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Caldera CEO Says Linux Is Proprietary
Carnage4Life writes: "ZDNet has an article on Ransom Love's (Caldera CEO) speech at the Comdex/Spring 2000-Linux Business Expo. The high points of his speech include his fears that the Linux revolution may be silencing lots of others by its success; [the contention that] proprietary software isn't all bad (Sun's Star Office is his example); Linux is as much a proprietary system as any other since the GPL forces one to adhere to it's rules just as proprietary licenses do; a brief description of the road map of Caldera's Linux development in the future; and finally a few comments on what he felt was the too-strict demand by some open source licenses that all code should be opened." Some good points, but mainly a lot of unsurprising viewpoints considering Caldera's outsider position in the actual Linux Community.
First, I think everyone here can plainly recognize the absurdity of equating an open source product with a GPL license with only one real restriction ("play nice or don't play") vs. the draconian licensing of nearly every proprietary, closed source product. Their argument reminded me of a joke I heard where a philosopher argues that sunlight and stone are one and the same, because both have the one similarity of being affected by the same set of physical laws. I won't belabor that topic any more, except to say that Caldera read and accepted the GPL, and if they had a problem with it they should have used one of the *BSD variants instead.
Caldera's comments aren't really very surprising, however. Caldera was one of the earliest commercial enterprises using Linux as part of its commercial strategy (Red Hat came earlier, although I believe Caldera was the first "competitor" to use Red Hat's rpm packaging system). Despite this, they have never embraced, nor been embraced by, the community. I am uncertain whether or not they have even ever contributed anything back to the community at all. If they have, it was a long time ago.
Ray Noorda and company clearly thought they could leverage the free talent of the Linux community with a few proprietary add-ons to become the Novel Server that Novel couldn't be. With other more open and engaged enterprises (Red Hat, Corel despite its blunders, Suse, Turbo Linux) actively contributing back to the community and enjoying corresponding financial success, it is unsurprising that Caldera is bitter. However, had they thought of the Linux community as a community, rather than a resource to be exploited or plundered, they too could have enjoyed the same success.
Of course, keeping current with new developments would have helped. We dumped Caldera early on because the distribution languashed for a year without improvement while their competitors, and the rest of the Linux community, raced ahead. Fast paced change was another aspect of the open source community which Caldera either didn't understand or failed to come to terms with.
In short, they applied a dated business model to a market and customer base which is operating under a radically new paradigm. It is unsurprising that their rhetoric appears to be designed to obfuscate the difference between closed and open source and between proprietary and free software. They clearly don't understand the differences themselves.
--FreeUser, posting without cookies
Here we have the CIO of a Linux distro company displaying ignorance about the terms of the license under which most of his distro's software is distributed:
"Users who make changes to software such as the Gimp image manipulation software must publish those changes under various open-source licenses, but the mere fact that there is a license obliging users to share code means that someone has set proprietary parameters on the use of the software." -- Ransom Love
-- bzzzt -- wrong. The GPL does not require this. No one is "required" to publish GPLed code.
Then he goes on to arrogantly insult the developers of all that code he's distributing by criticizing the license they've chosen to apply to their software. He knows better than they do what license to use for their software?!
Then he tells the suits he's speaking to (who are presumably listening because they're looking for an alternative to Microsoft) that what they really need and want is another proprietary system, so they can enjoy all the benefits of vendor lock-in and high costs that they're only just beginning to escape from.
Finally, he alienates 90% of the sysadmins and other members of the technical community that actually use and make choices about Linux distros with his crap about how Linux is really proprietary after all (just what we all wanted!). No sysadmin in his right mind would touch a Caldera distro, knowing that they'll be doing everything possible to make it as proprietary as they can. What future is there in that?
And this guy thinks speeches like this are going to help Caldera compete in the Linux market?
Moron.
Alex Berkman
He's just pissed because his crappy company didn't ride the linux IPO wave like redhat did.
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Free software is Proprietary.
But wait!
Anybody else could then steal it from the "thief" and "call it their own" too.
Some of us call that "Freedom from restrictive laws."
Yikes!
It is my understanding that Linus holds the
copyright on the kernel and the Linux name.
So someone does indeed own it. All the different
bits and pieces of a distro are owned by _somebody_.
If I'm not mistaken, Larry Ewing owns the copyright on Tux.
You are free to do _almost_ anything (ask a BSD'er) you want
with GPL'd stuff because of the license.
Mind you I'm not agreeing with Ransom Love
(gad that name cracks me up... sounds like a pimp.. how Dickensian...)
I'm just being pedantic
RedHat != Linux
RedHat peaked at v4.2 IMHO
The 5 series sucked so hard my
monitor imploded..
Each version lookeda little slicker and
mebbe had a few more bells and whistles
but between stability and security issues (remember the hole in BIND in 5.1?)
WRT code, RH's own admin tools were sooo good
they shit canned them in favor of linuxconf
I dunno mebbe 6.* is usable.. but please...
Red Hat != Linux
nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded
Look, nobody forces anyone to use GPL'd code.
Use as in incorporate into their own work?
Or use as in use the services the software provides?
I'll have to look around, but 'net wise, BIND, Apache, Sendmail... no GPL here...
If I use a website that has cgi done with perl are they shoving GPL down my throat?
Face it, there's a _lot_ of free software that _isn't_ GPL'd
What is free? It depends who you ask. What's free to Eric Raymond isn't necessarily free to Bruce Perens and what they consider to be free other people consider stifling
But you're right to the extent that if you don't like the terms, don't use it.
OTOH its a crock of politically correct bullshit to tell anybody else
how to license their own stuff.
REALLY? Cool, now I won't need my sparc-sun-linux hosted mips-dec-ultrix cross compiler any more! Or my Palm Pilot development environment! Or my 64-bit native Sparc compiler! Oh wait, VC 6 only runs on i386-pc-windows and, for that matter, only compiles for i386-pc-windows. And doesn't even do a very good job of that. Doesn't sound very functional to me. I suppose that if your definition of functionality is the size of the code it generates, or the number of ways it ignores the applicable standards documents, then you are correct.
gcc may or may not generate the best code of any compiler on a given target, but it generates good code on many many more targets than anything else, and since it's open source and quite portable, it's also usable on more systems than anything else. That's infinitely more useful to me than having the option to write noncompliant c++ and have it compile into a nice slow 300 MB winblows-only binary, which, if I use the right flags, might not be able to crash the OS more than once or twice a day. Functionality? I don't think so. And, yes, I've used VC. The editor sucks, the compiler is substandard, and the toolchain's portability is nonexistent.
My point was not that nothing else is functional; I personally prefer ******* or **** (names removed to prevent holy war), but my point was that Linux is infinitely preferable to Winders on technical merit, even if the marketplace behaviors were equally bad.
I know this comes off like a troll, but I can't believe the best example he could think of was StarOffice. This is easily the lowest-quality piece of software I've ever seen running on Unix (yes, worse even than netscape). Why not mention things like Oracle or some of the SGI tools? You know, software that actually works. On the other hand, this example provides some nice insight into why Caldera's distro sucks so much. Judge a man by his heroes?
Naturally you are free to think whatever you like. But even if your worst fears are realized, you're left with the comparison of "nonfunctional software, no choices" and "functional software, no choices." Which is better? In any case, it's an academic question because Stallman has no power to restrict your choices. It's not like gcc has a special license restriction that applies the GPL to whatever you compile with it...
If you listen carefully to Mr. Love's speech, you can hear the frustrated roaring of a dinosaur, railing about these damned mammals who have warm blood, don't lay eggs, and who don't sell software as "product".
"Evolutionary" indeed.
That Mr. Love is so upset about the GPL shows that it is carrying out one of its intended purposes - to prevent people from packaging up our hard work and selling it to someone else as their own.
It's clear to me that Caldera Doesn't Get It, and that accordingly, Caldera _stock_ is worthless.
Hmmm, maybe that's why their stock is tanking, d'y'a think?
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Ideas, are free. Manifestations of them are not.
While IP may be built on the shoulders of past ideas, it typically isn't built on prior copyrighted work (unless, of course, it is GPL).
So, yes, people DO have the right to call a piece of IP their own property if they so choose. Any particular manifestation of IP represents innovation, however small or trivial, and hence should be protected by copyright.
RMS' essays on copyright form a position that would have us eliminate the copyright system so everything is "free". I disagree with that.
-Stu
No. Legally, a corporation is treated as a single individual (hence the term, "corporation"). If a corporation hacks up the GIMP for internal use, it's equivalent legally to your hacking up the GIMP for your personal use.
If it doesn't leave the company, it hasn't been distributed.
There's no-one out there holding a gun to his head and forcing his company to produce and sell a Linux distribution from all the free software that is around.
If he doesn't like the license he's perfectly free to write a kernel, libraries, utilities, GUI etc from scratch and he then will not be bound by the GPL at all.
Alternatively he could produce a FreeBSD distribution.
It's interesting to hear a CEO complaining about all the freedoms that he does have.
Deleted
I have some worries about this speech. I had the feeling that a powerplay was being made, with the intent of "embracing, extending and extinguishing" the open source nature of Linux.
I may be maligning Mr. Love, but if he isn't following this path then you can be sure that someone else will attempt it.
There's a quote from the movie "The Princess Bride" that goes something like this: You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.
That basically sums up what I think of Mr. Love's speech. Whatever he's trying to get at, I can't help but disagree. There are some people who will simply not use non GPL/Opensource (tm) software; I am not one of them. However, what he seems to be proposing is essentially moving partially or completely away from the thing that made Linux what it is today: the freedom to access and modify the source, with the stipulation those changes be returned to the community. I hope I never see the day when I can't run a Linux system without some closed-source pieces which may be yanked away at any given moment thanks to the UCITA.
Honestly, it's been a long time (if ever) since Caldera gave Good Gifts back to the Linux community in return for getting their entire product line for free. I'm sick of companies that do nothing but take, and then complain that they can't take more.
I don't care if they are from Provo, I'm distinctly unimpressed with their attitude.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I suspect the answer is NO. The law in the US treats Corporations much like individuals. So, what they do at home, does not count as distribution.
While I agree that vi doesn't use many system resources, I would argue that it doesn't because it's because these programs are more efficient.
--
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
I agree that moderation with regard to licensing is a good thing. Not everything I run on Linux is free software, but 95% is. (I happen to fall on the GPL side of things). Nevertheless, it is me or does Love give a lot of marketspeak? For example, you already can remotely administer Linux. Hmm...I wonder how this kind of talk affects Wall Street perception of Caldera?
--
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
Nonsense! If Caldera had their way, they would turn Linux into another Windows. Remember what's bad about Windows - not that it has bugs, but that no one can or will fix them, that it uses market lockin to avoid competition, and that there is little choice. If Windows had the market share of BeOS, no one would care about them. If Caldera had the marketshare of Windows, they would act just like Microsoft, at least that's how I read this. And Caldera's worse, because every person who uses Caldera is a person who's not using Mandrake or another free system. Microsoft isn't in as direct compention.
Maybe they should work on getting to compile
on more systems. But
(a) You have the code, you can port it.
(b) Very few people say "let's make the code run
only on my system." Most people try to make it portable to a wide range of systems. Many people say "hey, look, C89 or Posix guarentees this. I can depend on it, then." or "I can depend on sed having a resonable buffer or being 8-bit clean.", which your system can't handle. Why waste hours of time working around brain-damaged systems if you don't know if anyone is going to use it?
(c) Linux developers aren't trying for market lock-in. You have the code, you can port, they'll probably help you, and they'll probably accept a reasonable set of patches.
It's a grim future. Is Caldera trying to tell us something?
-- Mako Hill Standing up to an evil system mako(at)debian(dot)org is exhilarating. --RMS
I think that realistically, a "GNU generation" would probably choose the HURD.
-- Mako Hill Standing up to an evil system mako(at)debian(dot)org is exhilarating. --RMS
I suspect that they believe the author has a right to license it as *they* see fit.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
There are now many companies with embedded versions of linux. Most of their web sites have no provisions to give me the source.(Given that really what these companies sell is a config.mk, thats ok I guess). But a lot of these companies make changes I would think to make linux small, include special functionalities. And without providing a listing of whats free and whats proprietary module add-on how am I to know that they are not cheating the GPL(too many me-too companies out there for the nasdaq buck these days..).
Attitudes like Calderas have ensured fractionation. Some of the lack of cohesion in embedded development is tailoring for different purposes I am sure. But see how nicely linux developed all these years, with the older companies(even caldera) playing by the rules. Qualitatively, I get the feeling things have changed.
I'm telling my friends and family that caldera is a bad buy(software and stock). They are a company without a focussed market thrust anyway. First it was openlinux desktop, now it is some e-crap, tomorrow it will be something else. RedHat, Debian, and Mandrake(distribs) and VA always give back their efforts to the community and are not leeches.
The Inscrutable Gargoyle
Well, Caldera already has a good product. Have you tried Caldera OpenLinux aka eDesktop lately?
And you can even download the whole thing from their ftp site including the source code.
Actually, as the owner of the original copyright, the author has a right to rerelease that same code under any license he wishes. Providing, of course, that the original code does not contain anyone else's GPL'd code.
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
Hmmmm... I think gv is a great pdf reader. And Basser-Lout a wonderful pdf creator.
What am missing?
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
Yes very good point.
However this is not true of only GPLed software but in fact any software including BSD licensed software. (If cvsup only ran on BSD and I ported it to run on Debian then the maintainers could refuse to accept my patches).
Still your point is an important one, quite often what really determines if a work is proprietary is not its license but rather the responsiveness of its maintainers to external input.
Microsoft in fact is not forcing anyone to use their products. The problem with Microsoft is that they manipulated the PC market in order to force everyone to buy their products, whether they wanted them or not. Different issue.
I am sitting here tyring to remember that this is just a CEO talking and noone of significant importantce. Think about it, what has any CEO designed, wrote,implimented? They're just "managers". They manage the company, BS the stockholders and board, they really are nothing but PR people and know nothing of the real gears in business.
Here's my take, Caldera - wants to be on the Linux bandwagon, the CEO wants to force everyone to do things his way (he had some free time last tuesday between golf and a board meeting) or the way he sees fit... after all he's the CEO! This linux thing, it's neat, is there a way we can steal it from the community? we can make more money if we steal it, or better yet write a program based on a bunch of things we downloaded, but try like hell to hide the fact that our programmers used GPL's libs.(Because open source is evil and dont work!) The lawyers and the programmers say, " No way, this is GPL and it stays that way!". Now this really pisses off a CEO, "I'm the CEO! you cant tell me no! All of you are fired! someone get me some yes men!". alas, even the yes men cannot see a way to steal Linux and things that are Gpl'd. What is an all powerful CEO to do? Late one night, he awakes with a thought, " AHA! I'll give the GPL and Linux bad press! I'm a CEO, everyone worshipps me, I'll say bad things and then I can have my way!". Falling back to sleep, dreaming happily of hostile takeovers, and crushing consumers rights..
I'm sorry, but if a CEO had any brains in today's world, he'd really thing twice about whining about something. His "speech" was equilivent to my 8 year old childs hissy fit about sharing a toy. my response? If you dont like the GPL then dont use anything attached to it!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Explain to me how someone can steal my code. In my experience, even after someone takes my code, I still have it. I don't need to protect my freedoms any further.
-lx
In the late 70s and early 80s UNIX enjoyed an ...)
explosive growth in technical capabilities
because it was in a similar position to Linux-
almost public domain with lots of hackers
improving it. Then lots of companies adopted
BSD as their operating system- making it proprietary and incompatible. (Sun, DEC, SGI, VAX,
Convex, Cray
Jeff
Hehe, GPL theoreticaly is about sharing code , right ?
... theoretically,somebody else shared code would help you to get there faster, but since it is GPLed you are basically fucked and have to reimplement everything from scratch. If you do GPL your code then you will never see any money from it.
OK, You want to expand your software, spend more time on it and make some money
The problem with GPL is that is not compatible with basic laws of economy and this is the reason it will die off ( so far nobody ever won there )
Why use the BSD license unless you're an egomaniac? Why do you need the world to know what you've done. Can't you just be content with yourself without the praise of others?
Make your works public domain. The BSD license would be public domain without that stupid 'Ego clause'. Grow up and stop demanding that people pay attention to you.
You're just restricting people's freedoms by using the BSD license.
Seriously, how do you justify using the BSD license over public domain? Is it really just that your ego needs petting?
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
I looked it up, and you are correct. Mea culpa.
However, I think most people would agree that there are degrees of "proprietariety" with regards to software, ranging from closed source + closed interoperation standards + trade secrets to open source + open standards + unpatented algorithms. As I tried to explain below in my post, for the majority of users open source software is non-proprietary in effect, if not in fact. People use "proprietary" to mean "trade secret" or "we patented it first" or "don't even try to understand our networking standards". The level of proprietorship asserted by the GPL or other open source licenses pales in comparison.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
See above.
Open source projects don't have "proprietary information" almost by definition - it would be very difficult to keep a trade secret while opening your code.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
GPL is about freedom for the creator of the code. It's not entirely about freedom for the consumer, although that isn't neglected. The consumer of the code must pay in rights, i.e., the right to turn the code closed. Of course, if he paid enough cash he could get something equivalent without those strings... just go to each of the original contributors and purchase from them a BSD licensed copy of the code. The original distributors have the right to re-release their code under another license if they so choose.
Isn't it strange that those who complain don't choose to do this? They don't even need to get everybody, since much equivalent is already available under BSD. But if they choose to consume GPL code, then they need to pay the GPL price. That's the rules of the game. Anyone who complains about it is either shortsighted (i.e., he didn't see what he was getting into) or cheap. BSD code is available.
For someone who has enough money to construct an entire distribution, sell it, etc. to complain about this is at best disingenious. And I find it hard to feel that charitable.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The extract doesn't even provide the flavor of the ZD interview.
Love said "Linux is both Open Source and Proprietary". That is probably a fair characterization of the GPL.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Which is an excellent reason to not support those distributions. (I didn't know that SuSE actually did this, except for their proprietary installer. OTOH, I've considered a proprietary installer sufficient reason in-and-of-itself to not support a particular distribution.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If you don't like the GPL then don't use it or any software developed under it. Simple.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
So, what are we supposed to do instead? Trust that some other entity (government and/or corporate interests) will tell us what we need/don't need in an OS? Sorry, the truth is we've all been taken down that road before (re: MSFT).
"There is no need for a revolution," Love said. "Those who cry for revolution will limit your choice in the end."
This would be true only if the Linux/BSD revolutions were only about technology, and even then I have my doubts. But this revolution is alot more like another one -- also fought to promote the idea that having one's interests determined by some elitist group that puts it's own self interest above the interests of the people (the British monarchy in the mid-late 1700's). When a revolution is first and foremost about freedom, it doesn't limit choices, it promotes them.
So I hope Mr. Ransom Love catches a cluestick upside the head and realizes that we're free to choose another train than the one he thinks he's driving.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
If that's the case, then why does every proprietary software package come with a 1000-word essay on what you may not do with the software?
Why doesn't the software just say
Copyright (c) 2000 Fooco. All rights reserved.
and be done with it?
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Yes there is. All the advertising clause said is that if you advertise the software, you must mention the author in all advertisements.
Now you don't have to do that, but you still must include the original copyright notice with the software.
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Sorry, but I see Caldera employees on the various development mailing lists I'm on, doing more than their fair share.
I don't know (or care) much about the CEO, but I don't like this unfair generalization.
Because then you would be reserving the right to use the software as well. Any rights not granted by the license are reserved solely for the author/owner.
Could you put some meet on those claims? For instance, "[y]ou want proprietary software, use the GPL." Please give a definition of "proprietary" and a feature of GPL that matches that definition.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
...mostly because Caldera did not write it, therefore they are unable to support it.
Back when I got interested in Linux, I started using Caldera, because they were including a nice looking GUI (Looking Glass) and by paying for something, I thought I would be helping the Linux community.
After a couple upgrades, I began to notice that the "known bug list" never changes on Caldera's software! This is certainly one of the worst aspects of proprietary software: a company who repackages someone else's proprietary software, and is unable to fix bugs or support it.
I switched to RedHat and found a better GUI (TkDesk, whose filemanager still blows KDE and Gnome away).
Caldera's installer is nice, but they didn't write it; they paid TrollTech to write it.
COAS seemed like a very good idea at the time, but the short life of the mailing list and the death of coas.org show that Caldera doesn't understand how to lead a community software effort.
I don't even see their old core standby (Netware connectivity) mentioned on the web pages for their current products. Have they stopped developing that too? Last time I tried to connect to Netware, ncpmount seemed easier to use than Caldera's stuff, but neither one was really worth the effort.
Criticizing the GNU licence achieves nothing except to further alienate themselves from the community. If they want the right to make closed source modifications to other people's code, they should get out of the Linux market and concentrate on their DR-DOS based products.
no, it is not. you still have the copyright.
to get something into the public domain you have to state explicitly that you give up your copyright, afaik
greetings, eMBee.
--
Gnu is Not Unix / Linux Is Not UniX
Actually no. If a corporate IT department hacks The GIMP, the corporation owns those changes and passing it out within the corporation does not constitute distribution.
Erm. How is having a powerful owner a bad thing? A singular guiding mind can be a useful thing to have in a widget toolkit or a utility library. As much as many people on
GPLed software certainly is owned. Without an owner then the copyright is void (or at least there is no one who can claim the rights granted by copyright law.) Without a copyright holder then the license is void. As a third party you can't pursue someone about a violation or perceived violation of the GPL. Even if you are one receiving the code/binary/whatever you can't do anything about it other than report the violation to the copyright holder. Then the copyright holder has to take whatever actions are necessary to enforce the lincense.
Second merely because someone can take something and go proprietary does not mean that that thing is solely proprietary. If it were legal to grab Linux and slap together a binary-only distro there would still be the other distros out there. Even to accomplish a defacto proprietaryness would require that the open work be of a lower quality than the private work. And there is nothing that stops Redhat and friends from making better and better distros with original code filling in the gaping cavities in usability that currently exist. Most distros do not completely release all of their works under the GPL. That's what set's them apart.
Finally, as the author of a creative work you have certain rights that no amount of licensing can change. You can relicense the code as you see fit when you see fit. You can do things that other people can't, for example you could make a binary only version with bugfixes, etc. if you so desired.
Also you can have a GPLed work that is actively being maintained and still be effectively proprietary. If for example I wanted to port the debian 'apt' (or whatever it's called) system to BarnBSD and did the work to accomplish this, made some diffs, sent them back to Debian. Debian could refuse to incorporate them into the "official" distribution of 'apt' and thus would require that I continually maintain my port independantly. If this were an undertaking of prohibitive cost then you can see how Debian can effectively make their program proprietary. Sure I could try and compete, yet they have the momentum, name recognition and perceived officialness that a competitor would have a difficult time competing with.
Actually they don't have to "feed ... back to him" they just have to make them available. They could conceivably require you to come to them for the source code/patches. And then locate their offices in the Antarctic. And only distribute their source on paper take using a proprietary mechanism to read that tape which you can buy for a reasonable fee ($50,000K). At least they could last time I read the GPL. There are (were) lots of ways around the spirit of the GPL.
Yes. However in the gnutella case I would argue that there is something wrong. Where's the source? I doubt anyone could threaten, cajole, intimidate, sue, etc. Nullsoft into releasing the source if they wanted to. I'm thinking that gnutella being released under the GPL was more of the stated intent rather than the actual act. Until there source is out there I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that it was released under the GPL.
Of course. That's what was meant. I figured everybody understood that.
You would have done better to write this:
UC Berkeley is funded by the taxes that, amongst others, Microsoft and Sun pay. That was the original idea behind the BSD license.
"Functionally equivalant" code, incidentally, wouldn't be covered anyway. If it were, the GNU Project (and BSD projects, and Sun, and...) would be violating copyrights all over the place. Even binary-identical code is probably fine as long as it isn't actually derived from copyrighted code, since you (apparently) can't copyright executables themselves.
-jcl
Open Source is good but it is not the only way. Everything in the universe has both good and bad potential. The bottom line is getting the job done. If it can be done with Open or Closed solutions then it should be done with them. Linux is great but it is not the answer to everything. Mr. Love seems to be trying to say that everything has it's place (and saying it in a way that the suites can understand, something that is anathma to /. readers it seems).
I think the biggest thing that really gets to me is the complete lack of knowledge that is prevelent in the posts any more. :-(
---
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
Some of us have ideals. And the world is better off for it.
So a few people get a little excited. I havn't seen anyone with a real stake and matches. Who made you Mr. Enlightened, or are you just trolling?
I think Caldera is just bitter because they can't make enough money off the GPL. There a coperation, can't blame 'em. But I don't see a need to give up my psudo-communist free stuff just to fatten their purse. And that resolve hardens when I consider what liscence to publish the results of my hard work under.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
The GPL compels you to donate your labor back to me if you choose to use the fruits of my labor
No you don't. If you don't distribute the changes, you do not need to give the changes back to anyone. Even if you do distribute your product to someone else, you don't have to give the changes to the original author. You only need to give the code to the one you are distributing to. So you can give some GPL code to five different companies, and if those five different companies don't distribute the code (or binaries) then the original author will never see those changes. Nor will anyone else outside those companies and you.
This is how the GPL reads. I've confirmed this with a few Lawyers I know as well as with RMS himself. You only have to give the source to the one you distribute to and no one else.
Also, the changes you make are also under your copyright. This means that if I write code under the GPL and you modify it, I can't take that modification and put it into another product with a different license, although I was the original author.
As stated many times, the GPL is freedom for the code and not the programmer. If I give you GPL code, the only contract that we make is that if you choose to destribute that code, you must also deliver it, and all the code attached to it, under the GPL. There is no binding between you and me. You don't need to give me the fruits of your labor. Only to your customers.
I don't care for the viral affect the GPL has. But I don't like the way people can abuse the BSD as well. This is why my license of choice is LGPL. So you may link to my code with your proprietary code, but my code shall always be free!
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
No. They could "close" all the stuff they might be developing at the time, but the code they'd already released under the GPL would still be available to all.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Then the proper response is that this use of "proprietary" doesn't mark a useful distinction.
If you don't think there's a difference between your right to modify and redistribute software under the GPL or BSD licenses and your rights to do so under MS's EULA, I've got a lovely bridge for you ...
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
This depends entirely on the definition of free.
So I will first make a definition of free under which the BSDL is more free:
Free (adj.) Lacking in restrictions. Unrestricted.
But by that definition, a country that allows you to wander around shooting people is more free than one that does not. It is more unrestricted. But since people would wander about in fear of others, and since those with the guns could easily force others to become their slaves, I propose that it is less free. If you think it's more free despite this, then don't read on. You can keep your little anarchist utopia as long as the men with guns let you.
So the question becomes: how can restrictions add freedom? It seems paradoxical, but it makes sense after a little thought. So, here's a new definition of freedom, one that seems like it will work:
Free (adj.): Lacking in restrictions, except where those restrictions prevent other restrictions.
So, a restriction that says "you can't kill people" prevents people from using their guns to enslave others. That is, it prevents people from saying "if you run away, I'll shoot you" - a restriction on my movement.
The GPL works similarly - it says "no one may restrict your freedom to give a copy of this software to your friend, or to look at how it works, or to modify it." Restrictions that prevent restrictions.
And that's what I call freedom - or at least a better definition than the BSD people. It's not perfect - it doesn't cover "we're taking your guns away to prevent them from being used in kidnappings, even though you've never kidnapped anyone." But it's a start.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
I wasn't comparing the GPL to the Constitution. :)
I was extending Ransom's COMMENTS on the GPL to the Constitution.
Your missive DID force me to consider such a comparison further...
If you think of the Founding Fathers as the "programmers" of the country and the citizens as the "software", I think you probably COULD make some pretty interesting parallels. But I'll save that for another time... Perhaps Technocrat would be a more appropriate forum
Teach your children quietly, for someday sons and daughters will rise up and fight while we sit still.
"Silent Running" -- Mike and the Mechanics
It was a JOKE fer Christ's sake.
(although hopefully like most good jokes, one with some truth in there)
And thanks for pointing out that the GPL applies to software and the Constitution to people, that's something I never realized before.
I guess I should go back and reread Jefferson, Paine, Madison and Franklin.
Sheesh.
Debian. (Well, it's available as a non-free extra but it's not part of the official CDs). Also Stampede, if their claim to run 100% free software is to be believed.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
There's no excuse for kicking people out of the way when space is unlimited. The first act has been and gone and it was the "children" who made it fly.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
The GPL compels you to donate your labor back to me if you choose to use the fruits of my labor. It is a contract that requires payment in kind. It is not about freely distributing software for the public good.
If you believe that this kind of tit-for-tat "freedom" is a good thing, then the GPL is good. I think that's a questionable assumption.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
Ok, 2.2, as you may or may not know, contained two CDs, on of which contained OpenLinux and proprietary software and the other of which contained source code. However, 2.3 contained the proprietary software on a seperate CD. I'm not sure if it was for space limitations or because of a GPL problem. (If you include free and non-free software on the same Linux CD, does that cause a problem with the GPL?)
At anyrate, I found the distribution to be inferior to the Mandrake I got with the magazine, despite the fact that it was more expensive. I assumed that was just because it was a business distribution as opposed to a fun distribution.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Yes. I left them out on purpose to swing your opinion MY way. I will control the world.
</SARCASM>
1.Of or relating to a proprietor or to proprietors as a group: proprietary rights.
3.Befitting an owner: a proprietary air.
Happy?
I didn't find them relevant to the discussion.
So, according to definition 1, rights can belong to 'proprietors as a group'. And what you seem to be getting at, AC, is that since Linux is owned by the community and the public, as a group, then it MUST be proprietary. Fine. If you want to be all symantec about it, I suppose it could be considered proprietary if you don't think about it.
Following that line of thinking, what ISN'T proprietary? Anything that isn't owned by any specific person or group must be publicly owned, thus forming a group of public proprietors, thus making it proprietary.
Following that line of thinking, proprierty is a rundundant adjective, because EVERYTHING is proprietary.
Linux is as much a proprietary system as any other since the GPL forces one to adhere to it's rules just as proprietary licenses do;
Dictionary.com says that Proprietary means:
"2.Exclusively owned; private: a proprietary hospital."
and
"4.Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent: a proprietary drug."
Star office is proprietary, sure, because it is owned by Sun, and it is profitable to Sun to keep it that way.
I don't see how anything under the GPL could be considered proprietary. The whole concept of GNU and the GPL are fundamentally NON-Proprietary (read FREE (not beer)).
If he's calling GPLed software proprietary simply because there are rules (the GPL) to abide by when releasing code using this liscense, then he obviously has no clue what the word means. The rules are in place for a reason.
Note the words 'private' and 'individual' in the definition of proprietary. The GPL mindset stresses community ownership and development.
Actually, I can possibly want more! Alot of these notices get buried in boilerplate, or some "Help->About" button.
I disagree. If it is my base code, I can do with it as I like, including relicencing it for money. If it is somebody else's base code, then I need their permission for the relicence. This is as it should be. Why should I profit from plagiarizing someone else's work?
As for economics, I didn't write the code to sell it. I write code to solve my problems. There is remarkably little cost or anything else lost in sharing it. I think this holds true for the bulk of the OS code. Do not be seduced by the Microsoft "model" [the dark side of the force] that code is written for sale only.
"Star Office has done more for Linux than just about any other application, Love said."
Aw bullshit... there are three apps that put Linux on the map, Apache, Sendmail and Samba. All of which are Open Source, I've been a Linux user for years and I've downloaded Star Office twice. It's great and everything but I can certainly live without it.
Maybe from Caldera's "let's put Linux on the desktop" approach, Star Office plays a major role but from my perspective as an admin Star Office is just fluff... good fluff but fluff nonetheless. Just my $.02
So you consider it plagarism for your name to be only in the help->about button? Would you rather have the software be named after you? :P
Anything more can become "obnoxious" such as the advertising clause.
-bugg
You obviously aren't familiar with the BSD license then. Reread the first two clauses (these are _not_ the advertising clauses):
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
You can't possibly want to be given more credit than this.
This really stuck in my craw. I don't like plagiarists. I think the amount of BSD code that Micriosoft and Sun hoisted into their proprietary OSes is scandalous. The developers and UC Berkeley got virtually nothing back from them.
1. Sun gives them credit. Go back and look at your SunOS/Solaris source files/documentation.
2. I'd assume Microsoft gives them credit as well. If they don't, they are in violation with the license. They could just as easily violate the GPL too, you know.
-bugg
You are wrong. Proprietary means someone owns it. Last I checked almost all open source software has a copyright on it showing who OWNS it. Check out definition 2 of proprietor .
The way I think of GPL software is under a group proprietary. It allows someone to alter it, but it and the alterations (as long as the software is distributed) still belongs to GNU's community. I didn't say open source because that is a larger set with licenses outside GNU's community.
If that's the case, then why does every proprietary software package come with a 1000-word essay on what you may not do with the software?
I hope you don't think the GPL is short (output from wc -w):
2965 COPYING
One big reason I prefer the BSD license over the GPL is the length. Here is the number of words from a 2-clause BSD license:
195 LICENSE
All licenses tell you what you can and cannot do with it. From the BSDL to the GPL to Microsoft's licenses, they all put stipulations on the software.
Then the US Constitution is tyrannical because it FORCES those archiac freedoms on its citizens!
Umm, right.
The Constituiton says what freedoms you have regardless if you agree with the constitution or not. If you are a citizen of the U.S., those freedoms are yours even if you don't want them. The GPL places stipulations on what you can do with the software as long as you follow its rules.
Also, remember that the Constitution is freedom for people while the GPL is "freedom" (according to RMS) for software. Big difference!
If it wasn't proprietary, anyone could do anything they wanted with it. Check the copyright out on software. Someone or some organization owns it.
By the definition you're using, ALL code is proprietary unless it is public domain.
Agreed.
they have no right to complain about Open Source software being "proprietary."
What they might be complaining about is open source advocates complaining about proprietary software when open source itself is proprietary. Maybe he is upset about the stove calling the kettle proprietary.
P.S. Why does "Extrans" not work? Sigh.
It was a JOKE fer Christ's sake.
:)
:)
Sorry to be so abrupt.
And thanks for pointing out that the GPL applies to software and the Constitution to people, that's something I never realized before.
Since more than you are reading this, I made mention of that for others. I realized you realized this before.
I just don't think people should be trying to compare the Constitution to the GPL. It gives some people the wrong impression. They end up using the GPL to protect themselves. According to RMS, it is for the software.
I guess I should go back and reread Jefferson, Paine, Madison and Franklin.
Who?
Thanks to this suprising position, I just rang the bookstore and replaced Caldera 2.4 with Mandrake 7.0 for next semester's (and all future) classes. Since money is what Mr. Love understands, I will let it speak for me.
Good luck Caldera, you'll need it with a CEO who makes these sort of public pronouncements.
proprietary (pr-pr-tr) adj. Abbr. prop., pty.
Of or relating to a proprietor or to proprietors as a group: proprietary rights. Exclusively owned; private: a proprietary hospital. Befitting an owner: a proprietary air. Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent: a proprietary drug.
What goombah would argue this? Or is of the thoughtspeak perspective: War is Peace. Torture is Love. It's so open, it's closed. *hits head against wall several times* Oh, now it makes sense.
There are some loud zeolots out there that will only be happy if everything under the sun is GPL'd... but most people are happy with moderation :) To generalize that the entire community is over-zealous is silly.
Ransom Love pisses me off
Perhaps by allowing, I don't know, closed-source drivers or applications to be used along with the open parts of Linux, the way they already are?
Oof course, the GPL doesn't require you to publish your changes if you don't distribute your changes. So a company that uses the Gimp internally can make whatever changes they want without having to contribute them back...and that's fine.
(It's fine because they'll eventually get sick of either having to port their changes to each new version or keep running an old version, so they'll contribute them to save themselves the extra work.)
Hopefully, no way this will happen.
Oh please. Red Hat exists because abunch of Linux users needed a modestly organized system to upgrade their home systems then they sold it. To make money? To gain the community's trust? Who cares. Building a distribution is no different than building a PC. Course that's going to confuse Mac users. Oh well.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
We want to be free
So what?Socialiberals want to run the government,but we have guns against that.
Other than that,I say well worded and
nice to see that someone noticed that coders
can still make a living with open source.Its
just a different business model that the world
may have to adapt to.(Now if the RIAA and the
music industry would just see mp3 that way and
get rid of that buggywhip factory)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Nope, sorry. The FSF doesn't own all GPLed code in any way. Different people own different software pieces (i.e. hold copyright on them) and release them under different licenses. Proprietary has always implied the logical AND of non-Open Source and non-Free to me. Clearly, ALL code is "owned" under copyright by somebody. Even X/modified BSD licensed code is "owned" under copyright. Are you suggesting that makes it proprietary? Or that restrictions on how you use code make it proprietary? That doesn't make any sense to me, as proprietary carries much stronger connotations than "owned" in the software world, and thus trying to apply that definition here is nonsensical.
In this hypothetical situation, who is going to stop them?
create a new, OPEN, distro that offers all the same features as RedHat's distro, but has the added advantage of being open,
Sorry but I have yet to meet a manager that gives a damn about OPEN. There is a reason that MS is still selling products. Obviously not because they are better, and not because there are no alternatives, but because they are there at all. Everyone knows that MS will be around for a while and even if DOJ broke them up, there would still be a company there to support them.
If such a hypothetical situation did occur, a new Distro would be right where the small distro's are now, fighting for there 3% against the RedHat 80%. (And let me note again that I am not accusing or implying anything about RedHat I am just using them as an example, you could exchange RedHat for any other Distro in any of these posts)
Marc
From Redhat.com
Red Hat, the Red Hat "Shadow Man" logo, RPM, Maximum RPM, the RPM logo, Linux Library, PowerTools, Linux Undercover, RHmember, RHmember More, Rough Cuts, Rawhide and all Red Hat-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Maybe this is what he was talking about? What if RedHat became THE Linux Distro that everyone used? Couldn't they at some point say damn the GPL our stuff is our stuff? (a stretch I know but this is probably what is feared).
-Marc
-Marc
Take out RedHat and insert [Any Major Linux Distro] and you could have the same thing. Especially with stocks falling investors will get very upset about non-positive earnings. One or more of the Distro's may try just that approach.
A lot of people are missing this one. A proprietor is someone who owns something, and no one really owns gpl'd software (except maybe the world at large). Once software is gpl'd, the author has the same rights to it as everyone else.
Therefore Linux does not fit the definition of proprietary. Linux truly is open to the world because everyone has the same rights to it.
The gpl's job is to make sure that Linux remains unproprietary. If Linux was not gpl'd, then it would certainly be proprietary by now (behind something like MS's EULA).
If Linux is propietary, then nothing is unpropietary.
Um.... About the GPL, I think you've not read it very carefully. First, a company CAN sell something that's lisenced under the GPL. However, they cannot prevent their customers from then redistributing it for free. They are also required to provide source code (AFAIK) through the same methods as they distribute it, for a "reasonable cost." So if they provide FTP downloads of binaries, they must also provide FTP downloads of source. If they provide binaries on CDs, they have to provide source on CDs (although they may charge the price of the CD+shipping for that). This is so that a company cannot steal a programmer's work, and then pull a Microsoft-style embrace-extend-exterminate.
Secondly, they can't get around the source-distribution by selling a service. The GPL (AFAIK) explicitly says "distribute" not "sell."
As a note, I would be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money (say $30-$40) for well-written software, and slightly more for well-written free software (because I get a bunch of extra rights!).
-RickHunter
It sounds to me like Mr. Love is trying to find something to blame for his company's drop in value other than that they didn't really offer a good product. I tried Caldera once, and I seem to recall (although I may be mistaken) that they replaced a lot of standard free components with proprietary ones.
-RickHunter
Well, to be fair, to license something, you pretty much have to own it. Otherwise I might decided to license your house for frat parties or something.
Linux was once, at some indeterminate point in the distant past, owned exclusively by someone. This may have, like all transitory effects, only lasted a microsecond until such person GPL'd it, but for a brief moment in time it was someones singular property. By licensing it, the conditions for its use were stated and this has power because at that time the person owned it. The unique character of the GPL (in my layman's opinion) is that it binds the conditions of use for all parties (including the "owner") from that point on, and prevents any future "ownership" of it.
Interesting hypothetical occurence. Joe writes X. Joe GPLs X. People use X. Joe says he was kidding and declares GPL void. Joe gets sued for contract infringement or something.
What would be the legal status of X if Joe lost that suit (he did infringe on an agreed contract) but since the licensing was an apparent misrepresentation... would it still be GPL'd or would it effectively be public domain at that point?
Tim Gaastra
Tim Gaastra
Build a better mousetrap and the world will immediately get their fingers caught in it.
Linux has a public relations momentum that most other alternatives don't. It's Pepsi to Microsoft's Coke
Probably true, but hardly a Linux fault. I guess this is because technical press cannot handle more than one Next Thing per time :-)
Is proprietary software all that bad? I would say no, as long as it is in moderation.
OK for opplications ( while StarOffice would not be my example of useful closed source app ) However, infrastructures (OS & widely used libraries ) should be as free as possible, since they would give too much power to their owner. The playfield would not be level anymore, if proprietary infrastructures are accepted as standards.
Is it possible that the demand for open source code is to strong at times?
I'm afraid that Open Source is not suitable for current big business model. They invest A LOT in their products, and at the moment the only revenue model they have to recover that much money is selling their product. An alternative model would be to make lesser investment in advancing the shared pool of knowledge/software, then profit from it by packaging/support/selling 'verical applications'. Medium-to-small companies enjoy this model. Corporations, I'm not sure they can.
In an interview last year Linus Torvalds said that open source was going to transform more and more software in a commodity (IIRC). If he's right, big software companies should better hurry to change their revenue model. Or fight open source as hard as they can.
Ciao
----
FB
Probably most do. If only everyone did!
Still, keep in mind we're living in an age where megacorporations are drooling over the (mythical?) potential of charging for every person's every use -- not just purchase -- of a published work (like a song or movie on DVD).
In that context, it isn't surprising there are people who read "our" shorthand and conclude that, literally, the GPL forces anyone who changes Linux (licensed under the GPL) to make those changes public, even if those changes were purely for personal use!
That's why I try to avoid such shorthand in forums such as these. (And, BTW, don't always succeed -- the wording I used in my message wasn't precisely correct.)
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
It would seem that not many people have read the actual transcript from the speech. It was also said that Linux is going to become a combination of proprietary (read cloased) and GPLed software. I also see here many comments about Caldera tanking in the stock market. Has anybody looked at the other Linux stocks? They ALL tanked. Nobody seems to remember that Caldera is still in the last stages of the post IPO quiet period. The hard cash that was made from the initial stock sales is still there, and hasn't devalued in the slightest. The acquisition of other technologies is going to be the prime concern in the immediate future. You also need to remember, Caldera isn't aiming at the individual open source sealot community. They're focusing on taking Linux to the mainstream big-business customers, as the eBuilder lineup would show if you actually looked at it.
Everybody wanted Linux to grow up, and now that it is you don't like what you're seeing. Linux will become at least to some degree proprietary. Realize THAT and deal with it.
Charachteristic of a proprietor, privately owned
and managed and run as a profit-making organization.
Is Linux privately owned?
Linux is controlled by a group of private individuals, not by a single corporation.
Is Linux run as a profit-making organization?
Last I heard it was non-profit.
The part of the GPL that generates the most controversy is the second point: that software derived from the GPLed software must also be GPLed. Although detractors refer to the GPL as a virus because of this clause, supporters insist that the clause is one of the GPL's greatest strengths. It prevents companies from taking GPLed software, adding features and turning the result into a proprietary package.
- Quote from Linux Application Development by Micheal K. Johnson and Erik W. Troan
- Of or relating to a proprietor or to proprietors as a group: proprietary rights.
- Exclusively owned; private: a proprietary hospital.
- Befitting an owner: a proprietary air.
- Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent: a proprietary drug
So...it would appear the license doesn't make it proprietary...But isn't Linux a trademark registered to Linus?I would agree that Linux is exclusive to a degree, but proprietary just doesn't quite seem to fit even with the commercialization it's undergoing. While the distro's are trying to make it easier to use and enter into the Linux community, not all Linux users are doing the same for other new comers. I came into Linux/Unix from a Mac background, and while I've learned to RTFM and would agree quickly that 'users suck', it's still hard to feel you're 'part of' the Linux Community.
New Mac users feel all warm and fuzzy cuz of all the help they get in transition. New WinDOS users just get lost in the crowd, but figure it out by doing what they're told to and by watching what everyone else does. New Linux users go around wondering where the manual is and if they've read it enough times so they won't get flamed when they ask their questions.
I have taken to Linux, because it's 1) Free (beer) 2) It's not made by Bill 3) It's pretty stable 4) It looks good on my resume 5) I just like to tinker. I have never altered source code before compiling, so I don't know if I will ever make it to the inner circle of the Linux community, nor is that my goal. Anyway...my take is, no Linux is technically not proprietary, but there is a certain exclusivity to being part of the club.
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
"If I give away my code for free, it's stays just that - FREE. Not being sold to line the pockets of some capitalist assholes pockets."
That's not "free". As RMS states it, "free" is not a monitary term. You're using it as such. "Free" means basically to do whatever you want with it. Clearly, as you pointed out, a company has a hard time implementing code under the GPL and thus you can't do whatever you want with it and it is therefore not "free".
os.system("perl -e 'print \"My first Python Script.\"'")
I'm assuming that the "many" in question here are businesses, not individuals. The "revolution" (could we be a bit more melodramatic, perhaps?) isn't about companines, nor does it conscript anyone. There is still a thriving market in (true) proprietary software and is likely to be for the forseable future. If you don't like Open Source, don't participate. It's that simple.
Caldera has been struggling to keep their head above water for years. They've tried various products and business models, none with notable success. Now, they're trying to latch on to the coattails of the Open Source movement, and complaining bitterly that their grip is slipping.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
The rules of Opensource are very minimal, and encourage three things:Give credit where credit is do, keep it free, and keep people from making propritary OSes. btw, Caldera's distro relies way too much on X, and it was screwing up my box with kernal panics and Seg faults.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
It is proprietary because anyone who wants to can try to protect it with the GPL if they wish to litigate.
The reason for the GPL is to prevent idiots like this from splitting the tree and creating a fragmented system. Yes it's proprietary but only to ensure that no-one can release another proprietary version of it without letting everyone see how they have done it to re-integrate the two, if it is worth it.
BTW he has obviously never heard of linuxconf or that X is a network based system or else he would keep his mouth shut about graphical administration tools.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Nice sound-bite... but who was ever 'conscripted' into the open-source revolution?
Certainly not the consumer; they can still choose closed-source packages, if they believe that those packages will be stable and secure enough for their purposes and will not need modification. Sometimes that's even the correct choice.
It's certainly not the software companies, either. They have more freedom to build software that works with an open-source operating system (OSOS?) than they ever would building for Windows, MacOS, or any closed-source OS. The GPL even allows companies to create proprietary products that depend on GPL'ed libraries for their function. The only disallowed option is to incorporate someone else's code into your product and then turn around and demand that you be the only one allowed to profit from 'your' labor. Is that what Love is complaining that he doesn't have the freedom to do?
Just as Love seems to use 'proprietary' to mean 'not public domain; with no restrictions or responsibilities attached to its use', he seems to be using 'conscripted' to mean 'unable to compete.' "No one buys our proprietary software any more because our open-source competitors provide the same functionality while using resources more efficiently and crashing less often. Therefore, we have been 'conscripted' into the open source revolution."
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
If those employees asked for it, yes. Definitely. The GPL makes no distinction to the environment software is moved in. It goes from person A to B and if B wants source, he's entitled to it.
*borkborkbork*
Linux may be the Choice of a New Generation, but Windows sure as hell ain't The Real Thing. ;)
Thank you X, saved me an explanation.
Lest we forget, unless kernel hacks are approved and included in the *official* ie Linus released kernel, then those hacks are not part of the "real" ie Linus released Linux kernel. Linus controls the kernel, so yes in a very real way Linux is proprietary in the strict sense. Proprietary does not strictly mean "no access."
Frankly, I thought Mr. Love's arguments were quite sensible. We have a bit too much knee-jerking at buzz words like "proprietary." And as to Caldera not being part of the Linux Community "mainstream," I do believe the author proves Mr. Love's point quite nicely about closing the debate to dissenting opinions. So much for the great democracy of the Community. Perhaps we should be a bit more introspective about our own beliefs and opinions, lest we wake up one day and find that we have *become* Microsoft.
"I don't see Caldera putting their code in the public domain, so until they do that, they have no right to complain about Open Source software being "proprietary.""
He wasnt complaining about Open Source software being proprietary. The point he was attempting to make and which was obviously lost on you was that there is a place for proprietary software. He *was* complaining about the unsensible and extreme opinion that ALL software MUST be open.
All software should be open under a GPL or simpler license.
For the student, geeks and computer sciences that have to actucally work with the source code/software it is 100 times easier if the code is freely (as in speech) avaiable.
For the commerical blood suckers they should fight and make money on terms of good software/support and not on marketing and a huge amount of lawyers.
I am sorry, but I don't see ANY reason that software should be closed. What vaule does closed software have? less than nothing
Just because closed software has the ability to make immoral and unethical money though slezzy business practices, doesn't mean it is right. Business can make money though open source software and services, but the companies will have to work 100 times as hard, and compete based on product/service rather than lawyers/marketing.
Ohh you can see the rant building up in his eyes, lets get out of here, it is about to go off
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Isn't it interesting that Novell was run by Ray Noorda, was losing to Microsoft chiefly because they s____d at marketing (and still do). Mr. Noorda left to run Caldera. Now, Caldera held a lot of promise a few years back. Alas, lousy marketing, and Red Hat, as well as TurboLinux are forging ahead. Caldera just filed for an IPO. High was, I believe around USD 30, now it is at 11. So, it all sound more like sour grapes to me. Comment?
I think the question being addressed is whether or not it is possible for a software business to profit on open source. Obviously, by opening your code you are limiting your revenue to distrubution/web portal advertising. And most corporations trying to make a buck in software aren't going to jump headlong into this... but that doesn't mean open source isn't righteous...
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
This company is restricted from selling their software (Hmm, I wonder if they could give an NDA to their customers prohibiting the re-release of their source code?) by the GPL. Their "rights" are not being protected here. ... Besides, when they started modifying the code, they were supposed to know it was GPLed and the restrictions that comes with GPL. If their intent was to sell software, they should code from scratch or use some non-GPLed software ... ... and if you dont want to respect his will, then dont use his code ... I mean, noone will force you to use GPL code on your projects ...
"their" software ? Did you forget that their code is based on someone elses code ? They have no exclusive "rights" here
GPL is protecting the right of the original coder to keep HIS original code free
Pilate: What's so funny about Wansom Love?
Centurion: Well... it's a joke name, sir.
Pilate: I have a vewwy gweat fwend in Wome called Wansom Love.
Involuntary laughter from a nearby guard suprises Pilate.
Pilate: Silence! What is all this insolence? You will find yourself in gladiator school vewwy quickly with wotten behaviour like that.
The guard tries to stop giggling. Pilate turns away from him. He is angry.
Brian: Can I go now sir... The Centurion strikes him.
Pilate: Wait till Wansom hears of this!
THE interesting observation/remark is left dangling. Alas! Someone else expound on this, please.
John Robie
Thanks
Jaco
Not so. Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. The trademark has been enforced, too.
Information wants to be free -- but informants want to be paid.
a) that Love made the proprietary comment,
b) that we're bickering about it so much, and
c) that I have not read one post indicating the one thing that I found so aggravating about this article.
What? A central repository that keeps track of what systems all over the Internet is running? I know, in theory it sounds like a good idea (support the most common stuff first) but did anyone else hear a Big Brother reference, or was it just me???
Yes history is repeating itself, but not like you think. It reminds me of the people who foolishly thought that the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states. To be frank, they were sorry souls, who didn't understand the unreconcilable nature and core differences that would tear apart a nation and pit brogher against brother. If they only understood from the beginning, things would have been soooo much less painfull.
It seems Love's comments were targeted at the "suits". His definition of proprietary simply reflected a term that he felt would relate better to a significant portion of his audience.
Do I agree with his attitude? No, not entirely. Do I think his attitude makes some sense, Yes I do.
Like it or not our economy is not a gift economy. It really is not feasible to give away everything. A lot of the time, maybe even most of the time, Open SOurce makes sense, but I believe there are exceptions to every rule.
Its just is not a Black and White issue. His statements reflect he believe more strongly in one direction than the other, but that is not important. What is important is the message that there needs to be room for all opinions. And that being an over-zealous advocate (at either end of the spectrum) is limiting to the community as a whole. Hasn't RMS been criticized for being over-zealous in his advocacy?
So I say we should take this in stride. Caldera might not be from the same side of the tracks as most of us are, but at least they are on the same map. We do not have to agree or support them, they don't really seem to want our support. But if they can expand the community by bringing in new users who don't fit the "traditional" linux user mold who are we to complain. It will make for a bigger community, and therefore better IMHO.
-MS2k
"Some open-source licenses may go a little too far," he said. "It's one thing to facilitate open access, but another to demand it. That's what you are trying to get away from." Well, if you don't like the way the GPL works Mr. Love I think your company should start selling another OS. Why did Caldera get involved with Linux in the first please if the way the GPL works is such an evil to you! You and your company are a disgrace, start to sell Solaris then, they should have a license you can identify with.
I think we need to realize must companies will not use free software.
We are making as more an more of us enter the market and convince are bosses this opensource thing is good for them. But we are still years away.
After 4 years of me preaching the glory of opensource were I work they are just starting to dip their toes in.
I would have to think Love is right about this. The opensource movement isn't really a revolution it is more of an evolution.
I doubt if you could have a system that allows for the free distribution of information without it being open.
Propriety systems were the revolution on the internet. The were trying to change it into something it is not. A system for making money.
"I see the light ... IT burns " - Homer
If he considers Linux to be proprietary, I wonder what he would consider to be a non-proprietary system? It sounds to me like he's expanding the definition of a "proprietary system" so much that the term loses all of its meaning. He's grinding an ax here, not making useful commentary.
Yes, most of the Linux software oblige the people to adhere to the GPL, so what ? The software is free to everyone to share. I think that he is upset because of the GPL, he can't make more money than he is already making.
... how many people brought up the fact that Be Inc had shelled out six figures to use some non-proprietary code.
- My password is slashdot
Sorry Love [they made me say that] but I don't think your strategy works. When the average IT guy has no idea which products are good, he asks someone who does. Someone who does, is a "Linux enthusiast". You have now alienated (even further) just the folks that you need.
Love's delegated administration model has the Linux systems running in a customer's own offices and administered remotely by the service provider.
The day I let Caldera remotely run my machine will be a sad one indeed. Can you please change my window manager, sir?
I woke up this morning, I was feeling kind of high, it was me, Jesus Christ and Haile Salassie I.
Red Hat 6.2 look at the workstation installs. Much more secure than previous versions and if you can't install it you should learn more before you even try Linux. Is it perfect no is it pretty good and moving quickly in the right direction yes.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I don't care what anyone says, the GPL is restrictive. It takes away the freedom to innovate. Its akin to communism. Give us everything you have and we'll protect you, you might go hungry, but we'll always protect you, no matter what.
The BSD license is akin to capitalism. Do what you like, and we'll protect you to the best of our ability's, which is the trade off. "We'll protect you to the best of our ability's" insinuates that we won't protect you if it is unreasonable to do so.
If I have to choose between protection and no freedom, and virtual protection and freedom. I choose the latter. I choose BSD.
---------------------------------
I'm a born again Capitalist.
-- JLG
As usual, what you would expect from Caldera. But I'd expect the same from Corel, or any other proprietary linux vendor - they think of linux as "their" linux, not as "our" linux. This might be why people see linux as fragmenting - because everybody thinks of linux as "theirs" and not "ours". Instead of making things more of the same and competing on their virtues, Linux vendors want to make things difficult for me, the administrator. Tell me why init scripts are in /sbin/rc.d on SuSe, but live in /etc/rc.d in redhat? Hmm? Now tell me why software that works perfectly on RedHat bombs on Turbolinux, and ./autogen.sh screws up on Turbo? Hmm? Get a clue - until linux is "ours" and not "theirs", linux will continue to be a mess like it is now. I don't particuarly have any strong feelings about where init scripts should go - I won't choose a distribution for /sbin/rc.d instead of /etc/rc.d. I'll choose a distro based on bundled software, and other features. Keep the rest the same!
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
Visit
Exhibit A:
Trademark registration: Serial No. 74-560867
Exhibit B:
Definition number 4 from above post.
Put the two together and by definition, Linux is proprietary.
Not that it matters. The issue is Open Source vs. Closed Source. By using a license (GPL) Linus Torvalds is controlling distribution of his software. He chooses to let people modify Linux assuming they feed their mods back to him. This doesn't stop Linux from being proprietary.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Though I believe the BSD-like licenses are perfectly fine, and that everyone should just use what they like, I have to say you're not exactly taking the moral high ground here.
> If you aren't a redneck, you don't critisize
> other people for what license they like.
This is rude, and really no better than tossing water on a grease fire. You're not going to change anyone's mind by saying "You're a redneck if you disagree with me!"
Had you left that last sentence off, and spelled proprietary correctly, you'd have a better chance of appealing to people. Still, the topic is a dead horse, so perhaps it's best to just stop beating it.
Use what you like, and let others hate what they hate. They're not rednecks; they simply have different idealogies.
"Some open-source licenses may go a little too far," he said. "It's one thing to facilitate open access, but another to demand it. That's what you are trying to get away from."
In the end, revolutionaries could do more to marginalize the operating system through zealous adherence to a misguided interpretation of the
open-source movement.
It doesn't really seem to matter what Caldera is trying to move away from. They don't really represent the "open source movement", but rather their own corporate interests.
If they have a desire to create closed source proprietary software, then they should be basing it on BSD or public domain software, and not GPL'd software. No one forced them to use these more restrictive licenses.
And the article's bit on a misguided interpretation of the open source movement is rather comical. Given that neither the CEO of Caldera, nor the author of the article are really in a position to claim what open source movement is about. A large faction of the movement isn't writing software so a corporation can come by and take it and profit off it, without any concerns as to the reasons they released the software in the first place.
If they don't agree with the philosophy of the GPL, then there is other software under less restrictive licenses. However, For them to say the followers of the GPL are misunderstanding the open source movement, is crazy.
It would appear, given their plug for StarOffice, that Caldera, having benefited from the fruits of the labor of countless people, are now ready to abandon open source software and paint it as a movement of raving lunatics attempting to stifle the creativity of companies.
According to Mirriam Webster's Dictionary (look under [2,adjective]), proprietary means something that something is "used, made, or marketed by one having the exclusive legal right". Nobody has the exclusive legal rights to Linux, therefore it's not proprietary.
In the article, Ransom Love also keeps spreading a common misconception about Free Software Licenses. He claims that if you make any modifications to Linux, the license demands that you distribute the changes. That is patently false. What the license demands is that if you distribute a modified version of Linux, you have to make the code to your modifications available. Anyone can keep any changes they want a secret, as long as they aren't distributing them. With fundimental misunderstandings like this, is it any wonder people think of Caldera and Ransom Love as outsiders when it comes to Linux.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I think you need to check yer facts WRT SuSE there, sparky.
They have iso's available for download..
There _is_ a cd in the boxed set with non free
stuff, so you can't distribute that but they don't
hold the copyrights on that stuff. I think the only thing I ever installed
off that one was Blender after it went shareware...
I stand corrected..
I also have realplayer and star office installed.
Hmm I notice xv is on there too... Find me a distro that doesn't come with xv..
The main bone of contention with SuSE among the slash dorks
has been the license for Yast, the installer tool.
From the license...
The use of YaST, even if a modified version is used, does NOT exempt in particular the Licensee from the duty to take due care with regard to the licence terms of the packages or programmes installed through YaST or works based on it.
You'll note it states "even in a modified form".
Not unlike the GPL in that regard....
Furthermore:
All programmes derived from YaST and all works derived from it in full or parts thereof are to be filled on the opening screen with the clear information "Modified Version". Moreover the operator give his name on the opening screen, stating that SuSE GmbH is not providing any support for the "Modified Version" and is excluded from any liability whatsoever. Every amendment to the sources which are not conducted by SuSE GmbH are deemed to be a "Modified Version". The Licensee is entitled to change his copy from the sources of YaST...
WRT distribution...
All programmes derived from YaST, and all works derived thereof as a whole or parts thereof may only be disseminated with the amended sources and this licence in accordance with 2b). Making YaST or works derived thereof available free of charge together with SuSE Linux on FTP Servers and mailboxes is permitted if the licences on the software are observed
What a bunch of complete bastards, eh? Where do they come off telling
people they have to make it obvious if its been modified.
And what about that not supporting versions someone else modified?
The nerve....
nobdy goes there anymore... it's too crowded.
The BSD license has had the advertising clause removed for some time now. In fact, there is not a great deal of difference between BSD and public domain now. In any case, honest individuals will always attribute their sources...
Only public domain would be non-proprietary enough for Ransom Love, apparently. Is that what you advocate?
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
Did you read my message. I said, "you must credit the author." That is still true. You cannot just relabel code as copyrighted by you; it is still copyrighted by the original author.
With public domain software, this is not the case. Thus, using Love's absurd reasoning, only public domain software is non-proprietary.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
You're mistaking the individual success/failure of Linux based businesses for the overall success of Linux as a whole - something that appears to be a common enough mistake.
The thing is though, that Linux's success is completely independant of the successes or failures of people who attempt to build businesses around Linux. In fact, that's entirely the point.
Linux was succeeding (on its own merits) well before there were any Red Hats, VA Linuxes, Calderas, or whatever. And if any or all of these companies go completely bankrupt, Linux will still continue to develop and succeed.
Linux doesn't *NEED* business. Business can help speed up the processs by providing resources and promotion, but remove business from the equation and all you do is slow the process down. It cannot be stopped.
*THAT* is what is so revolutionary about Open Source - that the software is no longer a "product" that is produced by a business in order to be sold to make profit. Instead, OSS is more like a community toolset, or an "art" (in the sense of "medicine" or "welding" or "tailoring")
Yes, the Linux stocks tanked, and for the most part, I think they deserved to. No WAY were any of those companies worth what their stock price indicated. I see the stock tanking as more of a return to sanity than a "failure" on the part of Linux.
But I expect Caldera to *stay* tanked, because their business model is in complete orthagonality to the way that Linux works. VA is a hardware company, their potential is as good or bad as any other hardware company. Red Hat "gets" Linux and OSS - they understand the community they work with and who support them. Can that translate into commercial success? The jury is still out. But I give them a MUCH higher probability of success than Caldera, because at least Red Hat isn't pissing into the cornflakes of those that support them.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
You're not allowed to just distribute it any way you want, so it is in fact - CLOSED AND PROPRIETARY.
Nothing about Linux is closed, period. The GPL does not make Linux proprietary. It does place restrictions on the distribution of code that you got from someone else and then modified. This is what makes Open Source work. If anyone could make changes and distribute the result without source, then nobody else could make changes to that code and distribute the resultant code. You're saying that you should be able to take away the very thing that allowed you to create the piece of software that you now want to protect. If you want to protect it so badly, then write the whole thing yourself and don't take advantage of someone else's work without giving anything back.
If you feel that it is ok to take someone else's code and then make it proprietary, and that's exactly what you're talking about, then you have no reason for using Open Source code in the first place. It is obviously not compatible with your desire to distribute proprietary, CLOSED software.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Couldn't happen like that. If RedHat did try to close everything up, nevermind the fact that they can't actually do this because they didn't write all, or even most of the code, the complete source for everything up til that point is available. Some other enterprising group would pick up where RedHat left off and create a new, OPEN, distro that offers all the same features as RedHat's distro, but has the added advantage of being open, which prevents lock-in. That would likely be more appealing to a company than an equivalent, but proprietary product.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I never said RedHat == Linux.
I'm talking about people wanting to move to a new distro that is just like their current distro. If RedHat were to close up the code somehow, many people would want to move to something else. It makes sense to move to another distro that is just like your current distro so that nothing breaks (more than usual). I'm not sure what your comment has to do with the comment I made.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Two things here:
I can't find what the GPL says about modifying a program and then not distributing it. The closest thing I can see is in section 2, but it does not state that you must distribute your modified work, only that the modifications must meet certain standards (the modified files must contain appropriate notices, and the command when run must print out a copyright notice). But it only says that works that you distribute or publish must be covered by the GPL. So I presume from that that creating a proprietary service based on a mix of GPL and proprietary code, as long as only the output is distributed (and the output itself isn't a "work based on the Program", such as bison output), is OK. But I'm not a lawyer.
First, I'll assume that you're talking about "free speech" as commonly defined in the United States.
Is speech always as free as the GPL?
No. But it should be. Freedom which is not guaranteed isn't freedom at all. The removal of a guarantee on any right reduces it to a privilege, and privileges can be revoked. This is what the GPL does; it guarantees that the code it covers stays free.
Is speech always as restricted as GPL software?
Yes. A French revolutionary put it best: "The right to swing my fist ends at the next man's nose." I have free speech, but that doesn't give me the right to slander others, (which would interfere with their rights). The GPL gives me free code, but doesn't give me the right to remove the freedom on that code (which would similarly interfere with my users' rights).
Never forget: the only program which is "yours" is the one you have written. You may make relatively small modifications to another's program, but that doesn't make it your program; it still belongs to the person who wrote it. And since this is so, you must respect the wishes of the person who actually wrote the program that you only modified.
I don't know if the situation has changed since I last checked, but IIRC the licence for YaST forbids you to sell 'data carriers' containing the software for a fee. So what I said is correct - you cannot resell copies of SuSE.
Caldera recently freed their installer - or I think they did - so it might now be possible to sell copies of OpenLinux as you can RedHat, Mandrake and so on. You'd have to strip out a lot of the third-party stuff first though.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Excuse me? Look, nobody forces anyone to use GPL'd code. I get so sick of hearing "The GPL restricts me too much!" Fine - then don't use it! Just like you probably choose to avoid shrink-wrapped licenses from MS, you are free to avoid GPL'd software as well.
But the thing that seems truly ridiculous to me is that the GPL is only an "inconvenience" to developers who want to use the vast code resources under the GPL, but who don't want to adhere to its terms. People who could just start from scratch, but instead would rather build on someone else's work. Which is fine... smart even... but you must adhere to the wishes (i.e. licensing) of the original author of that code.
Explain to me where the damage is?
---
The way things are now you can't lock users into your distribution because anyone can take it, sell it, and support it without paying you a cent. This means that Linux companies have to rely on things like their ability to SUPPORT their products. Poor guys...it's a tough world.
You're over-trivializing the difficulty of selling GPLed code. With GPLed code all you really can sell is support and distribution. Trying to do development is a waste of time, because all of the other distros can benefit from your development work just as much as you can. You can't come out ahead by expending resources on development, so why waste them? It's a lot more profitable to do no development at all, and just incorporate whatever updates are produced by outside developers.
The playing field is leveled only in the sense that technical superiority no longer exists, because anyone else can copy your work. Perhaps one day we'll "level the playing field" in support to, where one company can charge customers for support calls to another companies tech support lines.
Now, in Caldera's case, I think it is kind of silly for them to complain. They're getting Linux for free, and they can make money off of support. They just shouldn't bother doing any development, because you can't make money off of open source development.
But what about developers? Being a developer, I know I don't like it when people tell me "make your money off of support". I'm a developver, not a support rep. Will developers ever get paid for their open source work? There's no reason for the distros to pay developers, other than PR purposes. (and even then, they only pay for a measly percentage of the development that goes into a typical distro)
As it is, open source is mostly written by people in their spare time. If you want more software to become open source, somebody had better come up with some sort of business model where the developers of this software can actually get paid for writing it. Yes, you can argue that open source developers don't do it for the money. I know, I've worked on open source projects. But developers are mere mortals -- we need to eat, and pay the rent just like everyone else. I simply can't do open source development full time, because I wouldn't be able to pay the rent.
There'd be a hell of a lot more open source software, and the general quality would be much higher, if developers could work on it full time. Right now, most can't. For those of use who don't like being an "expense" (like developers who work for distros), or writing custom hacks for a living, the only route right now is to write non-open code for a living.
And here's a hint for those of you thinking that developers could survive off of donations: why should people who do useful and valuable work have to live off of charity?
They are also the primary closed/binary-only applications on my system, and are there largely due to the lack of viable alternatives to access closed content (I agree with those who note that it is closed file/media formats that are our biggest problem, not Microsoft.)
It isn't impossible for closed software to be good, but it often is more work to create quality than is worth the while of the developers - they seem to throw out half-hearted ports in order to 'shut the bastards up.'
I do share RMS' idealism, and hope that we ultimately will see software as something ontologically and intrinsically free, but I'm no purist in the meantime - nonetheless, I haven't been impressed by the closed software that has been released for Linux.
> You want to watch your free software turn into multiple incompatable branches of proprietary, closed-source software, use the BSD license.
Why yes, just look at how this license has fragmented and rendered irrelevant FreeBSD, Apache, and X11. Just footnotes in history, they are...
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
proprietary (pr-pr-tr) adj. Abbr. prop., pty.
Good point. Exactly what I was going to post. Perhaps the word Ransom Love was looking for was "restrictive". It's not entirely on-target, but it's closer that proprietary.
--Jim
Let's face it. Love is just a Bill Gates wannabe, and he's sore that Caldera doesn't have the market share of Red Hat. It's clear to me that he wants to "embrace and extend" Linux so that folks who use Caldera will be incompatible with other distros. He doesn't want to give those changes back to the community because he wants to keep them proprietary to Caldera.
His calling some unspecified license proprietary because it requires changes to be released if those changes are distributed is totally bogus. That's the most non-proprietary thing I can think of.
He's just ticked that Linux and the GNU software aren't under a BSD-style license that allows him to make his own proprietary changes and keep 'em that way.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Let RMS spew all he wants about freedom. The license speaks for itself. You want freedom, use the BSD license. You want proprietary software, use the GPL.
It's more like, "You want your software to remain free, and evolve as free software, use the GPL. You want to watch your free software turn into multiple incompatable branches of proprietary, closed-source software, use the BSD license."
As someone else has pointed out, virtually all of the proprietary Unix implementations are derived from BSD. Solaris, Irix, AIX, etc, etc. In fact, the BSD licensing terms are what allowed Unix to fragment into dozens of incompatable operating systems, and created a mess that the industry is still struggling to overcome. How many hardware vendors ship their systems with stock, vanilla, unmodified BSD? None? I'd say that the instances are extremely numerous, if not nearly 100%.
I don't know if anyone has seriously forked the TCP/IP stack, but I somehow doubt that you can compile the AIX TCP/IP source code and link the binary against a Solaris kernel. I don't know if there are differences in the programming API across the different Unix platforms or not. What criteria for incompatability would apply in this argument anyway?
If a programmer at a small company ...takes 10 lines of code from a GPLd project ... the whole library or program could be forced into a GPL licence;
The "GPL is VIRAL" argument doesn't stand up. It's FUD, designed to scare companies away from GPLed software. This scenario isn't going to happen. In fact, the GPL has language that would almost direct the outcome of such a case:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works.
The most likely scenario, as I see it, is that the company would testify that they decline to accept the license, and the court would then find that the company had committed copyright infringement.
Once the court had defined the issue as simple copyright infringment, it would most likely order the company to cease distribution of the offending software until the company either agreed to the GPL licensing terms, or removed/replaced the offending portions of GPLed code from their software, and possibly order the company to pay damages to the copyright owners, depending on the usual criteria in such cases -- the extent of the infringement, whether the infringement was intentional or unintentional, and all the details and arguments that keep copyright lawyers busy and prosperous.
I can't seriously see a court forcing a company to accept a license that contains the provision, You are not required to accept this License.
In fact, I wish that this exact scenario would play out, because it would remove this common source of FUD about GPL/Free software.
Of course, if the company decided to play hardball, and testified that they DO accept the GPL terms, then directly attack the provisions of the GPL itself, then we would have a true test of the validity of the GPL.
Here we go again...
What the anti-GPL crowd always forgets is, that no one is forcing you to use a particular piece of software.
If you don't agree with the conditions of a particular software's license, then you don't have to use it! In the past whenever I have released software, I have used the GPL, to ensure that the software remains free (as in speech). If you don't like this condition, that's no problem with me--just find some other software that is suitable for you.
I find it pretty amusing that someone who seems to be a proponent of Linux, still clings to the old notion that source code should be hidden.
Well, Open Source is private property, not public. Read the GPL. The word "copyright" is in there. Copyright is a form of private property. In the case of the GPL, the work is copyrighted by, meaning owned by, meaning the proprietary property of, the Free Software Foundation.
That's right. Proprietary.
Obviously, the meaning of the word in the dictionary is not equivalent its meaning in everyday use. Typically, the use that property is put to is the benefit of the owner; hence, we see "proprietary" as meaning "to be used to benefit the owner", among other meanings.
But the whole point of the GPL is subvert the ability of any party to control the use of software. That it works using the copyright system is a demonstration of the awesome power of the concept of property rights.
So if Love wants to use words a little strangely, well, WHATever. So long as he does not try to draw any false conclusions from it, it is OK with me.
If you really want a nonrestrictive liscence, go for FreeBSD. I see the GPL as the main reason for linux's continuing success. (aside, of course, from the cool name.)
Thank you for not thinking.
The demand for open source code from the GPL isn't too strong. It's saying "here's our conditions for use", just like Adobe says "here's our condition$ for use". The terms are different, but you can always choose to not use the code/program if you don't like the terms. The demand for open source code from GPL advocates can get too strong, though. The GPL has its benefits, and Linux probably wouldn't have come as far as it has under a BSD license. However, GPL zealots, including RMS, seem intent on stamping out all closed-source software just as fervently as the RIAA wants to stamp out MP3.
Do you think it matters all that much to them that the IPO tanked? The company isn't holding stock, it's selling it, and they *sold* it. They got their funding.
You sound as if you think they aren't respecting the GPL. Please to cite; what are they doing that violates it?
I love the way the "unified" Linux community turns on its own without even the justification of tough times. Come on, guys. Caldera's on *our* side; you can tell, 'cuz they aren't Microsoft.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I'm glad you have the special power of knowing how they would act if they had the option. Me, I'm forced to guess that they might sometimes be telling the truth, and that they may care about the "open" nature of Linux.
As long as "we" (the open source community) turn on our own like this, Microsoft has nothing to fear.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
In other words, "RMS is a nut, therefore the GPL is bad." I love the smell of an ad hominem argument in the morning.
You want freedom, use the BSD license.
Listen to yourself! You are saying "If you want to give people freedom, here is how you should restrict their actions"! WTF? If you want other people to be absolutely unrestricted in their use of your code, place it in the public domain. Any use of any license limits the actions of others.
It's funny that this rarely gets said.
It's funny that you say that, because it comes up repeatedly in EVERY discussion of the GPL that I've ever seen on this site.
You want proprietary software, use the GPL.
this is SO fuddy, on so many levels, I hardly know where to start...
Is the GPL proprietary? I don't think so, but let's assume for the sake of argument that it is. (IMHO, this is like assuming that the sky is teal and fuschia plaid, with orange polka dots, but I digress).
Only the software developer chooses the GPL. Software users choose software, and mostly don't care about the license.
If, as a user, you want proprietary software, why limit yourself to GPLed software? There are tens of thousands of restrictive licenses out there.
If, as a developer...ditto the rest of the previous paragraph.
Why is proprietary software bad? In my experience, you are locked into a single provider for support and upgrades. Without a cost-effective competitor, the vendor loses all incentive to perform well. It is impossible to fall into this situation with GPLed software. You can always shop around for better prices and service. Custom apps are kind of an exception to this argument, but that has nothing to do with the license.
Under his definition, any software with a license is "proprietary", so the only non-proprietary software is public-domain software. Thus, any restrictions == proprietary software.
That's not just his definition, it's also the dictionary's! Look it up. If software is owned (copyrighted) it is proprietary.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
If you don't think there's a difference between your right to modify and redistribute software under the GPL or BSD licenses and your rights to do so under MS's EULA, I've got a lovely bridge for you ...
Of course there's a difference. The GPL and BSD licenses grant more priviledges and the EULA imposes more conditions and restrictions. But it's still just a matter of degree. The biggest difference is that most open source licenses allow the user to pass the license on to third parties.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You want to watch your free software turn into multiple incompatable branches of proprietary, closed-source software, use the BSD license.
The instances of that happening are extremely few. How many incompatible versions of the BSD TCP/IP stack are there?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The problem is that even small parts of a GPLd program can infect a larger program. If a programmer at a small company (say Microsoft) takes 10 lines of code from a GPLd project - even without Microsoft's consent - the whole library or program could be forced into a GPL licence; I personally do not believe that such a small infraction could stand up in court. While large portions of the program should not be taken and incorporated, the GPL has an incredibly viralistic quality.
This works fine - if it's such a small piece of code, it will be easily rewritten once the GPL violation is discovered, and there will be no need to release the whole program under the GPL. However, if it's a larger piece of code, or code which would be a pain in the ass to rewrite, it should not be allowed in a closed-source product without the original author's [of the GPL'd code] consent.
Sorry for the semi-offtopic post, but I can't take it anymore. This is in response to all the people in this article and the article from Bruce Perens who keep saying "Use the BSD license, the GPL takes away freedoms."
The GPL takes away a few freedoms, but in the process ensures that the most important freedoms will remain forever. It takes away the freedom of people who wish to take your code and add their own proprietary extensions and then keep the source closed. However, by disallowing this, it preserves the freedom of people who wish to take the new code and add extensions to that. It ensures that the code which is released under it will remain free forever and will always be available for people to build on and extend.
How is this different from the BSD license? The BSD license allows people to take your code, add their own extensions, and then keep the source closed. So what happens if you want to take the new extended code and change it a bit? Whoops - you can't! D'oh. True, the BSD license allows for a little bit more freedom. However, this freedom stops with the first person who wants to make a quick buck off of your hard work.
For all the people who say that people should have the right to use open source code in proprietary projects without giving back to the community - how is this in any way beneficial to anybody except the people who take the code? Short answer - it's not. You are now at the mercy of the people who stole the code and added a few extensions. And why should they be allowed to do that? If they want to cut back on a little bit of work and use other people's code, they should be forced to release their code in case somebody else wants to reuse it as well. If they want to keep their code to themselves and not give back to the community, it should be just that - THEIR CODE. They should not be allowed to do this with other people's code. They are not being forced to use other people's code. If they want the functionality a piece of GPL'ed code provides, they should either adhere to the GPL, or write it themselves. Novel concept, huh?
So now which license sounds more free to you?
Only public domain and perhaps BSD are not proprietary then. At least according to his definitions. Even though GPL has a great many rules to follow, I still think it is not proprietary. You can fork GPL products contrary to popular believe and there are situations where a fork of GPL project might be even be considered necessary. What if a GPL project is first released by a single author, and initially has no outside contribution other than suggestions for bug fixes etc, no code? Then the author as the only contributor and owner has the right to change the license. This has happened with some products such as WWWThreads, IglooFTP, Jazz++, etc. But the original GPL code can remain out there and in fact the original author is suppose to keep an older GPL version available for something like 2 years on ftp. In any case, mirrors can keep the code available indefinitely. Other interested developers can at any time start developing a free version with new features so long as this new fork is released under GPL. Now this raises an interesting question. Can the original other then grab modifications in this fork and integrate them into his new proprietary version? I don't believe so. The author may retain ownership of the orginal but the GPL does not automatically extend ownership to all derived works. The derived work mentioned in the above example would be owned by both the original author and the new author of the fork and as such, could only have the license changed if both parties agreed to change it. This is where licenses like MPL, QPL etc are different. If you fork the code the original you have to release your changes, but the original author has every right to intergrate the code into proprietary products. Even so I would say that while the Netscape branded browser could be considered proprietary, the source code behind it Mozilla isn't. Linux is definitely not proprietary even if you slap hundreds of proprierary products and drivers in a box with it.
Also, you don't even have to be open source to be considered non-proprietary. All you have to do is open the specification. For example OpenGL is not proprietary. The spec is there for everyone to see. Even if SGI doesn't release all their source code it still is open enough that effective clones do exist. In closing my definition of proprietary would go something like this, any technology that can only be cloned, copied or otherwise implemented throught the use of reverse engineering and guess-work is proprietary. To clone or emulate Linux you would not need to reverse engineer anything. In fact as an example look at FreeBSD's emulation of Linux. Some say it is very stable and runs Linux apps faster than Linux. I don't think this would be possible is Linux was closed in any way. Windows is still proprietary even though Wine exists because Wine is certainly not an effective replacement for Windows. The work by wine developers has involved reverse engineering to figure out all the un-documented API calls.
Anyway enough said, probably too much.
KJ
Maybe the choise of the term "proprietary" is wrong, but GPL does restrict (from a cooporate point of view) what can be done with a piece of software. Indeed, that is the whole point og GPL (insert usual reference to the philosophy of gnu.org here...) - at least from what I see. In simple terms: if a company wish to make modifications to GPL'ed software, then these must also be GPL'ed. However as was pointed out so often before, there is nothing wrong with providing FooApp under GPL AND another license at the same time - at the authors discretion. I believe it's been done with success.
Ok, I acknowledge the point that the Linux kernel will be rather hard to issue a parallel license for. But Linus states explicitly in the COPYING file with the kernel:
"NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Exactly if this also goes for libc and friends, I do not know - but I would assume that they're lgpl'ed or something?
So I guess anyone can go kick up a new, proprietary OS while using the Linux kernel......and so what's the problem?
-- "Life is a bitch - and she hates me..."
Lets see here...
Caldera sells Linux systems.
Management of big companies are afraid of "non-proprietary" software.
Caldera wants to sell Linux to these big companies.
Caldera wants to convince these big companies that Linux is the same as their current operating systems.
This just seems to be a new twist in the game of marketing. Don't you realize that dictionary words are just things to mess with when you are trying to market something. Remember buzz words (or acronyms) like OO and now its B2B.
I've gone to management to install Apache on our web server and they have actually told me that "We don't use free software. We only trust shrink wrapped and bought software". Of course I could just find someone that sells Apache and buy it from them. But this is just nuts!
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Ransom's statement is one of the most ignorant, self-serving statements I've heard since little Al Gore said the Constitution was "just a guideline".
Perhaps Ransom should run for office with his penchant for twisting a concept.
I look at it this way, what is an OS? An OS is like a hardware driver, just for the whole computer, not the individual device. I have yet to have to pay for drivers to make hardware devices I buy operational, except for the fact that I have to buy an OS to make my PC operational. Why? Because if the company doesn't give me a driver for their device, why would I buy it?
I predict that Linux is going to lead to some amazing things in hardware, because people who couldn't compel Micros~1 to develop for them will be able to just concentrate on making good hardware and not have to worry about getting a good OS that is compatible with most of the stuff out there.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Perhaps I shouldn't reply, since the original post is borderline flamebait. But I do believe the author is sincere. So I will explain why someone might chose GPL, as I did:
I wrote `cpuburn` from a blank sheet of paper, and mostly for own need to assure myself of stability on my overclocked BP6. Then the question arose--What to do with it? I could have released it as shareware, BSD or GPL.
I rejected the first since I would never get any useful suggestions to improve my code. So it was down to BSD or GPL. I rejected BSD since anyone could then lift my code, and incorporate it into theirs without even credit or attribution unless I had the "obnoxious advertising clause" in. Furthermore, they could make improvements that they could sell, but I would never see.
This really stuck in my craw. I don't like plagiarists. I think the amount of BSD code that Micriosoft and Sun hoisted into their proprietary OSes is scandalous. The developers and UC Berkeley got virtually nothing back from them.
By releasing my software GPL, my code stays free. Yes, I restrict other programmers, and that's exactly my intent. Freedom is for the code not programmers, if you pardon the anthropomorthism.
Note also that I retain copyright, and can issue other licences if I wish. If someone is interested in incorporating my code into a commercial ("proprietary") product, then they email me and I'm sure we can agree on something. I would grant them a non-GPL licence. Nothing in the GPL says that it is the exclusive licence issued for any software. The GPL doesn't restrict me until and unless I start incorporating other's GPL work into mine.
I can't understand why, when anyone comes out to complain about the GPL, the BSD license immediatly comes up as a target. There is nothing wrong with the BSD license. It is a much more open license, and is appropriate for people who want their code to be used as widely as possible and don't care if it gets used in propriotory products. The GPL is great for people who want to share their code, but don't want it used unless that developer too shares their code. Both have different purposes, and different kinds of people use them. I doubt the BSD people care that MS uses a great deal of BSD code in their networking, or that IBM bases propriotory products on BSD. (The JetWeb or WebJet or something?) So in the end, you use whatever license you like. If you aren't a redneck, you don't critisize other people for what license they like.
To quote Tom Halfhill, "I'm okay, you're okay."
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I agree with Mr. Love's assertion that the gpl can be too restrictive to be used in product based business. It's nice that everything has to be free (as in speech), but if a business wants to innovate and sell that innovation, there's not much incentive to do so if your competition can copy your innovation in an hour or two. Altho, I should recall that the only way that such a company would be bound by the GPL is by using GPL'd software as a component in theirs... which would mean that they're lazy, taking but not giving, and so maybe they should burn in hell :)
In general, this sounds very fishy. He may be backing down from Microsoft, but whatever he's doing it's not good for business.
It may sound fishy, but it smells worse.
My guess is that he has doubts that Caldera can compete in the Linux market as is. If they could close the code, they could make some cool changes that would set them apart from the rest, yet not have to share it with the rest of the community. The way things are now you can't lock users into your distribution because anyone can take it, sell it, and support it without paying you a cent. This means that Linux companies have to rely on things like their ability to SUPPORT their products. Poor guys...it's a tough world.
"The key is, we need open access for a level playing field, not an entirely new playing field," Love said.
This line sure stinks of bullshit. A level playing field is an entirely new playing field for the software industry. I'll be keeping an eye on this guy--I get the feeling he's trying to rally together some bullies to kick the kids off the field.
numb
Huh? Programmer B got to use the original code for free from Programmer A to make his/her changes. And the turnaround is fair too - Programmer A has to follow the same rules on Programmer B's code as Programmer B had to follow in Programmer A's code.
Well no one held a gun to their head and forced them to use a GPLed OS. They could have developed further on DR DOS or BSD. And you know what? No one would have used it. If you want your OS to be used in this industry you can either have it completely open or you can be Microsoft. That fact seems to have dawned on every OS vendor on the planet (Except maybe BE) and you'll note the resulting rush to embrace open systems (Mach in the case of Apple, Linux for everyone else.)
And the GPL buys us a lot. It prevents the forking we saw in the BSD camp (A lot of propietary unices are BSD based) and keeps the playing field level. It gives programmers the security of knowing that some big company can't use their work with a couple of minor changes to make a boatload of cash. We're guaranteed code evolution with thousands of programmers working toward the same goal. The GPL is what will bring the big companies together to work not just for their own good but for the good of the community. Which is the way it should be.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm not planning to start a new license flamewar here (any open source license is ok with me), but there are
a couple of reasons to prefer GPL over BSD, depending on what you want to do.
The danger of the BSD license is that anyone can "steal" the code, modify it or not, and make lots of money selling a binary-only version, without giving anything back to the people who originally wrote the code.
This has happened before ("Microsoft's" command line ftp client is actually a SuckOS port of the BSD ftp client).
If a piece of software is GPL or LGPL, they'd have to give back their extensions/ports/fixes/whatever, so the community (and at least as important, the original programmer) would benefit from it.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
No they don't. You can modify Linux all day long, use those modifications, and never have to distribute the patches to anyone else.
Of course, if you effectively distribute the modified version of Linux (i.e. with someone else's copyrighted code), then you have to include the full source.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
It's funny that this rarely gets said.
Let RMS spew all he wants about freedom. The license speaks for itself. You want freedom, use the BSD license. You want proprietary software, use the GPL.
RMS has an agenda which is not for freedom. It's all about sticking it to "the man". He has such a grudge against the world, it's not funny. And the GPL has great power to do great damage. You want real freedom then use the BSD license. Check them out. It's all there in black and white.
os.system("perl -e 'print \"My first Python Script.\"'")
He talks about open source software. Open source software includes not just GPL, but BSD, QPL, NPL, all kinds of licenses. Not all of them have the "restrictive" nature that the GPL has. So if Mr Love wants to split words, please be specific! Say "GPL", not "open source". And why is the GPL restrictive? To counter the restrictiveness of the proprietry licenses with differnt terms of its own! After all, software makers confer such restriction on others and accept such restrictions from others without batting an eyelid. Why complain now when we force you to share?
Yes the GPL is automatically restrictive. It is restrictive in the sense that one's business model must change. This is a good thing from the consumers point of view, because current proprietry software business models (ala Microsoft) suck! To see what is wrong, read what Jordan Pollack has to say about this. Notice that he is not a free software advocate. He points out how software makers are abusing Intellectual Property laws for their own gain, without regard to long term benefits to the users.
It distresses me to see Mr Love spout such unthinking canards like "Open Source is proprietry." To see the what is wrong demands a good understanding of the issues involved. I am not sure if Mr Love's target audience understands these issues. Is this an intentional attempt at FUD? I hope not!
Must be a strange form of proprietary software that allows anyone to copy the software and give it away, or to alter it for personal use. Surely the fact that it has a license doesn't make it proprietary? Or can only totally unlicensed (non-licensed?) software be free?
> These people are creating new definitions for the word, and trying to make Linux sound bad.
Seems to me that lately the Linux community has been doing a fine job themselves of seeming a bit agressive towards anything that isn't Linux or GPL. Just all the bickering over "My licence is bigger than yours." "My open source can beat up your proprietary."
Stop the constant bickering. Sheesh...the whole thing yesterday with BeOS and stuff...that pissed me off...
TALK to people...
Sorry for the rant.
Casey
"Unless you intend to kill him immediately thereafter, never kick a man in the balls. Not even symbolically. Or perhaps especially not symbolically."
-- Friday Jones in Friday
- Sighuh?
proprietary /adj./
The question of "distribution" was raised and debated at length back during the Corel Linux beta debacle. I recommend you read that discussion if you want the split hairs.
That's the way things are with Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, Corel, and so on. But it's not the way things are with Caldera and SuSE; they already stop people from copying and reselling their distributions.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
If you think about it, ANYTHING is 'proprietary', simply by its value of being unique. The english language is proprietary, because to talk to an english-only speaker, you cant speak french.
The problem comes in when the proprietary-ness is so far different than what everyone else is using, or breaks from some well-defined standard. (See Compaq or Packard Bell PC's for example).
Granted, Linux is different from Windows, and can be viewed as exclusionary, but we, as the Linux community are striving for something better, not to corral people to use our stuff, and ONLY our stuff.
My
-=Bob
We didn't get where we are today by making money off OSS. OSS exists because of what it is.. not because someone can make money off it.
OSS sets a nice baseline, and those who want to sell software on the open market generally have to do better than OSS. That's MY ideal scenario. There will always be room for someone to do it better, faster.. but a good OSS baseline will
1) force informal standards
2) set a standard for performance/reliability.
*blush*, thank you
"Not controlled by obligation or the will of another."
This I agree with, lots. Definitely applicable in the software scene.
Regarding rights and giving service back: I don't particularly like either approach, myself. "Rights" are a bit like "take", service is a bit like "give"; I'd prefer "giving" (a generalised state of play) and "receiving" (as distinct from take - ponder it a little), and the idea that it's more important to you to have your code out and about in the wild for all to enjoy and play with (this might be a more initial motivating factor but even so, I think it fun).
On companies: "Their "rights" are not being protected here." Indeed, and whole Usenet threads / wars on communism v capitalism ensue as a result!
[StarOffice] I also work in a split windoze/unix environment, and you're right about interoperability - I'm all for being able to read everything but having the decency to write in a lowest-common-denominator. But right now there are not-very-many not-very-good open-source .doc readers or .pdf readers. It's all very well saying "write in an open format doc" but you risk a lot of pressure to comply when someone's paying you to cope with their abominations.
So no, porting another-msword-reader isn't a bad idea. What I think *is* a bad idea is (a) it still being closed like SO, and (b) it not using native GUI widget sets like gtk+ or qt (to taste), resulting in a bloated lump where the rest of linux is typical neat and nippy in comparison. Shall we distinguish between the build-up of GNU/Linux and the port-bloat-over from the commercial scene...?
FWIW I see open-source as saying "can do", contrasted in a quite polarised way with commercial "can't do, haven't written that, pay us lots to fix the bugs". As soon as open-source says "no can do" we have problems; this applies to MSWord-readers, PDF-readers, portable open-licensed XML/SGML GUI editors, and even popular well-developed web browsers (Big Hint(TM)!). Nice mentality but could always use a little work...
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
~Tim
--
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
By its popularity (the suite has been downloaded more than 2 million times), Star Office has done more for Linux than just about any other application, Love said.
Most open source projects don't really care (or keep count of) how many 'downloads' they get, because open source success is measured in the quality, not quantity of a project.
Users who make changes to software such as the Gimp image manipulation software must publish those changes under various open-source licenses, but the mere fact that there is a license obliging users to share code means that someone has set proprietary parameters on the use of the software.
No, they do not have to publish the modified source code if the product is not distributed. However, if the modified product is distributed, then they must also provide the modified source code. If it's used in-house only the modified source code does not have to be released.
Linux has provided developers with open access, and that has made it more flexible and more suited for the challenges of Internet computing.
Ok...what exactly is "Internet computing" and how is it different from "non-Internet computing"?
Citing the rough and tumble of the market, Love called for an evolution of Linux from a diverse platform to products that businesses would buy to improve their productivity in specific tasks.
Do you mean 'evolve' Linux, or write more applications that businesses can use?
Love's road map for that evolution would take Linux from being a packaged OS to products that include a subset of all the OS features, products that make installation of the OS easier, and tools that make management and administration of Linux easier.
A true visionary, I wonder why nobody else already thought of this.
Caldera will offer a product that offers browser-based administration of Linux with a GUI, Love said.
Yes, browser-based administration, because browsers never crash. And of course using X just won't work, because, uh, well...actually it has always been a networked design. And using 128 (or higher) bit encryption via ssh is at least as good as a browser's encryption (without all the bloat of a browser).
"It's one thing to facilitate open access, but another to demand it. That's what you are trying to get away from."
What? Who's this guy talking to? Who's trying to get away from open access to source code? Micro$oft? Oh, yeah, they are...
I'm wondering if this guy really knows anything about the open source movement or Linux, because most of what he says is either incorrect or redundant. His description of the GPL's requirements is wrong. His vision to provide remote administration of Linux is easily accomplished using X (which we all use already) and can be encrypted with ssh for secure administration.
What this little piece does not mention is that Caldera IPO tanked and was blasted into oblivion by the recent Wall Street free fall (aka: "The .com Bloodbath").
I think some of the points that Mr Love makes are actually simple common sense: yes, closed-source shops can release good software. Yes, the GPL is, in its own peculiar and "viral" way, a very restrictive licence... But what else is new there?
To me, this speech sounds like a bitter rant, from a CEO who has seen his net stockmarket (read: paper) value disappear overnight.
Face it Mr Love: the Linux distro biz is like any other market -- you need good products to survive. And don't even think about making Linux proprietary or Slashdotters and FSF gurus will line up to sue you to kingdom come.
Repeat after me: invest in open-source wisely. The penguin is your friend. Don't anger the community. Respect the GPL and nobody gets hurt... =)
Another speech like that is going to be a PR disaster for Caldera. Flame war at 11.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I didn't think that "proprietary" had anything to do with licensing. I thought proprietary meant "closed" as in "this is mine and you can't touch it"
From dictionary.com:
proprietary (pr-pr-tr)
adj. Abbr. prop., pty.
1.Of or relating to a proprietor or to proprietors as a group: proprietary rights.
2.Exclusively owned; private: a proprietary hospital.
3.Befitting an owner: a proprietary air.
4.Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent:
a proprietary drug.
Hmmm under this definition, Linux is NOT proprietary. It's not private, not exclusively owned, not owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent...
These people are creating new definitions for the word, and trying to make Linux sound bad.
On a separate issue, his proposal to remotely manage systems sounds very interesting. Who cares how difficult Linux is to manage! For a low monthly fee, you to can be care-free and buzzword-compliant! (Three year contract and service charges mentioned only in the fine print...) The interesting part here isn't the possiblity of a new business plan, making money by administering small office and home systems remotely. The interesting part lies in the privacy and free-speech issues which might arise. Think about the recent flap in England about private restraint of speech via libel laws. If you have controversial material on a home-page on your own computer, might the remote sys-admin have to take it down to shield himself? Or just drop your contract, and not tell you the root password? If you hire out the sys-admin job, and the managing company finds something they think is porn on your harddrive, are they obligated to report it to the sheriff? Should they, even if the law doesn't require it? I recently heard of a mother being prosecuted for having pictures of her naked child developed. That's (the prosecution ... ok, the mother too) very weird.
Of course, hiring out the sys-admin job to Corel, or any company raises all sorts of issues about ownership and access. Here's one: of course it's your system, but the management software running under Linux is our propriatary code... if you don't renew our contract, we will have to remove it. It includes the password file. And we encrypted the filesystem. We won't format the drives when we leave, but we'll take the only software which can read them. It's all for your safety.
Here's another. A sys-admin company might use your email address book to search for new customers, and so on. It's your data, and they probably wouldn't use it in any way that could get them caught. But that leaves a lot of latitude.
I wonder how far this idea will go? If Linux administration gets just a bit easier, and the major distributions start including a home computer installation option which is reasonably secure out of the box, probably not too far.
See what I've been reading.
> Oof course, the GPL doesn't require you to publish your changes if you don't distribute your changes.
Which brings up something I've been wondering about. What does "distribute" mean? If a corporate IT department hacks The GIMP and then puts the employees to work using it, do they have to provide those employees the source as well?
Hairs want to be split, you know.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Under his definition, any software with a license is "proprietary", so the only non-proprietary software is public-domain software. Thus, any restrictions == proprietary software.
Technically, there are no parameters on the use of the software, just on the distribution of modified software based on the original GPL'd software. For the majority of people who are software users but not software writers, the software is effectively non-proprietary - the file formats are open, code can be inspected for security, efficiency, and effectiveness, and unlimited copies of the software can be used for free.
What license is "demanding open access"? Is this a reference to the GPL, or is this just an attack on some GPL supporters who insist that all software should be GPL'd? Who has a "misguided interpretation" - is someone misinterpreting the GPL, or misinterpreting the ideals behind it? The article is practically a troll at this point - there are no justifications or examples for these accusations.
It seems to me that we settled for "good enough" proprietary software for a long time, but that didn't lead to the changes we are seeing Linux bring about today. Only the "zealous adherence" to open-source ideals has brought about the wave of changes that Mr. Love has found himself caught up in. After all, if he has all the answers on how open source is supposed to work, shouldn't he have helped start the movement a while back, rather than just jumping into it once it became profitable?
It's too bad the press quotes this guy all the time rather than one of the people who are really leading - of the well-known (whether deservedly or not) Linux figures, he suffers from foot-in-mouth disease the most often. Oh wait, I forgot, the real leaders of the open source community are too busy writing code and creating the software that keeps Mr. Love in business.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
According to Caldera's CEO, proprietary is something with a software license.
;)
Well, without a software license it's in the public domain. Once in public domain, the creator can't stop it (unless you're the MPAA
Software licenses are necessary to assert the positions of developers and users. The licenses explain the limits of the users. In the GPL, the condition pressed on the users is that they have to release source code if they release another version of it. In many other software licenses it could be restrictions on copying it.
In general, this sounds very fishy. He may be backing down from Microsoft, but whatever he's doing it's not good for business.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Got Rhinos?
The hardest thing here was decided who had the best post to respond to. PigleT, you win.
"free" anything means a number of things, but I prefer Not controlled by obligation or the will of another. The open-source movement protects the investment of the first programmer, not his so-called rights. Programmer A invests his/her time into writing an app under the GPL. If Programmer B wants to take advantage of Programmer A's effort, s/he must provide their work back to "the community," thus providing Programmer A a nice return on their investment. Note that Programmer B did NOT get "free" code from Programmer A - Programmer B was obligated to provide service back to Programmer A.
Note that companies are getting around the GPL by creating new software based on GPL'ed components, and selling service to their customers. Since they are not providing binaries to their customers, they are under no obligation to release their modifications to "open-source" software.
This company is restricted from selling their software (Hmm, I wonder if they could give an NDA to their customers prohibiting the re-release of their source code?) by the GPL. Their "rights" are not being protected here.
AS to the value of StarOffice, note that many of us are forced to work in an MS environment, where management and other divisions frequently send MS-Office documents. Having an interoperable product, which is seamless to the other users, means I can run Linux where otherwise I'd be forced to run Windoze.
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.