Slashdot Mirror

Someone really should have trademarked the term "Open-Source". It would lend a little bit of weight for going after those who abuse the term.

Open Source Initiative has made available the OSI CERTIFIED mark to refer to programs published under approved licenses, all of which match the Open Source Definition.

Someone really should have trademarked the term "Open-Source". It would lend a little bit of weight for going after those who abuse the term.

Open Source Initiative has made available the OSI CERTIFIED mark to refer to programs published under approved licenses, all of which match the Open Source Definition.

> Actually I am a developer that switched to Windows from Linux.

It was recently estimated that there are over 1 million Open Source developers in North America alone.

It's only logical that some of them are going to decide to switch to Windows.

And you're one of them. Good for you.

> Bullshit you switched because of all the hype and bull that accompanies the regular Linux religous preachers.

You're calling me a liar. That's mature.

> You wanna know why I switchd to Windows? It was to get away from the whiney, immature and the "Open Source it or you are a peice of crap" mentality.

So let me see if I have this straight...

I switched to Linux for rational business reasons. The platform APIs are relatively stable, so I don't have to keep changing my applications to match changes in the platform. All the interfaces are open and documented, plus I have the source code, so my development and debugging is faster and more accurate. And I know the owner of the platform is not going to try to undercut my product, and steal my business. All of thse things contribute to my bottom line.

You, on the other hand, switched to Windows because some people -- people who aren't even your customers -- are whining. You're not even doing it on principle, in fact you're bothered that _they_ have principles. That seems like a pretty poor way to run a business to me.

> Funny, all my favorite apps from Linux are available for Windows and they work flawlessly, can you say full of crap? Yes we know you are. . . . All my Windows apps work on all versions of Windows and not just the newer ones, hmmmmmmmmmmm

Wow, I am amazed. Can you possibly be that ignorant of Microsoft's history?

Here was Microsoft's plan for Java:

"Strategic Objective [is to] kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market."

Here is what Bill Gates said about Intel's multimedia support for Java:

"If Intel has a real problem with us supporting [AMD's 3DX technology] then they will have to stop supporting Java Multimedia the way they are. I would gladly give up supporting this if they would back off from their work on JAVA..."

Here is Microsoft's strategy to stop Open Source:

OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.

I could go on, but you get the point. Microsoft's entire history revolves around sabotaging competitors' products. Some Microsoft officials should probably be in jail. But, hey, if you're happy working with them, then that's your choice.

> When you show me some code then and only then will I be a little impressed, until then since you posted anonymously I put you at 14? 15? maybe 16

Not worthy of a response.

You're right. We should laugh.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft pays people to post in forums -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was funding Washington think tanks -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was spreading FUD about DR-DOS -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft would submit doctored evidence in a federal court -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was trying to undermine Netscape and sabotage their business relationships -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was trying to sabotage Java, and lock in Java users -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft would try to undermine Linux with extended protocols -- until it was proven to be true.

But the idea that Microsoft would try to lock in Linux developers and users, through a secret deal with Trolltech?

You're right. That's laughable.

surely this is open source, because the source is revealed.

Nope. From the Open-Source Definition:

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.

"To make a long story shorter, we finally decided that we had to come up with yet another open source license, called the SGOSL or SpectSoft General Open Source License, that would allow our customers access to the source code and allow them to alter it. However, it disallows them the ability to distribute it, thus allowing us to actually make a buck or two."

I think it is tacky to include the words open source in your license when it isn't.

See the The Open Source Definition

Too bad OSI failed to get Open Source trademarked.

Nosagt wrote:
Pine has a superior IMAP implementation than any of these alternatives.

I use IMAP on Mutt daily, I used to use IMAP on Pine daily. I'm not just talking about a single folder in IMAP either, I'm talking about two seperate accounts each with over 20 folders in a hierarchy that goes up to four or five folders deep. Mutt handles it fine.

While Pine had IMAP before Mutt did, Mutt has long since caught up, and I can't think of a single way which Pine's IMAP implementation is superior to Mutt's. I would be interested to hear if you have an example?

What modifications are needed to it in the first place? The stock-binary is well-maintained. And it is easy enough to apply a patch to the source code & recompile.

Security and bug fixes without being forced to wait for upstream to get around to it is always first on the list. Next on the list is "What if University of Washington decides to stop maintaining it". Many distributions also want to make sure the sofware integrates well with other software in their distro, this would possibly require changes. These issues are all solved with Free software, but difficult to impossible to do in a binary distribution like Red Hat with Pine's licensing.

Why take RMS's opinion on free/nonfree as scripture?

Who said anything about taking RMS's opinion as scripture?? I never said it shouldn't be used because RMS said it was bad, I said it shouldn't be distributed because distros need to be able to ship modified binaries. Gentoo's users might be happy recompiling everything, but most of Red Hat's users aren't.

I agree with RMS because I have given the topic a lot of thought and find he's right, not because RMS has a special place in the community, nor because of any alleged "scripture".

It is funny to see gratis software that ships with source being bashed for not being libre more than progams which don't ship with source.

As far as I know, the only serious extra bashing UofW got for Pine/Pico is when they started claiming that the Permission Notice and Disclaimer license that they used to ship under means something different than every other developer who used it says it does. However, for purposes of Pine and Pico, most distributors now treat their license according to UofW's interpretation, and don't distribute modified binaries, usually by not distributing Pine or Pico at all.

I don't have a problem with Debian's commitment to libre software & their choice not to ship pine. But other distros don't seem to have a consistent stance on how free apps have to be before they're included.

Some other distributions were slower than Debian in realizing that there was a problem. Some were lazy and figured UofW wouldn't call them on it. Some were happy shipping the unmodified binaries. Feel free to mock and call out distributors if their attitude on Pine/Pico is inconsistent. Personally, I run Debian.

We don't need any "conspiracy black helicopter rubbish" to know that Microsoft is working hard to kill open source. I don't question the low-level reasoning behind open source, as I have been using it for over a decade, but Microsoft releasing WiX under an open source does not make up for a long history of illegal and unethical behavior that is still going on!

Hello. I'm the project manager for PDTP, and author of Skyfire. There's nothing wrong with the QPL whatsoever, unless you mind the fact that it's GPL incompatible (but then again, so is the Apache license). The QPL is an OSI Approved license, so there's nothing to worry about.

QPL is OSI approved

No problem. *grin* Welcome aboard, BTW. If you want more help, check out The LinuxDocumentation Project at some point as well, which has an enormous amount of good information about Linux. I would also thoroughly recommend the first Halloween document which has a comparitive analysis of Windows and Linux, written by a man who at the time worked for Microsoft, with commentary from the Open Source Initiative. This document contains a lot of information about Linux's strengths in comparison to Windows, and why Microsoft view it seriously as a competitive threat.

Another very good source of information are Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and The Bazaar, which explains the open source philosophy.

One other source of information which I've found very interesting is the GNU Philosophy pages. As you most probably know, GNU software is a major part of a Linux distribution, and these pages talk about the underlying philosophy of the GNU project. I hope this helps, and if you benefit from using Linux yourself, remember to tell some friends about it...We need to keep spreading the word.

Sure, it would be a bit untraditional to open source a product and at the same time forbid forking, but certainly not impossible.

It would be completely impossible for all normal definitions of "open source".

Only a non-open process like "Shared Source" or "disclosed source" could forbid forking.

The Peruvian government seem to have a better understanding of the issues...

Peru and Microsoft

If a government policy specified that video files must be distributed in WMV, that policy needs to be revisited...

Let's see:

1- The Free Software Foundation
2- The Open Source Initiative
3- The Open Source Development Labs (They employ Linus Thorvalds)
4- The Source forge

That's only a few of the more obvious ones. I'm pretty sure they'd knew what to do with a few hundred million dollars each.

And yes, the EU could decide to fund various universities with that money for various open-source projects, or set up their own foundation to best spend the cash on worthy F/OSS developers.

Government agencies looking to use the repository must sign a contract with the collaborative. This grants an agency a license to any open-source and proprietary software it finds in the repository and prohibits that software from being used to make a profit. This is a crucial component, since Massachusetts law prohibits commercial entities from making money off products developed by the commonwealth using taxpayer money.

The key words in the above are "prohibits that software from being used to make a profit". This means that any software they develop will either have to be done from scratch or from a very permissive license such as BSD, which allows the modification of the license of the code.

Furthermore, this license does not fall under The Open Source Definition or The Free Software Definition for this same reason.

I've long had a theory that the RIAA/MPAA aren't really against piracy, but they are really against a peer-to-peer economy that is coming up.

Courtney Love agrees with you. The fear of the gate-keepers is that someone will knock down the back wall: that physical reproduction costs will become (have become) so cheap that artists can communicate directly with audiance, without a cost-of-entry prohibition dictated by physical manufacturing and distribution costs. This will remove the need for Capex-rich gate-keepers, and will therefore diminish or entirely remove the market segment they inhabit, and their business models along with it.

They're not scared about copying. That's free advertising. They're scared about artist->audiance direct distribution. That's a death knell.

Now what I want to know is, why don't we see Halloween type leaks from inside the RIAA/MPAA? Does no-one in there care enough? Do they not use email?

This summer I had the opportunity to work for BlackDuckSoftware.com. Black Duck has built software to help developers (from individuals to large corporations) manage their use of open source software. Essentially, the software enables firms to track the usage of open source code, determine conflicts (if any) and suggest methods of compliance. It takes into account methods of combining code, whether the code is for internal use or public distribution, any number of other considerations that involve open source license compliance. It is able to deal with code licensed under *all* of the certified open source licenses as well as many other proprietary licenses.

While it is not insurance, and does not provide any kind of indemnification, it is a damn good management tool. Its goal is to allow companies to make use of open source code in such a way that full compliance is facilitated, and to avoid any uh-oh moments that happen after code is commerically released.

I worked on the development of the license interpretation module. It involved reading (and re-reading) 50+ licenses and parsing their terms such that compatibility determinations and compliance requirements could be generated for every possible combination of license, code, distribution, concatenation, link, modularization, etc. of a software product. It was exhausting (and sometimes tedious) work, and it certainly made it easy to tell which licenses were written by lawyers, which by coders, and which were written with input from both. It gave me new understanding of why unenlightened legal departments sometimes shy away from open source. Nonetheless, the reality is these licenses exist, are in use today, and are all valid until some court says otherwise. Licensors (i.e. coders in the community) have every right to expect their terms to be adhered to.

Being a geek myself, and a law student, it was pretty gratifying to see that a company wanted to build a product that helped managers to understand and not fear the open source phenomenon. Further, I think the product will really help firms stay fully compliant when they decide to use open source code. And that, in the end, is all our community can ask for.

cleetus

Microsoft doesn't deserve scorn, here or wherever thinking people discuss things? Hello? SCO?

Oh, the irony!

Do you recall reading that leaked memo (Halloween X)? A lot of us doubted its authenticity in light of the atrocious spelling and grammar.

For this article, ol' Mikey must have used a spell checker. Heck, given his grammar problems, he must have had someone proofread it for him. Hmmm, ghostwriter?

The key test is then: did they or did they not call hundreds of other speculative investment houses in hopes of convincing one with this long shot advice?

I think MS is playing multiple roles, here. They are both managing direct investments in SCO vis-a-vis Baystar and RBC. They are also promising results on the licensing end, by making it attractive to companies like EV1 (?) to buy in to the licensing program.

That's the impression I get from Halloween X.

MS signaled this back with Halloween VII.

Interestingly enough Halloween VII was making the rounds in Sept/Nov. 2002. It was in August 2002 that SCO brought in Morgan Keegan to try to find cash for them--and it was likely Morgan Keegan who both brought Boies on board and negotiated the original "license" deals with SUN and MS.

Vinod Valloppillil and Josh Cohen are the named authors of the Halloween II document.

Coincidentally, I've just been reading the original Halloween Document so when I saw the author's name, it rang a bell. He was talking about "commoditization"(in the context of protocols) back then, too.

BTW, for anyone who's never read the original Halloween doc, it's well worth a read. There's some amusing stuff in there about things being "stolen" from Unix and put into Linux, and how SCO are likely to be wiped out by Linux before long (and this back in 1998!).

Coincidentally, I've just been reading the original Halloween Document so when I saw the author's name, it rang a bell. He was talking about "commoditization"(in the context of protocols) back then, too.

BTW, for anyone who's never read the original Halloween doc, it's well worth a read. There's some amusing stuff in there about things being "stolen" from Unix and put into Linux, and how SCO are likely to be wiped out by Linux before long (and this back in 1998!).

If you think the SCO case is an important case for the SEC to investigate, you should contact the SEC, telling them to investigate SCO and why you think the SEC should be involved. You should reference specific points from Halloween X and/or Groklaw if you're going to make your point. Most government organizations prioritize in part by whatever wheel squeeks the loudest.

I'll assume the first, and attempt to educate you. I've already pissed off a bunch of people who instead provided the usual whiny /. repsonse to your (possibly unintiontional) troll, so I figure I better piss off the rest. wheee!

So what if the drivers are closed source?

ATI cant [sic] and wont [sic] expose the low level details of their hardware's functionality to competitors.

Whats the difference anyway? It is naive to think that you could even understand, let alone improve, what the engineers - who know the hardware intimately - have written?

And by the way, Nvidia does not publish its source either...

HTH HAND

or not

Just because there's some code somewhere in a PDF file that you explicitly cannot use doesn't mean it's Open Source. Open Source licenses must adhere to the Open Source Definition which among other important things says that derivatives must be allowed. Which is a huge part of the point of Open Source to begin with.

You speak about them (SCO and MS) as if they were different. I think that the latest Halloween memo shows that SCO's antics _are_ Microsoft's antics.

Post-Postscript: According to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of eWEEK, SCO confirmed today (04 March) that this memo is legitimate.

On March 4th SCO, within 24 hours of publication, I received word from Steven J. Vaughan at eWEEK.com that SCO had confirmed that the memo is legitimate.

On March 4th SCO, within 24 hours of publication, I received word from Steven J. Vaughan at eWEEK.com that SCO had confirmed that the memo is legitimate.

On March 4th SCO, within 24 hours of publication, I received word from Steven J. Vaughan at eWEEK.com that SCO had confirmed that the memo is legitimate.

1. He published a whole series of them earlier. The first one was confirmed. The rest were, uhmm, not confirmed.

Not according to the FAQ;

1. http://opensource.org/halloween/faq.php

Post-Postscript: According to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of CNET, SCO confirmed today (04 March) that this memo is legitimate.

From the web page: "Post-Postscript: According to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of CNET, SCO confirmed today (04 March) that this memo is legitimate."

Anyway, objectively, and using available evidence rather than assumption, none of the "Halloween memos" have ever been confirmed as being real.

We shouldn't be surprised considering how high the stakes are for MS.

How much of this kind of funding from MS would it take to make it worthwhile for AutoZone or Daimler/Chrysler to deliberately lose against SCO?

Could there be a plan to fix a victorious precedent for SCO? MS will want to make the most of its investment.

Halloween X:

MS is funding SCO. Evidence at OSI!

Absolutely amazing. If this is real.....some heads will roll :)

Time for the SEC is whoop some ass

Check this out.

Shit is really going to hit the fan for SCO.

If he hates open so much, why do they release do much source code via MSDN? Oh you mean he "hates open" because he doesn't give away the source code (intentionally anyway) to Windows and Office?

As Sun has already stated (in response to criticisms) that they have no problem with someone working up an Open Source version, as long as the spec is adhered to.

That's a contradiction in terms. Open source doesn't make sense if someone can place significant restrictions on how the source is modified. You can't have "an open source version" that is required to adhere to a spec.

Free Software

What you're actually describing is copylefted software.

Open Source

Here you're actually describing non-copylefted free software.

Probably the best sources of information are the categories of software listing from the FSF, and the Open Source definition from the OSI.

In practical terms, Open Source is free software, the distinction has to do with the goals and priorities of the respective movements.

I have enough trouble getting my boss to distinguish b/t "open source" and "shareware". Throwing "free software" into the mix is going to hurt corporate adoption, not help civil liberties.

The thing that Bruce Perens, etc., understand that Stallman does not is "branding". "Open Source" is a distinct, brandable term. It has successfully fought off imitation brands like Microsoft's "Shared Source" concept. It even has a crisp, compact logo. The FSF does not understand this game, and they can't seem to produce a brand name w/o botching it up with recursive algorithms ("HURD"), semantic ambiguitiy ("free software"), or phonetic confusion ("GNU"). And their logo sprawls all over the place.

Furthermore, the FSF appears to have a touch of NIH syndrome ("not invented here"). Stallman tries to draw a distinction b/t the terms "free software" and "open source", but they mean the same thing, practically speaking. Why hair-split the semantics when you could present a unified, prepackaged concept to the world?

Sigh... enough ranting. I just want to see FSF do the little things that would help give it corporate cred.

FYI, the GNU homepage has a lot of actions you can take to support free software politically. Take a look.

I have enough trouble getting my boss to distinguish b/t "open source" and "shareware". Throwing "free software" into the mix is going to hurt corporate adoption, not help civil liberties.

The thing that Bruce Perens, etc., understand that Stallman does not is "branding". "Open Source" is a distinct, brandable term. It has successfully fought off imitation brands like Microsoft's "Shared Source" concept. It even has a crisp, compact logo. The FSF does not understand this game, and they can't seem to produce a brand name w/o botching it up with recursive algorithms ("HURD"), semantic ambiguitiy ("free software"), or phonetic confusion ("GNU"). And their logo sprawls all over the place.

Furthermore, the FSF appears to have a touch of NIH syndrome ("not invented here"). Stallman tries to draw a distinction b/t the terms "free software" and "open source", but they mean the same thing, practically speaking. Why hair-split the semantics when you could present a unified, prepackaged concept to the world?

Sigh... enough ranting. I just want to see FSF do the little things that would help give it corporate cred.

FYI, the GNU homepage has a lot of actions you can take to support free software politically. Take a look.

That's okay, because that official definition says "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups", and plenty of open source software discriminates against commercial ventures, which could be considered groups.

Please point out to me one of the Approved Open Source Licenses that "discriminates against commercial ventures".

Note that I didn't ask for licenses that happen to be suboptimal for using copyright law to protect specific business models, but those that truly discriminate about who can use or contribute.

At first glance, it would seem that a fair share of those approved licenses were in fact authored by "commercial ventures".

I'd like to know how "not let any 3rd party distribute their own Java" qualifies as open sourcing Java. See Open Source Definition

What's more likely is that any 3rd party can distribute their own "Java", but they can't call it "Java". without Sun's permission because Sun owns the trademark.

I think open sourcing it is ok, but they should do all the work on it internally and not let any 3rd party distribute their own Java.

It's not really closed source. They let you download the source, they let you compile the source, they let you run the binaries, I think the limitation is on the redistribution of those binaries, and the source. So I would have considered it open source, but non-free.

You can consider it whatever you want. However, there is an official Open Source Definition that most people mean when using the term. Also see the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). Sun's Java process, though fairly open for a commercial software product, doesn't comply with the letter or the spirit of either of these.

> Also, they can only compile for the lowest common processor. (e.g. A pentium II)

That may be true for traditional proprietary software, but NOT for F/OS Software. Witness Gentoo; I compile everything for my computer's specific processor. And surely you don't believe that the Hotspot Java VM does its optimizations 'for free'! Every runtime optimization check introduces a performance hit.

They haven't. They don't do business that way.

Of course not. And Halloween Document 7 is entirely a figment of all our imaginations. As is ASF support in VirtualDub...

And Microsoft's perceptions are clearer now. Microsoft looks at the big-name vendors and noone else. This means they are ignoring all the areas where a lot of R&D is getting done in Linux. Is he unaware that the NSA has been giving Linux security boosts? Does he not realize that there is more to the OSS world than the big five vendors? I don't know where he got his numbers for kernel developers, but the mere POSSIBILITY that another organization can pick up your code and help you improve it is the singular advantage that empowers the world to abandon and destroy the Microsoft Way. Software is now a social, humanitarian phenomenon.

I would argue that the biggest reason people trust Linux over Microsoft "products" is that OSS has nothing to hide. It is HONEST. Heck, that's why *I* use it. I don't want to be haunted with the nagging suspicion that my box is spying on me. *I* prefer to be the one in control of my machine.

That's the topic the article never touched on: what about the vast number of people who simply DO NOT TRUST Microsoft?

Microsoft has a massive cash reserve, so they can tread water for a long time. But eventually they will either change or Microsoft will die. Interviewees like this man simply do not understand the nature of the beast which is coming for them. Now would be a good time for a reporter to bring up the Halloween Documents, where Microsoft consistently acknowledges that the peer-review system of OSS turns out better software. They should be asked how their recent press releases and actions compare to the very underhanded strategy outlined in the early Halloween Docs.

THAT would be some actual journalism.
--