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"For Use on Free Operating Systems, Only!"
green pizza asks: "In looking at the license for Open Motif, I noticed the clause that prohibits its use on non-Free OSes. While I realize that this is for their own licensing reasons, I couldn't help but wonder how such a clause could help Linux and other Free OSes. Just imagine, the large proprietary commercial empires wouldn't be able to roll a truly Free piece of software into their commercial apps and claim their own innovation, or worse, try to snuff out a grass-roots open project. I think such a clause would be a win-win situation for Linux." I can see arguments both for and against such a clause in free software licenses. How do you feel on the subject?
My major problems with such a clause is that it prevents interoperability. Just imagine: if most of the standard GNU tools had this clause, Cygwin would not exist, and Mozilla would not have the impact that it does today...neither would BIND or Apache. I feel that such a clause would do more to limit the ability of Open Source to penetrate new markets, and it won't help get Open Source into the enterprise where Closed Source software reigns supreme.
I think I'm safe in stating that there are probably a large number of readers of /. that have to use a non-Free OS as part of our work. For me, my company's VPN software will only run under WinDoze. A license like this prevents, in the legal sense at least, those of us in that situation from gaining benefits from this type of Free work. I think this may be a case of advocacy going just a bit to far and reverting to grade school: "play my way or I'm taking my ball and going home!"
Last I checked hotmail.com uses apache on windows 2000.
Anyone running IBM's HTTPD server on NT is actually running Apache. Here's one example.
Well, if both RMS and ESR are against it, it can't be all bad.
RMS's position is that this latest trick to force him to take a bath WILL NOT WORK.
Exactly. Now you're starting to see through the GNU hype. Admit it, the freest license there is, is no license at all. If you truly cared about FREE software, it would go in the public domain without your name attached. That's where mine goes.
I can see how you might imagine this to help 'free software', but consider it from the business world's point of view. You then firmly place yourself in a category seperate from them, and they have no use working with you. As it is, there are companies which contribute to and use GPL'd and BSD'd stuff. Whether you like it or not, they contribute back into the community just by acknowledging it's existence and not branding you as official enemies who they must crush. ... Sure, they do it already, but I'd imagine the scale of it would double if you cut them out of your will.
If you impliment such a license clause, then you become a a sworn opponent of the corporate world. Then what will you do when the companies start making more proprietary add-ons to Internet protocols and formats, such as HTTP, HTML, Samba,
How 'free' do you want your software to be? What you propose is not free, so maybe you should start calilng it "For Personal/Non-Profit Use Software" and get it over with.
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
No, I don't like that clause, but I think I may see where they're coming from. Motif has long been associated with commercial Unix platforms. As a method of protecting that revenue stream, Open Motif is not allowed to run on those platforms.
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With the behaivor of the CDDB owners in the spotlight these days, one wonders how people can be this naieve. Freedom has never implied anarchy and anarchy has never provided for true freedom. Those that can and will always seek to abuse the rest of us. That's merely human nature.
It's foolhardy to acknowledge that nature in one breath and ignore it the next.
This acknowledgement of both the good and bad sides of human avarice is why the GPL is the most useful Free Software licence out there.
License your code with it should you really want to make life hard for robber barons. The GPL alone is viral enough to suit such motivations. That is why the lesser GPL is often used when developers want to be corporate friendly. It is quite suitable in that respect, despite much of the rhetoric to the contrary.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Anarchy != freedom, deal with it.
OTOH, the GPL merely takes advantage of already existing legal constructs. These include elements of copyright law including distribution and derivative works.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, what you seem to be describing is a quite suitable enviroment for Linux. If most of your changes are easily compartmentalized, the value of the BSD style licences are pretty much moot.
Not all Free Software is as viral as it is made out to be.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Windows games are not worth putting up with Windows.
It's as simple as that. If software were like cars and we could all use the same road, things might be different. However, computing is different, VERY different.
Any WinDOS game at the very least has another $100-200 pricetag associated with it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Troll.
No, Microsoft merely would not have been able to assimilate sockets and add their own extensions and then fail to publically release them.
Now there's a slightly incompatible WinSock provided to Microsoft at a discount courtesy of chumps like you.
Oracle doesn't seem to have any trouble building on free software. Electronic Art's intellectual property doesn't disappear just because there's a Linux version of Alpha Centauri (finally).
By your own reasoning, those bits of BSD code should be considerably wider spread than they are in reality.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yeah right.
This is just a johny-come-lately "me-too" effort. Did they do this when Motif was securely the Unix desktop standard? Did they do this when Linux itself could have used a quick boost on the desktop?
No, they did this after their product became devalued by the success of GNOME and KDE. They missed the boat by not lowering their own barrier to entry. They threw away their own future and now, opening their code (or giving away free binaries) is just a token gesture.
My respose to OpenMotif: WHO CARES!
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
A GNU licence would not stop your stated objectives from happening. The notion that it would is just anti-FSF hysteria that tends to perpetuate itself all too easily.
Corporations like Oracle build on such "onerously" licenced work.
Do you think really Larry is going to risk his boat or is plane?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I asked RMS about this. I wrote some software that I wanted to release under two different license schemes, free for free-OS's and non-free for win32. I wanted the free-OS users to be able to link with GPL code if they felt like it, but not to be able to port to win32 (so I could have possibility of revenue from win32 addicts). I asked RMS about this. He said this was not possible right now, but might be in a future version of GPL which would allow people to release GPL software which did not provide the exemption for linking with the standard C library (GPL generally does not allow linking with non-free libraries). This would effectively allow people to write GPL software that wasn't portable to proprietary OS's since on these OS's it is always necessary to link with non-free libraries. However, AFAIK this isn't possible yet, and at the time RMS seemed undecided as to whether this would be possible in later version.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
I beg to disagree. With the GPL, people say, whatever I might turn out, be it a fullblown software project or a little API, you will have little choice about the usage of your software. Even more, you will limit the usage of your software by other people/corporations. And all this based on the notion that programmers should be awarded for their work. All this with absolute disregard to my point of view as a programmer, a producer of goods for the benefit of others, a creato of utilities which others might and probably would have not conceived if it weren't for me.
Allright, a lot of people will grumble because hey, I'm being pretentious. To those people I say: DO IT YOURSELF.
But who will deny me my right to deploy and distribute my own software as I see fit? Who will tell me that I am a genius with regards to software and a moron with regards to software distribution and economics?
I say, let the people who build the stuff decide what to do with it! I don't care if somebody else uses my hard work and turns it into something profitable? As long as they give credit to my work, and people use it for something useful and who knows, maybe lifesaving. Who am I to put my own interests before those of somebody who is in dire need?
I say: use my software if it suits your purposes. If it ain't good enough you won't use it, so in that case there's no problem whatsoever. If not, don't use it. Simple, right? And even if it's good enough: if you're not planning on writing the stuff on your own, fuck you if you think I am going to give all my hard work away for free. No way sir! Build your own, use mine on my conditions or do something else!
Sure, the GPL is viral. If it weren't, it probably wouldn't survive because of all those corporate and, probably misguided, personal interests. Without the GPL, we would have no tools to make a UNIX system bearable. Eat it or die!
So I suggest that all those people who claim that the GPL is bad, and let's cut the programmers from the non-programmers (these last guys probably don't even know what it's really all about), look at what they produce and how it is used by the world at large. How much money do they make? How much satisfaction do they get from the fact that somebody else is using their code?
Let's face it: why do you make software? For the money? Pity on the slave-programmers and all those misguided souls who think that de-skilling works, and software-factories are a good thing. Poor souls!
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NT is silly in the way that it doesn't work, and it's sick in the way that it does work. In a way.
``For use on * operating systems only'', where * represents free, or whatever other non-functional attribute, is clearly a case of the vendor imposing his will to restrict uses of the software which do not affect anyone else but the user. The vendor is taking away certain freedoms from the user, freedoms which don't encroach on other people's freedoms. So this is a foul restriction in the light of a basic freedom principle, namely that what other people do is their business if it doesn't affect you.
Note that the GNU license doesn't restrict uses of software, only that redistribution of the software, when it occurs, should happen in certain ways which promote the freedom. The license takes away only one freedom: the freedom to impose a reduced freedom on others.
Not all of the people who are using alternative operating systems (or who detest the monopoly that Microsoft currently enjoys) are Linux or *BSD users. Small groups of OS/2 and BeOS users still exist. Even though both of those are commercial closed-source OSes, the users of those systems are still trying to do their part to show that Windows isn't the only solution available. One of the reasons that I still find OS/2 to be a viable alternative is the fact that a lot of open source software is being ported to it. A license change which removes that possibility would make using that platform a lot more difficult.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Same goes for Solaris, Java, etc. etc... just about any mainstream commercial software product.
RMS On 'Open' Motif on slashdot of all places.
Almost every comment I have read here has been yelling at the open group for making their software open. I've been using Motif apps for years now and even bought a copy ($200 for Linux libc4) about 5 years ago. Motif has a history of being extremely high priced and totally commercial.
We should be applauding the Open Group's decision to make Motif available FREE to the open source OS's.
I've seen complaints about interoperability, read the FAQ, this is the exact same source that is used for the commercial versions of Motif! So the Motif libraries that exist under CDE for Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX, as well as the Motif libraries in IRIX will now and for the first time work seamlessly with the OpenMotif libraries under xBSD and Linux!
I applaud OSI for their release! We should encourage this activity! I wish MORE companies would do this! So evreyone should quit their griping and celebrate, now that one of the most commercialized X11 based toolkits is now available to the general public FREE on any open source system!
I think this is a great idea and should be incorporated into the GPL immediately!
The inability to use a particular piece of software for whatever purpose you can think up for it makes it non-free.
This is an step in the absolute wrong direction.
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crulx
Translation:
Waaaahhhhh! Sun won't give me stuff! Waaaahhhh!!!
If their proprietary hardware and software is so freakin' offensive to you, here's a clue: don't buy it.
OOhhhh such deep mastery of arcane principles....
Really? So if I go to the local computer store and buy RedHat Linux for $45, or cheepbytes slackware for $2.95, it ain't a free OS?
Linus Torvalds a fraud! Linux unfree! Details at 11:00.
Or is the issue more complex then that?
Very good point. Isn't some of the microcode on that Pentium processor un-free? What about the design of some of the ASICs? I'll bet the electricity comes from a generator that may have a Windows machine controlling it!
It's already happening. You just have the parties reversed.
Qt/Windows and Free are inherently incompatible. Since the only version of Qt/Windows is non-Free, it can't be used to build Free software on Windows. In this case, Qt is a non-Free, third-party library. TrollTech leaves the cop out that you can use Qt/Free with X11 libraries and an X server for Windows. Why this is absurd is left as an exercise to the reader.
GTK+, on the other hand, is licensed under the LGPL. And that means all platforms, including proprietary ones, such as Windows, BeOS, and Mac OS X.
That killer app you speak of will get here, but as a Gnome app, not KDE.
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
> No, it doesn't restrict what the end-user can do with GPL'd software. But it does restrict what another developer can do with it.
You realize that under copyright law, you have NO rights to redistribute new copies of anything without a license? GPL does NOT restrict what you can do with it, but it does enable you to redistribute, as long as you're willing to follow the GPL rules. Consider your code payment for redistribution.
Your're free to use the GPL, non-free libraries, LGPL libraries, PD libraries, or write your own. You're even free to go to the authors to get a different license (Dual-licensing).
The GPL only comes in to play when I wish to distribute software.
I once wrote a library for implementing MIME message creation, and placed it in the public domain. A colleague promptly upbraided me for not using the Gnu licence for it. Why not? Because I wanted MIME adopted widely, and did not mind if a proprietary program used it for communication to the rest of the world, including to open source programs. In general, if you want proprietary programs to use standard services, you don't want to make the licence on the standard code onerous.
davecb@spamcop.net
Why would they do that ? They would just use the M$ provided alternative and further KILL Linux or .
Embrace and extend
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Hee hee! That's a good one - I'll have to see what she thinks of it. :')
I provide support for a small Dharma group that does a lot of work translating texts from Tibetan to English. As a consequence, almost everybody in the group has a computer. We even have an IS policy: everybody has to run Windows. (Needless to say, I did not set this policy! :')
We have an additional problem - we have all vowed to behave ethically, even to people who are not behaving ethically towards us. A consequence of this is that I have to be very careful about how I copy software. Even though we aren't exactly rolling in cash, I won't pirate software.
This gives me a nice in for showcasing the good qualities of free software. I grabbed a copy of abiword the other day and installed it on one of the nuns' computers, and she was really excited - it's a free piece of software that can read Word documents and can be used for real work. So she doesn't have to spend $300 on a copy of Word. Furthermore, because the software is open source, and already supports Unicode, I am pretty sure I can modify it to support Tony Duff's GPL'd Tibetan fonts that the Trace Foundation recently released.
So this means that we can ship a free, WYSIWYG Tibetan word processor along with all the Tibetan documents we'll be sending around. This is *very* exciting. It's also good for the Free Software community, because it means that lots of people are suddently going to start using a piece of Free Software. They'll be running it on Windows at first, but as time goes on I'm hoping to wean our group off of Windows and onto Linux or NetBSD.
The end result: more market share for Open Source software. The cause: Open Source software for Windows. We'll see what happens...
A better idea might be to impose a small licensing fee for non-free Os's to be paid back to the developers. Another question how would you handle a Virtual Machine? What a bout Linux running inside VM or Linux extensions in AIX 5l?
Help fight continental drift.
Sorry if I didn't articulate this well enough. I meant using the TrollTech system not the absolute numbers. A few $'s using PayPal or some such.
Help fight continental drift.
See http://www.debian.org/social_contract, section 6 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
In a word, limiting software distribution, in any form, makes said software non-free.
Um, that you paid for the DVD?
Why does person/group A always try to force their opinion on person/group B??? This has caused most wars (both virtual and real) It's also a HUGE waste of resources.
You're right! In fact, I think anybody who forces their views on others should be forced not to, because it's wrong to do so!
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Ironically enough, we already have exactly this situation with respect to KDE and GNOME, except that the relationships are reversed. KDE and GNOME are both under GPL; however, Qt is only avaiable for Win32 (native) under a proprietary, commercial license; the GPL applies only to the X11 version of Qt. Meanwhile, GTK+ for Win32 is available under the GPL. A theoretical port of KDE to Windows (using Qt) is not possible at this point, but a theoretical port of GNOME to Windows (using GTK+) might be, depending on the quality of the port.
However, Qt is still able to grab more mindshare than GTK+ or wxWindows for Windows development, despite the fact that it's not free. This is because Qt has a reputation as superior (easier-to-use, more goodies) toolkit for Linux development than the C++ port of GTK+, and because Trolltech is pushing Qt for educational use.
Meanwhile, wxWindows (which is LGPL except that you can distribute derived works any way you like) has almost no mindshare (relatively speaking), even though it's an equivalent toolkit to Qt and is more portable than GTK or Qt.
End result: developers are more likely to sell their employers on Qt for Windows than on wxWindows or GTK+, even though it's a commercial package. Corolary: Trolltech makes some (IMO) well-deserved money.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
I don't think anyone here is debating that. The questions are: was this a good move; should other software projects do the same thing; does this help open source?
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
Your point is well taken, but speaking personally, I like the idea that the source code *has* to be made available if a project is GPL'd. This is a restriction on my ability to distribute software that I can live with, and I think that it helps the community as a whole to keep this restriction in place.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
I'm against it. I think GNU/Open Source programs should be available anywhere (Everywhere :)).
./configure .tar.gz on to the "Install from Source" icon on the desktop are equivalent.
Where I go, my tools go with me.
I invision a future where:
make
make install
and Dragging a
-Tom
I don't know. I'm used to Slashdot editors telling me how it is. You sure you can't help me out here?
What's the point? What I mean is, who would use a license like this? (I don't even understand why the Open Group does.) There are already licenses available, and in widespread use, that accomplish the goals of widespread free use and Free Software.
If you want the library to be totally open and free, use the BSD license. The BSD license and its users are all about code reuse, without regard to the manner or environment in which it's used. Free Software or proprietary, it's all OK.
If you want to allow the library to be used by Free Software developers, and still license it to proprietary developers for profit, use the GPL, ala Troll Tech. The GPL version could only be used for Free Software (that is, licensed under a GPL compatible license), but you as the developer would still be free to license the library to proprietary vendors for use in their proprietary products.
Using GPL, "large proprietary commercial empires" are already unable to "roll a truly Free piece of software into their commercial apps" or "snuff out a grass-roots open project".
Restricting the *use* of software/libraries is outside the scope of both licenses, as it should be.
That would mean I would not be using the GIMP at work on Win2k. That would hurt me (since I don't have Photoshop) and piss me off at the GIMP to the point where I wouldn't use it on a free OS either as a matter of principle -- much like many open source fans won't use commercial "equivalents" to open source programs on principle.
Microsoft doesn't even tell you that you can't run Word on Linux. They just don't make it easy or provide support if you pull it off.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
The GPL itself is already the first step on that slope. No, it doesn't restrict what the end-user can do with GPL'd software. But it does restrict what another developer can do with it.
In my day job I develop embedded firmware. There are a few pieces of GPL'd code I'd like to include in my product. But, since the whole firmware image is linked as one monolithic executable, I can't without having to give away the source to the entire ball of wax! Obviously I can't do that, since the product also uses some non-free libraries whose license agreements specifically state that their souce code shall not be distributed.
I wouldn't mind providing the source to the GPL'd modules. I wouldn't even mind providing any modifications I made to those modules to get them to compile on my platform. But that's not good enough for the GPL. No, the GPL says, "You can only use our code if you buy into our philosophy of software distribution." Which, btw, is exactly the same as the non-free licenses which say, "You can only use our code if you buy into our philosophy that code shouldn't be redistributed." Only the GPL is much more restrictive than the commercial licenses. The non-free libraries don't try to encompass the rest of my product. I could ship source code to the entire product if I wished, minus the code for the proprietary libraries. Under the GPL, I have to provide source for my entire product. It doesn't just apply itself to the GPL'd code I imported, but to every last source file.
At least with the non-free libraries I can still choose whether or not my own code is free. If I include any GPL'd code I no longer have that choice. Tell me again how the GPL is non-restrictive?
Chelloveck
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
So what about running OpenMotif under Windows under VMware under Linux?
What about it?
Both Windows and VMWare are proprietary, non-open source pieces of software. Just because they're both running under Linux doesn't mean squat.
Let me ask you this - just because you're holding something I own, does that change the fact that I own it?
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
It would be a perfectly reasonable license for proprietary code, but it's not free software, because free software does not restrict use. Duh. Why are you even posting this crap? Surely, there's real stuff to talk about...
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
...at http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/license/
</karma whore>
I think the next natural evolution for such a concept would include creating true, open licenses for standards. How many times has Micro$oft performed an "embrace and extend" lobotomy on various kinds of standards? (Remember the old days, when IE was actually more of a substandard of the web - a little like AOL's nyetscape?)
Protecting our software is one thing, but I think we should make sure that if corporations hop on the bandwagon, they don't steal our horses. If this was done for the web, for instance, we would be stuck with all this IE specific crap in web pages since it would be a derivative of a protected work. Let's face it - the reason it's there is to make the web incompatible with every other browser, even if it is only a temporary annoyance. This could get fairly complicated from a legal standpoint, but I think it needs to happen.
It's not in the least "self-contradictory". The GPL protects the freedom of the software, not the freedom of the author or users. It exists to ensure that no matter what, the software will always retain the same freedom that the license gives it, and no one can take that away.
I can see the argument for restricting use of code to free OSes. But that is not in the spirit of Free (as in speach not beer) Software.
I think that restricting use of software would only bring us down to the level of the code horders.
Join us now and free the software.
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Open Motif is free on free OSes, and is non-free on non-free OSes.
That does not mean you can't use Open Motif on a non-free OS.
From the link provided in the article:
"The existing commercial release of Motif continues to be available for non-Open Source distribution, full details of the license and pricing information is at: www.opengroup.org/software_licensing.htm
The public license will allow the release of the Motif source code, as a product called Open Motif, for use, reproduction and distribution on operating systems that are themselves Open Source programs, such as Linux and FreeBSD, without the payment of royalties."
Additionally, by preventing it's adoption from proprietary OS's, it (by definition) slows the adoption in general.
Take a look at Ximian - Solaris has already offered a preview to customers and IIRC, it is going to become the default desktop at some point. How can this be a bad thing?
--
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
Playing keep away and acting like brats doesn't do anyone any good, just ask Apple. The sole real-world advantage of open source/free software is that it often works better than commercial software. Make it so that it doesn't work, or you're not allowed to make it work and people will simply not bother with it.
Besides, is it really a BAD thing for a company to take some code an build a business off it? I've never heard of anyone storming the offices of BSDI and demanding that the company stop selling its open source derived OS.
To me open source represents a needed increase in competition more than anything else. I don't believe it will take over the world or put an end to commercial software. In fact I don't even believe there is any need to. What is needed is something to shake the industry up and knock some particularly big fish down to size so that everyone has more room to swim.
In a way open source is kind of like a gun. Both give their owners the ability to defend themselves from tyrrany. In the case of guns the tyrrany might be the government, but that doesn't mean that an honest government that is accountable to the people is a bad thing. In the case of open source the tyrrany might be companies like Microsoft that have so much power that they can abuse their customers. Open source provides competitive products that can't be bought out and whose parent companies can't be bankrupted. This forces companies that might otherwise try to exploit their customers to treat those customers with a little more respect. In the long run most people are better off because of this. If we start being jackasses and try to tell people where and how they can use a particular piece of software then how does that make us any different from the customer's point of view than some commercial entity telling them where and how they can use a piece of software?
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Stop talking about this or a particular company that we all know of will use this "avenue" to FUD the poor-minded corporate against the whole Open-Source movement.
I may add a first born child clause at some point too. Or a root beer one.
;-)
Ah... that would be "free as in root beer," then?
Or would that be "free(2) as in uid 0 beer"?
Hmm... I think I should wake up in the mornings, BEFORE posting
Tell us, oh Software Master, where is your wondrous public domain software located?
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
I don't see the problem unless you want to use their software the way the original programmers do not want you to. In that case feel free to reverse-engineer and write your own version of the software and use the license you want, just don't hassle the original programmers just because you don't like the license they chose...
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
I've run Apache successfully on Win2K, and indeed I know quite a few people who do.
But remember Solaris isn't a free OS either, and who knows how many thousands of Apache servers are running on Solaris???
Keep in mind: Microsoft isn't the only non-free OS company!!!
-David.
Well it's widely acknowledged that visical sold a lot of apple IIs. If you have a killer app that everone wants but it only runs on linux or only runs on free software you would get people to switch just to use that software. The ricky part of course is to get that software in the first place.
War is necrophilia.
I don't think you understand what free software means.
Free software does not mean cross platform software. If I wrote a game that ran on linux but not on windows because it used X AND that game was wildly popular people would switch to linux to play the game that their friends were raving about. The game could be GPLed and free. The software license has nothing to do with what platform it runs on.
I think people should write free software but I don't necessary think they should write cross platform software (unless of course it's nothing special). This is especially true if the software is clearly superior to commercial version or is enough of an enticement to lure users into linux.
War is necrophilia.
Even if the source if Free it would be a herculean effort to port an X game over to the windows or mac platform.
You can not have enough "killer apps" apache is a killer app for linux but windows has exchange, IE, quicken and dozens of other "killer apps" which don't run on other operating systems. These discourage people from switching to other OSes as well as luring them to switch from other OSes. Linux needs it's own arsenal of "must have" software packages that only run on linux (or at least on linux and freebsd). When we have this arsenal we will have incentive for people to switch. Until then there is no other reason then ideology.
It's not that you'd be forcing people to switch they would choose to come over here because the grass is greener.
War is necrophilia.
What is the difference fundamentally between saying
"that piece of software you own can only be used on OSes that we approve of"
and "that DVD you own can only be played on devices we approve of"
How does the GPL limit software distribution? Do you mean a lower limit?
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Why does person/group A always try to force their opinion on person/group B??? This has caused most wars (both virtual and real) It's also a HUGE waste of resources.
As someone said before, that's not freedom, but anarchy. If I am "free" to shoot you in the head for no reason, do you consider yourself to be living in a free nation?
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Saying the GPL is restrictive is purely semantic.
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Please note that he's not the typical GPL supporter. I am a GPL supporter, and I really don't mind if people make money from my software. I think my mindset is more common than that of the parent of your post.
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Correction: GPL is freedom; public domain is anarchy. Some people don't mind anarchy (which is fine, in this case).
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Have you emailed nVidia to nag it to release the source today?
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GPL FAQ? Do you have a link?
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People don't all stor their kernel sources in /usr/src/linux .
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It's basically a question of whether or not we (the free OS community) want to compete head-on with the proprietary OS companies. If we're going to go into fierce competition with proprietary systems, we're not going to want to give those systems any advantages, like using free software on proprietary systems.
I expect there will be a never-ending flamewar about this, because people with different visions will have different opinions on this matter.
I think, in the end, there will be five mindsets when it comes to software licencing:
Failing to understand each other, these groups will be in constant conflict and will fragment the market.
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Not the GNU definition, the OSD (Open Source Definition) and/or the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines).
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Yes. Yes I do. However, in certain cases, and only in those cases, I am willing to trade a bit of freedom for security. I am willing to say that people should be prevented from or punished for doing things that deprive people of life, health, or property. But that's all. So, yes, being able to do anything you want is total freedom, but total freedom may not be a good thing.
The developers of GPLed software usually want the security of not having their software used by Microsoft.
On the other hand, I remain open to the position that total freedom is in fact a good thing. Unlike you, who just wants to push the GNU "non-GPL software is tainted" ideology.
Now you've offended me. I have never pushed the "`non-GPL software is tainted' ideology". I have absolutely no problem with people distributing software in the public-domain (or BSDL, which is almost the same thing). In fact, I advocate it when the goal is for the software to become an industry standard, or if the code is so trivial that nobody should have to rewrite it because of copyright issues. Heck, if it weren't for BSD, Darwin wouldn't exist. My central complaint is that anti-GPL/anti-RMS people keep pushing the "GPL software is tainted/viral/etc" ideology.
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There's also the "embrace, extend, and extinguish" argument -- that they don't want Microsoft to use their code to keep it free of Microsoft's "innovations".
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Richmond (led by Raymond) declaring war on Redmond?
The sales figures of Windows games belie that apparent simplicity.
'You may only use this software on an OS that conforms to license X'
is the same as:
'You may only use this disc on a player that conforms to license Y'
And we all know how offensive such a clause is to the slashdot community, don't we?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I think this really limits the ways that large entities could migrate to using Linux/etc. As an example, say you're in IT at a corporation that currently uses Windows and IIS as a web server. M$ is going to start charging you rent with the next version of the OS and you know that they'll stop developing new widgets for your version soon. Money is tight in the new market and you want to start moving to something that you'll be able to keep getting new benefits from without all the cost.
Would you want to have your staff switch to a new OS and a new HTTP server at the same time? Or would you rather they learn the new server, then the new OS after they get a grasp on the first? If Apache adopted such a clause they wouldn't be able to migrate as gradually.
Lib.BENCH the only site you'll ever need!
GPL ensures that derivative works are free to the same degree that the origial work was free to begin with. \irony
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
Maya for linux use openmotif...
The definition of Open Source, as detailed in the Licenses in question is as follows.
These clauses say nothing about disallowing distribution or use on "non-free" operating systems as the original poster implied. Review definition above and compare it to the word "non-free".
Additionally, Open Group is willing to provide an alternative license for the software, as stated by the License. This caveate emptor is very similar to what Trolltech used to do with Qt. It is also a clause that keeps the Open Group API and software in the "non-free" branch of Debian. For example, this is the information on the libmotif package:
--
assert(expired(knowledge));
> Stealing free software is already illegal.
How do you steal something that is free ?!?
> If somebody is already claiming it as their own, how is this clause going to stop them?
That is plagiarizing, aka copyright infringement and fraud, not stealing.
> For instance a free publication might say "only one per person". If you took 500 then this would be theft.
That's a good example, but then it's not 100% free, since it's freedom depends on a conditional.
> Perhaps you are not aware that the "free" in software is meant as in "liberty" rather than "for no cost".
Yes, I am quite aware of the difference. I just wanted you to clarify which meaning of free you were using.
> In many cases free software comes with restrictions designed to protect this freedom. Hence its quite possible to steal it if you deny these restrictions.
If something is truely "free", then you can't steal it. In this case you would just be breaking the license agreement, probably infringing the copyright.
I believe that the reason is that the OpenMotif authors are trying to get the best of both worlds. If you notice, OpenMotif is Motif ("The public license will allow the release of the Motif source code, as a product called Open Motif"). However, OpenMotif isn't licenced for "non-free" operating systems because "The existing commercial release of Motif continues to be available for non-Open Source distribution".
In other words, some companies paid for the right to distribute Motif on non-Open Source platforms, and T.O.G. wants to retain that business. However, on Open Source platforms, T.O.G. has competition that has undercut their position in the market (MooTIF, for example) and effectively prevented Motif from entering the arena, since few companies are willing to pay for a licence to distribute a product that can otherwise be obtained for free. This OpenMotif licence is T.O.G.'s attempt to regain some "Open Source platform" ground for Motif without disturbing the paying customers (too much).
"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
"Just imagine, the large proprietary commercial empires wouldn't be able to roll a truly Free piece of software into their commercial apps and claim their own innovation..."
Stealing free software is already illegal. If somebody is already claiming it as their own, how is this clause going to stop them?
--
"A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye." -- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
ad
electricity comes from a generator that may have a Windows machine controlling it!
And they'd be idiots if there were one.. MS has said, at one time or another, that one of their operating systems was capable of anything.
Now look at your license for Windows. NT, NE, WfW, 386, doesn't matter.. See down there near the bottom, where they specifically tell you not to do exactly this?
.sig: Now legally binding!
I'd rely on the GPL to keep my code free.
We know that the QT toolkit works in Windows 9X, so KDE apps could (I guess) be ported over without having to recode for a new interface.
Let's say the GTK+ is released with this clause, and all work on the Windows version of GTK+ was halted.
Somebody makes a killer KDE app that Windows doesn't have. It gets released on Windows as well (with a little work), so all the Windows users see it. Gnome comes out with it's own version, but due to the restrictions in the license, the Windows users never see it. More KDE apps get ported over and used. People get used to the KDE apps (and maybe even X windows).
When they decide to run Linux, what window manager will they run? Probably KDE. They've seen it, they've used it, and it makes sense to them (after they've used it for a while). They don't bother with Gnome. After all, KDE works fine, so why mess with what works?
The end result would be lots of Windows users using KDE and not Gnome. Gnome would have lost mindshare in this scenario.
Is this scenario likely to happen? I hope not.
Windows is trademarked by Microsoft, yada yada yada.
Who said the "War Betwen The States" was over?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I think the quote in the US Senate at the beginning of the Civil War went something like this:
"With my handkerchief, I shall wipe all of the blood that will be shed in this war"
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Yes. Yes I do. However, in certain cases, and only in those cases, I am willing to trade a bit of freedom for security. I am willing to say that people should be prevented from or punished for doing things that deprive people of life, health, or property. But that's all. So, yes, being able to do anything you want is total freedom, but total freedom may not be a good thing.
On the other hand, I remain open to the position that total freedom is in fact a good thing. Unlike you, who just wants to push the GNU "non-GPL software is tainted" ideology.
Absolutely ridiculous. Are you saying that if I release some BSD or public domain code, someone can come and take the rights to that code away from me, close up the source, and continue to distribute the binaries as closed source? I don't think so. Mostly, I don't think you know what you're talking about.
The GPL protects the freedom of the software, not the freedom of the author or users.
I suspect you don't know very much about property law. Property law defines the relationship between people regarding property. Property itself cannot have any rights or freedoms. So if the GPL doesn't protect the freedom of the author or users, it doesn't protect any freedom at all.
Anyway, this Open Motif licensing clause is just another example of open source hypocrisy: "This software is totally open and free. Unless, of course, you are one of those moral halfpints who don't agree with our philosophies."
Whaaaaaat? You're not making any sense. The poster said, or at least implied, that under non-GPL licenses, anyone who wanted to could take the code and declare the rights to it, closing it up. So did you. THIS IS NOT TRUE. And the whole point of the BSDL is that I don't particularly care what the user does, as long as I get some credit. Even if Microsoft or some other large company decides they want my code, and they take it and use it, that doesn't by any means make my code any less available, which is the point I was raising.
The developers of GPLed software usually want the security of not having their software used by Microsoft.
Which just goes to prove the point that GPLers aren't interested in good code for the sake of good code, they're interested mainly in pushing a political ideology. "Wahhh, wahhh, Microsoft is a successful business, and I don't want to share my toys with them. So I'm going to make sure that nobody can use my stuff unless they agree to my terms." Yeah, I've heard it before, and it only reinforces my point. The GPL isn't about freedom, it's about a utopian "software is free" society. When people start pushing their ethics on other people, even people they don't like, that's when freedom loving people get scared.
Personally, if Microsoft decided that some code I'd written is better than what they could do in house, as long as they give me credit I'd be thrilled to have helped make a Microsoft product something better than the total piece of crap it more than likely was.
My central complaint is that anti-GPL/anti-RMS people keep pushing the "GPL software is tainted/viral/etc" ideology.
Well, the whole concept behind the GPL is that it is viral, so if you have a problem with that then perhaps you need to sit down for awhile and think.
Ok, I don't usually reply to my own posts. Sorry!
But from the Open Motif license FAQ,
"The Open Group's intent is that this applies only to the kernel of the operating system, without regard to any bundled utilities or application software. This includes all known distributions of Linux and BSD distributions. To find out if an operating system qualifies check whether kernel sources are available under criteria meeting the OSI's Open Source Definition."
Since only the kernel has to be Open Source (not necessarily Free in the RMS view) Mac OS X would be allowed to run this, it would seem.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Ok, this seems like a good thing at first. But what about partially-free OSs? I'm assuming this license would NOT let someone use Open Motif on something like Mac OS X, which has lots of non-Free stuff on top of Free stuff (OTOH, you could use Open Motif on Darwin!)
So that begs the question of where do you draw the line? How much non-free stuff added to a free OS makes it non-Free? There has to be some allowance, or any Linux distro that came with some bundled commercial app would be non-Free (or worse, even Debian would become non-Free if someone installed some non-Free utility or driver on it).
But Mac OS X becomes an interesting question. You could replace the kernel of Mac OS X with the kernel from Darwin - they're identical - and what you truly would have is a bunch of non-free userland stuff running on a Free kernel.
What do people think?
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
I'm not a GNU zealot, or generally outspoken in the Freesoftware movement. I use Linux almost exclusivly, and urge others to at least try it. I say this only so you know my background, and that I'm not a zealot OR biggot.
.jpg I made with the Gimp in Paint Shop? That I can't use an open-source driver to power a proprietary device?
I'm really against this. Free Software should be just that. Free. If I get a piece of free software, I expect the source code to be there, so I can go through, and change things to work better for me. I also expect the ability to change it enough to run on my systems.
Maybe I'm wrong, and expecting too much. Maybe I, as an end user, shouldn't expect this kind of freedom, but if something's labeled as free software, this is what I expect. A license that says I can modify it, and use it to suit my needs.
In my opinion, free software should not be restricted by what you use it in conjunction with. If I want to port vi to BeOS, I should be allowed to. And if you think that this is going to start and stop with Windows, you are wrong. How big of a change would it to be to say that I can't open a
There should be restrictions on open sourced programs, but I think these restrictions should be
to protect the user, not restrict him.
Don't make money off someone else's free software, and don't tell me how to use it.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
for some software at least.
I think for software such as web browsers and office suites, attaining "critical mass" is a hugely important step. You can go from always playing catchup to the most widely used standard setting software (office, ie) to actually having people exchange documents in your native format and testing their webpages in your browser.
Pigeonholing your software to only be usable on OSes which are in the vast minority is not going to help this cause.
Hell, it probably hurts the OSes in these cases. A reasonable way to try to get people to migrate off closed source OSes like windows would be to provide useful software ON windows that is also available on free OSes. If at some point they find that they can use the SAME software on another OS that happens to be free, switching will seem like much less of a hassle. Of course, the free OS needs to be easy to use...
My "Open Source License" (Legally binding in the state of Virginia) secretly indoctrinates you into the Open Source Army which, once it becomes large eough, will march on Redmond. I may add a first born child clause at some point too. Or a root beer one. Yes, software licensing CAN be fun!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That my friend is the BSD license. You can use that software for any use, commercial or non. There is no clause for it to remain open source, and they even removed the advertising clause (you had to say that part of your code was copyright UCB regents, etc etc etc)
If the GPL is "so simple", why is it 6 pages long, Corel had 'violated' it 2 times, AOL 'violated' it, and the Virgin webplayer 'violated' it?
If you want the simplist license, that is "this software is in the public domain".
Then next simplist is the 2 clause FreeBSD license.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Guess what?
:-)
An early Office 95 license said something to the effect "This can only be used on officially licenced Windows OSes"
I have to find that, so I can post it
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
personally, I saw the possibility of this:
You paid $99.95 for Win 95 at CompUSA and did not send in the warranty card, to register the software. By not sending in the card, you did not 'offically license' the OS, and therefore office was not leally run on your box.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
is a software distribution that is neither "free" (according to RMS) or "open source" (according to the open source definition). It is incompatible with the Debian Free Software guidelines, so it can't be made part of the Debian distribution. RedHat won't touch it, for the same reason. I doubt that any of the groups that distribute free or open source operating system distributions will want to touch this puppy. And there is always LessTif.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
"I wrote the software, and you will use it how I say."
and
"I bought this software, and I'll use it any way I damn well please."
Is the "bad greedy corporation" side just on the other side of where you happen to be? i.e. what doesn't benefit you freely?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
If Open Source activists were environmentalists, then GNU would be Earth First!, and RMS would be ELF, out in the woods, spiking trees and torching Aspen ski lodges.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Free software is only truly free if it has no restrictions on where it can be used. The GPL only protects the author and encourages giving back to the community, but it does not in any way restrict my use of the software. I'm all for protection of the author's rights, but this is going a step too far.
Hmmm...when intellectual property companies try to attach nonsense like "You are not licensed to read this version of Alice In Wonderland aloud," the people here go nuts.
How is saying "you can't run this program on non-free OS systems" any different than that?
Free software should prosper because it's a better model, not because people are forced into it so they can use certain programs...
Ok, so prove it's the better model.
Exactly, *you* can't - because only market forces over a period of time can do that. I'm on your side and I agree that the cure should never be worse than the disease, but this is just another way to affect those market forces.
In fact this might well be the best way to make a contribution to the success of Free Software, by ensuring that something of the vision remains once the tangibles become freely available..
That's pretty paradoxial IMHO: If free software has to force me to switch entire systems for everything I use my computer for, it's no longer free. Thus, it cannot exist. It should be called forced software instead, or remain a lie. This is the excact reason the GPL is called free: It doesn't constrict use. Such constrictions are silly artificial barriers that will melt-down soon enough when people discovers how absolutely stupid it is. Remember that distribution != use.
Not to mention it would be like shooting yourself in the foot again and again and again, since nobody but a few hardcore supporters are only using free software in their day-to-day life. And if that's an argument against free software, well that has its reason because free software hasn't really had the amount of mindshare that proprietary software has had.
All in all, those who think the world only consists of a battle between free vs proprietary software, are sadly mistaken.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Well the whole point of sharing is that you give some, you get some. If somebody are never given to, they will surely stagnate and die (in a general system). Your company is a company that doesn't want to give back when it is given something, which is the very reason the GPL exists.
However, the GPL doesn't really cover stuff like object brokers and self-supported programs, maybe you could use that as a loop-hole? Since the use of a GPLed program is free, you can use the output as you wish (unless it outputs code that is copyright/copyleft). Good luck!
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I know. I was referring to constrictions on use as non-free. Btw, if the source is free (readable and modifiable), there's nothing to stop someone else from porting to other platforms (as long as they get the source). My comment was a reply on the notion that free software should be constricted to a free-platform only. The part of free that is great, is that a windows manager for linux is easily ported to the BSD-family for instance.
;-)
So many are talking about this "killer-app" that could lure everyone onto linux. I don't believe that's entirely true, because linux already has a "killer-app" that noone can take away (we hope), it's free. Whatever the linux-crowd do with the OS, someone else can do with a proprietary OS (except for making it free, since it would no longer be proprietary). But you'd have to have alot of really dedicated people, to freely deliver systems to support people who don't support them back. In the longer run, that does not work. So I don't see why everyone should switch to linux. Not until people freely chose so themselves, because linux is free and they wish to be a part of it, not because they just want a free ride. When linux is mature enough as a desktop OS, maybe then it could be an ideal OS for non-technical people. But as it is now, linux demands you to learn your ropes (not just click some icons), which I think is great btw. Having said that, I would personally much rather support Linux than any proprietary platform if I were to administer a network of desktop OSes for use of textprocessors and spreadsheets. Even through Wine or Win4Lin
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I think you got the right idea, but the wrong conclusion. Porting may be hard, but it's next to impossible without the source. However, just look at cygwin, a posix-compatible layer on windows that makes it possible to compile alot of linux-tools on it. Many of these no longer require source-changes (merged with linux source). They are even working on an X-server, and have a fully downloadable/updateable distribution full of goodies like ls, cp, diff, vi, etc. Conclusion: Whatever "killer apps" linux gets, it will eventually be ported to Windows and/or other proprietary OSes because it is free and therefore can be ported. Cygwin is even funded by Red Hat, what business sense that makes I don't know, but it makes sense for free applications across platforms (=more freedom).
The point of free software is not "killer apps", lock-ins (or luring) and world conquest. The whole point is to educate people to see that free software (two-way sharing of code) can be beneficial to all, and get them involved in it. If people don't see this, they deserve to be stuck in whatever proprietary world they belong to. This is how the world works, not because it's evil. It's a classical mistake to throw pearls before swine.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I never read RMS objecting to the porting of GNU tools on Windows, for instance, while the proposal debated here would make it illegal.
Libraries are a bit tricker, because 'using a library' and 'making a derivative work of the library' are almost the same thing. IMHO LGPL is a good thing, but then I never wrote a single line of free software.
Ciao
----
FB
For one, the GPL could not contain such a clause, as it is based (wisely, I feel) on Copyright, and grants additional rights to the user, provided certain steps are followed. Telling someone what OS they can run the software on is a right removal, and therefor incompatible.
Other Free licenses which are based on shrinkwrap-style licensing could incorporate such a restriction, but there are several reasons why I feel that this would be a mistake. Firstly, it is overly combative. Free software has been about sharing and cooperation, and about demonstrating the superiority of such an approach, not about "us" and "them" and fighting a war because "they" are bad and "we" are good. Secondly, if we're going to call it Free(unencumbered) software, it's kind of moronic to then add all sorts of restrictions to its use the same way non-Free software producers do.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Please, let everyone involved in using or advocating free software/open-source software support this idea, so we can guarantee that we're always a niche market. Make sure that companies know that if they plan on making money, they can forget using anything that might be free or open. Force them to spend money on developing their own alternatives, or licensing them from some other bloated, slow, expensive corporation, so that in the end those of us who have to work with this shit are penalized.
By all means, discourage companies like Sun, one of the only respected and thus viable alternatives to M$ in the enterprise, from supporting open source and providing wider acceptance in the minds of the people who don't use this technology, but purchase it or manage those who do use it. Help keep us paying for all of this bloated, slow, commercial software, by forcing these companies to offer no alternatives. i hope that there aren't many others who share your philosophy, or at least that they're intelligent enough to keep their fucking mouths shut. No one is forcing you to purchase Sun, but you want to force anyone who does to not take advantage of free software.
With that kind of mindset, you must be a GPL supporter. Interested only in making sure that no one is allowed to do what you do NOT want, like some kind of over-controlling parent.
you gpl motherfuckers don't seem to get it. i like using free software - it's usually better than the shite i have to use under AIX or Solaris, but you don't like me using it because i paid for the operating system? fuck you. if that is truly the philosphy of those who support the GPL, the sooner it dies the better for all of us. i hate to break it to you, but it's not an all-or-nothing world outside of your bedroom with your one peecee. Not everyone who'd rather run Linux or *BSD in the enterprise over AIX or Solaris can do so - and because we have no choice in the matter, we're to be penalized? fuck that, and a big "Fuck You" to RMS and any other motherfucker who supports this philosophy. Freedom means that you do NOT restrict, dipshits.
do you remember when OS/2 was kind of popular (you might not, since it was before linux became mainstream)? did you read the license with any M$ product at that time? it restricted the product's use to windows, in an effort to keep that software from being used under Win-OS/2. check it out...
I don't know...but isn't this the same as the MPAA or the RIAA telling me how I can listen and use the DVDs or CDs I buy? I mean one of the things free software is about is choice...the freedom to choose and not be locked into one monopoly (at least that's what I hear the zealots scream about). Wouldn't that kind of restriction take away my right to choose what and HOW I want to run my software?
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
Alas, the irony...
--
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
This is the recurring difference between "free" software and "open source" software.
Will there ever be software that's really "free"? Somebody else's code with which you can do whatever YOU like? I don't think this is truly "free"dom, but this is chaos!
True "free" software also protects the "free"dom of the initial owner, as well as the "free"dom of he user/distributor/...
StarTrek.org Free Webmail
only market forces over a period of time can do that
.oO0Oo.
only if you think economic success is the only success.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
So if I download the .ico for Redhat for free, I am in compliance with the license, but if I buy it in a store I'm not?
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Actually, if you take away the right to run apache on microsoft... you lose almost nothing. No sane person would run apache on MS. People who run MS, run IIS on top of it, etc.
But losing the ability to run apache on solaris, etc. would have killed it, during initial development.
Then again, nowadays, the ultra-conservative GNU faction figure "Hey, there are now enough GNU-free OS's out there, we can finally snub the others, like we wanted to all along".
Good reason to push BSD/artistic/etc licenses instead of knee-jerk GNU licensing.
I write software that I let people freely use. (Heck, some of it is in Debian). But I want people to be able to use it on ANY platform they choose, in any fashion. Which is why I will never choose GPL as a license for any software I write and distribute. (LGPL, on the other hand, is acceptible)
isn't the CYGWIN.DLL released under LGPL
No. Cygwin1.dll is under GPL with exception "You may link this library to any OSI certified open source software." The -mno-cygwin switch uses msvcrt.dll instead of cygwin1.dll; so does MinGW GCC.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"I don't want to share my toys with them. So I'm going to make sure that nobody can use my stuff unless they agree to my terms." Yeah, I've heard it before, and it only reinforces my point.
Developers also don't want Microsoft contaminating their RFC-conforming code with "embrace and extend" RFC violations like MS did with Kerberos and a lot of other MIT and BSD licensed software.
Personally, if Microsoft decided that some code I'd written is better than what they could do in house, as long as they give me credit I'd be thrilled to have helped make a Microsoft product something better than the total piece of crap it more than likely was.
Would you want Microsoft to turn your code into a piece of crap? GPL, QPL, and other copyleft licenses protect the integrity of the code by requiring any changes to be visible to anyone with access to diff.exe.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Both Windows and VMWare are proprietary, non-open source pieces of software. Just because they're both running under Linux doesn't mean squat.
Likewise, Award BIOS is a proprietary, non-open source pieces of software. So is the Athlon, Pentium, and Crusoe microcode. Just because Linux is running on top of it doesn't mean squat. The definition of "operating system" is too vague.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If Open Motif's license does not allow you to use it on top of proprietary code, good luck soldering your own microprocessors, as Pentium microcode is non-free software, and Crusoe's Code Morphing(TM) microcode is even covered by Transmeta's patents.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Strict Free - Like GPLv2, but without the "proprietary OS" exception; binaries can only be distributed for free systems.
The Debian Free Software Guidelines state that your "Strict Free" is not Free at all.
Besides, define "free system." One where you soldered your own processor instead of using proprietary Crusoe code-morphing microcode? Otherwise, you could circumvent the license by running the code under an emulator.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The GPL doesn't actually restrict the end user fom doing anything. As an end user, I can download GPLed programs and link them with damn well whatever libraries I want
It's true that the GPL doesn't touch use of software, but there may be other licenses on a piece of software (especially server software) that do affect its use and do not conflict with the GPL. Such licenses would be under the "public performance" provision of copyright law; even if you're not distributing binaries, the copyright owner has the exclusive right to authorize parties to provide the application as a public service.
(Of course, nothing you read on Slashdot is legal advice.)Will I retire or break 10K?
In my day job I develop embedded firmware. There are a few pieces of GPL'd code I'd like to include in my product. But, since the whole firmware image is linked as one monolithic executable, I can't without having to give away the source to the entire ball of wax! ... I wouldn't mind providing the source to the GPL'd modules. I wouldn't even mind providing any modifications I made to those modules to get them to compile on my platform. But that's not good enough for the GPL.
I looked into this issue when thinking about how to license my GPL'd NES games for use in a "pirate" multicart image. You can probably cover parts of your embedded image as mere aggregation under the GNU GPL if you create an abstraction of "an executable" that can be extracted from the monolithic ROM image and be replaced independently. NES has such a concept; it's called a "program bank" that can be bankswitched into the address space.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In this case, someone considering Open Motif has the choice to use an alternative that provides similar functionality.
Lesstif is source-compatible with TOG's Motif and is under Lesser GPL.
With DVDs, you don't have an alternative
VHS. Or video capture to MPEG-4.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Try linking a GPL program with a non-free (but freely distributable) library and then ask me how the GPL doesn't limit distribution.
Sounds anticompetitive to me.
You can use our product, as long as you don't use it on a platform that costs $$$.
Also, why the hell should the goal of the Linux community be to snuff our M$? What about just producing useful software? What about compatibility? Is all of this compatibility merely to undermine M$? Anybody who's been in the business long realizes that compatibility should be a goal so that you can be more productive, not so that you can snuff out everyone else! What if M$ wrote in a clause saying that you couldn't run their apps under any other OS? Good bye emulators and WINE. (Hope I didn't give them any ideas).
Eh...
Restricting usage to free operating systems will not further that goal. People can still use the software without sharing back to the community (although this can be achieved with additional license clauses). And few people are going to switch to free operating systems just because of one application (unless it is a real killer-app (and few of them exists)).
Why would I want people using e.g. Solaris to not use my software? If they use it, the software is likely to get contributions from their users, improve in quality and grow. By restricting usage to Linux/*BSD and other free systems only, I will no longer be able to take advantage of knowledgeable users of other systems. Thus, I am not even helping the growth of even my own free software!
So, if the idea is to further the growth of free software, I would advice against it.
Secondly, would any of the free OS's gain much by having unwilling users being forced to switch? I don't think so. People should use free software because it has advantages for them (be it better quality, lower costs, more flexibility, or for educational reasons). That is the way to get inspired users who will contribute to the project. I doubt anyone who is forced to run Linux (or some other free OS) simply for license reasons are likely to contribute much to the Linux (or other free OS) community.
Besides, even many Linux users are going to shun something under this license. If you can use it at home, but not at your workplace, then what good is it? Find something else, and not bother with it unless it is something really exciting. Well, that's how I think anyway...
As I understand it, an effort was made to solve this issue by having the contributors license their IP to the public for free, but contributors balked (or even more likely, got bogged down in their own legal departments). Hence this weird compromise.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Then consider an embedded OS that utilizes a less restrictive license, such as the BSD license. That is what my company does (Also one of the largest 3 or 4 cell phone manufacturers out there, but my group doesn't do phones, we do routers) and we have some technology that we plan to contribute back to the community. Most of the code changes that we've done are only relevant to our hardware, and is useless without it, but some is useful in its own right, so where we can, we will give back.
RMS wants you to use the GPL for your libraries, not the LGPL, for this very reason. If you GPL your libraries, then it means no proprietary software can use your library, period. That's exactly what his point was. :)
See his comments
here.
> But I agree adding this restriction is foolhardy.
> It undermines the very principle of user freedom
> -- ichimunki
So people should not have the freedom to prevent others from charging for support for code the "chargers" didn't write? One should not have the freedom to prevent code you wrote from being available from commercial banner ad sites? One should not licence code you wrote so that derivatives must use a different name?
I think people should be allowed to licence their code any way they want, and if that licence is too restrictive for you - don't use the code.
--
mrBlond
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
Apache is a nice example here. It runs fine on Windows and I suspect quite a few NT admins have chosen to run apache over IIS for price/performance issues.
Hopefully these sys admins will see that open source can provide a very high quality solution and perhaps their next server will be Linux.
As open source projects get more mature I really think that more work should be put into porting them to windows and macos. Having a user using OpenOffice instead of M$Office is excellent and puts them one step closer to adopting a free OS.
Microsoft requires in certain cases that some of its software - Patches and Service Packs for some products come to mind - only be used on a licensed copy of a Microsoft Operating Systems. So the answer is that yes, they can require it. I suspect it probably would be upheld too, based on the kind of crap the courts are allowing.
The lessons of history teach us - if anyone ever learns the lessons that history teaches us - that nobody ever learns the lessons that history teaches us.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Imagine the reverse scenario. Could I write proprietary software, and restrict its use to proprietary OSes? I think not.
Proprietary software is generally closed-source. Compile only for your proprietary OS (or have some sort of a license manager) and you can restrict its uage to proprietary OS'es pretty easily.
Take a look at Ximian - Solaris has already offered a preview to customers and IIRC, it is going to become the default desktop at some point. How can this be a bad thing?
It's a bad thing because it causes the bloated, slow, commercial giants to use open source to leverage their own sales. I cringe when I think of how Sun is going to use GNOME to push their proprietary OS for their proprietary hardware (and their slooow x86 port).
I wonder what RMS's take on this whole concept is.
Word is the dominant product. All becuase of marketing and the business side of things. Word was not a better product, it just fought a better battle selling itself to the public. Heck, Commodore, Atari, Amiga, even TRS-80 and TI, all good products in their time. None of them have a major impact on the marketplace. The business side of things matters.
Limiting the products as suggested to only free OSes would ensure they will become obsolete.
But what you're also doing is making it so that the only people who can use free software are people who are already using free software. Right now I can download Apache for WIN32, and be really happy with it and show my boss: Isn't this great, this free software thingy kicks ass, maybe we should look into other things we can use it for.
If you force software onto free software only platforms then it's harder to move people onto free software, because you have to do it completly, instead of a piece by piece approach.
Reducing product mobility will decrease your marketshare so long as you're not the majority. If you are the majority then you want to lock people onto your platform. But if you're not then causing barriers to entry is not helpful.
If you write GPL software and release the source people can do whatever the hell they want with it. If they want to port it to MS's OS then that's their perogative. Artifically limiting what people can do with free software is the first step in the slippery slope towards complex restrictive EULA hell.
I wouldn't want free OS's to prosper if the only way it could be done would be to use microsoftian licensing terms.
Free software should prosper because it's a better model, not because people are forced into it so they can use certain programs. I can't stress enough how similair this is to microsoft. Why do you use windows? Because everybody in your office uses Word and you have to as well. you have no choice.
As a community open source developers and programmers have consistently worked to make their products gain acceptance on the entire market. Non-free software will exist well into the forseeable future (I believe that free and non-free can coexist forever), so it's important to make sure that open source products aren't shooting themselves in the foot.
As soon as an open source product proclaims that it can't be used on "non-free" operating systems, the license ceases to be truly "free". Besides, a definition of "free" would need to be provided, and enforcement is close to impossible. In addition, it would serve to do nothing but piss of major corporations on the fence for using open source software - they don't know what kind of operating system they'll be running in the future. Companies are inherently afraid of locking themselves into something they can't completely trust. They trust that Microsoft will be around in some form in 5 years, but there's no guarantee that these open source operating systems will be as popular and widely used as they are now.
Anyway, I hope for the future of open source that license developers refuse to include this addition.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
What about ones freedom to MAKE MONEY? Or is that just another right that the GPL tramples
Gimme a break. There is no such thing as absolute freedom. The most that can be expected, in any aspect of society, is maximize everybody's freedom while keeping its alloting more or less egalitarian. That's what the GPL aims to do (prety successfully IMHO).
Oracle now ships with a modified version of Apache which they call "Oracle HTTP server"
Don't care much about Mozilla (Konquerer rocks! :-)) but I can't live without Cygwin on an Windows system. And also, how the heck am I supposed to get a decent working environment (think GNU tar, gzip, bash, autoconf) on Solaris (or HP-UX, or Irix, or ...) if all this software was released under a brain-dead license like the one the original poster proposed?
____________________________
2*b || !(2*b) is a tautology
While free OS are still a niche market this won't matter much - it will probably just reduce the usage of this tool. But if at some point Linux becomes the standard, this could be a problem for users - it seems to me. (Much like DVD becoming standard even though it started as a specialty product.)
sulli
RTFJ.
The interesting item is what they consider an open system. In the faq they specifically state their intent is to insist the kernel be open source as defined by The Open Group and reprinted in the license. If we take this statement in the most liberal light, and count OS X as open, this seems a rather weak restriction. In fact, the only major operating systems affected is Windows and Unix variants like Solaris.
In the end, this seems to an effort to keep Open Motif off Windows machines, which I think, in light of the behavior of Microsoft and some Windows developers, is a rather intelligent restriction to impose. The best case scenario is that all major OSes use open Kernels.
I think that would be a horrible clause to have rolled into a free software license. Free software only on a free OS is so limiting to the open source community. It would take away the exposure you get from running free software in a closed business world.
As has been stated, Apache is a fine example of this. You take away Apache's right to run on microsoft, etc. operating systems and you reduce exposure. As it stands now you have real world manager types and businesses in general looking at a very successful open source project and possibly changing the attitude that free == suck.
yvan eht nioj
You have no idea what anarchy is. The base principle of freedom (My freedom ends where yours begin) holds in anarchy. More than under other political systems, because it is the ONLY limit to freedom. And that is total freedom. Not wandering around killing people.
Ah, and in anarchy, my freedom to live and eat to this end is more important than your "right to propertah", and that's why anarchism isn't popular amongst elitists capitalists imperialists liberals (hehehe).
Isn't this exactly why people support the case for DeCSS to be legal? One buys a DVD and a player but can't use them as they want when they want. Now here's a program that is doing the same thing. How could this be good at all? At the very least it makes it non-free software. =/
karma is for the weak >)
This license would do something else -- it would prevent the use of both free and proprietary software on the same machine, it would likely be bad for programmers, bad for employees, and bad for companies.
Programmers sometimes prefer to use proprietary software. It's a fact, they're just often better tools than their free counterparts (if those exist at all). Not allowing programmers to have hybrid systems of free and proprietary code can be stifling.
You know all the stories you hear about how a savvy employee snuck in a Linux or FreeBSD server in his company's server farm and it outperformed all the NY boxen? This would never happen. Employees would not be allowed to introduce free code unless *all* the proprietary stuff was chucked. Which is unlikely and brings us to...
Companies often use proprietary software because it does the job best. Period. Convincing a small ISP to discard the NT servers running IIS in favor of a Linux machine running Apache is difficult enough -- the ISP would have to get a new sysadmin, etc. And forget about trying to migrate large companies with significant investments in certain hardware/software platforms.
The bottom line is that this would be an overly restrictive license.
RMS's objection, by the way, isn't the restriction to free OS's (he seems sympathetic to that). Rather, it's that he doesn't like click-through licenses and wants to stay with copyright licenses like the GPL. The FWL author, though, felt that the FWL terms would be harder to enforce without the clickthrough agreement.
The Cygwin .dll library is released under the GPL, which means(IANAL, correct me if i'm wrong here) that you can only use GPLed code on cygwin. Qt has similar licensing and from what I understand this is the basis of the Gnome/KDE flamewar (in both cases here, if you pay up cash you can license your code in any way you want).
I dont think that this kind of licensing is a good thing in any way whatsoever - forcing people to GPL their code is acceptable to me in normal programs but for libraries seems wrong altogether.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
I mean, really, isn't that how we wish companies like Microsoft would behave? Use our stuff because it's better... not because you have to.
--brian
Imagine the reverse scenario. Could I write proprietary software, and restrict its use to proprietary OSes? I think not.
There's bound to be a reason behind this, and while most people think it's just the Open Motif authors being silly, perhaps it's because they're forced to? They might be thinking for all non-free OS vendors know they aren't allowed to call themselves UNIX(R) unless they use a licensed and approved XOpen implementation of Motif. Perhaps Open Motif are covering their asses?
Does my bum look big in this?
I've sort of got the opinion that many of the open source developers out there are hoping to use the skills they learn while cutting their teeth on the free stuff to get them work, and unfortunately, until open source companies start being able to turn a profit regularly, that'll mean that these guys will end up in the proprietary software industry, probably.
At this point, it'll probably mean that the open source stuff will remain a bit of a hobby for most people. That said, Linux is Linus's hobby, so there's no telling how far a coder can take a project without any of the bureaucratic administrative crap that comes with some companies out there, both in terms of quality and productivity. Still, it IS a hobby and probably very difficult to negotiate into a paying job.
Where's this going? Well, I don't think that many of the free coders out there are going to want to learn skills that can ONLY be used in the open source environment, which is what that license seemed to suggest. They're going to want to get into things that they can take elsewhere for paying work, and this license seems to eliminate that. Of course, maybe you didn't want them anyway.
Probably the only sort of people who would adhere to this license are those who are passionate about the licensed software to begin with, and as such renders this sort of license moot anyway because they'd continue to contribute regardless of whatever real-world job they got.
Socialism (which I love) is a great social model, until you try to legislate it, and then the problems come up. Yeah, it's possible that some people might want to make sure that nobody rips off the Gimp to make a commercial competitor to Photoshop, but there's already a license in place to combat that possibility.
And then there's the argument about whether or not we need more licenses, and then there's the argument about whether or not this sort of license can get enforced properly...
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Closed source licenses basically state to the market, and development community as well, that the owner of the license believes they have the resources internally to create a product that the market will want (as measured by use, not necessarily revenue). In the typical EULA, much of the restrictions of use prohibit things that impact revenue, but much of it prohibits inspection of the internal workings. This is a strategy to prevent sharing of technology, which is a choice the these license holders use.
GPL and LGPL licenses make these same choices, but my issue with these licenses are:
Never create a policy with a person in mind - It appears that much of the GPL license was oriented towards a black and white world of Microsoft vs. Everyone, which doesn't track with reality, where there is clearly shades of gray. In the current form of the GPL license, it prevents existing *nix vendors from easily getting a green light to port needed portions of historical code, especially code that gives stability and manageability to the Linux/GPL code base.
The GPL license was written more as a manifesto than a legal document and it contains loopholes, due to the lack of clarity of the language, that a truck could drive through. In the Vidomi/VirtualDub brouhaha that is current going on, clearly the issue at hand is the non-specificity of the language of the GPL license terms. In order to have a viable license, it must be based on legally testable language and, in its current form, the GPL and LGPL license terms are likely to be ruled against in court, creating a case law history that could be very damaging to open source.
The FSF, while correct in spirit, seems to abhore inspection of the license - This one is based on personal experience and I would love to hear others experiences, but our firm was doing work for a large, established hardware vendor that owns a license for a variant of Unix that has been heavily modified to squeeze out power from the hardware. They had asked us to evalutate the GPL license to discover if there was a way they could open the source code for some of their code, with the intent of releasing it to the community; however, they wanted to understand the terms of the GPL and LGPL better before moving forward. I called the FSF and inquired as to some of the license terms and was promptly accused of "trying to find a way to subvert the license"! Such histrionic reactions to inquiry indicate that the document, while admirably in spirit, won't stand to inspection in court and hence, represents a real risk to users of it. The lack of open dialogue on the GPL/LGPL with the FSF, especially dialogue that tests the limits of the license, ultimately hurts the idea of open sourcing.
I guess my expectations of the GPL/LGPL are probably too high, given the relative age of the license language, but I do fear a legal test of it.
They say in every experience you either get what you wanted or you get wisdom. Future legal tests of the GPL license will probably bring more wisdom to the FSF and open source movement, rather than what they want.
RB
Technology Marketing is what happens when people turn their hard work over to people paid to manipulate others.
The idea behind open source software is that you can change, port, or do whatever to any open source code that you want as long as you release what you did. Preventing developers from porting to a closed OS puts an artificial limitation to what we can do with the code, which is one of the things open-source software is trying to prevent.
"The GPL protects the freedom of the software, not the freedom of the author or users."
Does that mean the software can sue you if you violate the GPL?
Ironically, I believe that a restriction such as "for use on free OSes only" would make software non-free under the GNU definition.
While the advantages of such a "super-viral" licensing restriction are clear, it is probably going too far. Heck, the BSD-licence fans already say that the GPL goes too far and is going to strangle free software in excessive idealism. I'm not sure I agree, but I would prefer that free software just remain free, even for people who want to use it with other non-free software.
Note that this restriction is *not* necessary to prevent companies from rolling the software into their proprietary product. The GPL already prevents that.
-Rob
I can just as easily create a piece of software and say "for use on closed source, proprietary OSs only".
Not that I would, but say a corporation didn't wan't you using wine to run their apps...
-... ---
Ever since petty politics and silly ideologies like this got involved in computers, and people began idolizing their machine and the software on it, rather than treating it like a TOOL that it was meant to be, computing has completely lost the effect of wide-eyed wondernment it used to have on me. The awe of a beautiful game (and it was usually games that impressed me) is now sullied by the catcalls of "..but does it run on linux??" and petty infighting.
How sad.
-
Restricting free software to only run on Free OSen is a really BAD idea. The ability to use Apache, perl, BIND, Sendmail, and of course the incredible Cygwin, which even lets you run XFree86 / WindowMaker on NT, allows people trapped in corporate environments that are supposedly all-Microsoft shops the chance to sneak Free stuff in under the radar, and get experience with using it. These people are more likely to push for Free software later in their careers, when theyr'e not just web-monkeys. That's how I started - sneaking Apache and Perl onto Bain's corporate intranet in place of IIS and ASP. Got fired for it in the end, but now I'm doing mod_perl stuff on Linux and OpenBSD - I'd never have had the confidence to apply for those sort of jobs without the experience of using the good stuff in stealth mode.
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
What if Microsoft insert something in there license like :"It's illegal to use GPL programs with Windows". I can't really see how the could enforce that on the consumer side, but on the business side (servers...) it would be pretty easy. Kind of a "All or nothing" proposition...
Nobox: Only simple products.
Imagine how much money you could make selling free beer to people who think it's normal to pay big bucks for beer made with rice that's already skunky.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I think that being able to install free software on as many platforms as possible is a good thing. GCC under Solaris is a whole lot cheaper then Sun's solutions and does the trick. I use VIM on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and I've used it on Solaris and HP-UX. Why? Cause it kicks some serious butts. What would I do if the license was as restrictive as Open Motif's?
This sounds too me like a classic case of shooting yourself in the foot. This is a very bad idea as it limits the development of apps using Open Motif to just Linux/BSD et al. What they are essentially saying is that you can`t compile these libraries on Windows and write code to link to them. I hate Microsoft code as much as anyone here (I have to work with the pile of shite on a daily basis) But I don`t think we should be punishing people for not making the same choice we have by using Linux/BSD.
What this effectively means that people who want to write multi platform code so that anybody can use it will look at Open Motif and say stuff that, I will write code for a library which is supported on all platforms so that I can recompile on each platform.
Like it or not the world still predominantly uses windows and if you want to get people interested in the idea of free software to the point where they might actually want to switch to Linux/BSD then alienting them from the start is not the way to do it.
rant over.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
Too bad the GPL didn't look like this about 10 years ago
Too true. If it had, there wouldn't be any FSF to speak of today. And the Open Source Movement would be comprised of a very few idealistic nuts who wouldn't know a business plan if it sat them down and gave them an hour-long Powerpoint presentation complete with coffee and donuts.
Kind of like now only on a much smaller scale.
Dancin Santa
We all rant and rave whenever some company tells us how we can use our product, for instance the movie industry's attempt to outlaw an open-sourced DVD player program for Linux. So it's hypocritical to then go and place restrictions on open software that amount to "Use it my way or not at all." You can never be sure that your way really is the best, but IMO even if your way really is the best, such a restriction will slow down the development of new and improved technology.
Does this mean I get to use the software if I'm using a pirated copy of Windows?
I said if. Down Bill.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
I grabbed a copy of abiword the other day and installed it on one of the nuns' computers, and she was really excited - it's a free piece of software that can read Word documents and can be used for real work.
So the nun does all her real work in an Abbey...-word.
her har har, ooh I apoligize.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
(Noting that calling Window an "OS" is indeed stretching the point a bit...) :-)
I think its a great idea, if people are willing to use a commecal OS they should be willing to pay an arm and a leg for every app. Now they just need to market the same product for Windows and charge the "revinue maximizing price" of $89.
How is free defined, legally, in this sense? There are enough variants of it, judging by the trolls, to make this very shady as well. (It runs within our proprietary app upon the *free* linux operating system...)
It's funny to hear all you hard-core open source pundits criticize this move (which was done a long time ago). Simply put, learn the reason behind why OpenMotif exists, and you learn why it is available only for Free operating systems. My best guess is that with GTK and QT taking over as the dominant toolkits in the free software arena, OSF saw Motif losing ground, perhaps towards obsolecence. Unfortunately for OSF, their move was too late. Sun has adopted Gnome (AKA GTK), and others will soon follow with either Gnome or KDE.
The idea of not letting people use your software unless they do so under a "free" OS is perhaps the stupidest idea to come out of the open source community yet. What worries me even more is that some people appear to think that this is actually a good idea, because it seems to me that when you start to restrict your license in this kind of way, you start to forfeit your right to criticise other licenses. How can you denounce commercial licenses for being restrictive, and at the same time build restrictions into your own? As far as I can tell, it's just another part of the worrying trend on the part of some members of the open source community who will defend linux or open source at any cost, even when it doesn't deserve it (think desktop enviroments and user friendliness), and shun anything non-free, as being, by definition, bad, without actually considering the situation.
I understand the urge to be as restrictive as possible with free or open source software, but in the end, I think liberal licenses are a better idea in most cases. Restrictive licenses may make sense on a case-by-case basis.
If you paid for it, it's not free.
So, when you buy a computer for $2000, and it comes with Windows on it, that's a free OS.
But when you order a Debian CD for $3 from Cheapbytes, that's a non-free OS.
8P
--
Even though you can buy DVD's you are restricted to using it to how we say you can... Even though you have Open Motif, you are restricted to using it to how we say you can.
Dinivin
Not to be a troll, but consider the reaction if MS had a similar provision: to be run under Windows 9x, or 2k, etc., only. No more (legal) WINE. I suppose it would be dubbed the "new prohibition", and I can only imagine the reaction in this forum.
I can't understand why do people think that Linux has to run somewhere, beat someone and achieve something. OS GNU/Linux is not a commercial project, and it does not have to be installed on every second box in the world in order to survive. True, more developers we have - well... more development we get, but will people please please please understand that beating the enemy (such as Windows) is not a goal. We're not conquering the market. We're making an OS for ourselves and let others to run it.
Closing availability for certain platforms would not help Open Source. It will not help us to reach our aim, which is, again, creating a free operating system and not converting everyone else from non-free ones. It will only hurt closed systems, but we'll get a reward in that the flow of potential users and developers would decrease.
There's entirely no point in limiting licenses to free OSs only. And yes, it won't be free anymore if you impose limits on it.
"We invented guns, drugs, nuclear bombs, but stupidity beats it all badly"
This sounds familiar. Imagine, if BSD had used a GPL type license then all the vendors would have had to write their own IP stack!
Each developer has their own agenda. I've got mine, which is to write software that other developers would like to use in their own code. Stallman has his, and the developer of this software has theirs. Respect the developers choice to support their own ideas
--
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Oh how we forget why people do things. FreeBSD was never created to generate market share. OpenBSD was not created for that reason anywhere. It was created because people wanted it. So long as there are enough people who want it and can develop it it will continue to be developed. That's all it really takes. Who cares if people use it or not? Thats MS's bag. It's about doing what you want to... ...It has something to do with freedom.
--
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Although your reply is obviously biased, some response is required. Business plans are generally innacurate and overly optimistic. Many, many companies with "solid" business plans have failed, and some with "weak" ones have succeeded. You may not like the FSF-sponsored business model, but until it's fully disproven I think your comments are inappropriate.
if their code is rolled into a bloated, expensive, commerical product with bells and whistles tacked on, the developers can now claim that product so-and-so uses our codebase! save yourself some money and use our software instead.
You're assuming that credit would be given.
you gpl motherfuckers don't seem to get it. i like using free software - it's usually better than the shite i have to use under AIX or Solaris, but you don't like me using it because i paid for the operating system?
Real "GPL motherfuckers" wouldn't even consider castigating you for using a GPLed program on a proprietary OS. If you understood the FSF's philosophy at all you'd realize that. FYI, you don't have to believe that RMS is god to support the GPL.
Freedom means that you do NOT restrict, dipshits.
I suppose that depends on your definition of freedom, now doesn't it? Microsoft's definition of freedom is evidently different than yours as well, but you don't seem to care all that much.
Won't this kind of licenses kill new, free protocols and software. The ones with commercial OS's will use commercial software, which uses their own, lisenced protocols. We then know who wins in the corporate world, not the free stuff. Then regular users will buy (or copy) the commercial software to get access to the same services even though there are just as good free software and protocols.
Look a monkey!
Many of us do not like MS, not only because they are rich and their software is not exactly excellent, but also because they artificially link products together like "you need IE to use VS, you need Windows to use Word". Such a restriction like "you need a free os to use this software" means you imitate their nasty tactics. Thats not what free software was made for.
Innovation is the key here, and all the clause does is limit it. Just think if every one of the windows applications out there came with a "for use on commercial operating systems only" clause. Products like Wine and the other emulators would be screwed. Where would that put projects like Win4Lin or Vmware? It just sounds entirely too much like the music industry to me. If I were a band and I wrote a song I would want as many people listening to it as possible. I don't care if they listen on KFGO or WDAX or if they buy my cd or buy my tape. The point is its MY song, I wrote it, YOU listen to it... period. Same thing here. If I write a piece of useful software I want as many people using it as possible. We're not talking about theft of property or anything. Why stifle an entire segment of the population because of decision that they probably didn't make? (i.e. corporate push through or just plain ignorance) I would hope that the community would want to say "If you want to run windows then you can run my software, if you want to run linux then you can run my software, if you want to run bumblef*ckOS then you can use my software." Otherwise you're asking to replace one empire with another empire, and that is NOT what the open-source movement is about. (at least I hope not) How far off base am I here?