doing so.
HOWEVER (and this is the point you seem to be making) an author may license his software to different people under different licenses. If I license my program to you under the GPL and to Apple under a Microsoft-style EULA, you will still have all the GPL rights granted to you. In fact, Apple could have gotten the software from you under the GPL (which is the only license YOU can distribute my program under, since you license it and do not own it). Apple could then distribute the software under the GPL (and the people who got it from Apple...ad infinitum), but Apple would be bound by the GPL with regard to modifications that they distribute. Apple doesn't like that, so they come to me with money and a request for a different license.
But no matter what happens between me and Apple, between me and you was the GPL. You still have the GPLed copy of my software, and if I go capitalistic nuts tomorrow and begin demanding $1000/day before I'll distribute any more copies of my program, you would still be able to use, copy, modify, and redistribute the copy of my program that I gave to you.
I realize at this point that I am arguing by repeated assertion, so I encourage you again to go read the license yourself. Note that there is NO basis for revocation or modification of the license. It is a contract, and American contract law doesn't permit unilateral modification of contracts. (If it did, I might modify my mortgage contract.)
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.
how about a poll (Score:3, Interesting)
( ) Stick it to the man.
( ) Promote my ideologies.
( ) Solve a problem.
( ) Enjoy myself.
( ) Enjoy CowboyNeal.
I suspect 3 and 4 are the top choices. RMS seems to think 2.
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.
RMS (Score:5, Funny)
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:yeeeeeeeeha!!! (Score:3, Funny)
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:Umm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod parent DOWN (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The more I hear about RMS... (Score:5, Funny)
Then go here [gnu.org] and you will love him!
Re:The more I hear about RMS... (Score:4, Interesting)
My view is simply this: I should be allowed to do whatever I want to with my computer with no limitations except one. That limitation is to make sure that I am not negatively impacting anyone else. This is why I choose to use FOSS over proprietary software. I'm less interested in the political and philosophical squabbles involved. At the end of the day, the computer is a tool for me to accomplish whatever task is important to me. There should be no financial barriers to those tasks. As long as FOSS consinutes to provide viable alternatives to proprietary commercial software, I will lean towards FOSS. The software itself doesn't matter, it's what you can do with it.
My original post was actually just meant to be a "conversation starter". (Read flamebait.
Re:The more I hear about RMS... (Score:5, Interesting)
So many posts saying this or something similar, it's almost too frustrating to actually reply. Here I go...
It's absolutely possible to make money using free software, and make a very decent amount of money. Personally, I run a free software business in Germany. I recommend, install, and maintain free software for my customers -- big, well-paying corporations. I write free software for some of them, and I'm being paid for the software I write, just like any other worker is paid for the hours he spends working. It pays off tremendously well both for me, and the companies who employ me.
What the free software movement is against is to hide the source code of your software from the people who use it, just so you can make even more money out of it. But this is not necessary. The idea of the free software movement is a different economy where everybody can live well, and share what they know, and create. And this is possible economically, as I continue to experience every day.
Sorry, I just had to say it.
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: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).
Re:So is he saying... (Score:4, Interesting)
I find myself seeing his points but being unwilling to condemn closed source stuff. I guess that puts me more in the open source camp than the free software camp, but I do agree that the freedom you get with the source code an a friendly license are reassuring on many levels beyond simply getting better software.
(To avoid a half-troll myself, I'd like to point out that RMS's categories of software are disputed by more than a few, the Free/Open duality being attacked in particular)
The fact that he's idealogically hard edged is *why* he's controversial, recall.
Anyway, I'm glad of the announcement. I was hoping he'd throw in a final word after everyone else ran around, spurting blood.
Reading RMS is like a guilty pleasure.
To answer your question, my understanding is that RMS would rather have you develop a free alternative instead of ignoring the task, and in doing so solve the problem for you and the others that come after you.
Re:Strange.. (Score:5, Informative)
Uh-huh, right......
BitKeeper is not "open source." Nobody ever got the source outside of Larry McVoy's company. BitKeeper is proprietary software that you normally have to pay money to use. McVoy allowed "free" use for "free" software projects and Linus chose to use it for managing his end of Linux kernel development.
After Andrew Tridgell showed how you could connect to a BitKeeper repository using netcat to see what the "protocol" does, Mr. McVoy said no more "free" BitKeeper for you and went home.
No Open Source or Free Software projects were harmed in all of this, except that now Linus is going to develop his own tool for managing the kernel code instead of using something that's already available, because apparently, he's tried them all and decided that none really work for him.
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.
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.
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.
So you hate RMS? (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet, you think RMS is the bad guy. Wow.
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 hate RMS (Score:3, Informative)
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.