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The Open Source Evangelists Respond
EconomyGuy writes "Looks like the some big players all got together to respond to Microsoft's recent claims about the GPL. CNet is running a story about it, or you can read the response right here. If names like ESR, Linus, RMS, and Perens can all agree on something to say, then Microsoft's plan to split the community just might back fire on them."
ESR, RMS, Linus, etc. It's like a human Beowolf Cluster!!!
May I have your attention please,
.....we're gonna have a problem here.........
...........
may I have your attention please,
will the real bruce perens please stand up,
I repeat will the real bruce perens please stand up
Ya'll act like you never seen a slash poster before
mouse all on the floor
like mom and daddy just burst in the door
and started whoopin yer ass worse than before
they first had endorsed
buyin' ya a crappy computer (aaaaaah)
It's the return of the...
"awww..wait, no wait, you're kidding,
he didn't just say what I think he did,
did he?"
and Mr. Cray said...
nothing you idiots, Mr Cray's dead
he's locked in my bassment
microsoft women love Sig '11
chicka chicka chicka bruce perens,
"I'm sick of him, lookit him
walkin around, grabbin his GNU know what
flippin' to GNU know who"
"yeah, but he's so smart though"
yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose
but no worse than what's goin on in your sister's webcam (eheheheh)
sometimes, I wanna get on ZD and just let loose
but cant, but it's cool for RMS to hump a dead GNU
My mouse is on your link, My mouse is on your link
and if you're lucky, I might just give it a little click
and that's the message that we deliver to little kids
and expect them not to know what a free software is
of course they're gonna know what Microsoft is
by the time they hit 4th grade
they got MS-NBC, dont they?
we ain't nothing but omnivores
well, some of us carnivores
who read other people's mail like crackwhores
but if we can read your e-mail like it's available
then there's no reason that a man can't forge spam from your account
but if you feel like I feel, I got the antedote
trolls wave your penis birds, sing the chorus and it goes........
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
Sig 11 don't got to cuss in his posts to get Karma
well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too
you think I give a damn about my Karma
half of you trolls can't even stomach me, let alone stand me
"but bruce, what if you win, wouldn't it be weird"
why? so you guys can just lie to get me here
so you can sit me here next to Natalie here
shit,Enoch Root's momma better switch me chairs
so I can sit next to trollmastah and Post First
and hear em argue over who modded it down first
little troll, flamed me back on IRC
"yeah, he's fast, but I think he types one-handed, hee hee"
I should download some audio on MP3
and show the world how you released it BSD (aaaaaah)
I'm sick of you little troll and l33t groups
all you do is annoy me
so I have been sent here to destroy you
and there's a million of us just like me
who post like me, who just don't give a fuck like me
who code like me, walk, talk and act like me
and just might be the next best thing, but not quite me......
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm like a head trip to listen to
cause I'm only givin you things
you troll about with your friends inside you rabbit hole
the only difference is I got the balls to say it
in front of ya'll and I aint gotta be false or sugar coated at all
I just get on the web and spit it
and whether you like to admit it (riiip)
I just shit it better than 90% you trollers out can
then you wonder how can
kids eat up these posts like gospel verse
it's funny,cause at the rate I'm going when I'm thirty
I'll be the only person in the chat rooms flirting
cyberin with nurses when I'm jackin off to porno's
and I'm jerkin' but this whole bag of viagra isn't working
in every single person there's a bruce perens lurkin
he could be workin at Micron Inc., spittin on your SDRAM
or in the printer queue, flooding, writin I dont give a fuck
with his windows down and his system up
so will the real perens please stand up
and click 1 of those fingers till you drag up
and be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
and 1 more time, loud as you can, how does it go?
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
haha guess it's a bruce perens in all of us........
fuck it let's all stand up
O'Reilly: Okay, let's not be too rough with Microsoft here, I still sell a lot of books about Microsoft products.
Perens:Yes, when you're not being a parasite on the free software community.
Torvalds: Come on, guys, we're going to try to be positive here. Instead of focusing on bad things about Microsoft, let's look at good things about Linux.
Stallman: You mean, "GNU/Linux"...
This has taken a long time.
There is not much more that Microsoft can throw at this community. In the years that I've been reading slashdot. I've seen the average age drop. The amount of MS Serf spy's increase. I now have a desktop I don't have to configure with VI. I've enjoyed Oracle on Linux. I fell in love with Java on Linux. Seen Linus go from THE guy on a mailing list to Information Systems Rebel Icon. I've seen OS2 die... Then come back. ( useless interjection ).
Microsoft has accused the community of being a bunch of hackers and failed. Reported Open Source as being buggy only to have software developers around the world installing Linux looking for a stable plateform. Microsoft has givin the vibe that Open Source is not suited for security applications. When Net Admins have favored the security of Open Source for years. (BSD anyone?) Do i need to say anything about benchmarks? This is now the last real volly. We are no longer cannon fodder.
So is that it?
The Open Source sprit wins after decades of floating around?
Not really.
Now come something interesting... Can we get the implications of using open source libs in company applications. What about taking a Function out of a opensource application. Is it okay to just put "Stole from [ProjectName]"? These are the rules that need to be understood by companys. How will using opensource java classes affect my customer? With out the anwsers to these question outlined more then "free like beer" companys will stay away. Lets remember that the Homer in us thinks "Hmm Beer" for about 30 secs after hearing the word 'beer'.
Just my 2 cent's
Last one in jail is a fascist.
Mundie's remarks have definitely backfired. Mundie got to speak to one small room of people, and the rebuttals have been seen everywhere. News agencies are falling all over themselves to print lucid, well-written, and oftentimes very biting replies to Mundie's remarks.
It has long been known that GNU/Linux is basically immune to being bought, bankrupted, or stolen, but now it appears that GNU/Linux is immune to FUD as well.
Fah, I need to triple check before submitting, because I agree 100% with what you have said. If Guido would have taken care of the licensing issues before he started work on Python then the whole problem wouldn't have happened.
This is one of the things that the FSF does right. They get all of the legal ducks in a row before they start hacking.
My point was that Python's license is a BSD style license (and not even GPL compatible there for a bit), so it wasn't his software or license that was under attack. He had no need to pitch in with the rest of the GPL advocates. His software is part of the BSD style crowd that Microsoft seems to approve of. He could have done what Ransom Love did and say that perhaps the GPL isn't such a good idea after all. The fact that he didn't do that is heartening, and shows that the rift between GPL advocates and BSD advocates isn't as big as the flamewars on Usenet make them out to be.
Thanks again for your hard work Bruce. Keep it up.
"If names like ESR, Linus, RMS, and Parens can all agree on something to say, then Microsoft's plan to split the community just might back fire on them."
Does anybody have links to rebuttals from the likes of Theo da Raadt or Jordan Hubbard?
I went to their websites and didn't see anything. Did they rebut Mundie, or just not think it's important?
When you say Microsoft has an intention of splitting the community. Which community are you talking about?
They certainly never intended to split the GPL community. But they did attack the Open or Free Software community, which has always had a large chasm between GPL and BSD licenses.
Seeing a number of GPL supporting noteworthies agreeing that the GPL license is good does not surprise me. On the other hand, seeing BSD camp members saying Microsoft's attack on the GPL was wrong would be news.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
What did you expect them to say? That was the proper P.R. move at this point. They were expecting us to be a lot more brash than we were.
By the way, I am brought in to talks with Fortune 100 corporations through my job, so those CIOs and CEOs are being reached - not that I agree with the assertion that they are the only important ones. IBM representatives are doing some of that CIO lobbying, as well, as are a number of the other evangelists. Maddog, ESR, and O'Reilly all make regular appearances in executive offices.
But this is not where the real battle lies. It is on the intellectual property law front that we will win or lose. P.R. efforts are important to that, but let's not let them distract us from the real goal.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
We band together only when we need to. Its only when the Common Enemy uses our "disunion" as a tool (in this case, FUD) against us that we must turn on the Common Enemy and remove its threat. Then we can get back to our infighting in peace. ;-)
--
You know, you gotta get up real early if you want to get outta bed... (Groucho Marx)
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Please, Bruce, explain how a license that explicitly says that others can copy your work for free is compatible with a business that sells software.
He didn't say it was. He said it is compatible with business. If the only business involving software development that you can imagine is one where you sell individual copies of your software, then that's your problem.
So yes, one type of business doesn't work very well with the GPL. So what? In the space of business models, most of them don't work for one reason or another. That doesn't mean those reasons are incompatible with business. It means you need to think of another model.
If I'm going to give it away, I'm going to give it away no strings attached.
That's your choice. I like the "so long as you keep it free, too" string to be firmly attached, myself.
The enemies of Democracy are
Wow, that's sure an impressive list of open source advocates. But, just as noticible is the lack of people from the BSD camp who have endorsed this statement. I'm curious: is this because they weren't invited or consulted? Is this because the BSD community thinks this statement is silly? Help me out here.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
Oh my gosh, what a bunch of spaghetti logic. What these luminaries really should have done is all chip in for a real PR flack, because they just exposed a hand of jokers.
Seriously. The "this is the kind of dialog [paraphrased]" quote says it all. MS employs some of the brightest spin doctors in the biz. The Mundie speech was probably engineered to elicit this very response, so that the spin doctors could get inside the Open Source PR thought cycle.
Now that this watered down, weak screed from inexperienced open media warriors has laid down exactly where they're inept at a media fight, MS now knows exactly how to attack. And their media army is quite more experienced at this sort of thing.
What needs to be done is the assembly of a proficient, professional PR effort. We in no way could outspend them in an attack or a push, but we certainly could employ or at least get volunteer skilled spin people to defend and counterstrike. Part of the MS spin strategy might be to distract or otherwise deplete the heroes of our cause. A third party needs to be esatblished to insulate the media efforts from the actual operations of Open Source.
This "Old monkish coder" as PR flack will only take us so far....and if overextended....maybe painted into a corner.
The points brought up in the article are all very good ones that needed to be expressed. Their delivery, however, was wholly incompetent. We need somebody on this who knows how to craft rhetoric to it's full potential and impact. Something that an 8th grader could read and understand, and bring out the Henry Flemming in all of us.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
How often to parents and children fight?
:)
What about siblings?
Cousins?
Now... what happens when someone picks a serious fight with a member of the family?
I think we all agree (at least on some high essoteric level), we just prefer to fight with family
"No one can push your buttons like a family member. Of course thats because they installed them!" --unknown
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
So Microsoft views GPL as an 800lb gorilla squatting between them and global domination...?
They are right about one thing: Open source is an "intellectual-property destroyer". (They neglect to point out that intellectual-property is an innovation destroyer).
I dont know if the few hundred thousand web hosting companies in existance would agree that Open Source makes for a lousy business model. Even if Eazel was keeping their source closed and giving away their lame file browser for free in the hopes of selling services it would still be a lousy business model, it has nothing to do with their source being open.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You mean that they've started giving away their support incidents? I don't think so...
DB
You will never get away from it. Even if you bring together 20 people who have the exact same thoughts and ideas they will somehow, someway, form groups that not everyone will fit into.
All that happened here was that each of those listed above forgot their special group (linux, OpenSource, GPL, etc) and formed a new group to attack a common enemy. When that enemy is beaten or destroyed they will quickly fall back into their respective groups to wildly hack about at everyone and everything.
A more concise version would be "Dangerous, my ass!" -- but that would be either redundant or inaccurate, depending on where the tattoo goes.
...when faced by a common enemy? Whether as hackers banding against the evil forces trying to quash open source, one city's sports fans against another, nations, or multinational alliances, it seems we can only get over ourselves enough to cooperate when we're threatened. Make no mistake, I support every word of this statement and am amazed by the signatures on it - the policies and strategies espoused by Microsoft are a threat to us all and need to be taken seriously. I just wish we could get together more often on things that weren't as directly threatening, with less venom and bile directed at each other (Perl vs Python, Emacs vs Vi, Gnome vs KDE, Red Hat vs. Just About Anybody, ad nauseum), instead of waiting for Big Evil Threats from Outside to remind us that we're all in the same camp.
TomatoMan
-- http://frobnosticate.com
This post initially angered me, but on thinking about it, I think it's a fair post that deserves a fair response.
...
The open-sourse crowd as a whole really, truly does not want to destroy software companies. Maybe Stallman does; certainly the original GNU Manifesto was rather hostile toward the whole idea of making money in the software biz, though I think even he has mellowed over the years. But the rest of the signers have no desire to see software companies go out of business en masse.
What they do want is for software companies to play fair, and to respect other people's ideas of how intellectual property should be disposed of (e.g., the GPL) even when it conflicts with the established business model. Ultimately, the blame for failing software companies doesn't lie with the GPL: it lies with a) anti-competitive business practices from giant companies like Sun, Oracle, and (especially) Microsoft that quite naturally crush small companies before they crush large ones, because small companies are more vulnerable, and b) mindless VC's (who are hardly ever techies themselves) who are much more interested in cashing in on whatever they perceive as the Next Big Thing than they are in really understanding how the software industry works.
A) is too well documented to require further discussion, IMO. B) is not so well understood. The problem is that the Next Big Thing usually turns out to be a Not Quite So Big Thing, and even when there's still money to be made, the sheeplike mentality of the VC's requires them to drop their investments and find Another Next Big Thing to pin their hopes on. A lot of dead "dot-bomb" companies were actually on the verge of profitability when the VC's panicked. Meanwhile, the likes of Microsoft keep going through sheer inertia, no matter how lousy their products, because the VC's and other business droids all use Windows and Office
In short: it's not the GPL that hurts programmers. It's morons in suits.
I urge you not to get out of the software business. It's still one of the biggest, most stable, and most important industries in the world, and will remain so for a very long time. Suits, VC's and all, it's still a better place to work than 99 44/100 % of everything else.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Red Hat 7.1 Standard Edition: $39.95
Micro$oft Windows ME: $162.85
RMS, ESR, and Linus agreeing: Priceless
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
see...
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Not trying to argue the point really, but MS singled out the GPL. You can't build your software on top of GPL'd code and then sell it as a proprietary product. Clause 2b("You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. ") of the GPL expressly forbids this.
What I don't quite get is the number of people who insist that the GPL is compatible with building software for a profit. It is incompatible - you must sell services or hardware or something other than the GPL'd software to make money.
So unfortunately, in a limited sense, MS is right. The GPL is incompatible with selling software as a stand alone product. I doubt if anyone can seriously refute that statement, but I would be very interested if someone could.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
[ . . . ] when Jim Allchin attacks Linux, he's not going after Linus and the kernel people. He's trying to reach about a hundred CIO/CTO's who can force their company to use Win2K servers on their boxes. All of MS's anti-Linux speeches are designed to get a very small audience to hold the line on Linux growth within the corporation. Of course it pisses you off, but that isn't the point
There is a lot more to it as well in the following paragraphs.
Point Being, the attack and response should not be against each others egos, but for the hearts and minds of the people who really count, who make the high power decisions. I note that
Late Tuesday, Microsoft responded to the open letter. "We appreciate the dialog on this issue--it's exactly the type of discussion Craig was hoping to foster," the company said in a statement.
Somehow it feels like MS is trying to try to trip up the evangistas into being too brash, by seeming to be so reasonable.
And utterly un-repentant.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
When you're dealing with other businesses, and one of them sends you a file in Word97, and you're in Word95, you have to upgrade to (1) see the "extrat" formatting he has in there (by default often) and (2) make the changes you need to and send it back to him looking the same way, with your additions. The average person you're doing business with ain't gonna put up with you hacking their presentation. And saying "Save in Word95 or RTF please" - doesn't work. Word throws errors up warning of formatting stuff that may be 'lost' if you save in an older format. Whether or not your document contains any of those enhancements is beside the point - it warns you, and that's enough to scare people off it. Bottom line - you upgrade to keep up with the others you deal with who upgraded and don't like to be pushed out of their comfort zone.
creation science book
What they really meant to say was:
"Microsoft it's time for you to grow up and stop being a bunch of whiney bitches. All we hear from you is: 'Our product is better, linux sux'. You don't hear people from the Linux community bashing Windows do you?"
p.s. linux 0wnz m$
I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
From the C|Net article:
Late Tuesday, Microsoft responded to the open letter. "We appreciate the dialog on this issue--it's exactly the type of discussion Craig was hoping to foster," the company said in a statement
Microsoft's arrogance just comes into full view with this statement. They're essentially taking credit for the Open Source response!
Completely astounding.
--
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
Open Source Advocate Has Yet To Rebut Craig Mundie
Jeff Parns considers himself a model for free software advocacy: helping out at installfests, answering questions on the Central Kansas Free Unix User's Group mailing list, working in his spare time on a user-friendly graphical interface to cron. Why, then, has he yet to write a long-winded essay rebutting Microsoft exec Craig Mundie's recent remarks about open source?...
Honestly, these Microsoft speeches are really a windfall for open-source advocacy windbags. They're so utterly foolish that responding is like shooting fish in a barrel. (I'm talking about the "Open source destroys intellectual property!" stuff, not the part about it making for a lousy business model, which happens to be entirely true.) The Eric Raymond / Bruce Perens line went over as long as nobody had actually put their theories to the test, but it must be a tough sell to convince companies to follow Netscape* and Eazel into oblivion.
* Yes, Mozilla is _vastly_ better in the 0.9 release. I know that. But in the meantime, the company has still seen it's market share go from nearly half to zero.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I bet John Carmack would sign something like this. He could be another great name to add for people who use GPL'd software, but release proprietary products: proof that GPL'd code doesn't "infect" the whole business.
Plus he released Quake under the GPL.
Please note that your name is not the one mentioned in the writeup.
Poser.
Dancin Santa
A number of the free software evangelists, in informal discussion, felt that the proper response to Microsoft would be to stand together. Mundie's speech shows that Microsoft's strategy is to keep us divided and attack us one at a time, until all are gone.
Right on.
The current global enthusiasm for both free and open-source software amounts to diddly if the proponents of these ideas can't present a united front. When the software community responds to something like Mundie's speech or the DMCA with a thousand flame wars in the underbelly of the Internet...well, guess what: nobody cares. When we respond with consensus -- especially with such a thoughtful, articulate, and nail-on-the-head treatise as this one -- then we have a chance of getting somewhere!
My thanks and respect to this document's ten signers. I wish I could sign it, too, or at least give them all +5 karma.
I'm curious to see which if any "mainstream" news carriers pick up this story. Craig's letter got coverage in the NYTimes. Will this letter appear beyond CNet, /.,and ZDTV? Maybe with AoL/TW weighing in against M$ CNN might pick it up.
This is what saddens me in the FUD war. When computer science visionaries speak, geeks listen. When M$ speaks, everyone hears.
"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
--Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
So, they're saying is "Craig was only trolling, and you guys ate the bait", but what is stuck in the grey unwashed masses' memory is some unspecified feeling that there is something fishy with free software licences.
Anyways I don't care. I don't give a damm what other people run on their computers anymore. Linux works well enough for me. I won't force the other suckers to get off MS-products, it's their loss. But they better not step on my toes.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I am personally very impressed with the professional representation that has been made within this letter. What we need to do, as open source software users, is to band together and to work towards opening the eyes of our companies CTOs and CIOs.
This does not mean bashing the products that many of us are forced to use in our daily work days. This means to carefully offer up solutions to problems using Linux/BSD in a professional manner. Simply put, advocating the use of open source and free, as in liberty, software requires calm and rational reasoning.
One great avenue of advocating Linux/BSD is to form a users group in your area. While it is not an easy thing to do it can be used to greatly open the eyes of the people that attend because they have an inkling of interest. You would be surprised at the number of, "WOW! Linux can do that?!" that are prevalent at a LUG meeting.
If you choose to start a LUG be professional about it. Plan meeting times and agendas, put together thought out plans of action. Impress your members and they will mention it at their offices. The more your LUG is mentioned around their offices, the more likely that someone with decision making powers will show up.
The most important thing is to stop with the bashing. So what if Windows crashes, everyone already knows that. So what if Windows has security issues, people are already used to that. Show people that Linux has fewer security issues, when configured properly. Show people that Linux does not require regular reboots. Stop doing this by exclaiming the shortcomings of Windows. Do this by showing the strengths of Linux.
As users of solid, open source software we should work from a common vision. One of growth through education and hard work. Instead of the rabble-rousing vitriole that many of us spit out today.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?