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Ballmer Calls Linux "A Cancer"
davidebsmith writes: "In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that Linux and the open source movement is "good competition" because it will "force [Microsoft] to be innovative," but calls Linux "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." He also says that the inclusion of IE in Windows has been "great ... for innovation in the software industry" (except for Netscape) and that MS's new copy protections are just "bumps in the road" to "help customers understand when they are crossing the line . . . so they can't do the wrong thing." And he says a few more amusing things, also."
Q: The new Windows XP software, I've seen a trial version, contains a number of free products--media player, a CD burner, an Internet firewall. Could that bundling hurt smaller competitors who make stand-alone software? Isn't this kind of bundling that you offered with Windows and Internet Explorer? Yes it is. You pay for it along with the OS. And make no mistake MS could not care a bit for those other companies and the property they speak of is their own. 3RD party windows software is dead. You develope it and MS collects on it year after year after year.
Next time somone tells you that the GPL forces all work to be Open Source you can tell them that MS released Front Page Server Extentions for Linux. (not Open Source either of course) Yes I know it's crap but it proves Ballmer's statement is a complete fabrication.
If LINUX is a "A Cancer"
Then Microsoft IS the VIRUS you keep paying for.
Balmer has a very good point, although he uses Open Source where he should really use GPL. Corporations pay taxes, have rights, and the government has responsibilties to them, just like individuals. Where government funding is used something like the BSD license would be much more appropriate than the GPL.
I now suspect that when the GPL appears in court someday it will not be to test its validity, but to challenge its use in a taxpayer funded project.
The really funny thing is, Ballmer looks EXACTLY like Vizzini.
Guess how much Microsoft pays in taxes? Look it up.
Yeah, all us free software advocates need to quit being silent and start bashing microsoft for a change...um...
Sure you can, if you don't "own" it. If you do the work of creating it, but do it for someone else, you do not "own" it.
Artistic works-for-hire are like that as well.
Both the BSD and GPL advocates claim that they deliver freedom to the user (the focus is more towards the user than developers). A great part of freedom (for users) is the ability to copy and use software free of charge, but these licenses place no such requirements. But freedom (for users) must include the concept of obtaining the software for no charge. Turn it around all you wish, you cannot persuade me that free of charge is not a central part of "freedom", for if many programs in my hardisk today would not could not have given me the freedom to use, copy, modify, distribute if I could not afford to obtain them free of charge. Neither the BSD, nor the GPL licenses explicitly grant me the software free of charge:: I must pay for them when such offer is made. Since I suspect that more users of Free Software use them because of the low price, it is easy to imagine that Free Software will not offer the same degree of freedom when BSD and GPL software are offered at high prices. Price is critical aspect for what most of us consider real freedom.
Linus should get together with RedHat, SuSE, IBM and every other business that is banking on Linux and collectively launch a massive defamation of character lawsuit against Balmer and MS for making that nasty public comment.
Nice to see Mr Ballmer has a good grasp on the industry. Then again, he does manage to flame open source and the government in a single sentence, quite clever really.
Ballmer saith:
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should.
Well, the part about making the rest of your software open source is plain BS. If you incorporate GPL'd source code into a program, and release that program, you have to GPL that program. You do not have to GPL anything else, nor do you have to pay any attention to the GPL at all unless you release.
As for the government funding, this sounds like a legitimate complaint until you think about it. Free software is available to everybody. Anyone can use it for any task. Anyone can freely modify it for their own use. Anyone can sell it.
The only important difference between software in the public domain and GPL'd software is this: no one can hijack GPL'd software. No one can take the result of thousands or millions of programmer-hours of work, add twenty lines of proprietary extensions, and release a commercial product that people will have to buy, under a restrictive license, if they want those extensions.
So, in essence, Steve Ballmer is saying that it's ok for the government to fund software that goes into the public domain (which Microsoft could then embrace and engulf), but not GPL'd software (which is just as free in every way, except that no one can embrace and engulf it). So tell me Steve, why should a project that received government funds be something that you can take over? How is that in the public interest?
To Moderators: This moderation you use...(+1, Funny)...I do not think it means what you think it means.
It's simple, actually. If I write some code to sell and I only need ( read: want ) a tiny bit from, let's say, a GPL'ed library, well then, I should just go ahead and write that little bit myself. End of problem.
On the other hand, if I want to use a large amount of GPL'ed code and add my little bit and sell it as mine, well, it's not really mine at all. Hence I shouldn't be allowed to sell it. If there were a way to buy the code, then doing this would be OK. But there isn't.
And that's it. Q.D.E.
-JD
Now look at RMS's three freedoms: the freedom to read the source code; the freedom to modify the source code; and the freedom to share the sources and binaries with others (yeah I know that's not exactly it, but I like the read-modify-share acronym).
So, whereas closed-source software has limits on its reproduction, open-source software is explicitly designed to reproduce without limit, just like a cancer.
Of course, unlike a cancer, open-source software helps your system live longer!
in-no-vate (IN no vait) vt. - to take an idea from another company (cf. Apple)
You're kidding right?
There's plenty that's "free" about the GPL just not what some people want to be free (i.e. free to exploit).
You are free to read the source code.
You are free to wall-paper your house with the source code.
You are free to recite the source code.
You are free to compile the source code.
You are free to copy to source code to another media.
You are free to give a copy of the source code as a Christmas present.
You are free to modify the source code.
You are free to learn from the source code.
You are free to tinker with the source code.
You are free to charge a fee for transfering the source code. Now this of course does not mean that you are free to do these things in anyway whatsoever. (i.e. you may not be allowed to recite the source code over an illegal FM transmitter. Nor are you violate the terms of the GPL). Nonetheless, only a shabby miscrosoft-like absence of logic would allow the conclusion that there is nothing free about the GPL'ed software.
What's funny is that the napster-kid mentality and the anti-GPL mentality seem to be essentially the same. "I deserve to be able to profit from someone else's work."
I think Ballmer made an interesting comment about `pirating' of software in homes when he said that artists and organizations like newspapers need to get paid. However, I don't know of any household that gets more than one copy of a newspaper..
--
-A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I'm hungry. I think I'll go innovate a sandwich.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Q: The new Windows XP software, I've seen a trial version, contains a number of free products--media player, a CD burner, an Internet firewall. Could that bundling hurt smaller competitors who make stand-alone software? Isn't this kind of bundling that you offered with Windows and Internet Explorer?
... for innovation in the software industry. Whether it was great for Netscape is a different question.
A: Just as with Internet Explorer, our job is to offer customers what they want. We are trying to provide more functionality at the same or better prices every day. [A]ll the new capabilities of Windows XP are open to software developers to add onto, to build value around. I think Windows XP ought to be a real boon to the kinds of innovations that come from smaller companies. The inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows has been absolutely great
I realize that it's not illegal or anything, but isn't what Ballmer's saying here really "our customers were going to other companies for their software, so we decided to bundle it so they don't have to go elsewhere"?
This is of course perfectly legal (I think). If I had a company that made widgets and I could get more clients by adding feature X to my widget, I probably would. However, combine this with complete dominance of the widget market (or close to it, a monopoly however you look at it), this means that widget manufacturures who survive by making feature X are being squashed.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
At any rate, Ballmer is psychotic. I don't see how his perceptions jibe with the real world at all. It's basically a 'nyah nyah I'm not listening' reaction. I believe he's totally sincere when he doesn't attempt to identify ANY area Microsoft doesn't plan to control, and I believe he's equally sincere when he says they're acting just as they always have: which we have a very clear picture of, thanks to the DoJ.
The only remaining question to my mind is, at what point does government (ANY government) begin to realise Microsoft wants all of THEIR turf as well? They really are going for direct control. They really are. What else would they be doing around about now?
No, he means 'available to everybody' in the sense of the IE-only British Government website recently in the news. Everybody has to have IE and Windows. Government should not fund anything unless it makes people have IE and Windows :)
I wonder how these "bumps in the road" will be received. Most of the people in my company still use NT4.0 with service pack 6. We haven't deployed Windows 2000 yet, although a few developers run it. It's going to be expensive to upgrade. Think home users are going to go for that? If your home machine needs to have it's OS reloaded, it's going to be a big hassle. I suspect these "bumps in the road" will translate into gouges in the eye.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Chances are, it's a quote taken out of context or a wholesale fabrication by a reporter. Microsoft didn't get where it is today by putting its collective foot in its mouth like that, so when you hear a quote as absurd as "Linux is a Cancer" (which Microsoft itself knows to be a falsehood), take it with a grain of salt.
FUD is your enemy, but don't compound the problem by restorting tooFUD yourself. Microsoft still deserves the benefit of the doubt, and we should always take a careful investigatory approach whenever we wish to report news that may be damaging to the reputation of either party. That's the approach Microsoft has historically used (see mindcraft and others), and it's the least we can do too.
Hey, Steven. It's called Research!
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
How much source code did you find there?
They only give you as much info there as is beneficial to them. They don't do a good job of disclosing their file formats as well as some protocols. As I said though, you can get access to most anything you need, it's just gonna cost you... alot.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Microsoft's point is that the situation is far worse on Unix. And, you know what? No matter how many windows service releases you can list, they are right.
It's not really any worse. Hell, at least you can get open and honest documentation for most open source software. Often you can even get help from the creators if you can't find the answer you're looking for. Microsoft will offer you something similar, if you're willing to sign NDAs, give them all your money, and let billg make you his bitch.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
but guess what? If you are developing for a Microsoft system you don't need them.
Not everyone develops for MS OSes. I use MSDN quite a bit since I have to use MS products at work. I know what they have there. Sure, as long as you're just developing solutions for MS products with MS products, you're fine. You don't really need to know how the stuff works, just that it does. But if you're trying to say... import a Word document into an app you're writing, then you're pretty much screwed. They don't give you everything you need to know. They don't want people to have that info. That's what I'm talking about.
Now, when it comes to Linux, you don't have a central repository like MSDN, but it's still pretty easy to find answers (MSDN isn't exactly simple sometimes either depending on what you're looking for). If I can't find info in the docs, there are several good websites with tons of info on just about every aspect of Linux. Additionally there are message boards, usenet groups and irc channels where you can usually find answers as well.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Thanks to the spirit of consumer advocation, Microsoft has provided the public with some very unsettling news. Open source is bad for businesses! Luckily, through a complete coincidence, Mr. Ballmer works at a company that can save you from open source! That's right, if you buy Microsoft products instead, you can totally avoid the cancer!
It's through selfless efforts like this that makes Microsoft such a great company. Thanks Microsoft! Where would the world be without you?
Really people. What did you expect him to say? Yeah, that's right. Linux is totally superior to our software in every way. If you switch to open source today, why, you're no longer our bitch! You can totally stop putting up with our crap like constant bluescreens, ridiculous licensing schemes, forced upgrades, and no source code. In fact, you'd have to be crazy to put up with us. What's wrong with you people?
This could be sort of justified if a reputable consumer advocate group said "avoid open source for the following reasons". But it's not.
I also don't mind requiring code developed under those circumstances to be distributed in the public domain. However, that's a red herring. There's no problem at all (in my view) with the NSA distributing their Linux mods; they can distribute them in the public domain, since that can be incorporated freely into GPL'ed code.
The GPL only requires that you distribute a derived work (containing previously GPL'ed code and your code, which you still hold the copyright to) under the GPL. You can still distribute the code that's purely your own under any additional licenses you please, when that code is distributed by itself. It's only when it's distributed in combination -- as a single work -- that it must be distributed under the GPL. That's why there's no problem with incorporating BSD licensed code into GPL code. The BSD code can still be distributed as it was before; the GPL only applies to the instance that was incorporated into the GPL'ed software. The thing you don't want to do is put GPL'ed code (that's covered only by the GPL) into something else, if you're not prepared to distribute the combination under the GPL.
The potentially thorniest issue that I see is what happens if you use macro, constant, and variable names from GPL'ed header files. Use of the macros per se isn't an issue; they could be rewritten (the header files just describe an interface; that description can be rewritten). However, if the names themselves are considered to be subject to copyright there could be an issue.
IANAL, so take it for what it's worth (i. e. nothing).
His point was that when the government funds it, it isn't *your* code, but public code. You really don't need to be pro-microsoft to see that . .
I see that just fine. It's just that since I helped pay for it, I would rather that it remain free (via GPL) rather than get snapped up, modified a bit, and sold (rather licensed or rented) to me.
The reason (in theory) that government funds code is for the public good. If GPL will cause more code to be contributed to the public good, then the tax money will provide greater returns.
His point was that when the government funds it, it isn't *your* code, but public code. You really don't need to be pro-microsoft to see that . . .
I don'[t find myself agreeing with microsoft a lot, but he's right about this one. If the government is paying for it, it should be public domain, or at least under a free license, not encumbered with te GPL. Under the GPL, you really do have a government subsidy competing with private business.
hawk, who has never (to the best of his knowledge) been called pro-microsoft by anyone of reasonable intelligence
Same thing with GPL, the only things you are not allowed to do is to deprive others of the freedoms you enjoy or to make it possible to deprive others of those freedoms.
I mean if I release some software I want everybody to have equal access to it. Somebody shouldn't have more rights to it just because he made some modification.
So you are misusing the word free in this case.
I don't believe in being able to own knowledge. In the past it was the kings and emperors owned all knowedge (see the story of where copyright came about). Now since we got republics, we sort of started wondering who to give information to, so we just pick the rich and ruling class apparently.
How come we all can agree that things like schools, military, and zero gravity toilets are neccessary for public good and are all willing to pay the government to support it. But we can't agree that software is for public good and it must be a viable product (thus we need to make up the notion of ownership of knowledge) for us to use/buy/do it.
Note I have only one thing against miscrosoft and it's products, the fact that they're proprietary. And thus I cannot use them, and I will not use them because I don't like giving up my rights and I don't like giving up the community's rights in order to be able to change the font in an easier way.
Let's see ...
I believe the lawyers have a word for what happens when someone knowingly makes a maliciously false statement in print. I believe that word is libel.
Thus spake Steve Ballmer:
"Linux is a cancer on intellectual property, and we (Microsoft) are...hey Bill, what cures cancer?"
Ever notice that Ballmer looks like Frankenstien's monster?
Not to mention that Kerberos has been un-"embraced-and-extended" in Windows 2000 service pack 2 and is now compatible with MIT's. Don't chalk up to malice what you can to incompetence.
Host: If you were a parasite what kind of parasite would you be?
Microsoft: Elephantitis.
Host: Why is that?
Microsoft: I'd be able to bloat testicles to the size of canteloupes and the owner will think they have something of real value.
Host: But that'll make them impotent.
Microsoft: Your point being?
--
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
The average Joe isn't going to think Office XP is cool because it will be the first version of Office that he has to pay full price for. Most MS Office users "borrow" copies of the software from work. They figure (incorrectly) that since they use the software for "work" that it is all right to do this. Heck, some MIS managers even think that the license actually allows this.
Microsoft is turning the screws up on everyone big businesses and small businesses alike. Microsoft now owns the office suite market, they have driven out Corel and Lotus, and now everyone is going to pay.
Microsoft is not going to try to contest the GPL in court. Microsoft is an intellectual property company. Attacking the GPL would weaken copyright, and copyright is what allows them to make big fat piles of money. However, Microsoft is going to trot out all of their top executives and have them say things like "Linux is un-American" or "Open Source software is a cancer."
I think that Balmer has a point when he states that Microsoft is simply making it clear what is and what is not legal. Microsoft's licensing is quite complicated, and I for one will be glad when their software gives me a better idea as to whether or not I am in compliance.
It is Microsoft's prerogative to enforce their license as they see fit. Just because I happen to like Free Software does not mean that I want to steal someone else's copyrighted work.
I even think that this will be good for Linux. Consumers hate being treated like criminals, and they dislike jumping through hoops to use something that the have paid for even more. Linux's lack of licensing fees will look especially attractive once Microsoft starts enforcing their licenses.
OpenBSD can't use GPL code, because you can't do what you want with it, and that is against Theo's belief.
Apache can't use GPL code, because that would require GPLing the whole thing.
The problem with Ballmer's statement (and with yours) is that he doesn't explain what he means by "use", and he seems to strongly imply that he means what a normal computer user means -- for example, when I "use" gcc, I type a command line and execute a program that compiles some code. When I "use" Linux, I browse the web and play games and code and so on. Of course, the OpenBSD and Apache people can (and do) "use" GPL'd code in this sense all the time. They can even go a step further and hack and and modify and "use" the code in a programmer's sense, as long as they don't make proprietary modifications.
Most people here know better -- you obviously understand the implications of the GPL vs. less restrictive licenses / public domain, and that's a legitimate point -- but it goes right over the head of the vast majority of people to whom Ballmer is speaking. To them, the message is: "If you use open source software, everything you do will be forced to be open source. Linux will destroy your intellectual property!"
Ballmer's not an idiot -- of course he knows all this. It isn't a "mistake" he's making by accident -- it's a calculated move.
If you accept the incorrect usage of "open source" to mean "GPL'd code" then this statement makes perfect sense.
I'm afraid it still doesn't. Or rather, it makes sense but just isn't true. Anybody -- Microsoft, OpenBSD, whoever -- can use and modify GPL'd code to their heart's content, and it won't "infect" their other code at all. Ballmer claims that if a company uses any open source [GPL'd] code, that company has to make all of their IP available. That's simply not the case.
That said, I agree that it's good that all goverment products are in the public domain. That's a great way to do this -- it just isn't a reason for the goverment (or any company) to not use open source / Free software.
Hmm, seems to me that if you have both Windows 2000 and Linux crashing on your box... you may just have a hardware problem.
Remember the good old days when a magazine or newspaper would say something remotely negative about the Amiga? Or OS/2?
And how the zealots would flame them to death in a letter writing campaign.
It got to a point where journalists would either refuse to say anything about the products, or do it as a joke to see how much of a response they would get.
When I first got into computing there was no GPL, there was no Shareware...
There was commercial software and there was public domain software. Commercial software was Microsoft BASIC, Infocom's Zork, Turbo Pascal. Public domain consisted of things such as Modem7, Hunt the Wumpus, etc.
You can't make public domain software disappear. Microsoft or Sun or any other "evil" corporation can't make the software vanish from the face of the earth by looking at it.
What they can do is take it, improve upon it, modify it, enhance it, and sell that new version.
They are not charging you for the original software, they are charging you solely for their enhancements.
God I am getting so sick of having to explain this point to mental midgets.
"Do you believe that Microsoft, et all, have some RIGHT to code that they had no part in writing? "
If it was funded by tax payer dollars...
The answer is YES.
This is what Ballmer said in the article we're discussing.
However, a point that no one has yet made, that I think deserves to be made, is that source code for closed source programs like Microsoft Windows is not allowed to be used in other programs AT ALL. What right does Mr. Ballmer have to complain about GPL restrictions, when his own software carries far worse restrictions?
Why is there a double standard, whereby Mr. Ballmer may choose any restrictions he wants on Windows code, but any licensing restrictions on Linux code is automatically considered "a cancer"?
After meeting with "industry representatives", President Bush signs an executive order banning the use of taxpayer funds for open-source software projects; justifies it as defending America's software industry and its right to innovate.
Funny that Micro$oft says that Linux is "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." I'll bet he didn't have any problem sleeping when M$ (allegedly) "borrowed" code from Caldera.
--Storm
So GPL is "free" if I'm willing to accept a creative redefinition of the word "free". And I can "use" GPL'd code as long as I'm willing to accept a creative limitation of the word "use".
Gee, what a deal.
You can play with these verbal gymnastics all day long and it won't conceal the fact that GPL'd code is inaccessable to developers unwilling or unable to GPL their own code. Whether this is a feature or a liability is the only difference that your personal perspective makes on the situation.
I'm content to let you appear in this discussion as the clever pundit if you'll let me continue being the one who is being correct.
Cheers.
Well, at least you're honest.
Kerberos work ok within a standard Kerberos environment? No?
And here's why you're clearly not an expert. The answer to your faux rhetorical question is "yes". Microsoft's Kerb5 implementation in Win2K interoperates with MIT Kerberos quite beautifully. Moreover, the additions which Microsoft made to the Kerb protocol were compliant with the protocol. Additionally, the changes made only serve to make Kerberos more useful in a windows environment. If you aren't running windows they offer no benefit so there's no incentive for non-windows shops to move away from the MIT (or other vendor's) kerberos implementation.
A key component of "embrace and extend" is that you have to encourage users to migrate to your implementation. None of the extensions Microsoft made to Kerberos do anything to encourage migration.
Why don't you leave the pontificating about Microsoft's use of Kerberos to those of us who actually use Kerberos in a mixed-platform environment?
Er - I thought that Vizzini was a hunchback. Ballmer's just balding.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
What? Fessick is a Turkish giant! He's in amazing shape. Vizzini is a little bald guy with uneven legs and a bit of a hunchback - that's why he needs Inigio and Fessick: to act as his brawn. I don't recall if the Albino also had a hunchback or not, but he had enough problems ;)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Contrary to popular opinion, you *can* get paid money to write GPL'd software. Nothing prohibits a company from selling GPL'd software, as long as the source is available to those who buy the binary distribution.
Granted, the company I work for makes their money from support services, rather than directly from the software - but that doesn't change the fact that there are a good number of people who work here, getting paid to write GPL'd software =)
Granted, the farther away from the OS you get the less distasteful it is, but the issue still stands that public funds have payed for substantial development which is inaccessable to much of the public.
Hmm...How exactly is GPL'd code inaccessible to much of the public? Anyone can get their hands on the code. Anyone can tinker with it. Anyone can use it. The only real catch is that if you modify it, that you release those modifications under the GPL as well. I fail to see how requiring that additions/modifications be released in such a way that the code remains publically accessible limits the public's rights to *access* the code.
I'd argue that the code is still *accessible* to them - they have the right to access it and use it, but can't incorporate it into their own, non-GPL'd project.
;) )
They could still learn, quite freely, from the GPL'd code, as long as they didn't use it within their project.
That's one area where the lines get blurry, however - what exactly is the line between "learning from" and "using"? If I don't quite know how to parse a mbox-formatted mail file, and I look at some GPL'd code that does, and I see that they're splitting it at the From_ line - is it then "using" if I make my own project split at the From_ line, as long as I wrote the actual code myself, rather than copying it? (RFC's aside - yes, I know the proper process - I was grabbing for an example to use
The line gets a little blurry there. Some would say that my reading of the GPL'd code may have influenced my actions in such a way as to require my work to be considered a "derivitive" and thus covered by the GPL -- the other school would say that since the code in question was written by me, and not copied verbatim, that it's *my* code, and I can do as I damn well please with it - regardless of what I used as a reference to learn from.
The latter is what I personally believe, although I would probably release it GPL'd anyway - but as the concepts and processes involved become more and more complex (mine was a VERY simple example) so does the decision as to whether "learning from" becomes "using"...
Oh heck - it's Friday afternoon - time to call it a week and take off for home - this is way too deep a discussion for 5pm on a Friday =)
ROTFL!
Someone blessed with modpoints mod this one (+1 Funny) for me =)
A good laugh on a Friday afternoon!
Unlike you, some people who argue against the GPL are actually intelligent, and things like this greatly diminish any respect they can get, here or anywhere!
Sometimes, it is better not to respond to posts like that. It was just a little statement that the guy knew many people would find amusing, not a statement of fact. Congrats on your mom getting better though! :)
This post is not intended to offend those who actually like butt sex 8P
If you take things like this too seriously consider killing yourself, life is way to harsh.
For once fuck karma...
I saw a picture of the BSD demon doing Tux up the butt. It kinda pissed me off but then I though about it.
If the BSD demon does tux up the butt: Biggest complaints from BSD folks about linux are lack of general leetness, security and VM issues.
Then Bill Gates is doing the Demon up the butt: He rips off their code every day, and now trashes their licence in return.
And then Tux is doing Bill Gates up the butt: Because he can't use their code. If he did and got caught he would be sued into oblivion.
So who is BSD's hero now?
Stunning image isn't it?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
wasn't linus's post to comp.os.minix in september?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
In a way, it still needs that protection. Take RMS's example of X. It was released under BSDish license. However, the end users got no such freedom, because of the licensing of the UNIX vendors. Even though the code started free, the freedom stopped before it reached the users. This effectively makes it non-free for the user.
Engineering and the Ultimate
In addition, you are also allowed to study the code to write your own implementation. So, I can use the GPL code as a reference for my own implementation.
Engineering and the Ultimate
First of all, if we're speaking of the US government, I belive that any software it produces is automatically public domain. It would be interesting to see if they have the legal right to publish under GPL at all.
Second, even if a US government agency did Copyleft their software, nothing prevents the company from using or selling it. The companies in question might choose not to use it because they don't want to open up their modifications. Nobody's eliminated their opportunity to sell their products.
Both of these statements appear to be red herrings.
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
Whoa! Are you making the accusation that Netscape used code from the Mosaic project? Care to substantiate that any? As I recall, when Netscape was founded, they were *very* careful not to use a single line of code from the Mosaic project.
--Be human.
Steve Ballmer: "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches..."
Agent Smith: "Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure..."
Spooky...
________________________
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
It may not be a licensing policy, it may be a support policy. Like doubling the price of support contracts for anything release prior to Win2K. Or even not offering them at all.
Just junk food for thought...
The challenge is that he's right. There's nothing "free" about the GPL if you're a developer that doesn't have the same views as RMS and the rest of the free software movement.
I'd love to see someone on slashdot actually prove his statement wrong.
(Yeah, I think the rest of what he had to say was typical MS babble, but he hit the GPL nail right on the head.)
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
The fallacy of the GPL is that it claims to be something that it is not. By itself, I have nothing against authors using the GPL for their own code. If they wanted to release their software under a license that required me to sacrifice my firstborn child to them in return for so much as looking at their code, more power to them.
But the GPL claims that it is all about freedom, when in reality it tries to be as much of a virus as possible. It claims to make freedom its central goal, when in reality it exists to encourage the socialist ideals of its creator. Meanwhile, it has quite a following in the slashdot community of people who stand behind the GPL as a device of "freedom" and for "destroying the enormous cruel proprietary software juggernauts". Usually, said people then go on to criticize every aspect of closed-source software, especially the part about making profits.
Making money off of hard work isn't nearly as evil as most GPL supporters try to make it sound. In reality, without the incentive of making money, most of the software innovations that exist today would have never been born.
Also, it's a shame you had to pollute what was otherwise a well thought out piece by spouting some of the usual free-software propaganda about MS' Kerb implementation. Feel free to think that MS tries to "embrace and extend" open-source technology. The reality of the situation is that Microsoft did nothing of the sort; they merely took advantage of open-ended parts of the Kerberos architecture so it could fit in with the Microsoft authentication/security model better. Claiming that what MS did was immoral and unethical is silly, and won't gain you any respect from people who aren't rabidly anti-Microsoft like yourself.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
The slipery slope comes when you are talking about research at state universities. Should a grad student be able to release his/her research software under GPL, or should they be forced to use a BSD-style license? Of course, the stipends and cost of computer time for a few CS grad students doesn't add up to much in the grand scheme of things..
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Microsoft is probably upset because they can't muck with samba to make their lousy lan manager crap work better.
The real problem is that the concept of "intellectual property" is illogical and is a recent distortion of Article 1 Section 8.
maybe my brain is turned off this friday and I just didn't get the joke, but what's the story behind this one?
Hold on a second.
/. stories) but when there is a compelling public interest to be served by government spending, the loss of a corporation's ability or even a private individual's ability to make a profit in that arena is just too bad. Ideally, a compromise is reached wherein the public interest is served AND a sufficient profit can be made privately that the interest is served inexpensively by the most economically efficient body which competes to provide the interest.
I assume you're speaking of the US government. Among the things that government is tasked with is to promote the general welfare and to secure the blessings of liberty. That means that they have a legitimate role to play in the creation of public goods. Public roads, public health, and now, public computing infrastructure. There's nothing wrong with private companies making money doing things _for_ the government, but when the work is done, the results belong to everyone. If that means that the opportunity for a person or a corporation to make money providing something which serves a public interest is lost, then so be it.
The legal fiction that corporations are "people" who pay taxes and merit governmental protection is nice and it's one which has served the economy well in the past (discussions about its present state are deferred to other
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the kind of software that I'd expect the government to fund is critical infrastructure: BIND, TCP/IP, and so forth. And that kind of software should be made available at no cost, either under a free license or by release directly into the public domain. I wouldn't expect the government to gut Intuit by releasing a free Quicken knockoff.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Hey, that's a really interesting aspect of the disucssion which I hadn't considered. Thanks.
I'm not sure what I think about that.
There is one major example or government funding GPL'ed code: NSA Secure Linux. While I agree that NSA Secure Linux is one of the more eggregious examples of the Government developing code which isn't released as public domain information, there are plenty of other cases as well. How would you consider Squid, which is GPL'd code whose development is funded entirely by the National Science Foundation? Granted, the farther away from the OS you get the less distasteful it is, but the issue still stands that public funds have payed for substantial development which is inaccessable to much of the public.
If the researcher feels strongly enough that they don't want to make their code available to everyone equally then they should back up that preference by finding a way of funding the research that doesn't involve my wallet.
If I'm paying for it, I expect to be able to use it.
The fallacy of this argument is that it implies that incorporating public code into a commercial product somehow makes the original code no longer free. Public domain code remains free no matter what gets done with it. The GPL doesn't do at all what you claim. What the GPL does is require that new code written by others be released as GPL code. It does nothing to protect the original code, since that code needs no such protection.
What if I wanted to take a 20 line function out of that piece of government-funded code and utilize it inside my two million lines of closed-source application?
The reality is that no company could build a successful business by making minor changes to GPL'd applications and trying to sell that as a closed-source product? The amount of money you can charge for changes to an open source codebase are directly proportional to the value added by your changes.
It's unfair to try to depict commercial use of open source code in this light. The reality of the situation is that most commercial use of public domain or similarly open source code resembles Microsoft's use of the BSD TCP/IP code, or Apple's use of FreeBSD's userland. Rather than cosmetic changes to a full product it's the utilization of a shared toolbox of lower-level routines and libraries.
Because both apache and openbsd are released under licenses which are less-restrictive and incompatible with the GPL.
For either of these two projects to incorporate GPL'd code into their code they would have to change the licensing on their entire projects to the more restrictive GPL license.
Funny how you assume everyone shares your definition of "everyone". In your world, apparantly the set "everyone" consists solely of "people releasing their code under the GPL". GPL'd code is available and can be used by people who are willing to also use the GPL for the code they produce. BSD licensed code or public domain code is available and can be used by everyone. Surely you can see the huge difference in those two scenarios.
Code covered by the GPL isn't "in the public domain" since it has restrictions placed on its use.
The GPL does not say "GPL code should be freely available always, even when it is being used by the private sector." -- what it actually says is "If you wish to use this code to your benefit, you must also use this same license for your code." Do you see the difference there?
Ballmer's point is that the GPL is not a "free" license in this sense. What if the government-funded TCP/IP development had been released under a license which prevented its use in any product which wasn't released as GPL'd code?
The GPL restricts how code can be used, and government code should be provided without restrictions.
This has nothing to do with "corporations" or their legal status. Let's not blur the issue. This is about how everyone's money is being used to develop code that not everyone can use.
If we're all going to pay for it, we should all be able to use it.
The problem here is that the "it" you're talking about no longer exists at that second generation. If a developer takes public domain code and uses it as a foundation of or a component of their own work then I don't understand how you can expect to have a claim to free access to the work they did. Any value that a developer is able to add to or extract from a piece of public domain code should be theirs to license as they see fit. He who does the work (or funds the work) should have the freedom to set the license. The GPL eliminates this freedom by requiring GPL on both derivative works and work which incorporate even small portions of GPL'd code into their codebase.
Public domain is, and always remains public domain and "freely available to all". There's no way to remove something from the public domain.
I want publicly funded software to remain publicly available and free to all. I don't want Microsoft or any other corporate entity to swallow it and never let it see the light of day again.
Please explain how using code makes it unavailable.
I do not believe that we, the people, our government, should be obliged to give anything for free to corporations.
I have no idea what your mini-rant on coporations has to do with this. GPL code is equally inaccessable to anyone who wishes to do non-GPL development. That can mean a multi-billion dollar corporation and it can also mean me in my bedroom trying to develop software as a sole proprietorship. Hell, it can even refer to a non-profit organization or an open source developer like the Apache Foundation.
I think your distaste for corporations is clouding your judgement on this issue.
If you accept the incorrect usage of "open source" to mean "GPL'd code" then this statement makes perfect sense.
I presume that what Ballmer meant to say was "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds GPL'd work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."
This is an understandable viewpoint. GPL'd code is not accessable to everybody. It is only accessable to developers who are willing to release their code under the GPL license which excludes large portions of the community. Government-funded GPL code is inaccessable to the Apache Foundation, it's inaccessable to the OpenBSD developers, and it's inaccessable to any commercial developers who are working on closed-source products.
If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license. This is the rationale behind the laws which prevent the government from enjoying a copyright on the data it produces.
Government code should be public domain, not placed under a restrictive license like the GPL.
No. The customers of companies pay taxes. Don't believe me? Then consider this: companies will price their goods such that they make a net profit, that is, a profit after everything else has been paid out: salaries, money for capital investments, depreciation, taxes, etc. So any taxes that a company pays are actually being paid by their customers in the form of higher product prices. Of course, whenever the customer is a company, the same principle applies. Apply it recursively until you get to an individual, at which point the recursion stops.
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Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Microsoft has Linux in its target sights. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Above all else, remember that Microsoft is not addressing you. They're addressing your boss, who by definition is almost certainly not capable of completely understanding the complexity of the situation and by default doesn't even want to try thinking about it.
Microsoft can and will convince the people who make the decisions to avoid Linux like the plague.
The only chance there is to avoid this assured outcome is to gain control of the bosses' minds.
You must couch your persuasive arguments in simple terms, as soundbite-compatible as possible. You need to implant memes that paint Microsoft with a tarry, black brush; and make Linux look like a glowing angel.
"Linux is a cancer" is the perfect meme. It's memorable, and it's nasty.
You much create countermemes -- and you must be able to get them publicised to the same extent that Microsoft can. And that, I suspect, is impossible. It may be impossible to win the war, simply because Microsoft owns the territory, the media, and the minds of your bosses.
--
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
The licensing could be a bitch, but check out their cure!
http://bbspot.com/News/2000/12/ms_cancer.html
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Watch that intellectual property flag. As Windows XP now supports protection for intellectual property on commercial CD's and on web distributed materials, how long before the "Linux, by providing a mechanism to circumvent IP protection measures, is a violtation of DMCA" flag gets raised by Microsoft.
All this Linux and the GPL are cancers, etc are just the opening shots. Expect a well planned campaign from Microsoft.
Not that I blame you; after all, if the person who invented cheesecake could get a royalty check any time anyone else made one, I'm sure that chefs would also be big advocates of intellectual property law.
apparently you aren't familiar with karma whoing.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
I heard you can't get catch cancer from computers unless you have Microsoft Outlook installed.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Microsoft is lying about Linux in particular and GPLed software in general, and the FSF ought to haul them into court over the issue. Sure, the GPL is viral, but simply writing software to run under Linux does not compromise your IP rights unless you use GPLed code to do it, which is certainly not necessary.
The other thing that strikes me, as it usually does when the GPL comes up, is how distributors of closed software are quite insistent that you must respect the terms of their licenses, but bitch like spoiled children when an open developer insists that they respect the terms of his. Closed source developers need to clue into the fact that they can't have it both ways. If you want to protect your own intellectual property, you must refrain from stealing others. It's like arguing that because some women are prostitutes, it's okay to treat all women like prostitutes, and it reflects pretty much the same personality type.
Nuff said.
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Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
A: I think there is a lot of great stuff going on in Chicago. There are a lot of innovative users in the Chicago area, which is exciting. We have a lot of great partners. I'll be on stage with a company called Genesis [Consulting], which I'm very excited about. We have a local partner named Calypso [Systems]. We literally have dozens of partners doing very innovative work with customers here.
Why is it that every time I read an interview with someone from MS, I get the word 'innovate' thrown in my face in every other sentence? I remember a column in the Economist by Bill Gates, and naughty little Bill used the word no less than eleven times! I think MS is suffering from a serious inferiority complex. =)
Someone writes code. He/she copyrights it and puts it under a proprietary license. Someone else wants to use that code. Calls original coder: "Can I use it?" Original coder: "Sure, I want $$ as compensation"
Anotherone writes code. He/she copyrights it and puts it under GPL. Someone else wants to use that code. Calls original coder: "Can I use it?" Original coder: "Sure, I want your contribution to the source pool as compensation"
See? No difference. He/she who writes the code chooses the terms. Don't like it? Don't use it
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
You aren't talking about free as in beer, are you? Now, it's clear that the GPL does impose restrictions on the distribution of the code. It still frees the code, simply because if the code is not GPL'd but only copyrighted, you can't do anything with it, unless you are the copyright holder. The BSD licenses free the code even more, that's true, and I understand and have a lot of sympathies for people that use it (or other free licenses). But I still think that the GPL frees humanity (as opposed to the code) more than the BSD licenses do.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I guess that was Spyglass's exit strategy. Just like all the other Microsloth "partners". When you take money from Microsloth, your door will be closing soon. IMHO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Oh, believe me I do love to see them pushing out new buzz words/strategies each month. Screwing companies out of the IP like the attempted with Spyglass shouldn't be accepted no matter how big the monopoly is.
By the way, Mosaic wasn't obsolete when they licensed it. You colored the facts just like a true Microsoft lemming.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Are you kidding? Do you know how much money I've saved by not using Microsoft junk? As a software developer ( computer savy ) all my friends keep asking me to help them fix their Windows machines so I'm not without some of the head aches. I'm refusing most requests these days because it hurts so much. I do offer to freely install Linux on any of their computers though.
:)
Yes, I could have made a lot of money fixing Microsoft products but that is like Hell where you keep doing the same things over and over and over again.
If using OS/2 was "hurting" then all I can say is "thank you sir may I please have another?".
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
No chemo, no radiation, no surgery, no intervention possible. This cancer WILL kill Microsoft eventually.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
This may get mod'd OT but I want to introduce my page that shows undisputable proof that Bill Gates is actually Alfred E. Newman: see it yourself at
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/bgisaen.html
Thank you.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Q: The new software also allows a user to install it only twice. You have recently cracked down on corporate piracy and large-scale pirating operations. Are home users next?
So...when XP crashes, taking your system partition with it, and the (previous) remedy was to re-install, you can only do this twice? then what? buy another copy?
Maybe MicroShaft are trying to imply the new software will crash fewer than twice. Would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
Did you read the article? Hell, did you even read the friggin title of the page?
Hint: Cancer is considered a very Bad Thing.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Yeah. We all know teenagers have never been elitist until Linux came along...
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
My respect for this individual is heading deeper and deeper into negative territory.
FUD works with whispers and subtle calimnies.
This guy is going at it hammer and tongs and starting to look like his grip on reality is slipping.
They will try to keep the world on the x86 long past the point where it can be demonstrated that security on that platform is lousy because they are too inept to move off of it and the alternative it oblivion for M$.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Somebody brought up a very long time ago, that any software bought by the goverment techniclly becomes public domain......
[magnanimous with Battle Hymn of the Republic swelling in the background] Linux is a Cancer of Liberty, and a Plague of Innovation. It is a blight on the harvest of the proprietary dicatatorship that has held the World under it's soiled foot with dirty tricks and corporate power plays. Steve Ballmer will be the first guy against the wall when the revoloution comes...(well maybe not that last part ^_^)[/magnanimous]
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
And people start to believe it.
This propoganda tactic was in use before World War II, and apparently, it still works.
Even in politics, say the same lie often enough and it gets believed. President George Bush (Sr.) would dismiss civil rights legislation as a "quota bill." Now, President Junior does the same thing, saying that his "Lets Give Lots Of Money To The Rich Guys" tax policy as "favoring the poor."
In the high-tech area, we're hearing Allchin, Mundie, and now Ballmer repeating that "open source is not available to commercial companies."
This is a lot of horseshit. It's available to anybody and everybody. However, if you don't want to use it, then don't.
The GPL license (which the GNU folks will repeat over and over is NOT OPEN SOURCE), is a license to use a piece of software. It is no different than the license in which a person runs Windows, Office, or any other Microsoft product. One can say that using the same reasoning, Microsoft software is not available to commercial companies. Of course, that is, commercial companies that do not wish to abide by Microsoft's licenses, which is much more stringent with regard what you can and can not do than any interpretation that I've ever heard of the GPL.
If you don't like the license, don't use it. Microsoft has that right with regard to the GPL. However, Microsoft is not every commercial company. There are many companies, including IBM, Sun, RedHat, and others, that are only too happy to abide by the GPL.
But you have to give the Microsoft flaks du jour credit for continuing to play the "most so-called journalists are so f*cking stupid that they don't know the GPL from TNT" card.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
If a slashdot editor posts an article like this ... are they trolling for comments?
Does it make a sound?
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
On the other hand, one could make the argument that the specific changes made by the NSA are public domain, but the combination of those changes with the Linux kernel results in a work that is only distributable under the GPL.
"The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works."
Dear Mr. Ballmer,
The Linux license is not the be-all, end-all for open source licenses. Using one large brush to paint all open source as "cancer" is just more Microsoft FUD
You have some BSD code in some of your products and gladly adhere to the BSD license, don't you?
grub
Trolling is a art,
>in-no-vate (IN no vait) vt. - to take an idea from another company (cf. Apple)
I think you mean (cf. Xerox).
-LjM
Hey, I'm about to order an Inspiron 8000 for myself (my company is picking up the bill). I've been trying to decide between the 32mb ATI card and the GeForce2. How well does the GeForce2 really perform on them? All our 8000s are running ATIs, but hey, for an extra 100 dollars.....
I presume that what Ballmer meant to say was "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds GPL'd work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."
Well, maybe in an ideal world government money would only be spent on projects available to everybody (BSD licence/public domain). But there are numerous examples of the government paying for work, and then the researchers patenting it, and making a commercial product out of it. Now, I don't know about you, but GPLed code is a lot better than unreleased, patented, proprietary code.
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works
Open source is not available to commercial companies. Hmm. Linux is Open Source right? I use Linux here at work - for a commercial company.
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. Maybe I read the GPL incorrectly, but, um... Isn't that the point? (On another note, our company uses Linux, but releases closed-source binarys of our primary product. No problems with that!)
Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. Again, thats rather the point, but it does not "attach" itself to everything it touches, Q3A is not GPL'ed but it runs on Linux just fine.
But then who am I kidding right? This is Slashdot. We all know this (Apart from the newbies and trolls). I am just preaching to the Choir. What I am interested in is the exact gist of these comments. What is Balmer trying to accomplish here?
We know he mentions competition (to keep the Justice Dept. off of his back) and Microsoft is consistantly trying to poison the GPL, but not Linux... I think MS is more afraid of the GPL than anything else, if they can disparage the GPL, they can (they believe) damage the free software movement. I don't think that they will be sucessful, but they will through this strategy keep Linux off of the desktop (but not servers) for some time to come. (At this stage, IMO Linux is not ready for the mainstream desktop user, and maybe it never will be, thats not a bad thing though.)
Anyone else have a take on what they think Microsoft is up to?
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
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I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
That was exactly my point. NSA's modifications can be public domain, while the projects themselves remain GPL. The NSA owns their patches, so they can release under as many licenses as they wish.
...
--
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
How is M$ going to enforce this 2 install limit?
through the net? a cd is a read only media right?
While smart people don't feed trolls, the general public does.
Does your point proove that if Kerberos' reference implementation was GPL'd instead of BSD Microsoft could not have embraced and extended it?
Wether Microsoft used existing BSD code or not is irrelevant anyway.
Oh, please... they could have "embraced and extended" Kerberos even if it was GPL. There is no indication that they used any code from available BSD licensed implementations, and there's every indication that they have competent enough developers to read the bloody specs and roll their own.
Please don't spoil an otherwise good post with FUD like that.
Most slashdot readers do not fit this profile, and I'm hoping much of the next generation does not either. At some point in time, people will actually be computer literate enough, to not need all these Microsoft "helpers". I prefer to make my own littler "helpers" via a shell script and a cron job, or perl, or php, or, well I think I made my point. It would be great if everyone could do this, but I doubt that day will ever come. Microsoft will continue to feed off the ignorant, and Linux / *nix, will continue to attract the computer literate. I guess Microsoft must base their whole marketing startegy on the basis that the average computer user hasn't a clue about computers.
Maybe the only cancer we have to worry about, is the number of challenged computer users still out there. They will continue to feed Microsoft, and make that cancer grow.
Win9x, NT, 2k, etc I think can be considered forks of Win32.
Q.
Your web site must be running on "something real", because it's not responding.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
You might look at some of Joan Baez's song copyrights, however, if you want to see just how little a change is needed. And then you can claim that everyone is derivitive from you instead of from the original. And then it becomes a question of who pays how much for lawyers, etc. (And how often are you willing to go to Redmond to defend yourself in court?)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So, now that Microsoft has included copy protection (so that customers "understand when they are crossing the line . . . so they can't do the wrong thing."), does that mean Microsoft is going to start taking responsibility for future copyright infringements? I mean, if these copy protection things are really designed so that customers "can't do the wrong thing," whose fault is it if they do? Oh, right, it's that damn DMCA and its anti-circumvention clause.
Consider this: The DMCA forbids the circumvention of effective access controls and copy controls (by effective, it means that they "have the effect of"). If there are circumventable at all, are they effective? No. Does the law still forbid their circumvention? We'll just have to see what the corporate lapdogs^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcourts think.
As far as the whole cancer analogy goes, if one were to just go along with it, what's the cure for Linux? Of course they want you to think Windows is the cure, but of course, it's worse than cancer, it's asphixiation. The real cure? BSD... but that's only if you buy the analogy in the first place.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Read the article! Yes, Ballmer does seriously confuse GPL with open source and Linux. But assuming he in fact does mean GPL, what he was specifically referring/objecting to was government-funded work. Not work of other companies. I thoroughly diasgree with Ballmer, but at least lets make sure we are arguing against what he actually said (or in the case of confusing Linux and "open source" with GPL, what he meant to say.
I think it is a new form of "reverse-psychology" modding. Someone thinks it is a real good post, so s/he mods it as a troll. Then several dozen moderators load the page and see the -1 there and say "WTF" and immediately burn one of their +1 mod points. Six mods later, it is at +5.
If M$ really wants to engage in true, substantive debate, then do so, but let's not submit spin-doctored meaningless drivel as words of wisdom.
I do regard it as better to have a 'cancer' that makes everything public and modifiable than the alternative 'cancer' which swallows up and prevents innovation by others.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I think we should fight to reclaim the word "innovation" from Microsoft FUD campaign. After all, we all know that what is really meant is that Microsofts right to innovate in their proprietary fashion is being stifled by the GPL, whereas standard MS licenses and non open Source policies stifle everyone else's right to innovate.
MS should use another word - suggestions anyone ?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
What if the government-funded TCP/IP development had been released under a license which prevented its use in any product which wasn't released as GPL'd code?
Reverse engineering for interoperability is still very legal.
But you've also managed to confuse the issue by applying a software license (the GPL) to a technology (which might be patented rather than licensed under copyright laws). So, yes, a reference implementation might be licensed under the GPL, but that dosn't stop anyone from developing a compatable implementation from scratch.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
And considering that the US Government can not under law copyright anything, anything they do really is PD. But that dosn't mean that if the US GOvernment contributes to a GPL project that the entire work becomes PD. Only the government contribution.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
You know, other than NSA Linux, I can't think of a single open source project funded by the governement. And I don't know that NSA Linux really counts: after all, it seems to me they just found something useful and are modifying it to fit their needs.
So I'm curious to know what the government is funding....
(And, theoretically, if the NSA didn't distribute it at all, they wouldn't even have to make their changes available, right?)
--
Tweet, tweet.
I take issue with several sophisms that Steve Ballmer attempted to promulgate during his interview with the Sun-Times, printed on June 1st.
Ballmer claims that "Open Source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source." This is an out-and-out mistatement of what open source licenses do. In order to keep Sun-Times readers well-informed, perhaps an examination of the essentials of the two most popular open source licenses would be in order.
The BSD license, originally created to cover software released by UC Berkeley, essentially requires only that you retain a notice attributing the original source of the software. Thus software under the BSD license is very close to the public domain -- all you have to do to use it in any way you wish is to appropriately credit the original author. You don't even have to post this credit in a prominent place (like the about box or documentation of a program). It only has to go in the code, and users might even remain unaware that a program uses BSD licensed software.
One good example of this can be found in Microsoft's own Windows NT and Windows 2000. The IP stack -- an essential portion of the networking code -- is actually taken from code released under the BSD license. Microsoft has thus taken open source software and succesfully incorporated it into one of their flagship products -- all without resulting in any loss of intellectual property on Microsoft's part.
The GNU Public license, originally created at the Free Software Foundation, is stricter in its requirements than the BSD license, but nowhere near as restrictive as Ballmer suggests. It is true that if you take code from
a piece of GPL'd software and release a derivitave work based on that code, then you must release that derivitave work, with source code, under the GPL.
The GPL makes this requirement in order to ensure people will always be able to freely use, inspect, and modify software released under the GPL. Software released under the GPL cannot be made proprietary.
However, there is NO provision in the GPL that states you must release ALL your software under the GPL. Non-derivative works may be released under any license the copyright owner please. Thus, a company such as Corel can distribute their own version of the popular GPL'd operating system Linux and simultaneously sell their Word Perfect Office Suite in the traditional proprietary manner. They are not required to open source all of their products -- not even their version of Word Perfect that runs on Linux -- because these products are not derived from GPL'd software. This example neatly refutes Ballmer's assertion that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." The GPL applies to and affects only software that is derived from other GPL'd software, allowing companies handle the distribution and licensing of their proprietary software in any way they see fit.
It's worth noting that Corel and Microsoft itself are only two of many corporations and small businesses who are succesfully incorporating open source software into their operations. AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun have long used similar strategies. AOL, EBay, Red Hat, VA Linux, and others are among the growing powerhouses that have learned to harness and profit from the increasing popularity of open source. Far from being a cancer that is unfit for business use, open source has proved to be a boon for those who understand it.
The verity of these points is obvious to anyone who has spent suffecient time familiarizing themselves with the essential facts about various types of open source software. Either Ballmer is simply uninformed about his competitors, or he is taking advantage of his opportunities in public forums such as the Sun-Times to intentionally mislead people about software which is competing (quite effectively) with Microsoft's own products. Given Microsoft's history, which do you beleive?
Sincerely,
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Tweet, tweet.
Microsoft says:
"The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody." This is one big bait and switch if I have ever seen one. Microsoft is saying that the governement should be spending tax payers money on things that are Availible to Everybody!
First off, I don't know of any program, or funding, in the government that benifits Everybody. Microsoft claims though that money should only be spent on programs that do... I would like to see Microsoft prove that is even possible.
Second, I guess I missed the headlines that Microsoft was now an advisor to the government. Last I knew, it was voters who choose people to represent the people and their ideas in the Government. Microsoft I guess thinks it has more wisdom than out government, so that they feel they must tell our government what is a good idea or not. That idea scares me, as in they are without any doubt, a dishonest company, and the constitution is for the people, not for the company.
Fourth, trying to imply that any government funding of Open-Source projects is a waste, is poor form, and I think is just disgusting. That's like saying no one should provide any free service to anyone else, regardless what it is. I have always seen much more come out of people caring and helping others, than people being selfish and expecting something in return for everything they do.
On a personal note, I've tried to give Microsoft a break, because they do have something that is pretty darn good, (honestly, they do) but I sure can't believe how they can pretend like they want to help people, but try to stop anything that could help millions of people, and improve the quality of life just so they can make money. That alone makes me upset and disgusted. I hope to see Microsoft put a muzzle on Balmer, and/or fire him with a statement that his statements are the complete oppisite of what the company wants to do for people.
Linus, Stallman, ESR, and others/.
I hope this gets to people who may be able to help keep this idea in their minds, as I believe it may be very important
Microsoft has been attacking specific parts of GPL and other similar licenses. Mostly about problems that may arise with IP and open-sourcing any project build on GPL'd software.
With all of this being said by Microsoft, it sounds like Microsoft is setting a stage for the announcement of their own Open-Source license, that would be much like what is out there, except specific parts to protect IP, and allow building off of other Open-Source projects without releasing their own source, or a "private" like open-source/shared between companies type license.
it would be a good idea to start a pro current license campaign that states that current licenses are the best solution, and that Microsoft may be planning a license that will appear good, but have deep down portions that will help a comercial company over an individual or a group. Microsoft has one of the best legal departments in the world. They would do this. Our current licenses MUST be pushed now, before Microsoft is able to capture the spotlight. If they do, companies will jump on Microsofts new license, and not take careful analysis of it before so. This would really cause problems for Open-Source as we know it today. You can be sure that Microsoft will have parts of the license that will cause problems for current Open-Source ways, and that are intended to allow Microsoft to gain control and to hurt Linux, Free-BSD, and other non-commercial OS's and software. Please, anyone who can help and has voice, begin to let the public and press know what Microsoft may be up to. Getting it out before, rather than after, can make a serious effect on how software may change in the future. Start letting friends, businesses, the press, government, and anyone else know what may be going on, and to jump on to what Microsoft may release in way of licensing. I would give Microsoft no more than 2 months from today for announcing their license. They have been setting things up, and planning how and what to attack. If we don't get things out now, our efforts may be hurt severally!
Please! Please! don't ignore this, and Please start getting word and annoucements out!
Linus, Stallman, ESR, and others.
I hope this gets to people who may be able to help keep this idea in their minds, as I believe it may be very important
Microsoft has been attacking specific parts of GPL and other similar licenses. Mostly about problems that may arise with IP and open-sourcing any project build on GPL'd software.
With all of this being said by Microsoft, it sounds like Microsoft is setting a stage for the announcement of their own Open-Source license, that would be much like what is out there, except specific parts to protect IP, and allow building off of other Open-Source projects without releasing their own source, or a "private" like open-source/shared between companies type license.
discredit the goodness of current licenses, so that they license will be used over current ones. Because of this, it would be a good idea to start a pro current license campaign that states that current licenses are the best solution, and that Microsoft may be planning a license that will appear good, but have deep down portions that will help a comercial company over an individual or a group. Microsoft has one of the best legal departments in the world. They would do this. Our current licenses MUST be pushed now, before Microsoft is able to capture the spotlight. If they do, companies will jump on Microsofts new license, and not take careful analysis of it before so. This would really cause problems for Open-Source as we know it today. You can be sure that Microsoft will have parts of the license that will cause problems for current Open-Source ways, and that are intended to allow Microsoft to gain control and to hurt Linux, Free-BSD, and other non-commercial OS's and software. Please, anyone who can help and has voice, begin to let the public and press know what Microsoft may be up to. Getting it out before, rather than after, can make a serious effect on how software may change in the future. Start letting friends, businesses, the press, government, and anyone else know what may be going on, and to jump on to what Microsoft may release in way of licensing. I would give Microsoft no more than 2 months from today for announcing their license. They have been setting things up, and planning how and what to attack. If we don't get things out now, our efforts may be hurt severally!
Please! Please! don't ignore this, and Please start getting word and annoucements out!
--Brandon
For those not inclined to read the actual article:
So he did say "Yeah" to "threat" :-)
The GPL affects a company like Microsoft that wants to not release the source of its own changes in a way similar to the proprietary code of a commercial competitor: they can't use that source. What Microsoft is probably most upset about is that unlike a commercial competitor, they most likely will not be able to do what they usually do with such a commercial entity: buy the license or buy out the whole company.
He does point out that when the government (read: tax payer money) funds development that ends up being GPL licensed (as opposed to perhaps LGPL or BSD) that not everyone gets to freely use it the way they want. His point is that the government should be taking a neutral position on software development, and whatever it does fund should be essentially in the public domain, allowing anyone to use it anyway they see fit (as long as it's legal). I happen to agree with him in this regard. By allowing the funded developer to choose a licensing strategy such as GPL, the government is not taking a neutral position.
Steve Ballmer's error is attaching the "cancer" label to Linux. Instead it should be attached to GPL and all GPL software. That may be good or bad depending on your preferences for licensing, and whether you want to allow a commercial entity like Microsoft to use it without obligations.
This does tell me that Microsoft might be interested in using some of the GPL'd software out there. I'm not sure if that would be Linux, but it could be. Linux XP anyone?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'm switching from GPL to another (perhaps BSD) licensing for my code. I'm not even federally funded, so doing this is strictly my own choice. But releasing my software under BSD would allow Microsoft to integrate some or all of it into their stuff w/o having to release their own source code. Doing this in no way inhibits anyone from using my original source code. Whether Microsoft chose to use my code or not, you'd have just as much access and rights to my code. Such a choice by Microsoft would not in any way diminish the value my code would have for open public use.
The issue comes down to whether or not taxpayer funded development should be allowed to require a commercial software vendor to release their own code in source form just to be able to take advantage of that taxpayer funded development. You know by now what my opinion is.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
While the term 'cancer' is overblown, why should the government be funding projects that eliminate the opportunity for companies to sell their products? That's not fair. The companies pay taxes, too.
Not that those products shouldn't exist. Just that the government that represents those companies shouldn't be undermining them.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
MS liscensed Spyglass Mosaic with the terms that Spyglass get a percentage of the profits of selling IE.
MS gave away IE for free.
Profits to Spyglass? $0.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
shouldn't spyglass get money for every copy of
win98/ 2000/ME/Xp etc. etc. Because Iexplorer is
an 'integral' component, and therefore it is sold
as part of the Windows package?
-just wondering
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
I suspect his usage wasn't meant to be just "GPL'd code", but rather any code licensed in such a way that the source is available to any particular competitor (i.e. the OS movement) but that micros~1 can't integrate that source into their software. It's certainly a valid opinion for micros~1 to hold, just as I hold the opinion that extensions to at least some government-funded work should be similarly available.
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perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
To Microsoft, Linux is a cancer. It continues to grow, there's nothing they can do to stop it. And, it may eventually destroy them.
Let's take a look at Mr. B's statements on open source piece by piece:
Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative. It will force us to justify the prices and value that we deliver. And that's only healthy.
TRANSLATION: We can use it to say there's competition. Note how we say we like competition but are engaged in monopolistic practices. This ought to keep the government off our backs!
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work.
TRANSLATION: We're really afraid the government will get interested in open source.
Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody.
TRANSLATION: Unless the government funds our work, then you're SOL. Well, our products are available to everybody if you just sign this contract and fork over the money and don't worry about the bugs . . .
Open source is not available to commercial companies.
TRANSLATION: I'm either too stupid to read up on Open Source, or I'd better begin to spin FUD so fast it's centrifugal force could be used as artificial gravity.
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
TRANSLATION: I'd better start that FUD. I'll lie, forgettng to note that OS code requires you only to reveal code based on/using it. Also, since intellectual property is a big area of concern today, this ought to scare people.
If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain.
TRANSLATION: If I state the obvious it may scare people.
Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
TRANSLATION: I'll use the cancer metaphor, that always works! Of course it trashes the start of this paragraph when I was all civil and stuff, but I'm on a roll. And yeah, I invoke intellectual property that'll really scare people! I just hope no one actually reads the Linux liscenses . . .
FINAL ANALYSIS: Stupidity and greed are more like a cancer than Linux.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
> Government funding should be for work that is
> available to everybody. Open source is not
> available to commercial companies. The way the
> license is written, if you use any open-source
> software, you have to make the rest of your
> software open source.
What bunch of crap. Ballmer makes it sound like you have to GPL your product if you use a GPL'd compiler or editor. Idiot. I hope these guys are just shooting theirselves in the foot, 'cause all their recent talk of the government makes me very nervous that a McCarthy-esque Open Source witch hunt will happen.
Anybody used strings on Windows yet to find illegal uses of GPL'd code?
No.
You are simply not permitted to modify and distribute GPL'd code unless the resulting product is also under the GPL.
That is not cancer. Try to use a piece of MS code some day; see how crazy their license is.
...if he called Linux a virus.
That was a pretty innovative wisecrack.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
A little planning goes a long way...
Is that fear I smell?
I wonder if a casual reader noticed this connection:
Microsoft's Chicago-based Midwest district office, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, is the tech giant's biggest moneymaker in the country-----
More seriously, in Chicago we do seem to have an inferiority complex about our place in the tech world. Rankings frequently put us toward the bottom among major cities in terms of our tech presence-----
So - Chicago is the lowest rated tech city, yet the highest rated user of Microsoft products!
It's all obvious enough, even to the general public. After all, it's not a Linux company that was called on the carpet 3+ times by the Justice Dept.
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I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
The site www.suntimes.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 on Solaris
Check for yourself here
49 20 68 61 76 65 20 74 6F 6F 20 6D 75 63 68 20 66 72 65 65 20 74 69 6D 65 2E
"The license"? As if there's only one. "[I]f you use any open-source software," your stuff is open source? This is obviously a blatent falsification, as your work is open if and only if you derive your work from it. Using Linux and the hundreds of GNU tools do not have any impact on your choice of licenses. How many ways can we say this to get the media to understand it? Or does the media already understand and simply ignore it (they know who's buying their advertising, after all)?
Let's set one thing straight right here. "Everybody" here is the same meaning as "everybody" in the US Constitution: people. Corporations do not have rights. LLCs, partnerships, governments, churches -- all organizations -- were not granted any rights, and they should have none. They are legal entities only and should not be treated as individuals.And even ignoring that, corporations are free to "use" free software, just as people are. What they are not free to do is steal the very intellectual property they are claiming to protect!
Peace PatientZero
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
I run Microsoft Word under Wine on GNU/Linux. I guess that means that Microsoft will have to release the source code to Word now. It's been infected with the open source cancer.
Not only that, but many cancers look and act somewhat similarly, but are functionally unique, and operate on quite different principals. ie Win95 and WinCE and WinXP.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I recently read an interview with Mr. Steve Ballmer of MicroSoft (http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-micro 01.html) in which he and the interviewer make several unchallenged statements that should be clarified.
First the interviewer claims that Microsoft has never been in as strong a position financially. That is not true. Microsoft is down considerably from their highest stock price of less than 24 months ago, and their cash reserves are lower. Sales of Windows 2000 are much lower than predicted, forcing a slightly early rollout of Windows XP.
Mr. Ballmer defends recent changes in their licensing policy on the claims that it will be easier and possibly cheaper to consumers. This is not true, at least in my cases, professionally and personally. Under the current software I have under license, I can place and use one and only one copy of that software on any computer that I choose. I can define what a computer is, and I have that license in perpetuity. In addition, should I require a reinstall of software on an existing machine, I am in no way limited.
Under the new plan conceived of by Microsoft, I will be unable to transfer my license to a new machine; I will be forced to purchase a new license for that machine, whether or not I continue to use the old license on the old machine. Microsoft has a legitimate concern about this happening, but in any instance where my company has moved a license from one machine to another, the old machine has either been: stripped for parts, donated to a non-profit or employee AFTER the operating system has been removed, or it has had a version of Linux, BeOS, or BSD installed on it. In no way have I either violated the license, nor have I deprived Microsoft of income. Yet under the new scheme, I am to be considered a criminal, and not to be trusted to manage a simple license myself.
Another problem with the new licensing scheme is the time-limited feature. Currently, I run Windows 98 and Windows NT. Many of the 50 licenses (personal and business) that I manage are older than three years. Purchasing the hardware at the end of our leases provides perfectly functional machines for as long as the hardware holds up. The new functionality that Microsoft periodically develops may be of interest to some consumers, but rarely has it been of interest to my company.
As a taxpayer, I agree with Mr. Ballmer concerning government expenditures for software development. Any government developed software should be licensed under the public domain (which actually qualifies as no license). Unfortunately, I doubt that Mr. Ballmer shares my opinion. I believe that he would prefer that the government help fund software that is in no way open to the public. I can certainly understand his opinion, but I do not agree with it.
Similarly, I do not think that Mr. Ballmer has an accurate grasp of the nature of open source software. Through comments made by him and Messrs. Allchin and Mundie, they seem to have grouped all Open Source Software under the GPL license. While this is a very popular license, it is not the only license that most people would consider open source. IBM, Netscape, and Apple all have open source licenses of their own that are friendly to hobbyists, scientists, professors, and the companies themselves. There exists the LGPL which allows a company to use open source components in closed source projects. Of most interest is the BSD license. Several versions of Unix are released under this license, as are many programs, utilities, and drivers. In this instance, Microsoft has taken code released under the BSD license and used it in their own products. Specifically, I refer to the TCP/IP stack used in Windows 95, 98, and NT. Despite using open source code, Microsoft did not have to open source their operating system.
I would hope that in the future, you perform more hard hitting interviews, and that the interviewer be more aversed with the subject material he is discussing. I must say that I am impressed that the Linux question was raised, but the lack of a quality follow-up shows either editorial mis-discretion in shortening the story, or a basic misunderstanding (shared by Messrs. Ballmer, Allchin, and Mundie) of what exactly is open source (or Open Source, or Free Software).
I can appreciate some of Mr. Ballmer's points, and can even agree with them. Despite using a mixture of many computer products, I do not immediately villify Microsoft. However, I do feel that the arguments that they are trying to make would find more support by others in my situation were they not quite so intellectually bankrupt.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
If you are correct that M$ is bashing the GPL and not Linux (which they are, but the question is are they attacking GPL directly, or only using it to indirectly attack Linux?) then it is quite interesting.
M$ has many lawyers. Why would they attack the GPL unless it looked rigorous enough to hold up? Possibly the only attacks would also destroy the validity of their own licenses. No matter, it means that even though there has not been a legal challenge of the GPL, Microsoft is afraid to be the first.
In a nutshell, that's a damned good thing. If even M$ is afraid to attack the GPL on legalistic grounds, nobody should, and that means that that particular argument (no legal test yet) is now pointless (if it ever had weight to begin with).
BTW, anybody have any idea which projects M$ is specifically bitching about the US (presumably) gov't funding that they can't use? Sure, there is SELinux, but what about the Navy development of that automated ship? I certainly can't use that. IBM can't. But anyone can use SELinux.
I know. It's typical M$PR. Anybody have Ballmer's phone number? Or how about the phone number's of some major investment houses? I mean, how can you put mutual fund money into a company heading by someone who is either: a) an idiot or b) morally bankrupt?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
No cure for cancer.
Does anyone else think this would be a great motto? I can see it on a T-shirt.
in-no-vate (IN no vait) vt. - to take an idea from another company (cf. Apple)
:)
I think you mean (cf. Xerox).
No, no, Apple just xeroxed that idea from Xerox
deus does not exist but if he does
in their own meaning of cancer. Except that then their own software is a much bigger cancer. They say that it would be horrible to incorporate GPL software into a proprietary software. But what if you incorporate the proprietary software of another company, say the one of MS (MacroShit)?! For GPL'ed software, at least you can do it. For proprietary software, you'll have a hard time even trying: the source is unavailable.
Just for that, it's exempli gratia, not gratis.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
The whole ideal with linux is like an old Fairy tail where there is a ruler, and the real ruler. For example, the king might rule the kingdom, but he is merely a puppet to the evil wizard behind his throne.
I see system administrators , the people who are doing the real work, as these 'evil' wizards. (Please take it evil with all effection).
Most companies I have worked at, the CTO seems to be very geeky (And your lucky if you have one like that), but the CIO and IT admins tend to listen to the second tier admin/techs/engineers. If that tier (the most expensive one) isn't happy.. the organization isn't happy.. end the end it's this second tier that seems to make the decisions in the long run.
They can rage a compaign on general public against the name of linux, but if the underlings (peasants if you will) don't buy it, nothing is going to fly.
IBM & Apple didn't quite understand that, but seems that both organizations are targeting that group very aggresively if you think about it.
:) Hoorah from the peasants !
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
Leaders, as in, the people who have followers, aren't boring people, so I guess I should amend my statements. (Where's the edit function on old comments here?). Leaders rant a bit, they are quirky, they get in trouble, they make mistakes, they say things they shouldn't have, and on and on. But they're usually pretty interesting, and entertaining, to pay attention to.
No one wants to follow a boring person. Charisma is optional (mcnealy).
We're all excitement junkies, and we seek out interesting people to be with.
Google search for Steve Jobs and elevator
For those not willing to click, rumour out of Apple is that Jobs has fired several people for riding the elevator with him. There's more to it than that. The MacWorld.com link is probably best (in the search results).
Let's take a look around at the other big companies. Oracle has an egomaniac for a CEO. Apple, yeah, ditto for their CEO (or whaver Jobs' title is these days), whom it's apparently not safe to be with in an elevator.
The companies that have the biggest following of loyalist fans also have these sort of banana-republic dictator personalities running the company. In order to gain new territory, you sometimes have to rally the troops (employees) and your allies (investors) by making bold, outrageous statements. Usually it's limited to something like, "we're going to make a lot of money this year," or "our new product is The Next Big Thing."
CEO's are really politicians. And like everyone in power, they know a little secret: the masses don't want to hear the truth. People enjoy being lied to, and deluded, and misled. There's so much evil, selfishness, and contempt in the world that the masses don't want to hear it. An investor doesn't want to hear that another stock they own is going to tank. They want to hear that their stocks have all gone bullish. Customers don't want to know that they've purchased another mediocre product. They want to beleive that it will actually work as advertised, and cure the common cold.
Repeat after me. It's propoganda. It's not the truth.
Linux shifts the economy from product-based to service based (since the product is free + your time). IBM sells services, and they like Linux. Microsoft sells products, and feels their bottom line is being threatened. They have a right to make a product, and people have a right to buy, or not to buy, their product.
> But we can't afford to give Microsoft the
> benefit of the doubt in everything they do
exactly! exactly! giving a complete stranger the benefit of doubt is one thing - one thing i believe in very strongly, BTW.
giving Microsoft the benefit of doubt ist plain stupid. it's like giving benefit of doubt to the nazis, or saddam, or the Borg...
M$'s motivations have been known for more than 10 years now. they haven't changed. they won't change for as long as the company is successful - and why should they, they are making more money than anyone else.
what i am surprised about is companies cooperating with M$. it seems they should be able to tell from history that there are only 2 possible outcomes if cooperating with M$: 1) you get majorly screwed, or 2) you get bought out. i guess it must be the greed when staring at the pile of money that is M$.
Ah, so philosophically stolen, as opposed to 'outright stolen', which is what the parent of my comment said, and the context in which my reply was made.
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My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
You can't steal something you yourself create. Those who went on to found Netscape Communications (Marc Andreeson and friends) are the very people who created Mosaic at UIUC.
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My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
Hi,
This would be a great thing, but the Gov't routinely sells or even gives away free the discoveries of scientists that it employees directly to bussiness. Usually if they hold the patent, which the gov't allows to be in their name but the gov't retains the rights to, they get a paid if it sells, but if the Gov't gives it away free, they get nothing even if the Company the Gov't gave the patent to turns around and makes money off the patent.
The gov't routinely does not release gov't funded activity into the Public Domain. Its not doing this just for linux. Just like any of the other companies whine when they lose the patent bid, he's just angry that the NSA isn't improving Windows security for free.
MarkV."So now they have code 99.999% funded by the taxpayer but the taxpayer cannot even use it without paying again for the ever so slightly changed player and for the encryupted music files and in higher prices to the OS maker who pays Microsteal to allow them to compile the code on their platform."
But the original one is still in the public domain... Thus it remains your right to start from there and build whatever you feel is missing to make it a competing solution to this 'Microsteal' solution. And, if you feel like putting these changes of yours under the GPL, nobody can/will stop you...
However, put your changes under the GPL and somebody else can make another fork of the original 99.999%, rebuild your functionalities or 'Microsteal''s functionalities and place this changes in the public domain (thus bypassing your GPLed code)...
The claim Balmer is making is that when government money is used to write GPLed code it makes it impossible for companies to build on it (and make money of of the modifications). Were the work in the public domain instead, companies could build on it and make money of of those modifications... Considering the state of WallStreet, it is yet unclear how many investors would agree to a company writing code that would have to be GPLed and from which it is unlikely money could be obtained from a sell.
Thus, companies are likely to stay away from any existing codebase that has a GPLed part in it (even if it is the result of a publicly funded project; i.e. government money). This, in itself, prevents whatever innovation the company could have brought to this codebase unless the company is willing to start from scratch.
Whether or not you believe MS innovates is irrelevant; the statement applies to any company trying to make a profit from selling its product (and not selling support for the product like Red Hat).
Anyways, I seem to have left my original reply: In your scenario of a big consortium building on some publicly funded work and adding little functionality to it before repackaging everything, you seem to have forgotten that the 99.999% that is the original public domain code is still available and still in the public domain. The 'big' consortium can't take that away from you...
Noooo, all rich people are evil, they must all suffer!
Wasn't it Nader that said something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing here) "we should tax wealthy people in greater proportion because of the evil things they had to do to get rich in the first place." According to a lot of liberals, being a successful individual is a bad thing.
Now, why is Ballmer WRONG? Because there's plenty of BSD-licensed and public domain code out there. BSD is clearly and open source license, and honestly I think Ballmer has chosen Linux as a target because he doesn't want BSD in his sights. There are several reasons for this: 1) he knows that the BSD camp is much more conservative and it would be harder to make wild half-truth claims about them 2) he is not technical and the word on the street (let's not fight over this, kids) is that BSD is faster and more stable than Linux; he likely believes this, right or wrong 3) if the debate is between Linux and Microsoft in government roles, BSD may never gain much more ground than it has now in that sector, and given the licensing, this is in MS' favor.
Additionaly, Microsoft has used some BSD code in Windows. I believe the original TCP/IP stack up through NT4 was derived from the BSD TCP/IP stack.
Mind you, this is not an absolute. There are Linux User Groups all over the area, and the two Chicago area offices I've worked at, had Solaris servers installed.
Shadowhawk
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
Fessick is a Turkish giant! He's in amazing shape.
No, he's dead.
A cancer is a malformation of growing cells within a body. If it is its own organism, it isn't a cancer; at worst it's probably blue-green algae.
So if Linux is a cancer, what is the body?
When I read the interview, they imply that the body is corporate software companies, specifically what we often call "closed source".
We don't think that Linux is in that body.
My guess is that M$'s problem is that Linux is eating at the body of possible code to write. That noosphere of possible code looks limitless to some; to Microsoft, it looks quite limited. And they want to own nothing less than the entire noosphere. Other companies are writing code; that's alright, M$ will buy them out sooner or later. When the faceless horde of OSS makes software, they are the cancer that eats away at the limited noosphere. OSS is stealing code and locking it away from Microsoft, who has manifest destiny over the entire noosphere.
Heaven help us all.
--The basis of all love is respect
Did you read the comments?
No.
They were all of the nature of "Hey, you're an idiot - fossil fuels are made from decaying vegetable matter, not from decaying dinosaurs".
I don't take that as being 'in good fun'.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Someone writes a nice program, then makes it available to you, along with the source, and all people do is bitch about the restrictions of the GPL. Get over it! Don't want restrictions? Then WRITE IT YOURSELF. Get off the box, people. That goes especially for you, Ballmer.
You don't seem to get it. If the government funded the development, then that person DID write it themselves, and should be able to do whatever they like with it.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
That's funny. I thought the main point of the GPL was to ensure that the code - in this case the Government code that you refer to above - would continue to be in the public domain, in perpetuity. By being less restrictive, the BSD license allows Government code to be taken out of the public domain. It sounds like you are saying "government code should be freely available to begin with, then it should be co-opted by the private sector and made proprietary". What the GPL generally says is "GPL code should be freely availble always, even when it is being used by the private sector". Do you see the difference here?
No, once it's in the public domain, it can never be taken out -- the GPL doesn't 'ensure that it continues to be in the public domain in perpetuity' AT ALL. GPL'ing it only affects people who use that source code as a basis for further development.
Nice fallacious argument though. Do them often?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Not sure I follow you: if the government funds it, then it's the government that gets to decide how it's released. Just like working for a 'real' company. The coder's been paid for it already, and his/her having lost something in exchange isn't exactly unheard-of.
No, the Government doesn't get to choose - Title 17, U.S.C. Chapter 1 explicitly prohibits the Govt. from holding any copyrights.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The difference is with the GPL you can't corner the market. Your code can be forked, incorporated, enhanced or whatever by anyone as long as they make the code available to anyone who needs it.
Revoke the Bayh-Dole act first and then we can talk about no funds for GPLd software.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
I *know* Vizzini.. This man is not the real Vizzini.
No cure for cancer.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Burlington Mills
;-)
That's Burlington Coat Factory.
Michael Sterrett
Burlington Coat Factory NH office
Linux shifts the economy from product-based to service based (since the product is free + your time). IBM sells services, and they like Linux. Microsoft sells products, and feels their bottom line is being threatened. They have a right to make a product, and people have a right to buy, or not to buy, their product
You're partly right. IBM sells hardware, they don't care what software it runs so long as it sells hardware. Microsoft sells software, Linux competes directly with their bottom line.
Beware the wood elf!!!
Or we can just point them to this: http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript. txt
If you haven't read or heard RMS' explanation of the FSF philosophy, you should read it...
If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license.
What do you mean by available? Obviously Microsoft wants to be able to take publicly funded software, and use it in its proprietary system. What are the chances that they won't tweek the code to be incompatible with the publicly available version (c.f. Kerberos)? Given their current monopoly on the desktop, this means that our tax dollars went to provide R&D and to increase the market cap of Microsoft!
I think this should not be considered proper use of public funds, and I think the GPL is a better guarantee that the software developed with public funds will benefit all of the public, not just a mega-corporation....
what Ballmer means by government funded is code writen as a project at a university. aka they dont what any GPL'ed projects writen where the GPL code has traditionally been writed. they are trying to cut off linux's air supply.
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Linus Torvalds called Windows a "festering crock of shit"
Bill Gates called Alan Cox a "long haired communist"
and,
Richard Stallman called Steve Ballmer a "capitalist toadie".
More news tomorrow.
- Do NOT flame back!
- Let the issue sit for a couple of days; no one respond to it at all in public
- Once some time to cool off has passed the "names" of the Software Libre community should get together and form a unified reply in a very calm and reasoned manor.
- Do NOT flame back!
- I hate to say it but ESR, and especially RMS, should not respond to this in any way whatsoever. While they may be right in what they say the way they say it doesn't help the movement at all.
- Go on about the business of making Software Libre the best it can be
MS is now going to turn it's marketing weight on us. That much is clear. How we, as a community, respond to it will make all the difference in the world. The key is to keep a cool head.A good analogy of this would be if someone were to call your mother many bad names. If you get all blown out by it it just makes you liik bad, like you're an unreasoning baffoon. However, when you realize that the person doing the name calling doesn't even know your mother or anything about her you see that they are just making noise. If you react as if it were all just noise and continue to proove your point with intellegance and reason, the name caller is them made to look the fool that he is.
---
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
I've never felt better.
That's right, because they don't read /. They may take M$ seriously. I'm going to write mine. Tell them not to beleive the lies. That Linux relies on intellectual property rights to remain free. Corporations only believe in IP to protect their own rights, never the rights of the little guy. And while your at it, write in a word about McCain-Fiengold so that the corporate bribes can be reduced. If M$ can't give $100K to Senator Joe Blow, then he may be less inclined to listen to them.
We have a big dream about what XML (a markup language for documents containing structured information, such as words and graphics) can do for the world.
;-)
So, now everyone should throw this quote back at every MS source they can find (forums, service reps, sales droids, etc) and ask one question: "so, when is MS Word going to save to XML?"
See? Microsoft can make the world a better place. They just choose not to.
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
Actually, what Ballmer is saying (in an inflamatory, and overly-broad way) is that the US government should not modify or contract modifications to GPL (or other GPL-like) licensed work, and I agree.
Woah up there, folks. First off, I write a fair amount of GPLed code, so don't assume that I'm an anti-GPL person.
I do, however feel that the government should not be allowed copyright to its works (which has always been upheld in this country).
Since the basis of the GPL is the control that copyright law allows, I don't see how the government can be allowed to distribute their modifications to GPLed programs any more than they could distribute their modified version of Harry Potter. In the Harry Potter case, they are given no permission to do so. In the GPL case, they are, but only under a provision of law that does not extend to them.
Now, why is Ballmer WRONG? Because there's plenty of BSD-licensed and public domain code out there. BSD is clearly and open source license, and honestly I think Ballmer has chosen Linux as a target because he doesn't want BSD in his sights. There are several reasons for this: 1) he knows that the BSD camp is much more conservative and it would be harder to make wild half-truth claims about them 2) he is not technical and the word on the street (let's not fight over this, kids) is that BSD is faster and more stable than Linux; he likely believes this, right or wrong 3) if the debate is between Linux and Microsoft in government roles, BSD may never gain much more ground than it has now in that sector, and given the licensing, this is in MS' favor.
The only counter-argument I see to the government/GPL case is if the government can contract to an external company to make changes to copyrighted works, and have the original copyright hold. I'm not even remotely a lawyer, so someone else will have to speak to that one.
Either way, it's a cheap shot to just jam this into an interview as a sound-bite, and while I'm not losing any respect for him over it, that's only because there was none there to begin with.
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
MS: Linux will fork.
Linux: Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP...
Missed out WinME also there are 3 versions of 95, 2 versions of 98, several NT's, etc.
Although it is true that multiple versions of Windows exist, the incompatibilities between them are minute compared to all the Linux versions.
It only takes a single change to break something anyway.
Because Windows is distributed by only one entity certain guarantees can be made (APIs/browsers/utilities). This makes the development of complex projects easier. In fact, it makes it possible.
Unfortunatly quite a bit of the Windows API is spread through libraries which applications can overwrite easily, with no decent versioning system.
Things arn't helped by many app writers assuming that they should have total freedom to do what they want with the machine.
If I take a piece of public-domain software and modify it, I can claim the modified version as my own and refuse to make it available to everyone. My modifications have no effect whatsoever on the status of the original public-domain release of the software.
If you don't make very big changes and get your proprietary version better known than the PD version, then you might be able to block other peoples' use of the PD material. Simply by claiming that they are "pirating" your work...
My opinion: the US government, and for that matter any other .gov, should want to work on GPLed/OSS projects because they want control over their own infrastructure, something that is denied to them if they run closed-source, restricted source, and licensed binaries on their own computers.
There are quite a few areas of government where they definitly should be controling their own infrastructure. i.e. with computer software the magic words "national security" for things such as the control of warships. (This also means that the likes of "easter eggs" are right out.)
I think the nice people at M$ are having trouble understanding the difference between using open source software and using the code from open course software. While this could be pure M$ cluelessness and refusial to understand concepts that are forgen to them, I wonder how many other people aviod open sourse and free software because of simler concerns.
thats nice..but are you aware most government projects dont release the source AT ALL ?? be greatful that some research has taken the effort to GPL the source. most DARPA funded code (99%) and most NSF funded code (80-90%) cant be obtained AT ALL much less under public domain or GPL. there is NO requirement in the grants to release the code ..just to publish the findings to the funding agency or reputable journal which costs $$$ to read.
be greatful youre getting anything from the researchers and stop whining about the license.
There's an excellent reason to GPL goverment-funded
work: some researchers don't want to do the work otherwise. That's why the PITAC report endorsed
giving individual PIs the power to decide what license to use.
Funny how you assume everyone shares your
definition of "make their code available" and
"be able to use it".
GPLed code is available and can be used. BSD
code is available and can be used.
You must have been asleep for all those years
that people were arguing about "Free Software"
and "Open Source".
Nope, I didn't assume that.
Yes, I see that "available" has multiple definitions. That was my point. Thank you
for agreeing.
Now for the word "use": You can "use" GPLed code without GPLing your code. For example, you can use gcc to compile a commercial program.
Keep it up, you'll eventually get it!
You can be obnoxious ("verbal gymnastics", how polite) or you can hold a conversation. I see you've made your choice. But I would strongly disagree with your claim that this is a "discussion".
Have a bad day.
innovate, vb.: 1. To appropriate third-party technology through purchase, immitation, or theft and to integrate it into a de-facto, monopoly-position product. 2. To increase in size or complexity but not in utility; to reduce compatibility or interoperability. 3. To lock out competitors or to lock in users. 4. To charge more money; to increase prices or costs. 5. To acquire profits from investments in other companies but not from direct product or service sales. 6. To stifle or manipulate a free market; to extend monopoly powers into new markets. 7. To evade liability for wrong doings; to get off. 8. To purchase legislation, legistators, legislatures, or chiefs of state. 9. To mediate all transactions in a global economy; to embezzle; to co-opt power (coup d'état). Cf. innovate, English usage (antonym).
Well, I guess except for the funny part, maybe Ballmer is a John Madden.
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies.
Uh... Riiiight. So, er, that's why we need to fund closed source work that's not available to anyone? Or else, you mean that you support government funding for the BSDs?
Seriously, the two-install thing is going to be a MAJOR hassle for a lot of folks. Sure rules out XP for scientists in Antarctica. "What do you mean you don't have a phone? Can't you go over to your friend's house?" As well as for students, people testing it, etc, etc, etc. Nice way to shoot yourselves in the foot, losers. I can't wait to answer the calls from relatives looking for computer support. "You can't? Twice? That's because they FUCKED you! What can you do? Throw it out."
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
GPL'd code is not accessable to everybody. It is only accessable to developers who are willing to release their code under the GPL license which excludes large portions of the community.
National parks are not accessable to everybody. They are only accessable to people who are willing to share them with everyone else. National parks are inaccesable to logging companies, real estate agents, and construction companies.
Government land should be in the public domain, not placed under restrictive rules that require you to share.
--
"I presume that what Ballmer meant to say was "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds GPL'd work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."
Hey I have an idea. Why presume what he meant. Why not actually listen to what he said. Either is is a moron and is unable to express what he means or he said exactly what he meant.
He said no such thing. He does not need people like you to spin his words for him. His words speak for him not you. He has paid minions if he wants to retreat or backtrack.
War is necrophilia.
I am pretty sure that MS bought Spyglass Mosiac and modified it into IE.
Haven't we learned not to feed trolls? I hope that the Free Software luminaries give this guy the response he deserves this time: none at all.
By stooping to his level, we're playing their game.
If nobody responds to Microsoft's PR, then Microsoft's PR will define the terms of engagement. No, you don't want Free Software luminaries frothing at the mouth, but I think it is perfectly fair to say that the term, "cancerous" is probably more correctly applied to Microsoft's acknowledged policy of, "embrace and extend." Just say it calmly, rationally, and with decent grammar.
If you say, "now I'll be modded down because of X", I'll happily oblige.
You can either argue that neither Linux or Windows has forked, or you can argue that both have forked. I personally see a fork as something where two separate codebases exist and no syncronization is done between them. This is not the case in any of the Windows or Linux lines.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Actually, have you every used MSDN? The documentation there is a hell of a lot better than you'll find for any version of Linux - even with the source code provided on Linux.
I've yet to find any vendor that provides as good developer documentation as Microsoft does. Access to the source code does NOT mean you have the best possible documentation. There is a massive difference.
Granted, some raw protocols or file formats are not disclosed, but guess what? If you are developing for a Microsoft system you don't need them. If you want to access a Word file you just use the COM interfaces provided by Word itself. If you want to talk SMB then you use the whole swag of WNet APIs. Comparing the source code to proper documentation is stupid - a properly documented interface would win every time.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Umm... and Unix doesn't?
Any argument of forking is going to end up with Microsoft coming out above Unix whichever way you go, especially now they are retiring the Win9x line and going with the single NT kernel for everything.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Where do people get this idea you need "billions in the bank" to get a response from MS? For my part (and I assure you I don't have billions in the bank), I've had timely responses from Microsoft on a number of developer issues including a few bugs I've found in the OS here and there.
Of course, who am I to dispel people's beliefs that MS is an evil company and never listens to developers...
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP are forks? I don't think so. This is pretty much the same as saying:
FreeBSD 3.0, FreeBSD 4.0, Linux 2.0, Linux 2.2 and Linux 2.4 are forks. If you are going to respond to him then you could at least get YOUR facts straight!!
Win9x has never been a fork on the NT project. While the FreeBSD analogy above is a little out, Win9x is really a version of Win3.0 with a whole stack of 32 bit junk tacked in wherever possible. You'd be much closer calling Warp and NT forks of each other, or even OpenVMS and NT forks. Hell, even Linux+Wine is probably closer to NT/2000/XP than Win9x is!!!
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
At the rate he's going, it's only a matter of time before he starts talking about Henry Kissenger and the Queen of England.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
That's pretty much what Mundie said. Seems that that's the Company Line. And I think RMS, O'Reilly, et. al. addressed that pretty well.
Best Slashdot Co
Okay! Let's see how he does on the slashdot scale!
Informative = 0
Intersting = 0
Insightful = 0
Troll = -5
Flaimbait = -5
This story would have been modded down so far if it were in the slashdot forums, that None of us would have ever seen it! Now that's "+1, Intersting!"
Clever set up. First he complains that people don't respect Intellectual property enough and need reminding. Then he whinges about his (totally false) lie that open source makes all other software open source due to Intellectual property issues.
Nice example of telling a bare faced lie for spin purposes though, pretending that he does not understand there are -different- types of open source licence. Almost makes me believe he realli -is- stupid.
EZ
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
One should always remember the old adage "It's impossible to argue with a fool." I think this kind of posturing and chest-beating by MS is best ignored. Let the work (their's and the "cancer's") speak for itself.
Wouldn't it be interesting if Microsoft changed their license to disallow the use of GPL code on their OS? Enforcability issues aside.
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
I know how people on this weblog will feel, but Mr. Ballmer speaks the truth in a direct and concise way. Linux tries to attach itself to everything out there, thanks to the virotic nature of the GPL that we all know about.
Mr. Ballmer makes good points regarding software piracy too. Microsoft is giving us a great opportunity of watching our legal situation by taking care of the piracy monitoring herself.
Now, the strongest point IMHO: Internet Explorer. It is the best, really. Coming bundled in the OS is nothing but a commodity for us. Can you imagine still having to run the bloated Netscape 6 or Mozilla? Windows and IE run better on old hardware than anything else. And that's a proven fact. Which leads us to that same old question: will open source software ever be as fast as proprietary but user-concerned software? I seriously doubt so.
So I say, listen to wise people like Steve Ballmer. Give your MS bashing a break.
--
I have no sig at all.
I think one thing that people haven't quite realized yet is how very very easy it is for a company like Microsoft to take a "public" standard, such as Kerberos, DNS, NFS, SMTP, or whatever, and make it incompatible. It takes just one little change to the protocol, in the guise of "innovation" to make it incompatible.
This is one of their real sources of leverage. They can claim they are "innovating", while
magically making a proprietary product which is a parasite off of existing standards. In other words, today's Internet protocols are sort of like "GPL" code, implicitly, because you need to
make your code obey their "license", in order to interoperate. When someone takes a protocol private, they can get a free ride from the existing implementations, i.e.., their code seems to interoperate, but the user becomes dependent on some new feature, and is suddenly locked in to the proprietary product.
I think that the public, who has not had intimate experience with building and using network protocols and APIs, has little idea of how easy it is to "pollute" an existing standard. Indeed, many protocols, such as SMTP, are subject to "accidental" pollution, where implementors with good intentions still try to stick in a new "feature" into their code.
In the past Microsoft has, and does, make slightly incompatible versions of such basic protocols as SMTP. I have personally experienced plenty of failures as my own legally formatted SMTP messages are chewed up and spit out garbled by Microsoft mail handling products (just "bugs" in their MIME handling, or "embrace and extend"?).
Anyway, I think this is another silent front in Microsoft's war on humanity, and people should realize that the real damage is happening without loud obnoxious announcements by Microsoft management.
from the article:
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody.
um, isn't the idea of open source and/or free software, that it is available to everybody? damn, how suits miss the point.
-laslo
http://www.laslocomm.net
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
Don't call Microsoft "Microsloth". It just makes you look biased and unreliable. (Yes, I hate Microsoft too, but if you want people to agree with you, you have to look respectable.)
------
I wasn't talking about not responding, but about taking the high road. There is no reason that when taunted, you have to respond in kind--it is playing into the bully's hands.
Play a different game. Change the rules. React unexpectedly and they will spend more time meta-analyzing the motivations behind the response and less time pursuing the game plan. The last thing you want to do when put in a defensive position by an opponant is respond defensively. Take the offense and make them react.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Playing the "I'm not going to dignify that with a response" game will NEVER get you a win in the court of public opinion,
Microsoft had exactly that response the first time the Free Software Gang got together to respond to the FUD. "That was [so and so's] goal, to encourage debate." and that was their only direct response. Then they rang the bell and started round two.
Rather than responding defensively to Microsoft's offensive PR moves, the people who hold Free Software dear should find an offensive move of their own, and set Mcrosoft on the defensive. As it is, it's challenge-response PR, and the challenger looks like the winner because they look like they're in control, the responders lose because they're defensive.
The PR battle is fought as much on the direct as the meta playing fields. If Microsoft wanted to suddenly lash out at car manufacturers in a similar, irrational way, they would still sound like winners because they're on the offensive.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Haven't we learned not to feed trolls? I hope that the Free Software luminaries give this guy the response he deserves this time: none at all.
By stooping to his level, we're playing their game. It is obvious to me, at least, that when you play Microsoft's game, they win. Instead, the good team should be pondering a way to force Microsoft to play a different PR game--probably one that starts off with "we don't think his ideas merit a response. He is clearly another empty mind pursuing another of Microsoft's intense PR campaigns that sound newsworthy but don't move forward the debate over intellectual property in this country one iota. We'll let our software do the talking."
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
You're exactly right. Microsoft seems to believe that the Linux community has some obligation to make the source code available to them for easy integration.
This is simply irrational. Linux is a competitor to Microsoft, as they have stated countless times. Does Microsoft complain that IBM doesn't make the source of (current) versions of OS/2 avaible or Apple the proprietary bits. No, because they are twisting the facts.
The GPL acts as a sort of protective measure, keeping undesired competition out. If you want to use GPL code, you have to open your code base. This specifically protects intellectual property because Microsoft (and others) can't grab it wholesale and use it in their products without making their source available. Doing so would put them on even footing with the open source competition, in that the open source/free software community would also have access to their I.P. and be able to incorporate Microsoft code.
Imagine if SGI had made XFS available under a different license, ala the BSD or X11 license. Sun, HP, and IBM would be able to port the source code to their version of unix and as a result, have a better offering. But the GPL adds an additional barrier to entry, they would have to do something they have no desire to do, make their code base entirely open and free. So, they will not use the XFS code and SGI's I.P. is being used in the way they want it - that is, they will ahve access to the source of any product using XFS. That is precisely what they want, because they want to be the guys selling you hardware that uses XFS.
They are in business here and open source makes sense for business reasons, not some altruist desire.
Yes, I think I confused what I thought the parent was saying with Microsoft's stance. My bad, my post was a bit OT.
I agree with Ballmer saying that government funded work should be public domain.
I still think my comments are quite relevant to the issue though. Microsoft has been claiming that the GPL destroys IP, I was trying to refute that (and perhaps it belongs in a different thread).
Just my 2 cents...
Microsoft, taking the Language out of HTML and the Expert out of JPEG
We literally have dozens of partners doing very innovative work with customers here.
There has been no legal ruling put into effect. We have and continue to innovate within the spirit and letter of the law.
The inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows has been absolutely great ... for innovation in the software industry.
It will force us to be innovative.
This really isn't anything new of course. They've been associating this word with Microsoft for a while now, but it still irks me that it's so fucking transparent. These guys are absolute leaches, sucking the soul of America dry with their marketing and PR shit. God, I love this country! Build your products and build them well, but don't act like fucking Moses about them, dictating how, where, when, and why people should them and shit like that.
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Filling out property sheets is not programming. Get a real job. Who woke this guy up anyway?
I want to be alone with the sandwich
I'm rubber, your're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and stick to you.
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I personally have trouble with the cancerous analogy that Ballmer uses. Viral is more accurate, but still somwhat lacking in my eyes. To me the GPL is more reflective of a gene or a meme if you will. It truly is infectious, but only if you let it infect you. It is a selectable infection. Nobody makes you use the GPL, you choose to use the GPL and pass on its traits, much like genes. Most people aren't FORCED into passing on their genes, it is typically a situation where there is a meeting between two people and they decide (not necessarily consciously) to pass their genes on through a child.
Meme theory is very similar. People talk, discuss ideas/beliefs/thoughts and pass them on. The ideas that people share with you tend to infect you if you agree with them or they are potent enough to penetrate any kind of preconceived idea that you may have.
To me this is a more accurate description of how the GPL works. Cancer is something that happens and you don't plan on it. Virii are able to penetrate you if you want them to or not. The GPL is more genetic if you are going to use a biological analogy.
--------
"Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs."
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
If by "software innovations" you mean today's software products, then you are correct. But true software innovations, as in discoveries of new and different techniques, happened 30-40 years ago at universities -- places where people go to learn and work, not because they're getting paid, but because they want to.
Given a choice of implementations, would you choose the one written by somebody who has a passion for the subject and gladly did it for free, or the one made by the individual sitting in an uncomfortable cubicle with poor lighting and whose only motivation was that they were getting paid? Me personally, I choose the former.
History has shown, and others here have pointed out, that people who work simply because they want to typically make better products, because they put more effort and spirit into it.
- Milo Hyson
The fact is, all code used in government should be GPL'd by the freedom of information act. I, for one, feel that the software that processes the info that is kept on me should be available for my perusal.
No, the point is that all code written by the government should enter into the public domain. It should not be GPL'd, BSDL'd, or anything else. Those all require retension of copyright, and government produced documents should be owned by us all (public domain).
If the government extends an existing product, however, that doesn't suddenly mean that that government is allowed to violate that product's license - if it's commercial software, they must pay like everyone else. If it's GPL'd software, they must GPL their changes like everybody else. If it's BSDL'd software, they can do whatever they wish with their changes - my recommendation would be submitting them to the maintainer of the project, in accordance with the spirit of Open Source software development, but they don't need to.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
In my opinion, the real cancer is intellectual property. It's a cancer to society because it forces people to compete against one another for selfish motives as opposed to bringing them together. It forces us to constantly reinvent the wheel, so as to get around someone else's IP. It's an immense waste and duplication of effort.
In my opinion, the only property worthy of the name is tangible property. If you can't lock it up or build a fence around it, it does not belong to you. Once you release something like music, ideas, software, novels, etc..., you cannot prevent people from copying it and using it for their own benefit. An example is Brazil where patented aids drugs are copied to save lives. Tens of millions of copies of Windows are being used free around the world. There is not a damn thing MS can do about it.
The wonderful promise of GPL is not that it's a cancer for IP owners, it is the cure for the cancer that is intellectual property. Software and other ideas should be a way to increase the value of tangible property.
The wealth of the earth is the earth and what it contains. The only way to ensure that people get a fair share is to make sure that everybody is guaranteed possesion of a piece of the earth, an estate if you please. Then it should be up to us to increase the value of our piece as we see fit, either through cooperation with others or not. This would bring freedom and eliminate exploitation. Any other system is slavery.
No, really, you actually did say this. To quote you:
But many things are quite useful, even though no one can make money off of them. This part of your argument is false. Open source code is quite useful to a large number of people. It just isn't useful to Microsoft, or other companies that would like to use the hard work of open source programmers for the companies' good.
I also found the last part of your argument interesting:
Is one of the stated goals of open source software to improve professionally developed applications? Should that be the goal of open source projects?
I think what we have here, and what your argument points out, is two differences in philosophy. Apparently, you believe that the purpose of software development is to make money. A lot of people share your view. But a lot of people don't.
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
...that corporations have some type of right to modify someone else's software and then sell the results. I still don't understand the argument. "Well, I want to be able to use your code, but then sell what I've created." Why not just start from scratch?
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
Isn't "cancer" just another word for "growth"? And isn't growth what America's all about?
This message has been scanned for memes and dangerous content by MindScanner, and is believed to be unclean.
Not really any need to comment on this article, he does it all himself:
"...The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody..."
Because these two projects don't use the GPL to release their work. The Apache foundation uses the ASL which discourages forking in ways that wouldn't quite jive with adding in GPL code and OpenBSD uses the BSDLicense which allows code to be incorporated into non-free programs in ways that don't work with the GPL (though the FSF terms it as a compatable license these days). Basically, the differences aren't all that big of a deal unless you like picking fights with RMS. The little obscure differences between these different licenses are avaliable here if you actually had any interest in learning about these issues.
________________________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
What is the Chicago Sun Times Web site running?
Here is the answer:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Netscape-Enterprise/3.6
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 17:05:09 GMT
Content-type: text/html
Connection: close
Seems like Mr Ballmer & M$ still have a little work to do... =)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
It's time for a geek march on Redmond - bald headed 'cancer survivors' picketting the gates of The M$ campus - proclaiming their personhood in the face of the suffering inflicted by the evile emperor
I also don't think it is a bad thing. Linux can go to any platform someone has an itch to place it on. We've seen linux on a watch, the Play Station, and TiVo is rumored to use it. Linux can go almost anywhere because the source code is open and everyone if free to port it, change it, or modify it how ever they want. In this way, Linux can and does grow like a cancer cell, and I bet Microsoft is scarted because they can't match that grow. In that same light, other industries have not been so willing to attach themselves to Microsoft's Operating systems as they have Linux (and oter open *nix OSes).
I think Mr. Ballmer may have just opened is mouth and swallowed his foot.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
You have to understand this quote from a "Captain of Industry" perspective. The relationship between the government and industry in terms of new technology has traditionally been that the government serves as a "free" R&D shop for industry. New technologies developed by the government make it into the public domain by being licensed/given to industry to then sell to the public (see the National Technology Transfer Center's site). What Ballmer is saying is that if the government releases new technology under some sort of open-licensing scheme, then anyone can use this technology, and any future enhancements will have to remain in the public domain. So from his perspective, this quote makes sense. If the government releases work under and open-licensing model, then the work of government scientists will not be available to people who wish to exclusively license the rights to someone else's research and then profit from selling this other person's work to the world.
All in all it's a funny system. You the taxpayer pay government scientists to do research and develop technology X. The government then licenses technology X to company Y. Company Y then packages technology X as product Z. Company Y then sells you and the government product Z (the product you already paid to the government to develop).
I know at least the guys in Microsoft's Legal department read /., so I'm going to give this a shot.
Why are you letting him spout off like this? He looks like an idiot, and makes the rest of Microsoft look the same.
How is this good for your stock price? Let alone when he gets going about Sun again, and Scott has to call in the sharks again. How is increasing your expenditure because of Ballmer good for the shareholders?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Replace "cells" with "code" and this metaphor seems much more applicable to Windows than Linux. Especially considering that no one's quite sure HOW cancer works on the inside, just that it keeps getting bigger and badder.
---
CS Graduate work isn't necessarily government-funded though. Often, if it is government funded research, the code is released publicly though, is it not? (IANACSGSDR (Comp.Sci.Grad.Student Doing Research)) If the research is funded by the University, I'm fairly sure the University gets the copyright on the work, or a portion of the profits, if any. Maybe not...Is this something that every University has set up? Anyone with experience/knowledge in this area?
---
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
"""
If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license.
"""
This is silly. The government funds whole shitloads of private software development and you don't see anybody asking those companies to share their code. Nobody tells them that they have to release their code under this or that license. Plus, according to MS' own philosophy, the government is paying for the finished software, not the source code.
This is just MS FUD, plain and simple. It's a move to attack the open-source movement in the only way they can -- by making GPL software development illegal under the goverment's payroll. First it'll be companies that receive govt. funds that aren't allowed to release under the GPL. Then it'll be researchers in Universities who recieve government grants (as most *all* of them do). Got a federal student loan? Sorry, no GPL for you.
If they can pull it off it will have a catastrophic chilling effect, cutting off many major sources of quality free software, and leaving those that survive vulnerable to MS' "embrace".
When you accept the "simple, self-evident truths" (e.g. taxpayer support -> no restrictions on source code) that corporations feed you, you make the mistake of assuming that the law operates in a "simple, self-evident" way. You foolishly ignore the fact that those selfsame corporations are more than happy to claim that an issue is subtle and complex when it is to their benefit to do so.
The law acts as a vehicle for injustice just as often as justice. Which it is only depends on who's in the driver's seat.
-DA
His beef is with keeping the government out of software development and I find myself cringing that I actually agree with him. I suspect that some of our motivations are different however.
Open Source is a wonderful endeavor and it has provided a "utility" value to society. I view open source projects to be similar to the common domain. Anybody can publish the contents of the English Dictionary, and heck the dictionary is pretty damn useful!
However, I am a capitalist, and I believe that entranapuners are heroes too. Open Source (on its own) will never threaten the capital markets. Open Source (on its own) will not discourage proprietary investment in software technologies. Clearly there are those within the open source community who would dispense with proprietary research and development in software. While I sympathize with this perspective, I must honestly disagree. I believe our capital system ultimately will drive Open Source to further successes, and by using Open Source to dissuade the capital system will be self destructive.
Encouraging open source development with tax incentives and direct research grants from the Government would be a terrible mistake.
With direct grants, the government would be the arbitrator of funding. This is socialism. We don't want the government picking our software for us for the same reason we don't want the government choosing our luncheon meats.
Tax incentives provide a blind, softer level of government involvement. While the government should support scientific research, I believe a line (albeit gray) should be drawn between research and software development. If the government actively displays a bias for open source development they are implicitly discouraging closed source development.
I vehemently disagree with discouraging closed source development of software. I believe in intellectual property rights and I believe in the capital markets. I believe that open source fits extremely well in the capital market model. I strongly disagree with Balmer that the GPL is some kind of cancer that prevents companies from developing proprietary software for GPL platforms. That is simply not true. Plenty of proprietary software runs on Linux.
Linux, the GPL and other open source forms have performed extremely well over the past few years (and scared the shit out of people like Balmer!) Let's not upset the balance, and leave the government out of software.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Sure, you may have the docs from MSDN so you really don't need to be able to see how everything works, but if something isn't working quite right, then you are SOL. You won't be able to help yourself because you can't see how it works, and you're not going to get help from MS unless you have billions in the bank.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
That's not the point. The point is that MS has multiple platforms with many incompatibilities.
That is all...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
This would be perfect for a Modern Humorist poster:
When you download GPL software, you're downloading CANCER!!
The exception to that is when the code is tied to other GPL'ed code. But there it works the same way w/ closed code. MS won't just give the gov't access to source and allow them to share improvements w/ the public. Neither will GPL.
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
I thought that wasn't a requirement under the LGPL.
Probably after a debate about some unimportant VM kernel programming detail, or whether to incorporate a different boot logo into the kernel, or something.
Only that won't hinder the movement. Please don't start another discussion about "what if Linus's plane crashes". There are at least 100 people who could and would take his place if he should become "unavailable" one way or another (which I certainly don't hope).
That's the advantage of believing in an idea, not (primarily) a person.
Home Page
What Ballmer needs is Rogaine 5000
--- even the safest course is fraught with peril
"More seriously, in Chicago we do seem to have an inferiority complex about our place in the tech world. Rankings frequently put us toward the bottom among major cities in terms of our tech presence."
Only one off the top of my head was Bungie and they were assimilated by the Borg and whisked to Seattle.
Microsoft CEO's Warning: studies indicate that this product may cause increased security, greater stability, and may contribute to competition. System Administrators who wish to remain insane are suggested to avoid using this product.
Sieg Heil, mighty leader! We will shout for truth from all the rooftops!
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
little was done with the Boundless web player.
A violation is a violation, be it a one woman shop or Microsoft, or someone inbetween.
It has *MORE* to do with the lack of conviction in the GPL most coders have. The like talking about how the GPL 'protects', but are unwilling to invoke that protection.
If they believe in the GPL, they'd assign the code rights to the FSF.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Yeah, I agree with you in principle
Yet, the 'principle' is exactly what the typical GPL proponent talks about.
Call RMS what you might, but he seems consistant on his principle.
And props to Avery, as he's willing to enforce what he believes is right.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Ask Joe Barr. He mail him and ask if he sent that.
(who is Joe Barr? A 'leading' Linux advocate. Paid to shill for Linux on the now dead Linux World)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Should look like this instead?
From: Joe Barr [joe@pjprimer.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 1999 8:02 AM
To: sales@mindcraft.com
Subject: Industry Scum
Hey, Mindcraft
I am writing an article about asslicking whores in the industry.
You know the sort, they bend over for folks like Bill Gates by
producing totally false "benchmarks" based on liess, mistests,
biased hardware and software, and scores of other unethical,
deceiptful, dishonest, duplicitous means.
Like your reviews of NT vs Novell and Linux. Classic cases of
professional prostitution.
Cock sucking the geeks in Redmond.
The question for you maggots, whores, whatever you prefer to be
called, is: how much does it cost to buy one of your benchmarks?
tHANKS,
Joe Barr The Dweebspeak Primer
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
What the GPL DOES do is prevent a closed source company from taking your code, using it for their own purpose, then not allowing YOU to benefit from what they added to your code.
Wrong. A company CAN take the code and do whatever the hell they want to it.
Now, someone has to catch the company with the GPLed code. THEN someone who owns the copyrite on the code has to be willing to bring the issue in front of a judge, and have the judge inforce the contract.
Given how little was done to the Boundless web player (virginconnect's box) when it was in violation, most of the people who write GPL code don't have the guts or balls to do what they have to do to make the GPL work as you have proposed.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Is it just me or does this sound a bit like:
"...you are a cancer of this planet and we are the curer."
--
Ner lbh sebz gur HFN? Gura lbh'ir whfg ivbyngrq gur QZPN!
We all know Gandhi's old line: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Now it seems that MS has gotten to the point where they are just playing hard dirty: calling Linux a "cancer" based on incorrect assumptions about the workings of the GPL (although we all know full well that MS, and Ballmer, know that neither Linux nor the GPL do any such thing as Ballmer describes -- it is pure FUD, they know it, we know they know, they know we know they know, etc.).
MS &c. MUST know that anyone like "us" (open source advocates) will know that Ballmer is full of crap. So presumably this article is intended for people who don't know any better: perhaps MS's 500 corporate customers in the tri-state area, some of whom might have been thinking about alternatives to MS... "Hey, Bob, did you hear? Linux gives you cancer!"
But my point is that I don't think MS would be resorting to obviously desperate tactics like this if they weren't in stage 3: fighting. The problem is that there are only two ways that Microsoft can "defeat" Linux in any real sense:
1) Destroy all copies of Linux
2) Make Linux (or the GPL) illegal
#1 is obviously unfeasible. Therefore I can only conclude that MS will, eventually, attempt #2: try to buy laws that make Open/Free Software illegal in some way.
Determining implications of the Orwellian future implied above is left as an exercise to the reader.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Thank heavens 'rm' is there for necessary radiation therapy, but I still have these 'dpkg --purge' situations.
Explain to me how XP is a rip-off of Linux. I just don't see it.
Didn't the DOJ take that away from him?
Sure, any company can take the public domain code and use it in a closed source product. And any developer who wants to can fork the code and use the derivative in a GPL'd product, too, and the bright warm glow that is Free Software will shine on that fork, and keep it safe happily ever after. *grin*
I think that many people, mostly non programmers, and people who just plain don't understand what public domain is make this mistake. They think that a closed source programmer can take the code, and make a change, put their copyright on it and do a copyright -r (recursive copyright). Everyone wakes up and can't find the source, because someone closed all the source. I don't know if you have ever noticed, but it is nearly impossible to convince some people that the above scenario can't happen. Oh well.
Ballmer used the word 'innovate' no less than 6 times in the article. How about 'innovating' your vocabulary? The MS Word 2000 thesaurus lists the following alternatives to the word 'innovation': novelty, modernism, modernization, improvement, advance and originality.
If I, say, wanted to produce my own commercial, completely closed-source text editor, there's nothing in the GPL that prevents me from studying the Emacs code, 'stealing' its data structures and algorithms, and recoding them.
I guess that makes Windows HIV. After all, it leaves your PC vulnerable to infection
ChodaBoy
ChodaBoy
- The preceding statement is the product of a deranged mind and the sole property of the voices in my head.
Big time.
They've enjoyed the fruits of a monopoly market dominance for so long that what has built up is this: an incredibly large disparity between what they charge customers and what the true value-added really is.
How many corporate IT departments have shelled out exhorbitant site license fees for Office year after year after year and for what kind of really useful improvements since Word 6?
The existing market is not stable. Buyers would jump at an exit door, if only they could find one that isn't blocked by MS proprietary lock-ins. If your workplace is like mine, all your personnel are trained to use and to produce .doc, .xls and .ppt files. There is not another option. The pressure builds.
If I were as scared as Ballmer is about damming up millions of users with my locks, I'd make outrageous troll statements, too. I'd even eat a worm! Even if Ballmer's statements are patently ridiculous, he can create enough confusion to buy time. That time is valuable, probably worth millions of dollars per day in revenue gained or lost. Not to mention the added satisfaction of effectively slashdotting slashdot as righteous indignant programmers fume and vent on each other.
On a different note, aside from all this political posturing to the general media, who are generally clueless, I've always been amused by MS' spin towards the developer demographics in those glossy magazine ads. Recall that developer mindshare is an important ingredient to MS long term success and, having shafted many of the older "partners" (by making them offers they can't refuse) they have to recruit new members.
You know the ads I'm talking about, the ones that intimate that, as a Visual <argv> Developer, you are the He-Man Goto Guru Code Jock that everyone respects in your company, that gets paid well, that groupies swoon for, ....
There ain't no substitute for the power and control of Source Code. Well do both MS and Richard Stallman know that. They fear a GPL that dictates the public shall own the Source evermore. And that public Source base has been growing ominously large of late.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Its latin. Word order doesnt matter.
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
And he never has the same problem twice.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-micro0 1.html
Is that file name meant to be French, "c'est-fin-Microsoft"?
--
Free Mac Mini
Linux:Cancer as Windows:Germ Warfare
Linus has,in fact,grown,and explosively-JonKatz
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
Unbelievable. Either I'm misinterpretting what Mr Ballmer is saying here, or he really has no idea at all about the GPL.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the GPL state that dirivatives of Open Source software covered by the GPL must also be made available as Open Source and fall under the bounds of the GPL?
I read what he's saying as being "If I use MySQL on MS Windows, I must also make MS Windows Open Source" (for lack of a better example).
Microsoft annoy me. I cannot stand their arrogance or their dirty play... But it just goes to show that MS don't really understand Open Source at all. They can't even interpret the GPL as its intended, they have to twist the meaning of that to suit them too.
A post is not (+1, Insightful) if it makes a statement like "Chances are, it's a quote taken out of context or a wholesale fabrication by a reporter." when the article in question is an exact transcript of an interview. Or "Microsoft didn't get where it is today by putting its collective foot in its mouth like that" after some of Microsoft's stupider recent PR blunders. (Like, oh say, Allchin, Mundie, former Ballmer statements, Halloween documents...)
In fact, Microsoft has quite a history of putting its "collective foot in its mouth" and then somehow pursuading the media to forget it ever said or did anything wrong.
Modration predictions for this post: moderated down for criticizing moderators, moderated down for critizing Microsoft and "quoting the Slashdot party line". (Which is defined as anything but: Microsoft is god! Microsoft is god!)
-RickHunter
im not even gonna comment on this (or did i just do it anyway) ...
-- - e.m.p.t.y - --
the good news is, windows is curable.
we just need a massive windows-awareness
education campaign.
Try replying in context. Why should the government fund GPL'ed code?
If the intent is to have all government funded work be available to anybody, then I could accept the premise -- This would, of course mean that the government should NOT fund any closed source either. If this means that they should be dumping all of their MS-Windows software out the, uhhm, window. and go to BSD, then don't wait for me to cry.
The GPL is designed to ensure that future versions of a piece of software are available to the public, not just current versions. The L-GPL does this as well, while being somewhat less viral. The BSD and some other 'open source' licenses do not.
Microsoft's real meaning of 'available to the public', really means 'able to be absconded and made unavailable to the public. Microsoft's approach it this is actually brings into the open what has been whispered about them many times in the past -- Microsoft's most common method of 'innovation' is to appropriate somebody else's code, call it their own, and work from that base. GPL code is available to Microsoft. It's just not available for Microsoft to steal.
---
For me, the idea of paying taxes for government-funded work that I end up being forced to pay to just use is far more galling than paying taxes for government-funded work that I'm not allowed to appropriate because it's got a GPL protecting it's public nature.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Yea, Steve There is a cancer, but the cancer on our society is the greed that personifies Microsoft and it's corporate leaders.
Actually, I've always thought he looked just like Uncle Fester.
From Microsofts perspective Linux is a cancer on their bottom line. I just can't believe they want the rest of us to sympathize.
It's hard to find a computer that doesn't run a Microsoft product, particularly in Chicago. Microsoft's Chicago-based Midwest district office, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin...
Then, a little later the interviewer uses this statement in a question:
in Chicago we do seem to have an inferiority complex about our place in the tech world. Rankings frequently put us toward the bottom among major cities in terms of our tech presence.
draw your own conclusions. :-)
--
andy j.
Stupid Cheap Guitars
Public domain.
Taco, the moderator pool needs more chlorine.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
If the code's in the public domain, what's to stop you from grabbing the tarball, making a couple of changes, and building a multi-million dollar business? What's stopping you from doing it even if a corporation already did the same thing? Surely they can't yell "copyright violation!!!" and have it stick... Public domain means you have the same access that the corp does. If you've got the right to it, so do they.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
OK, now I'm getting real confused.
According to the majority of the slashdot community, if I download metallica's latest single I am not "stealing" anything because everyone still has their copy. The how would MS or any other company be able to "steal" GPL'd code. It is still out there for everyone to use.
Please, at least be consistent.
(Posted from work, on my Solaris box)
When I hit SUBMIT, this was Microsoft's reply:
chongo (was here)
One problem is ther are 2 ways to "use" code. Ballmer takes advantage of the confusion between the liberal terms granted to end users and the more constrictive terms placed on future developers by only a few licenses. Aunti Gert reading the Sun-Times now believes that she cannot run open-source programs along side of Quicken.
I agree that government-funded code should be able to be used by all. Just as government funded roads and parks should be free for everyone's use.
However, when individuals or companies decide to improve a park, the improvements should remain part of the park. Road improvements on freeways should preclude folks from constructing toll booths.
That's why GPL can become a tool for building common software infrastructure that never gets coopted by private concerns. In my opionion, it only makes sense for OS and other enabling technologies. When used there, it can actually promote more IP, since the developers who use the enabling platform do not have to worry about future hidden costs from a change in licensing, as many Windows users are about to experience.
It's hard to find areas where the US government actually looks out for end-consumer interests anymore. And spoiled business interests scream like this whenever they don't get the considation for which they paid and lobbied. News-flash: the government is *not* obliged to benefit company profits with everything it does.
Try to come up with some examples of companies that got rich off of projects funded by the government. Now, does your head feel like exploding? Yeah, that's a lot, eh?
The fact is, all code used in government should be GPL'd by the freedom of information act. I, for one, feel that the software that processes the info that is kept on me should be available for my perusal.
Okay, that's not gonna happen, but still.
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
I don't buy it. The "freedom" of software under BSD licenses has nothing to do with software being free of charge. Rather, it's the freedom to do whatever you want with the code and not have to worry about being blindsided by lawyers or license nazis.
This freedom represents a very tangible benefit to anyone who is a software contractor and as such is definitely worth paying money for. How much would you pay for a word processor equivalent to Word that gave you the right to freely modify it for any of your clients and never have to forward an additional cent to its writer or have to worry about producing licenses for yourself or your customers?
I don't know about you, but I don't think twice about laying down a wad of cash for such software since it's giving me two very real benefits. One, I can make money from offering customized versions to those who don't have the skills to customize it themselves. Two, I can sleep at night and never worry about my business being destroyed by software lawyers. That's freedom, in my opinion, not a license which says you can do anything with a given piece of software except actually make money with it.
GPL -is- an invasive biotech weapon, on purpose; that's the point. It's fair for the government to consciously decide whether to play that game rather than letting it be a willy-nilly decision by individual projects.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Whew. Good thing this isn't _our_ company... I mean, everyone knows Linus is perfectly normal, RMS is no longer hyperactive or anally retentive and, and.. ok, I don't know about any other of our leaders ;).
The companies that have the biggest following of loyalist fans also have these sort of banana-republic dictator personalities running the company. In order to gain new territory, you sometimes have to rally the troops (employees) and your allies (investors) by making bold, outrageous statements. Usually it's limited to something like, "we're going to make a lot of money this year," or "our new product is The Next Big Thing."
I've never met a Microsoft user who was passionate about the company. Every single one I know says the same thing, "We use it over because it's {Faster|OutOfBeta|HasMoreSoftware|HasMoreHardwareS upport}. Is this true? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I personally love linux, but from a realistic standpoint, there are a lot of things it can't do as well as windows (and not just crash ;)). For example, my company just bought a couple of new Dell Inspirons 8000's, with NVIDIA's GeForce2 Go chip... well... it's a known bug that X crashes whenever you exit. Period. That's life. Windows runs stably.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Sig file removed due to pedants who don't have any sense of fun criticizing its factual validity
I would venture to guess that those "pedants" who have criticized the factual validity of your sig file were probably only doing so in good fun, or most of them anyway. Who's the real party pooper here?
-
If a developer takes public domain code and uses it as a foundation of or a component of their own work then I don't understand how you can expect to have a claim to free access to the work they did. Any value that a developer is able to add to or extract from a piece of public domain code should be theirs to license as they see fit.
Of course that's why it's public domain... The author doesn't care what you do with their work.
He who does the work (or funds the work) should have the freedom to set the license. The GPL eliminates this freedom by requiring GPL on both derivative works and work which incorporate even small portions of GPL'd code into their codebase.
I am always surprised when people eagerly use others hard work but when asked to return the favor and share they snap back "Mine!" You speak of only your freedom and what you would like to do but your view leaves little consideration for others. The GPL is meant for people who like to share their work so everyone can benefit. When someone says to me, "Here's some code that I wrote. You're welcome to use it. I hope you find it useful." My first impulse is to reciprocate and share back since the person was so kind and saved me a lot of work. The GPL is basically forcing you to be considerate. Is that really so bad? If someone is nice enough to share something with you is it so unreasonable to ask that you share back? If you can't share back (for whatever reason) why not just politely decline and develop your own solution instead of talking about how the GPL invades your 'freedom.'
Although it's a tired cliche I can't resist using it on you..
Never look a gift horse in the mouth...
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
The distaste has nothing to do with it. I think that his distaste for corporations has clouded YOUR judgement. Let me explain.
:)
If I make a product, whose only purpose in life is to change a text only application to gui, then I sell that as my own in it's entirety, Have I really done any work or value other than a different medium for the original functionality? Nope. Can I then have the moral right to sell it and keep it as my own works? Nope.
The truth is never at the two ends of an argument. It is usualy somewhere near the middle.
well, MS wants all software to be closed source. GPL wants all software to be open. What is so bad about requiring a company to give away the GPLd segement of code that they used, and keeping THIER segment closed? Nothing. They are then selling JUST the guified controlls to the text based program.
I think that his distaste of corporations has made you place him in the far reaching edge of the "linux zealots camp" in your mind. Seeing this it's easier to attack him for radical views than it is to counter his arguments.
Think about this people. In this instance I can see why the BSD camp has gone berserk over the GPL. Personaly I think the BSD is too loose, the GPL is too restrictive in claiming all your subsequent work that is linked to your program. If a company could take your GPLd product, be required to mention it in credits/license/click-wrap/whatever, including any and all references to the location of the original source, then the BSD people would have no problems. The software would be 100% truly free. It would be simplified down to something that a corporation can use.
Now i'm sure someone else has thought of this before. Who, I don't know. But i'm kind of curious about this. Is there a license out there with this kind of focus. once licensed, it remains bound to being code with software, but new code wrapped around it can be released in the clear.
How about this middle ground guys?
What? me have a sig? don't be ridiculous.
Government code should be public domain, not placed under a restrictive license like the GPL.
That's funny. I thought the main point of the GPL was to ensure that the code - in this case the Government code that you refer to above - would continue to be in the public domain, in perpetuity. By being less restrictive, the BSD license allows Government code to be taken out of the public domain. It sounds like you are saying "government code should be freely available to begin with, then it should be co-opted by the private sector and made proprietary". What the GPL generally says is "GPL code should be freely availble always, even when it is being used by the private sector". Do you see the difference here?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Hey, I wuz looking into switching my firewalls to Open BSD (and their silly filter thing that's easier to understand than ipfwadm/chains/tables)... But praise gets no higher than this! I'm stickin' with Linux/iptables. And, if Jeff Bezos calls it a disease, I'll switch my NT servers to Linux/Samba...
This might be a dumb question, but you have to ask them in order to learn.
Why is it that government funded GPL code is inaccessable to the Apache foundation and OpenBSD??
Is the pain worth it, just to see defeat in the eyes of your enemy?
Once again, it is imperative that the following be mentioned:
All government produced information not deemed classified is public domain.
Ballmer once again has his facts mixed up. If a government agency gives their developers freedom to develop on their own, then they can do whatever they like. But the government itself cannot copyright something.
(sorry couldn't resist. I'm really trying to curb this MS bashing thing, its just a hard habit to kick)
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
You're telling me that a Microsoft executive doesn't like open source software, particularly linux? My God, what is the world coming to? I mean, come on, did Ballmer really say anything surprising here? We'll never convince the Microsofties that they should abandon themselves, we should convince the world to abandon the Microsofties. If Ballmer chooses not to listen to RMS etc. and their explanations of the GNU GPL, so be it.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
If linux is a cancer I think that it's time we infect a certain Redmond WA. based company! I've been useing linux for a year or two now, and all I can say is that if linux is a cancer, then riddle my computer with it.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Yes, it encourages others to benefit from the freedom it provides. There is no difference between theory and practice.
Making money off of hard work isn't nearly as evil as most GPL supporters try to make it sound.
I've yet to find a GPL supporter claiming there's anything wrong with earning money. I'll bet 99.999999% of all GPL supporters would really like to earn more money themselves, whether it'd be from their GPL'd product, or otherwise. In particular, RMS and the FSF has never said anything negative about getting your income from software development.
Feel free to think that MS tries to "embrace and extend" open-source technology. The reality of the situation is that Microsoft did nothing of the sort; they merely took advantage of open-ended parts of the Kerberos architecture so it could fit in with the Microsoft authentication/security model better.
Whatever. I am no expert on the Microsoft security model, and don't particulary care. But I would like to ask one simple question? Does MS Kerberos work ok within a standard Kerberos environment? No? What do you think the reason is? Incompetence? Embrace-and-extend? Internal security model? Only a rabid MS-supporter would choose the last one. It could of course be true, but that would also imply grave incompetence, and when it comes to integrating technologies Microsoft is usually very competent, so I think embrace-and-extend is much more probable.
Besides, what's so bad about being called "cancer". Most of us are already proud of using two well-known "viruses". Unix is known as one of the most succesful computer viruses ever, taking over virtually all micro's and mini's in the 70's and 80's, and now, with Linux, also a large percentage of PC's in the 90's and onward. And the GPL is also a very effective virus which has infected the brainfunctions of millions of programmers worldwide.
If Steve Ballmer chooses to call the open source movement "cancer", you should all be proud, dammit!
You are welcome!
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies.
Does this mean if a Government agency is using a MS product, we should be able to get the source? Seems like it to me.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
differences in opinion (in business models and what makes business work) between MS
and all free software supporters makes one person right and the other one wrong.
OK Plumber Boy. :0) One word - GREED. Enough is enough. Take your marbles and go home Bill.
Linux advocates might be a little over zealous and rabid at times. But that overwhelming stink of GREED
that emanates form Redmond is killing this industry.
It claims to make freedom its central goal, when in reality it exists to encourage the socialist ideals of its creator.
Belief is a funny thing. You can't be right or wrong much of the time.
If most of us believe that GPL is a usefull tool that prevents our work from being coopted by corporate greed
then we do. If you choose to believe that this is somehow socialist you can. How does this make GPL true or
untrue. It can't. GPL is not a conjecture, its just a contract that you can either choose to accept or not. It is neiter True or False.
If you want to use it then you have to pay the price. If the price is too steep, don't use it.
Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies.
So, which is closer to "work that is available to everybody"?
1) Windows and MS software
2) Linux and Free Software
MS certainly can choose to use GPLed software in every product they make - they've got that right. Can I start shipping Windows with my new apps too? Thanks for letting me know, Steve, I'll start today!
Something everybody seems to be missing in this conversation is that the government is not funding Linux R&D for the sake of Linux. The government (and basically everybody else who is pouring a fortune into Linux) is funding it because it's the right starting point to create tools that they need. Releasing the code under GPL is simply a byproduct of using GPL code in the first place.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I have read the GPL described as a cancer months ago, and I have to agree. It really is designed to take over projects, and spread throughout the internet. The GPL is designed to destroy the concept of intellectual property. If you use a piece of GPL code, it takes over, and now your whole project is GPL'd and open to the public. Its a very good idea, but its designed to force itself onto others.
I release open source code under the LGPL (library or lesser, it was changed) which allows people to use my source code in a program, provided that they provide access to source of just my part of it. This enables me to provide open source libraries which can be used in commercial products, but mainly because I don't want to force people to have to relase their code under GPL. They may still GPL their code, but I think they should be able to decide.
>Please explain how using code makes it unavailable.
Let me. Lets imagine that the government has partly paid for the development of a digital music player. Now imagine a hypothetical consortium of rich established music publishing companies called Microsteal who take the Public Domain code and add an encryption algorithm with a cute name of, say, CSSteal. So now they have code 99.999% funded by the taxpayer but the taxpayer cannot even use it without paying again for the ever so slightly changed player and for the encryupted music files and in higher prices to the OS maker who pays Microsteal to allow them to compile the code on their platform.
And if someone felt free enough to examine the ever so slightly changed code and discovered that it was actually 99.999% public domain, he would be arrested, fined and imprisoned for breaking a new law called the DMCA even though he and his ancestors had the right to do that until the DMCA was lobbied through Congress only very recently.
I want publicly funded software to remain publicly available and free to all. I don't want Microsoft or any other corporate entity to swallow it and never let it see the light of day again.
Who modded this up? It's inane.
What, is Magic Fairy Ballmer suppose to tap public domain code with his Magic Wand XP and make it go *poof*?
Sure, any company can take the public domain code and use it in a closed source product. And any developer who wants to can fork the code and use the derivative in a GPL'd product, too, and the bright warm glow that is Free Software will shine on that fork, and keep it safe happily ever after. *grin*
Kids these days. No sense of proportion...
Information wants to be free -- but informants want to be paid.
You can take Microsoft to task for a lot of things, but I have to agree that its silly to try to restrict them from adding features to their operating system.
Think about it - do you really want to have to purchase and install as separate items:
- a GUI
- a disk defragmenter
- a browser
- an email client
- a text editor
- etc.
Well, okay, some of the folks that hang out here probably do want to install those things separately, but for most people they want the most functional system they can get with the minimum amount of setup.Barring any kind of intellectual property issue (remember Stacker?), give me more features that I can use!
The way to beat Microsoft is by doing it better.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
By looking at the comments, I see that M$ feels that not immediatly loosing their anit-trust case is a large win, and in fact they are now going to use the government on their side.
I see M$ trying to get the government to pass various laws to limit where open-source software can be used, because it's paid for "with tax dollars". They will try and force Linux out of the academic system through legistlature, in trying to make everything "even".
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
I don't have a clue about what MS may or may not be doing with other peoples' code -- and neither, I'm sure, do most, if not all, of these ranting Slashdot posters.
Consider the target of Ballmer's statements. It isn't the Slashdot crowd. MS is trying to convince the corporate crowd that open source threatens them. Frankly, if I was responsible for the bottom line of a corporation, I'd be wary about anything new and different with no perceived pay off, including open source.
If I though Linux could meet my requirements and was cheaper that Windows, then I'd take a serious look. That's where Linux and open source really threatens MS: in the marketplace. Not in some mystic world where licensing schemes mean something.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
On /., someone says shit like this, and it goes down to -1 Flamebait (sometimes after going up to +5 insightful). But when someone from MS says it AGAIN (MS has been calling GPL evil for some time now, no?), it gets /. front page.
Why? What's the point of posting this? Sure, he's wrong, we all know that-- so we can post the same old pro-Open Source and/or GPL stuff we've been posting for years. Great, we all agree, and MS is still evil. This isn't news!
If you insist on posting this, could you at least make a category called "pointless, trivial crap that no one cares about" so we can all filter it out?
That's something I've never liked about the GPL. Personally I prefer the No Problem Bugroff license.
Check out the Jargon File.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I think it is true a Linux install is just as easy as a windows install. Perhaps the most difficult part of a Linux install is the partitioning. Winders doesn't do that. To make a Linux install easier we should just have it start with the normal stuff: location, keyboard, mouse. Then have the full screen flash and beep and everything and have a dialog box that says: ;)
"All data on this computer will be deleted before installing Linux! Continue?" with a Yes or No box. Of course this dialog would only run if the installer detects a fat partition
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
Go Pack Go!
Gawd'amn it. The word for the day was innovative. I read the article, and now I am so frickin' dunk. err droonk, err whatever
---
The Cancer Eating OS?
So does this mean if you cut off Linus' head he can grow back a new one?
--I think not.
--Yet MS (through SB) is saying some insane things:
--Only able to install their software twice (what about the 8 times a year I have to reload Win9X?)
--Upgrade or else
--"We offer customers what they want" (who asked for a personal firewall?)
--Clearly the kids in Redmond are losing it. And clearly they read things into fairly clear documents.
--The next few months should be quite weird in the MS world.
---
This
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Bill Gates wants to control the computer world, suddenly anything that competes with his ideas is un-american, and canceresque. Windows sucks, Linux is a free alternative, the works much better. Bill Gate$ cannot stand he lost, and to a company who's price cannot be beat. Bill, stop being such a cry baby, and admit, you LOST, LOOSER, FUCKING LOOOOSER. Instead of sending Vice Presidents acting like IRC script kiddiez and badmouthing the competion, have them improve your product, start writing programs designed to run better, not cost more!!!!
When I worked at MS ('94-'95) I was told in a bathroom in a whisper not to drink the free house coffee. Otherwise I'd wind up like Steve Ballmer: a babbling, brain damaged moron! Nasty stuff!!
--- WWSD? What Would Strider Do?
Yeah, Microsoft has so many resources, and because they're not interested in a profit they don't care how much money it would take to develop something that complex from scratch.
Hell, I'll bet they even rolled their own browser. Hmmm... Let's see...
Start Internet Explorer (even the most latest version).
Click on "Help|About"
Oh my!!! What's this??? Based on NCSA Mosaic???
Now why do you think they would need to base IE on Mosaic hmm?
Your argument is just plain crap. M$ will ALWAYS look for the cheapest way to do things. They are a company concerned with bottom lines. So, if that means ripping off some code to make the profit margin better, then they'll do it.
This isn't to say Microsoft doesn't have competent programmers or that IE hasn't advanced a LOOONG way since Mosaic. But, look in the mirror to find the FUD bud!
F U NE X N M? Son: "Dad... How do you spell 'hourly'?" Dad: "0 * * * *"
I love how you guys so blindly defend the GPL license. If the source was TRULY open - then people could do with it as they pleased without having to adhere to the terms of some FSF License Agreement.
If you think Microsofts Shared Source Initative is bad then you cannot possibly think GPL is any better. They are both one in the same - heres why:
1: Both licenses seek to restrict how the source code is used.
2: Both licenses were created in order to serve their own purposes and not that of the community (MS wants money - FSF wants more "free" software)
Both licenses are a farse. Its that simple. If you are really going to distribute your source - distribute it. End of Story. All of my open projects are distributed without any license because I feel that in order for it to be truly free and useful work - it must come without any catches.
Yes Shared Source does make Microsoft look hypocritical - but the GPL makes the Linux community look just as foolish. The GPL only serves one purpose: To produce FREE SOFTWARE. Shared Source only exists to serve one purpose: To make MONEY.
Gam
Flame At Will
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
(smack) Ballmer is deliberately blurring the lines, just like Craig Mundie did. He knows this; he's trying to convince the rest of the world that there is no difference.
I have to say, though. I find it a bit hard to believe anyone could be taking tactics like this seriously -- MS is starting to sound like a bunch of whiners. If he was talking about another company like this on the record, I strongly suspect Microsoft's stock would be in trouble.
/Brian
If I'm interested at all, it's in what they do, not what they say.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
You know, school is a good example. Take colleges for instance. There are public universities and private. Does the existance of public universities hurt the general public (those seeking to learn)? Of course not; it forces the private universities to actually offer better education so that people will pay more money. Now, what if software worked like this? Would the consumers be hurt, or would companies like Microsoft? Well, even Microsoft would admit that it would hurt them. Obviously, they wouldn't think such a thing if they actually believed their product was better. Fact is, they don't.
Source code is a lot like a parachute; it needs to be open in order to function properly.
[i]" MS if completely free to reverse-engineer and release their own *NIX variant if they so wish."[/i] You never know that may already have happened.
I've got UBB code on the brain.
Look at all the govt owned telcos arround the world, most have developped their own software that's copyrighted. Even the New South Wales govt owned power company has copyrighted software they've developed for their power stations. & all the public profits by it, because for every dollar in profit that Govt owned corporations make, that's one less dollar that needs to be found through taxes. Actually the State Rail Authority of New South Wales has made quite a bit of money licensing out its control software. Which partially helps cover the cost of a publically funded state wide public transport system.
--
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Linux isn't cancer. Linux is hemroids.
Nice... the typical slashdot kiddie repsonse. Guess what, kid, you're not going to be able to moderate down the real world after mommy and daddy kick you out of the house when ya hit 18. Grow up and act like you have some cojones.
Following FUD provided by MicroScone's
A: Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative. It will force us to justify the prices and value that we deliver.
Note: Remember to raise prices when we get back to the office, I cant believe they are eating out of our hands.
And that's only healthy. The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
Note: Their scared shitless now, no way they will allow Linux in their offices. Is this is the best FUD we could come up with? Remember to have a meeting with bill when we get back. We got to come up with better lines than this. Its getting old.
Personally, I've never been a big fan of cancer -- but this really makes me reconsider.
Time was, it was actually fun to flame Microsoft for inane, stupid comments, policies, and products. Lately, though, they've just been making it too easy.
I mean, come on: my dog could flame that piece. Where's the challenge?
He may not know what it means, but he used it six times in the interview, which is quite a bit considering he only had nine answers!
--
He called Bill Gates talented. That made me laugh. And he got mad that the government funds open source. I think he just got mad because MS was in court with the US government, AND they give money to open source. At least he was smart enough to not say anything too negative about Linux itself. Billy boy must have taught him to not underestimate your enemy.
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds says that Microsoft and closed source software companies are "good competition" because it will "force Linux to be innovative," but calls Microsoft "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." He also says that the inclusion of IE in windows has been "not great ... for innovation in the software industry" (especially for Netscape) and that MS's new copy protections are just "bumps in the road" to "help customers understand when they are crossing the line . . . so they can't do the wrong thing." And he says a few more amusing things, also.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"--
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Now, before you go and flame me, here is where he is right. He is saying (although in a very inflamatory way) that research conducted under government funding should be released into the public domain, and not be placed under someting like the GPL. I agree with this. Although I appreciate and agree with the concept of free (as in speach) software, By placing code developed with government funding into the public domain, individuals and corporations alike are free to use this in a manner most beneficial to themselves. I Free software developer can use that code as the basis of a free software project, and a commercial software developer can take the exact same code and base a commercial package on it. Since the funding for this code came from tax payers, and corporations as well as individuals pay taxes, then to prevent a corporation from benefitting in the same way that an individual may is unfair. Both parties have paid for that code to be developed, and ownership belongs to all tax paying citizens. The only party with the right to release code under a specific license is the owner.
If anyone had doubts that MS is taking Linux seriously, let him now reconsider.
Bill Gates is intensely aware of the media attention MS commands, and he uses it with great care. He knows that anything an MS spokesman talks about publicly will get a lot of attention very fast; accordingly, he doesn't dignify anything that doesn't threaten him with criticism. It's when he's worried about competition, or maneuvering to take possession of a market niche, that we see the response typified by Ballmer and Mundie's recent outings: careful, meticulous repetition of catchy buzz phrases developed by MS marketing and public relations personnel.
Even this /. story, and my response to it, serves Big Bill's purpose. He's got the community buzzing, and what the media (and end users, and management) hears is "Linux...cancer...destroys intellectual property...."
I suppose the Linux community should feel honored to be elevated to the exalted status of Oracle, Apple, Stak Electronics and all the other entities MS has found worrisome enough to target with custom FUD.
-- He's fantastic, made of plastic....
Here's a test... Do a search on the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper for "GPL". Number of results: 0.
The sad thing is, the journalists have no idea what the difference between Open Source and Free Software, no idea that GPL is only one aspect of "open source", and they are certainly in no position to inform their reader about the difference.
The moron that interviewed Balmer obviously had no idea what open source -- no caps -- is, just that the words had been used negatively by Microsoft flacks. So, he asks a fluffy question for his fluff-piece interview and Balmer gets a chance to spread some FUD to the uninformed masses.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Other than gnashing your teeth, and giving slashdot a lot of hits, what does this accomplish? What are people going to do? There are discussions that educate, that add info. The posts I've read all talk about how balmer is wrong. Of course he is (hell MS ftp is from BSD sources, hows that work into him saying open source means no commercial distribution) but unless you actually change something, it's just venting.
During many product upgrades there are obvious benefits for the end user. More features, faster execution, and (hopefully) less bugs. The user is then allowed to choose weather to stay with an older revision of software or pay for the upgrade. Granted, it is within the software manufactures pervue to decide when support for a particular product, but most companies are limited as to how quickly they can end that support based on number of clients still using older software.
Microsoft's tactic is quite different. As a monopolistic company that can force consumers and businesses alike to upgrade they need not worry about providing any true innovation in their products. Other than expanding their bloatware, thus aiding their partners in selling newer computers, and creating new and more revenue intensive licensing agreements Microsoft has not really innovated much lately. (.NET not withstanding.)
Having used Word and Excel since they were released for 3.1, I can say with some authority that since Office 97 there has been precious little reasons to upgrade. Everything you really needed to work with was there and worked relatively well. Office 2000 added a few more components and clipart, but really, is that innovation?
Office XP, from what I have seen/read, has a few new features but really nothing that wonderful. The workhorses of Office, Word, Excel, and Access, have already been polished to a high glow. All that Microsoft is doing now is rubbing down to the primer to show it's true color. A new license that extorts money from users on a regular basis regardless of any new upgrades to their product.
The computer world has moved into a new phase. Except for hardcore gamers who constantly require more power for games, today's average $1000-$2000 PC has more than enough power to run everything a user might need. That reality, along with Linux and all that it represents, has Microsoft quite scared. Their revenue model is in for some serious trouble and they are hoping that their new line of XP software, and it's new "innovative" form of licensing will save the day. I truly hope and believe that they will be proven wrong.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
How much you wanna bet that they made sure that was the 20% that brings in 80% of the revenues?
The perception of reality is more important than reality itself.
Actually, IBM is either the or one of the worlds largest software companies. They may sell hardware on paper, but maintenance software and server software are a huge revenue stream for them. (For example, if you want a text editor on the AS/400, it's extra $$!)
So, Linux is a caculated risk for IBM. If Linux cannibalizes AIX or OS/400 sales, it's not good and they'll drop Linux like a hot rock. However, IBM feels that certain Linux hardware bundles (x86 servers and S/390 clusters) can help them steal market from Sun in particular.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
That doesn't matter in the long run because we aren't fighting in the right places.
So why was Microsoft fighting in the right places when they grassrooted the OS/2 people in the forums many moons ago? My answer is that they weren't, but the subsequent reaction certainly didn't help OS/2, both market-wise and product-wise (because it created an ideological group of advocates surrounding a product that was sorta lame. OS/2 always had more abusers than users.)
Now, shock trooping developers against IBM certainly wasn't hard. Microsoft happily spams developers with free copies of everything, while if you wanted anything out of IBM in the old days, you had to have your account number ready, your FRU number ready, and a pliers to ready to pull some teeth with. It was all such a fantasic clusterfuck on IBM's part that it's almost hard to give MS any credit at all.
But that's not to say that MS doesn't partake in some very nasty tactics. Work at a large MS site, and somewhere you'll find a guy who Microsoft pays to sit there and whisper anything from standard marketing crap to outright lies in people's ears. Show up at any MS conference or anywhere supposedly full of 'freindlies' and you'll here the same kind of stuff.
The key thing to realize here is that MS is playing right out of the Slashdot playbook. How do you attack a product that's free? Attack it ideologically. Where do you get ideological arguments? Slashdot has the same argument over "Free Software" every day. Just twist and release as marketing, and Boom! The impotant little flamebots on Slashdot suddenly sound like the OS/2 Windows-hating loony fringe from so many years ago. People listen to the flamebots and it becomes a self-reinforcing trenchwar loop where the product never changes direction towards broader acceptance.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Put an electronic dog collar around Steve Ballmar's neck.. and if he does something wrong, ZAP THE SONUVABITCH!! "Just a reminder that you're doing something wrong..."
In related news, the movie Perl Harbor is "fantastic", according to director Michael Bay.
This just in: Most fans of the Los Angeles Lakers say they would like to see the Lakers win the NBA championship, according to a recent poll.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
So this is why Ballmer's got 50 Large in the bank? Even though I don't have an MBA (or even a subscription to Forbes), I would know better than to give the opposing team a newspaper clipping to tape to the locker-room wall. However, it is true that in an unintended way, Ballmer and his fellow droogs ARE driving software innovation. Ballmer's condescending comments are exactly what keep blood and caffeine coursing through the veins of programmers at two in the morning for the glory of the cause.
Does that mean that Microsoft is the "Flesh eating" virus ?
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Thats a very good point. OS/2 and BeOS shouldn't be on that list. There are what 2 or 3 users of both ?
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Ok, so maybe 100 (200 at most) OS/2 users. Big deal. There not nearly enough to matter.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
I think that Ballmer's interpretation of this "cancer" is actually very accurate...from his point of view. The GPL prevents Microsoft from up and stealing code for their own sick, twisted purposes. If the GPL did not exist Microsoft would assemilate the parts of Linux that makes it a superior operating system into the latest rename of Windows making it a less-crappy OS. XP==2000==NT==98==95==3.1==DOS==IBM...hmm
---
where we bitch and moan all day about every fucking thing MS says instead of getting our shit together to really be able to compete.
Maybe instead of ACing instead you should show us what you're doing to help the cause.
Microwindows, QT Eand XFree86 do have their shit together and w're kicking CEs ass all over the embedded space.
Where are YOU programming today?
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
Hold on a second, they can make thier own internal changes, and they can choose to keep thier changes internal and not distribute thier modified GPL'd code. Remember, just because software is GPL'd doesn't mean that if I modify it I need to distribute my changes. That is complete ludricusy, and this is the issue which needs to be emphasised to prevent MS FUK like this from being believed by business execs. They will be happy that thier internal people can tailor the software to suit thier needs.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
More and more often little thoughts come into my mind, things like MS is to the Net (not .NET) as Ebola is to a Human. With the rising security issues raised by Gibson of GRC Research, this is starting to become realistic.
Ms is becoming the thing they say they are not. Because MS has adopted the position a that anyone else's freedom is evil. That is the voice of a fascist.
Maybe not using the words of a fascist, but certainly, in the heart.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Isn't this admitting that they had no innovation before?
sort of a fruedian slip there, accidently admit something that they wish to deny.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Not to mention that in the interview, Ballmer managed to cram the word 'innovate' in there 6 times!
Now, just imagine what would happen if Godzilla attacked Redmond...I can just see 20,000 MSFT employees running around, screaming, "INNOVATE!!! INNOVATE!!!" before they were BBQ'ed by the big guy...Make it into a movie...Gozilla vs. Microsoft....I'd PAY to see that! =)
I just want to take over the world...Why does that automatically make me EVIL?
Let's call Linux a tumor in the IT world (actually he once again confuses the GPL with Linux, but what the hell; let it stand for the sake of the analogy). Sure as hell it's a rotten bad tumor from the evil empires' perspective.
Personally I actually believe it's a benevolent tumor. At least, since I use it as my primary OS, my computer pains are more or less gone.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Linux: Ho!ho!ho!
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
There are a lot of innovative users in the Chicago area, which is exciting.
innovative!! it's their generic term for 'microsoft approved'
these MS marketing guys need a thesauraus(sp?)
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
Companies do not have an inalienable right to sell products.
Government should be beholden to the people it represents, not to companies.
Tuning done: installed Linux. No more trouble.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
May I add your sig to my collection?
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Companies can use Open-Source models; however, most (not all, remember Red Hat is a company after all) decide not to because they've decided that it's not in their interests to do so.
Companies like M$ don't take the public's interests into account here. Unless, that is, a concern over the public's interest in paying for software counts.
Look at it this way: Would the opposite of what Ballmer said be true? If government gave funding to private companies to develop closed-source software, would *that* software be available to all?
If you're shrewd enough, you could say, "Sure closed source software available to all. You just have to be willing/able to pay for it. And not want access to anything more than just the binaries."
If you're really shrewd, you'll say that if good software is available for free to everyone, it'll undermine capitalism and disrupt the economy, putting professional programmers out of work. But what's the correct answer to that problem? Are we to expect the government to prop up a software industry that is not able to come up with a viable business model without stomping all over open-source/non-commercial business models? I guess they should continue to subsidize the buggy whip industry, too.
So then, let's recap, which benefits the people the most?
I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. It'd be downright WRONG for the government to fund ANYTHING BUT open source software. With the possible exception of code that is classified as a military secret for national security reasons.
If the government is funding some project, then it doesn't have to make a profit in order to continue to improve. Because, duh, profits aren't fueling the development -- the government funding is.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I'm pretty sure I got the point...
If I pay someone to develop some piece of code for me, and we consider that a work-for-hire, then I shouldn't have to pay for that code again, ever. I *own* that code. If I'm a real swell guy, I don't care if he gives that code away to other people. I'm magnanimous, but not stupid, so I tell the guy, look, you can only give this source code away if you make everyone you give it to promise that they will keep the code free. Now, if the people who take this free software and then try to sell it back to me, I'm going to take offense. If they want to sell me stuff that they developed at their own expense, that's their business. But if they want to use what I paid to develop, then they have to let me in on whatever improvements they add to it. Because, after all, I'm being nice and letting them use my source for free. I expect turnaround to be fair play.
If I pay taxes, and that tax money goes to pay for the development of some piece of code, then all taxpayers should never have to pay for that code again, ever. If someone develops Open/Free code using federal funds, I (and every other taxpayer) owns the code. It's a lot like all the public school teachers, the police, fire department, army, and whoever else's salary is paid for by my tax dollars.
In a non-commodity, non-commercial development model, the benefit that the software gives you is not your ability to reap profits from the masses by repackaging and selling that software, but rather your ability to use that software to do something useful.
Software is designed to do something useful. What useful thing the software is designed to do is subtly, but crucially, different in a closed-source/commercial model as opposed to an open/free model.
In other words, StarOffice (as an example) is a piece of software designed to allow you to produce word processing documents. By contrast Micro$oft Office is a piece of software designed to earn Microsoft lots of money, but as an afterthought or side-effect of that, it allows people who pay Microsoft for the privilege to use it to create word processing documents. Microsoft says there's no point to making Office if it doesn't make them money. The people who hack for StarOffice say that the point to StarOffice is to increase office productivity, and there is still a point for them to work on this project even if it doesn't earn money.
If tax dollars are being spent to fund the development of software, that benefit should be freely accessible to all who use it. Or at the very least, all who use it and pay taxes. But extending this benefit to those who don't pay taxes doesn't cost any more than the cost of a download and some blank media.
Let's see how this analogy grabs you: if I went to one of our National Parks and saw that some company had set up an admission booth just outside the entrance, and was charging people to get in at this particular entrance. Maybe you could still get in to the park through another entrance. And maybe the pay entrance entitled you to special services or additional products that the company offers you. But if all the company is selling is admission to a free park, and nothing more than that, then it's wrong. And it's extra wrong if they try to work out some arrangement whereby people who don't pay to get in at their entrance can't use the free entrances, either.
Or, maybe it's like this: I landscape my house, then I set up a toll booth on the road in front of my house, which was paved with public money, and then I charge everyone who drives by, to pay for the landscaping because everyone who drives by my house "benefits" from seeing my pretty terraces and flowers and shrubs.
And while I'm at it, since the neighbor's property values go up too, why the hell shouldn't I charge them a "living near me" fee?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Ballmer justifies this belief by saying that "open source software is not available to companies." The hell it isn't! They can look at the source (and even use it!) just like anyone else can! They just can't take GPL'd code and add their own stuff to it without sharing those additions.
What a bunch of bull.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I really do not appreciate Microsoft making sure I know where the line and making sure I don't cross it. I believe that everyone has the right to make their own mistakes and learn from them. If that mistake is software piracy, and a jail term is what it takes to learn from a mistake then so be it, but I don't appreciate being preemptively spanked.
If Microsoft becomes humanities moral compass, and then I would be worried about which direction it's pointing.
As for the cancer comments, that is a little bit of an over simplification of the license as I am sure most of the community is aware. If you develop a piece of software FROM open source code, then yes the license does 'infect' your product, but just because you are developing for the big bad "Linux" doesn't sell your intellectual soul to the devil (and he works in Redmond.)
Geoffrey Cameron Peart
McMaster Software Engineering
Geoffrey Cameron Peart
McMaster Software Engineering
Monkies? I like Monkies
A week ago I got another letter from my Mom, just like I do every month. She knows I'm a software developer, and so she keeps her eyes out for interesting software type news. Eventually, months to years after something happens and makes it to the main-stream and gets in the Saskatchewan daily newspapers, she hears about it.
So you can imagine my suprise to have her ask me in that latest letter: "What problem does Microsoft have with 'free' software?".
Microsoft has done such a public job of attacking Free software that even my Mom has heard about it already, even though she's never heard of "Free Software" nor did she know what 'Free' software Microsoft was talking about.
Now let's be clear. The Gates foundation bought a $2000 computer and loaded it with '$3000' of free software and gave it to my small home-town's library early this year, so now my Mom can see my homepage and browse the web.
And yet, all I had to do was say "Microsoft is just doing what big monopolistic money-grubbing corporations are always trying to do: screw us."
She immediately understood.
GATES: We Come In Peace. BALLMER: Shoot to Kill!
On the other hand, you have fingers
Since when has cancer been better than the original ??? :-)
Maybe we should tell our doctors to leave the cancer and cut away the rest instead
Any such interpretation of my post is the product of your own imagination.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Your point was good, and it was quite funny.
Here's the crux though, we're not fighting in the same arena. We bash Microsoft on Slashdot, or in the newsgroups, or on the net. That doesn't matter in the long run because we aren't fighting in the right places. We don't have lobbies. We don't have salespeople to wine and dine tech managers who decide what software gets used. Right now, even though we do a ton of whining and bitching, we're still not making ourselves heard above the background noise to the people that Microsoft is whispering in the ears of. We don't have the ears of lawmakers, judges, or management. So all our Microsoft bashing, even if we manage to mature as a community and stop the mindless and juvenile "M$ is 3v1l!" junk, comes to naught because Microsoft is at the adult table playing to the powerful audiences, and we're stuck at the children's table that is Slashdot and it's ilk.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Today it's the judges, technology managers, and legislators that Microsoft is focusing on. Linux geeks don't "get it" when it comes to legal, or managerial matters. This is a war, make no mistake about it. Microsoft, even if they're smart enough to not out and out say "Linux is a cancer" they most certainly think it and will attempt to persuade others to think that as well. When one person fights and the other just stands there taking punches, well, the person taking punches may be more "honorable" but that doesn't mean they'll win. Like it or not, Ghandi died without accomplishing his goals(even though he did win India's independence from Britan, his real goal was religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims).
Now, weather or not we should stoop to that level in our own retaliations is another issue. But we can't afford to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt in everything they do. They have proven, time and again, that they will use any methods they feel will be effective. Up until now they have been very effective, let's not forget that.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
We're from Microsoft and we're here to help you! nyuk nyuk nyuk
(At least he didn't say "open sauce"...)
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Microsoft bio-labs isolate the [license] virus that causes [software] cancer!
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
He is right companies can't use it. What is the point of a company trying to sell something, which is what most companies do, when they have to, by law, release their additional work to the public for free. There can be no profit in that. So if Microsoft wants to keep making money, which I'm sure it does, so GPL'd code is out of the question. As for other open source, they do use it look at the ftp clients, based on bsd licensed software
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
Sure ballmer could have distinguised between the licenses, but I think he was mainly talking about the GPL. When he said if you use open source software, all of your software has to been open source. I read it to mean that if I use some opensourec code in Program Alpha I have to realease all the code to Alpha, which is what I have to do by law. However others on the forum are reading it as though if I use GPL'd code for Alpha, I have to release Beta through Omega as well under the GPL, which is incorrect. I think Ballmer could have reworded or clarified but I hope I'm reading it right or Microsoft needs to bring some people to decipher what the GPL actually says
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
On your machine the W98+IE5 are dog slow. That sucks mine works just fine. Its also works pretty fast as long as I don't open up around 20 IE windows. I think your system might need some tuning if that combination doesn't work to well.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
If microsoft can't get ahold of it neither can people who want to release under a BSD style license. It makes you follow a GPL license, something people might not want to do
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
The point was that it shouldn't be licensed at all. Just put it out there in the public domain. Do with it as you please. It could end up in a closed source project, or an GPL project, or even a BSD licensed project. The government shouldn't help any company, there are exceptions, but should just put it out there for everyone to use as they see fit.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
says something funny.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
excellent post.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
talk about a reality distortion field. this creep makes steve jobs look like a monk.
this is the borg calling the collective "black".
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
"What's Microsoft's Favorite Color? and
"If You Could Be Any Kind Of Tree, What Tree Would You Be?"
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Well likewise. However the amount of bullshit that has entered into the university system within the last 10 years has been extraordinary. Certainly NDA's are routine now, and we get circulars telling us not to give away reagents or software to other scientists without checking it out with the lawyers first.
Yeah right, like I'm going to tell them.
Phil
Now given the nature of the GPL people working for the US government have little choice when they work on the GPL software than to write more of it. It seems clear to me that M$ is going to push hard to prevent university staff from using or contributing to the GPL code base. I think that if they succeeded they would essentially cripple large parts of the computer using research sector in the US.
Of course in the end both US and other research sectors have benefitted from the GPL. It makes collaboration a lot easier, because the GPL is irrevocable. You know that collaborators can not later withdraw data or source code on you. In the days of NDA's this is a welcome relief.
There is also a fascinating manifesto from one researcher explaining why he choose to release his software under GPL. Well worth reading.
Phil
--
www.scorbett.ca
No No.....thats Fessick Vizzini is the little bald guy....Inconceivable!
My name is Steve Ballmer, you killed my software...prepare to die!
I'll keep posting this until someone more important than me points it out in print somewhere :) The GPL is not a virus, it is more like a vaccine. It prevents the worst abuses of the intellectual property regime, like people being jailed for copying, modifying or misusing microsoft windows or other products. This disease metaphor is obviously a very well thought out public relations strategy on the part of microsoft, but if the free software corner can fight back with a more convincing rhetoric (vaccine not virus), it will backfire miserably on Redmond.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Ballmer: Ever hear of Stallman? de Icaza? TORVALDS?
Dread Pirate Roberts: yes.
Ballmer: Morons.
Bryguy
"I've been slowly building up an immunity to proprietary software for the past 5 years"
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
It's interesting that Balmer feels that the government shouldn't support Open Source development "because it isn't available to commercial companies."
I would argue that the government should specifically support open source because it's available to everybody, as long as they don't make a profit on it. After all it's the government's business to help its tax payers, not individual corporations. Besides since most government agencies are standardized on Windows platforms, Microsoft is already getting more "government support" money than the open source community ever has.
credo quia absurdum
I'd rather be considered life threatening than a sheep.
I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
Should we have expected anything less from Steve Baldmer?
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
This isn't true at all. From the GPL (section 2):
If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works.
It goes on...
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
Ballmer is quite frankly getting downright goofy in his willingness to spread FUD to protect the Microsoft empire.
I've got to wonder if Ballmer didn't just wish he came up with the idea of a flexible, stable OS first, so he could sell it instead. (Doh!)
Gracias. =)
-- Geof F. Morris
Well, he doesn't develop software for them. He develops hardware solutions for certain problems. [All I'm saying. I know he has a clearance.] But he already holds a patent from when he worked for NASA/MSFC. He can license it to whomever he wants if NASA doesn't make it a part of some project on which they need its use.
-- Geof F. Morris
It's really interesting to watch how Microsoft higher-ups use words. It's almost as much as watching politicians of any stripe, but specifically American politicians in the two major parties, snipe at each other with shadings of words.
Examplia gratis:
Note: The ellipsis used is directly from the original article; I'm curious to know what was left out!
If I could completely ignore the ellipsis--though I can't--you'd get to thinking that "innovation in the software industry" == "whatever improves M$FT's bottom line". The comments about competition are similar--they like competition that they can beat the snot out of, not that pushes a better product.
The use of the cancer thing is interesting...M$FT is shifting its attack from the license to the OS, while noting that the OS is licensed in a matter that makes it "a cancer". It's a carefully crafted use of hyperbole, and it'll hit home.
But I think it'll end up being a boomerang strike. I continue to expect back-end systems to merge to modern *nix systems, including Linux and the *BSD's. I think that's good from an overall push-the-ends-of-the-free/open-movements, and probably good for business in the long run, too.
-- Geof F. Morris
Hundreds of Slashdot readers were dissolusioned today when Slashdot posted it's 1000th troll, entitled "Ballmer Calls Linux 'A Cancer'". The more gullable breed of Slashbot fed the troll by posting the same old rhetoric: "MS sucks, Linux rools dude". More sensible users flocked like lemmings to kuro5hin where an intelligent discussion or five is taking place right now.
Man I'm getting cynical. I need to spend less time here.
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets; Speak in secret alphabets;
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Score: -1, Flamebait
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
I'll bet he wished he could suck that last sentence back in as soon as he said it.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
While we're all here preaching to the choir and bitching about what Mr. Ballmer said, how about instead directing some of that energy towards CORRECTING him? I'm sure the Sun-Times would be happy to print a rebuttal. Failure for us to do anything except talk to eachother about it means that Microsoft has won this battle and that those who are not in-the-know will take the statements made in the interview as facts.
http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/feedback.html and
http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/email.html have contact info. I couldn't find the contact info for the interviewer or info on snail-mail (always the BEST way to make your comments), but perhaps someone with access to the physical paper rather than the website can post those.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Although I agree with mikethegeek's general sentiments, there are several points that need correction:
Okay, to quote a Bill Murray classic "Well I have been pushed..........." Everyone is entitled to their opinion as well as being entitled to being mindless drones. Now everyone here might think that i am talking about the redmond crew, but I am talking to the mindless "Linus Nazis" that like to post things like "M$ stole from Apple" "M$ stole DOS" and etc. Basically it comes to this, Having been doing computers for 25 years now I have seen a lot of shit come and go. Having seen what the computer world was like BEFORE Bill Gates showed up on the scene I believe that we all owe him a big debt of gratitude for pushing the market towards affordable stand alone computers. Some people will say "Oh bullshit" well let me tell you kids, i remember the days when SunOS cost you 15K in addition to the sparc station to run it on. If things would have continued without windows making computers acessable to "Idiots" then the demand for computers would not have driven the market towards the "faster/cheaper" end and we'd still be paying 10k for a green screen terminal and buying mainframe access time by the hour (like the old days) A lot of people that have failed as businessmen would like to blame anyone but themselves for the failure. In the computer industry Microsoft's position of dominance makes them the obvious target. But if you really look at their failures you'll see reasons other than MS, poor marketing (Apple) a couple of shit releases (Netscape), too much elitism (Sun) and etc. So next time you bitch about Intel, think about the fact that they run Windows, Unix, Beos, OS2, Dos and probably a bunch of things that I haven't seen. Next time you bitch about MS, just remember that both computers, and the software to run them were prohibitavely expensive before Bill decided to start driving the market. And next time you correct the word "Innovation" pull your head out and realize that innovation can mean just about anything that changes a way of doing things. I am a professional network engineer, my work causes me to regularly use; HPux, SunOS/Solaris, Irix, AIX, Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS 7,8,9,X , Windows 9x, NT4, win2k, winmill, Whistler (or XP), and Netware 3,4,5. ALL of these os's have both good points and bad points, none are infallable and I am happy with using any of them, but if I had to choose I would say that Netware 5 is the best server and Win98 is the best client. So to end my rant I just have to say that those who scream "Open Source" should also try to practice "Open Mind" a little more often. If Microsoft is truly abusing the market, then the market will eventually deal with them, meanwhile support who and what you like by PAYING for their products, because at the end of the day, if you can't make ends meet by developing free innovative software, you're gonna go where the money is. S.
"Laws are like sausages, it is best not to see them being made" Otto Von Bismarck
Disparaging a competing product? Boy, it's a good thing we never get any of that around here. (If you can even describe the product used by 80% of Slashdot readers as "competing.") Honestly, I've read far too many "The KDE developers are CRIMINALS! They should be in JAIL!!" comments around here to get too excited about a little noise from Microsoft.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Wrong.
According to RMS, linking through any means is still making a derivitive work. He hasn't specifically made statements that i'm aware of about CORBA, but he's basically implied that this includes CORBA objects as well.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Probably what scares them the most is realizing the free ride of stealing other's ideas and calling them "Innovation" is over. Activists in the Open Source and GPL camps will be all over them ever single time they try to sell something without giving due recognition to those who actually created the work in the first place.
When was the last time anyone mentioned VisiCorp? I wonder if M$ pays any licensing fees for that or if they .. uh hum .. feel that sort of innovation no longer requires recognition of the inventor.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Microsoft's Chicago-based Midwest district office, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, is the tech giant's biggest moneymaker in the country, with more than 500 customers generating $500 million in revenue annually for Microsoft.
500 customers? Biggest moneymaker? That's 1 million in revenue per customer! Talking about expensive software!
I would suppose that the reason you can't point to a place other than Silicon Valley where it's all happening is because Silicon Valley is where it's all happening!
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Tell that to Apple, Mr. Balmer.
This is nothing more than RMS flamebait and he knows it. Not only that, there are so many things that is just utter bullshit. Does he really think people wanted to use a web browser to look at thier Hard Disk? (I doubt it) The main problem of IE and Windows integration is that there will eventually be only ONE provider of Internet APIs (known to the world as .NET) and possibily one provider of internet "services". No competition. No motivation for improvement. Nothing. In a perfect work, companies like Sony, HP, and IBM would be able to choose what kind of internet services they provide to their customers. They would complete, which would benifit the consumer. Now we are limited to three views of Internet Services: .NET, Apple's iTools, and AOL. Though I'm a big fan of iTools, its market share is relativly low, which leaves AOL vs. .NET. Not much of a choice.
Now that I ranted and got side tracked, I come back to the whole flamebait issue. This is a brilliant idea and works in politics all the time. One side of a debate says something calmly and off the hand that is abusurd to anyone who knows what they are talking about, but to the uneducated masses seems plausible. They then wait for the other side to respond quickly and pointedly and then claim they are being "attacked" or call the response "unreasonable". If people aren't paying attention, and trust me they won't be, they will accept it. We already know whats going to happen, RMS is going to issue a press release or say something in public, because no matter what he can't let anyone mix up Open Source, GPL, and intellectual property. We all know how much tact RMS has.
Brilliant, Mr. Ballmer, just brilliant.
Burn Hollywood Burn
oss /should/ respond! it gets non-m$ names and viewpoints in the papers. balmer is not too bright for giving his competition this opportunity
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
Cancer hits indiscriminately. Live (use Linux) long enough, you may get it (be impacted negatively by GPL). Go whoring (use M$), and you never know what you'll catch, or whether it's something you can ever shake off.
this
[Ballmer] calls Linux "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."
As usual, The Simpsons prophesied this long ago:
Chief Wiggum: Fat Tony is a cancer on this fair city. He is the cancer and I am the...uh...what cures cancer?
What's the significance? Does this mean Tux is an underground mafioso? Is Ballmer really a bumbling (and vain) enforcer of the old-world politics? Will Government eventually "triumph" in the face of Good Innovation (TM) [most horrible!], in a Fahrenheit 451 way, just as we will inevitably find a cure for cancer? Draw your own conclusions.
Mod only after you've thought about it.
Peace.
PS.
Note: Neither tea-leaves, the Qur'an, nor The Simpsons have been conclusively shown to predict the future in any prescient way, although frequently "predictions" are discovered after the fact in all three.
All time Simpson's quote: (From an episode):
Homer: These candidates make me want to vomit in terror!
And:
___: It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed... DOOMED!
Brockman: [brightly] Well, a refreshingly frank response there, from Senator ___.
~
How much for MS chemotherapy? I have a whole lab full of cancerous computers!
Huh? What are you (previous poster) saying? Under that logic ig I were to write a plugin for Photoshop, and release it under the GPL, then I would cause Adobe to suddeny be in violation of the GPL (through no action of their own)? I think you mis-understood my earlier suggestion, because the interpretation of the GPL presented by the previous poster makes absoluitly no sense.
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Steve Ballmer doesn't know his epidemiology. In fact, Microsoft is a cancer. Any program which includes Microsoft componants suddenly starts growing out of control until it becomes bloated and unusable.
In all fairness however, I can see how he might make the mistake of thinking the the GPL is Visus-like (not cancer-like however) in that it does attach itself to the IP it touches, but with properly written code, you can include functionality based on GPL'd source, as a plugin to your main application. This preserves the treditional IP state of your product, if you're so short sighted as to choose not to GPL your entire product.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I'd mod you up if I had points to use. I agree that the FSF isn't exactly the group I want fighting Redmond, since they too are rather extreme in their views. Both groups seem to forget the middle ground.
Virg
I'm no lawyer, but when I look at the legal code, and I see "the Federal Government cannot hold copyrights" I think that means no copyrights, and the way copyleft works is to establish copyright first, then copyleft it. Since the government cannot hold copyrights, that means it cannot copyleft anything either.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Something just hit me with all this talk of IP...MS and free software are fighting the same IP battle it two totally different ways. Stick with me here for a second...
Say I create a nifty library. Something everybody needs. Something everybody wants. But I worked very hard on it, and I want compensation for my hard work. The compensation I'm asking for: the source to any software using my library must be made available in the same fashion my source code is available. If that's asking too much, write your own library. You don't have to compinsate me until you finish the project.
Now say Microsoft creates a nifty librars. Something everybody wants. Something everybody needs. But some of their staff worked very hard on it, and the company wants compensations. So they wrap it into developer kits, MFC's, etc. Now that they've been compinsated, you can start work on your project.
Linux isn't the cancer. No no, it's the users who don't really understand what Linux, the GPL, FSF, monoplies, profits, IP, etc. are.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Microsoft did a buyout from Spyglass back in 96/96 for about $20Mil. That's hardly nothing...
What do you know I wrote a novel
Herpes just sounds a whole lot more dirty ;)
Just a reminder to all :
No it isnt ..
..
If Linux is cancer then Microsoft is Herpes
Just a reminder to all :
I understand what MS is doing and why, but what I don't get is how is why/how they are getting away with it.
What he says about Linux/GPL is totaly untrue. My company uses gcc, gdb, etc., but does that mean that our code has to be free software? nope.
It seems to me that if said what he said about some other company, they would get sued for libel. And I think the other company would come out pretty well, as it wouldn't be too hard to show damages.
Maybe they are getting away with it (so far) because there isn't one company to sue them? I guess any company who's business is based on Linux and/or GPL software could sue? (RedHat, etc.)
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
"Linux spreads like cancer, killing proprietary software" sounds catchy. The same way they say on CNN "people download music from Napster" or "DeCSS allows to make illegal copies of DVD's". It is not true, but after being repeated million times, it becomes the "public opinion".
I know I am responding to a troll, but I think that there is an interesting point to be made here. I don't think Linux would be where it is now if it was not originally released under the BSD license-- it would have been stolen into oblivion.
The current time, though, is a different story-- BSD license does not doom one to failure in the OSS market, it just makes it harder to succeed. Once critical mass is reached, this is all academic (see Apache). How many proprietary Apache's have tried to compete with the OSS versions? Note that none fo them were successful.
I don't think that it would be the death of Linux to move away from the GPL, as long as it remained open source. But I don't think it would be here today if it was not for the GPL.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
While Balmer is using FUD in his carefully chosen phrasing that implies, but does not state, that Linux is a cancer in terms of the GPL enforcement, he has reason to do so.
The main problem right now is the entire business world isn't buying MSFT spin on why they should buy Office XP. Most are being forced to "upgrade" to Office 2000 and Windows 2000, or lose product support, but the move to Office XP and Windows XP locks them into a never-ending product "upgrade" cycle dictated by MSFT.
So Balmer is faced with a product launch that's already fizzled. You could tell, just by talking to people in line at the Seattle International Film Fest who had helped with tech and promo at the product launch in NYC - the business public isn't buying it.
Why? Because they don't need to. Part of this is that we've shot them down on why you need Windows XP for servers, when a Linux box will do the job at half the price, and more reliably, with better TPC for your database or file ops.
[caveat - I own both MSFT and RHAT shares]
Their server growth is dead; the xBox is doomed to be a third runner in a tech world where first place wins the big bucks, second place wins some bucks, and anything lower than that loses its shirt. All they have is the PC franchise, and people just aren't buying the latest and greatest.
And why aren't we buying new PCs? Because what we have works, and we care more about other things. The market has matured and Intel can't even sell its P4 chips at the upper end, cause the consumer doesn't care. Nor does business.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Ballmer, I don't know who you are trying to impress with this train of thought. As a purchaser of every version of your OS from 3.0 to 98, and Office suite from 4.3 on, I am truly offended.
Your products are simply maintenance intensive. Non-trivial use of them requires occasional rebuilds from bare metal, as the poorly documented file structure and applications overwhelm even the power user. Some of the Gnomes of Redmond might survive within the two installation limit, but I'm uncertain I could.
Wasn't Frank Zappa prescient in the Joe's Garage libretto:
Suggestion: blow MS right off. Just say NO!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
By stooping to his level, we're playing their game.
Oh, so now MS is on a level below all Linux advocates? Please explain to me how differences in opinion (in business models and what makes business work) between MS and all free software supporters makes one person right and the other one wrong.
As far back as I can remember, Microsoft has never publically stated that Linux is purely evil; nor that the people who support it spread FUD about other OSes; nor that Linux users were mindless sheep following a set standard; nor that Linux is an unstable OS.
My point is that while MS may offer goods or services that you as a person or you as a user base may not like, want, or use, they have yet to come public saying that you are wrong for those beliefs. However, even this very forum (the general users; not everyone is an MS-basher) is guilty of continual public beratement of MS because their beliefs and business models don't match the ideals of the free software (and Linux) beliefs and business models.
UNIX: Find it, fsck it, forget it.
Did you read the article? Hell, did you even read the friggin title of the page?
Yes, I did. And I STILL don't see where Microsoft used the word "evil" to descibe Linux or any other form of free software. All I see is a difference of opinion between Microsoft's PR people and the general opinion of the people on this forum.
UNIX: Find it, fsck it, forget it.
How can you compare them?
The same way that it's stated: Ballmer has a job within Microsoft to relay the business models and plans for the company to try to increase use of their product (and thereby, their sales as well); free softare advocates (i.e. the general readership of this forum) have to take it upon themselves to do the same basic job Ballmer is doing (without pay!) to help increase use of whatever free software the are promoting.
I suspect that if you examine all of the press releases from well known Linux distributions like Red Hat or Debian, you wouldn't find Microsoft-bashing, just as you won't find Linux-bashing in standard Microsoft fare. However, if you were to read forums populated by zealous Windows users, you might very well find "beratement" of Linux.
I couldn't agree with you more. But I wasn't comparing Microsoft or Ballmer to Redhat, Debian, etc. I was trying to portray the fact that Microsoft gets bashed more in this forum than I've ever seen or heard of Microsoft speaking negatively of free software or of Linux, all because most free software supporters do not share the same opinions (not facts) of business models that Microsoft has adopted.
I wonder what is wrong with criticizing something that doesn't "match the ideals of free software beliefs and business models"?
Oh, there's nothing wrong with it. I was just replying to the original post where the author stated that "by stooping to his level, we're playing their game." There is no game, just differences of opinion. Ballmer's opinion is first backed by a boss and a paycheck, and then probably backed by a bit of personal belief. Most people on this forum probably have an opinion first backed by personal belief and then possibly a boss and a paycheck.
UNIX: Find it, fsck it, forget it.
One word - GREED. Enough is enough. Take your marbles and go home Bill.
Why? Isn't it the goal of every business to make money? Isn't it also a goal to make the public more aware of why you think your products or services is better than what's out there already, all in the hopes that the public will then purchase your goods or services?
Linux advocates might be a little over zealous and rabid at times. But that overwhelming stink of GREED that emanates form Redmond is killing this industry.
OK, so what you're telling me is that being "rabid" or "overzealous" is fine if you don't make money off of it, but being "rabid" or "overzealous" (yes I know that you weren't using those words in this fashion) to make money causes greed? And not only simple greed, but greed that is "killing this industry?" Once again, you prove my point: difference of opinion doesn't make one person right and the other person wrong; it creates a difference of opinion.
UNIX: Find it, fsck it, forget it.
It's time to organize public burnings of Microsoft software! But first, buy puts.
Ask me about my vow of silence!
Well, no shit! What else would he say? "Umm, Linux is really great, and we hope to work with it more". For fuck's sake, this is stupid.
The title of this story reads like a goddamn tattletale: "Mommy, Steve Ballmer called Linux a Cancer!". Slashdot used to be a place, and still is, on occasion, where one could visit and dig into some really interesting stuff. Over the past few years, Slashdot has taken a serious dive, picking and jawing at some of the most useless, "Linux-Ego" driven material anyone ever wasted time over. This story is a prime example. This is the best thing you can post, some m$ft jackhole spouting epitaphs about an initiative you already know he hates! Christ (or whoever is on the job for you) help us if this the shape of things to come.
andrew@INEGO
$ grep -ir "regent" *
grep: Profiles/Administrator: Permission denied
grep: system32/config/AppEvent.Evt: Permission denied
grep: system32/config/SecEvent.Evt: Permission denied
grep: system32/config/SysEvent.Evt: Permission denied
Binary file system32/FINGER.EXE matches
Binary file system32/FTP.EXE matches
Binary file system32/NSLOOKUP.EXE matches
Binary file system32/RCP.EXE matches
Binary file system32/RSH.EXE matches
Sure enough, it's:
Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved.
Great, so NT is open source! Can I start burning it onto CD and selling them, then? Steve Ballmer says I can...
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
The Billborg icon is a classic, but I think
it's time we had a Ballborg. He looks pretty
goofy already. Any Photoshop studs out there?
I uninstalled Office97. No, wait, there it is again. shucks. More surgery, chemo, radio. When will my computer be free of Office97? But seriously, shame on Ballmer. He and his MS heavies are so transparently trying to do down the open source movement. . 1
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
"If Linux is cancer then Microsoft is Herpes"
Actually, if we're talking diseases here, Microsoft is AIDS. Why? Once you contract AIDS there is nothing for it but expensive treatements (upgrades), while it inevitably destroys your immune system (erodes security) until you (your data) eventually die.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
" What if my business hasn't "given" the binaries to our client but merely LEASES equipment and software to them? We still own it, so it's never truly left our possession. On what basis must we give out source code? Do we have to give it out at all?"
I don't think that would fly under the GPL. My understanding isn't perfect, but I'd think letting the code leave your hands at ALL constitutes distribution. The GPL supersedes any "EULA" you may craft with your "software leasee", as your only right to modify and distribute the code at ALL comes from the GPL.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Ashamed to admit it, but I once bought a copy of Windows. By Ballmer's philosophy, I have the right to modify it (say, by replacing the startup screen with my own message instead of those irritating clouds), make as many copies as I like and sell them for profit.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Steve Ballmer sounds like the Agent Smith In The Matrix.
"Human beings are disease, you are the Cancer on this planet and we, we are The cure"
And you know the end of the movie.
Francis Zorrilla Dominican Republic
How to make Linux a real cancer. Create a CD which boots the Xbox to Linux. This CD should contain a nice GUI and some office productivity apps (spreadsheet, email, ect.). Distribute the CD for free.
I am depressed. I don't think we can beat Microsoft, I really don't. Ask any non-technical person what they think of Microsoft and they weill just say what Microsoft says, that all MS is guilty of is making better software. We all know that's true, but we have no money and the media could care less what we think.
Hell, Microsoft has their own news network if they need it. All Microsoft wants to do is kill Linux on the server. And all they need to do is say that its bad and Joe Blow CEO will feel uneasy enough to choose NT instead. And honestly, 99% of those servers will work fine with NT. It will cost more, but the CEOs don't know that and besides, if they think Linux can hurt their company...
Arrgg. We just can't beat these guys. Sad, sad, sad. The worst thing is that the "good guys" don't have the stomach to fight as dirty as Microsoft, ie, lie (rightly so). So we will be destroyed, or at least marginalized. Unless the goverment starts enforcing the anti-trust laws again (hahahahahah) we're screwed. As is the beef industry...and publishing....and entertainment.......
---
---
"Against stupidity the very god themselves contend in vain" -Johann Schiller
I hate to do this, but this arguement...well its just like the Microsoft arguement, ie, irrelevent. Linux should really be compared only to Windows 2000 Pro, not Windows 95. Of course, this is just the sort of lie of omission that Microsoft likes to use, so maybe we ought to just play their game and say the same thing.
---
---
"Against stupidity the very god themselves contend in vain" -Johann Schiller
...then I suppose it's a good thing we haven't found a cure for cancer yet!
"If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works."
Linus can do whatever he pleases with Linux. Ballmer is just jealous because there's a better OS than WinBlowz out there. Granted, Mozilla needs work and it doesnt have all the games you want to play on it, but it is a good OS, stable fast. I've had Mandrake since March and have had one crash, while WinMe crashed on me just this morning!
I love how he's kissing Gates' ass in the article.
But Linux being a cancer? What about MS being a cancer to competition?
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
(We fade in on GATES and BALLMER, GATES only a shadow to us in a long robe (much like CATS), and BALLMER smoking a cigarette. They are in a dark room, surrounded by rack mount servers.)
::pinky to mouth:: Does Windows XP have the .. required .. amount of bugs? How about that innovative thing you call a .. software .. firewall .. ? Mmm, I like how that sounds. It will look good on TV. "Windows XP has integrated sec..."
GATES: So gentlemen, all is going perfectly to plan...
BALLMER: Yes, master. We have even trolled Slashdot.
GATES: Excellent!
GEEK1: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(GATES spots a RedHat 6.2 CD in GEEK1's hands.)
GATES: CANCER!
(Two guards fire at the RH CD together. We see it shatter into a thousand pieces.)
GATES: Resistance is futile, young one. Mwhahahaha...
BALLMER: Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls?
GATES: I am one, drone.
Do you like German cars?
Ballmer is right to make the distinction between "free" software in the RMS sense, and public domain software which is free for anyone to use in any way, including embedding in a commercial product. While Free Software attempts to protect its creators by requiring that it only be used in other Free Software, public domain works are those whose intellectual property claims have expired and whose use is therefore unregulated.
Perhaps Free Software licenses should contain a time expiration like a patent or copyright, after which time they would become public domain works.
Why does our community respond with good wisdom and well spoken responses when our Intellectual Freedom is at risk (e.g. GPL violations, patents, file sharing restrictions), but so poorly when those shared Ideals are stomped on with FUD from Microsoft Corporate? Isn't this MS Corporate rhetoric the equivalent of a DoS attack on the public via the media? Or is this something more nefarious, like a diversionary attack on the Free Software community to keep us from realizing how simple it is even today to do with Free Software what Microsoft hopes to accomplish with .NET in 3 years?
Though I agree wholeheartedly we should not reply directly to Balmer's troll (read: MS Corporate Strategy), I believe it is our right to use the publicity to issue an unexpected response. That is, send a reply to all the major publications with the subject title "Linux luminaries respond to Balmer's Cancer attack", then never mention Balmer or Microsoft anywhere in the text. Just use it to explain two or three of the top reasons someone might choose the GPL or another Free Software license, or use it to announce the "Best of" break-throughs in recent software releases that *anyone* and *everyone* has the freedom to use and modify. Do this consistently and soon even the public will realize MS Corporate is sinking and desperately grasping for someone to drag to the bottom with them.
I remember several years ago (1995) when I first got into Linux at college, the Linux crowd was dominated by people who wrote with deep insight, strong resolve and a few basic common goals. Though the community has now expanded greatly in numbers, can we not create our own "Declaration of Independence from Corporate FUD"? If this is really a "community", why can't we choose a wise and well spoken group of representatives to respond and take advantage of the publicity this type of media attention gaurantees the Linux community? And, when real points *ARE* made, then their job is not to defend why those aren't true, but to place them on the great, publically available *Things to do to improve Linux and Free Software*.
Because this is the Internet and we have the freedom to do so, we could even post such responses prior to their release, in an effort to accomplish something many of our current politicians fail miserably: staying connected to all those represented, not just those on their doorstep. Slashdot discussions may be one help the "luminaries" could use to stay connected to the community by providing them with direct feedback from those they represent, and possibly direct (well, electronic) interaction.
Hmmm... the idea of a virtual State has merit. "No paper ballots here" could be our State Moto.
I can see people a couple of years before "1984" (the book) buying into things like "protection of intellectual property", "educating the consumer", "simplyfing licenses by force". He talks as if we, the consumers, are but mere babes in the woods, and need our hands held to push the ON button. Soon, we can expect smart client monitors (ala the Paperclip) whenever we have to plug into Hailstorm/Passport/whatever just to check up on the news or send an email.
Slowly the noose is tightening....
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
=hypocracy. Gee, isn't that an open source development (ipv6)? Yes, M$ is allowed to us it. But they have to release any part to the GPL'ed code that they have modified in order for the rest of the "community" to see it. If they "bundle" or tie it to a "proprietary" software program they have the right to keep that part of it to them selves. Any company has the right to keep their proprietary software protected, but they must release any modified "GPL" software they tinker with - M$ is no exception. I don't have a problem with M$ regarding use of GPL software (and I'm no fan of M$). However, this recent discovery is proof of M$' hypocracy! To slam and spread vicious FUD about the "evils" of Open Source while all the while researching open source developments is sleazy. This is nothing new and should come as no shock. People need to be reminded of this and this should be used to illustrate that M$ relies on open source in many ways. Can you say Kerobos(excuse my spelling) protocal? The guys at MIT and Berkeley sure can, especially after the release of W2K and the M$ "proprietary version of this open standard, which was used to corner clients into upgrades of W2K. Gates, Ballmer, and company are very worried about the open source movement. Why? Because they haven't figured out a way to effectively "embrace and extend" the M$ control over it. But this doesn't stop them from attempting to hijack any relevent or useful developments that will come out of the Open Source community. :)
Cheers.
And I'll bet that 20% is the big business customer's (where all the money is really made by M$), and they'll be forking out 80% of the profits M$ makes on .NET. So average Joe will say, wow!, look at what great savings this is WinXP/OfficeXP is while the business customer's are forced to waste even more money on software. That's not innovative, that's extortionist.
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies." -- not available? GPL code is available to everybody who abides by GPL rules, including any commercial company. But ofcourse commercial M$ feels excluded from GPL game, because they want to play software game by M$ profit rules. Poor boys, after several years of GPL developement and massive movement towards GPL among developers, including heavyweights such as IBM, M$ is realiyzing they're missing a lot of fun. Now they want to be included. But "included" means giving up their corporate ego very much glued to profit. Bottom line? $M wants to have a lot of profit but also a lot of fun, because profit without fun is like a pit filled with gold - you can buy a lot of things with that gold but feel imprisoned. Can M$ buy a lot of fun with a lot of gold? It seems a lot of fun is not for sale so they can't buy it an they know it, therefore they'd rather destroy it than let others have it. Let's make sure that won't happen.
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
Here's the response by Microsoft to the email "Microsoft" attempted by "chongo" and resent by "towatatalko" (for the opriginal email-text see below). I guess this could invite few more comments or though there's hardly anything new in the M$'s view here, but one thing is clear: they know the issue is generating more and more interest and they have to define their position just in case the next escalation it comes around. Microsoft Shared Source May 2001 The past several months have seen a growing number of people talking about source code - the code that underlies every computer software program. Over the past 25 years, few people outside of the development community talked about source code and even fewer had access. Today, that is changing as more and more software products offer some access to source code under certain conditions. Many of our customers and partners have asked us about our source code philosophy and how it compares to other models in the industry today, specifically the Open Source Software (OSS) model used for such software as the Linux operating system. Microsoft views source code and source code licensing as just one component of an umbrella framework that is the Commercial Software Model. Five key elements make up this model: 1.Community: A strong support community of developers. 2.Standards: Promote collaboration and interoperability while supporting innovation and healthy competition. 3.Business model: Promote the growth of a profitable business. 4.Investment: Level of research and development investment drives resources for future innovation. 5.Licensing model: Provides product and source access without jeopardizing the intellectual property rights of those who create or use the software. Shared Source Discussions Craig Mundie Discusses Shared Source on CNET The Commercial Software Model and Sustainable Innovation. (May 17, opinion) Shared Source Philosophy Overvie Microsoft affirms commitment to shared source in this overview. Microsoft Shared Source Frequently Asked Questions This FAQ addresses common questions and concerns about our Shared Source Philosophy. The Commercial Software Model Craig Mundie, Senior Vice President of Advanced Strategies, outlines Microsoft's position on source code sharing at the New York University Stern School of Business. (May 3, 2001, text remarks) Tradeoffs in Software Development Philosophies View the full speech from May 3, 2001 at NYU. Speech delivered by Craig Mundie, Microsoft Senior Vice President at the New York University Stern School of Business. (May 2001, video)
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
Then Microsoft is Biological Warfare.
--Blair
Links, zwei, trei .........
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Ballmer: "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works."
;)
There is just so much wrong with that handful of sentences that I don't know where to start. Let's see...
- "...if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source..." No, no, NO! If you use any open-source software released *under the GPL*, you must make your software open-source. Open Source != GPL Software. I don't know if Ballmer is incredibly obtuse or if he's just doing the usual M$ FUD dance (I'd guess the latter), but I'm really getting tired of hearing him and the rest of the Micro$oft spokesgerbils acting like all open source software is GPL'd.
- "Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies." Wrong again. Open source software is available to everyone...even GPL software like Linux. There's no rule or law that says commercial companies can't use it in their products. Yes, they have to comply with the license the open-source software was released under, and if that was the GPL, then they will have to release the source code of their product, but that is not preventing them from using the code if they really want to.
Ballmer is really whining about the fact that Microsoft can't swipe government-funded GPL code and then "innovatively" incorporate it into their own proprietary Rent-an-Application suite, which they then re-"sell" for the low, low price of only $599 per year. Boo hoo hoo. Sorry, Ballmer, but I don't think that the intent behind the open release of government-funded projects was to let corporations take that code developed with the taxpayers' money and sell it back to them with an obscene markup. I know the sight of all those free, open GPL projects out there that you can't steal, buy out, sue to death, or exploit for your own profit is probably giving you ulcers, but I guess you'll just have to "innovate" something else on your own instead.
DennyK
Talk about a badass... Linux + cancer = 800+ comments!
All you trolls should be taking lessons from Ballmer.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Linux is a cancer that is eating away at M$ profit margins.
MS execs try to create a general attitude about Free Software, Open Source, and/or Linux that is negative. This is obvious because of things like Ballmer's comments and other recent MS exec's comments.
. html) in the last paragraph, you will see that a very "intelligent" Microsoft strategy is being birthed. Where the .Net platform locks Internet-based services into Microsoft technology and logic. Hence, PAYing customers will have to use/continue using Microsoft products to get these services.
The interesting thing is not what that attitude means right now, but rather, what it will enable in the future. This is like a chess game. Here is what I mean. If you read this article from Jakob Nielsen (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000625_hailstorm
This duplicates Microsoft's current usefulness to any company developing for a software platform. If a little company makes their product/service available through Microsoft's technologies the little company instantly has access to the largest pool of potential customers. That probably makes sense if you want to make a lot of money.
The thing is, how does Microsoft get such a huge base of people using and implementing (critical mass?) its payment (and other) services first? That is the challenge for Microsoft. They *need* to get businesses and the public feeling generally negative toward free and open source types of philosophies. Hence the inappropriate "cancer" and "intellectual property" notions MS execs spout. With that kind of feeling in the business environment, MS gains an important advantage in convincing everyone to deploy MS technology. Thus, MS locks businesses, organizations, governements, individuals, etc. into a new era of MS monopoly through the Internet and in the form of MS-based payment systems/intellectual property bottleneckers, etc.
> Incorrect. The GPL is also license-compatible with a number of less-restrictive licenses, and I would think that public-domain would also be included.
Incorrect, what you call license compatible means that you can turn code under one license to GPL code.
This is not what *I* call compatible.
Compatible will be using GPL code in my code, releasing the changes to the *GPL code* under the GPL, and doing WTF I want with *my* code.
GPL is not compatible with anything.
Because it places several limitation, and one of them is that you may not add more limitation to the GPL.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Actually, MS has a standard n-2 support policy. ;-D )
This mean that (currently), NT 3.51 is still on the support list, (And Win95 isn't
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
June 1, 2003
/.ers,
Hi
That line good old Steve spoke about 2 years ago, well I crossed it so I writing this to you from jail. How was I suppose to know that when I bought Office XP it was only for 2 years. Jeez, I paid almost $300 for a single user version. But, when I decided that Microsoft was really a place I wanted to work and I sent them my resume (in Word format of course) what did I get? A knock at the door and handcuffs. So don't cross that line you could be next kids.
Sincerely,
T. Pengiun
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
This is just the kind of modding up that discredits the /. system... Ohh well, life goes on.
There are a lot of innovative users in the Chicago...
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
Well, Linux is about freedom of knowledge. It's the liberty. As a nature of humans on earth, not borg, we must defend it to the very last drip of our blood. Thus, we don't want others to steal it and seize it for their own. We know that M$ always use this dirty strategy is used by Microsoft as a part of its plot in world domination. GNU/Linux/OSS are immune to this so-called "embrace-and-extend" thing. No wonder this Balmer guy (or any M$ cohort) tries dissing Linux in every event.
P.S.: Linux does help in solving cancer. And how 'bout Microsoft? Read here muhahaha...
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Error 500: Internal sig error
/bonk
Open Source != GPL
Many government sponsered research projects headed by DARPA et all are BSD. That means I can use it and change the liscense to GPL, and you can use it and not release the source code. "awful jackass..."
DARPA pays companies to do research projects to develop a solution to a problem. I think it should all be GPL so you don't run around profitting solely on all the research that the govt paid for. You think you some how are owed that right? Who-ever you are... please stop selling Steve the rock.
You don't think the govt has a right to IP? You don't think they should be able to choose how to use it (in this case... it benifits the *MOST* people... perhaps not M$ however).
Seems like you have a lot of conflicting views.
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/em bonks Steve Balmer on the head
Steve Balmer has been slain by his filthy lies.
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-EvilMonkeyNinja
a.k.a. Joseph Nicholas Yarbrough
Security Grunt by Day
Programmer by Night
-EvilMonkeyNinja
Mild Mannered Host by Day
Wild Hammered Programmer by Night
Yeah, I bet they are... at first.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
GPL'ed code is avalable to everyone in the same sense that a public library is available to everyone. For example, MS is as welcome to use emacs as everyone else. So is the Apache foundation.
Libraries do have rules about what you can with their books. Different libraries have different rules.
In the same way, the GPL is a set of rules aimed at protecting the value of programs.
If the government pays a programmer to created a GPL'ed program then that's money well spent - everybody can use the product that has been created for free.
As a matter of fact, government does fund lots of code that is not free at all. For example, many university professors create programs, in government-paid time, and distribute it in binary-only form. (Here in Germany all professors are paid by government).
Did ya know that gasgrill manufactuers for example use inferior parts over working parts just to bill you on repair? I find Microsoft talking about intellectual property as hysterical as most of their ideas come from just recoding someone else's idea with ten times the manpower.
God spoke to me
"Why no Mr Congressman, Windows is not the only operating system. There's MacOS and Linux and Unix and BeOS and OS/2 Warp. There's plenty of Operating System competetion. We're not a big bad ol' monopoly..."
I don't see any problem with one of the conditions of goverement grants being that the software must be released under a particular licence. If I want to release code under GPL, LGPL, BSD, Apache, ... that is my choice, but if I am receiving funds, the funder has a right to specify conditions including licencing.
All work done with federal grant dollars are released under the FFSL (federal free software licence) which is somewhere between the GPL and BSD. You can use the code in your work without your work becoming a derivative work, but any changes in the code itself must be released under the FFSL. Ballmer's biggest b*tch is solved. Now he can use the code, only embrace and extend is not as easy so I am happy.
The most dangerous pattern in these attacks is that M$ is trying to play the political game. They are making the free software community out to be a bunch of free loaders getting goverment pork! This has the potential to swing public opinion (I don't want my tax dollars going to the those free software commies).
This, as we all know is completly false. Free software is by and large a way developers give freely to the community (and in fact alot, possibly even a majority of the big user apps are from out of the states). It ammazes me how selfless many of the developers in the FS world are. I am very proud of this. We have done what many groups in history have failed to do.
However, the average Joe is clueless. If the population at large starts to buy this CR*P then the FS developers in the US could find themselves legislated into oblivion (Extra, Extra: FCC now controls all software releases! - as stupid as it sounds it would not surprise me).
To Microsoft guys tha hate Free-software guys (us):
Please, as I've asked before, leave us alone. Ok, we don't like windows, and we prefer a better OS, but most of us accept that there are people that want to make money by limitating people freedom.
Look at us, we are just a bunch of nerds that doesn't have nothing to do but work in a OS that normal users can't use. All you have to do is take care of your dear customers that can't use linux.
Keep your windows beautiful, and nice, easy to use, and with lots of automatic things. I'll tell you something, most of us hate this automatic stuff, so, let us with our difficult-to-leanr OS, and keep doing your job with your final user.
You keep trying and trying to "kill" our OS, by saying horrible things about it. If you want to talk about this, we can put both OS side by side, and watch technical details, I bet that any Distro-Co. will be very pleased to do this.
But if you try to compare your graphical interface, with ours. I bet that noone will show up. Yeah, that's right, we are not as good as you in User Interface.
Whatever, the point is. LEAVE US ALONE! And stop acting like you do. IMHO linux is technical superior, but you are the market leader, not us. And you deserve it, you have the best interface.
Don't worry, I'm too sad [to|every]day
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
With all the other dirty tricks played by MS, is it not possible that they can simply outright steal GPL'd code, and publish under their own version of an "innovated" Open Source license?.
Who would be able to stop them from swiping all that yummy stable FREE code? If the laywers get involved, do you think the GPL willstand up in court agains the likes of MS? I think that the day of reckonong is coming for the GPL, and it will be the MS Behemoth that will challenge it.
i know i should let it piss me off but the guy sounds like the bush administration people - just out and out bald face lies and mistruths. it would be so refreshing to have more agressive and informed reporters out there who would throw such softball questions.
GPL is free, now and forever. I've not seen anybody deny that one yet. GPL is free as in beer, the only thing not allowed is for you to take away my beer and sell it as your own.
... (you know in grade school in history we get stories about regimes that let one buy witnesses, it is one of the distinct properties of a dictatorial regime, and there are presidential dictatorial regimes you know)
BSD is free, but anyone has the power to make it non-free, is that freedom ? "You are free to take everyone else's freedom !" ? No it isn't. You're free to HAVE a gun, not free to take away other's rights to guns, and you are most defineately not allowed to use that gun to accomplish this.
Microsoft Shared Source licence, you are free to improve windows on the small condition that you give these improvements to microsoft and relinquish ALL rights to your modificaition. *ahem* WHAT A DEAL, i mean even a greedy bastard like most CEO should realise that there working for free
GPL -> you work for yourself and the rest of the community
BSD -> you work "for the community" but everyone is free to take it from the community.
MIC -> you work for microsoft, more you PAY to work for microsoft, last time I checked, I worked to get paid not the other way around.
And 1 slightly political statement, in america it is legal to shoot someone, it is legal to take away a persons privacy without his/her consent, it is legal for anyone to buy politicians, laws are bought and paid for in hard cash, some laws are copyrighted, meaning that you cannot read them freely, it is legal for an attorney to blatantly lie in front of the court for money, it is legal to buy experts, DAMN you have a problem, and no it's not just about software, it is a matter of time till the GPL is outlawed, i do hope you are aware of that
See how Microsoft tries to mix all the concepts:
Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
What ?
* Open source is not GPL: you can use open source (as Microsoft does with BSD code) without open sourcing your sotfware.
* Even with the GPL, you dont make "the rest of your software" open source but only derivatives (with the usual no-so-clear line between derivatives and linked s/w). The phrase really reads as: "if we make only one open-sourced software, we will have to give all our softwares for free (windows xxx, office and others)".
Their strategy (FUD on the whole open-source software) seems to be not only recurrent but more and more disinformative than ever (see Allchin's statements...)
The worst part is that most people believe them without checking their statements :-(
Well it just seems that M$ wants more people out there so that they don't look like a monopoly. Soon enough they will just buy them up.
"Intellectual property should be protected. That's the only way that a newspaper or a software company or record company or artist can get a fair return on their work."
And then he says...
"The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies."
Nice condradiction, Steve. It would appear that you think Microsoft should be compensated for their work, without having to compensate or even acknowledge the work done by independant developers who wrote a fair amount of the code incorperated into MS software. That isn't what you meant, was it steve?
Microsoft loves open source software... As long as they get to make money on it.
--
Cancer \Can"cer\, n.
3. (Med.) Formerly, any malignant growth, esp. one attended with great pain and ulceration...
Well hell... that sounds more like Microsoft to me...
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How long will it be before someone turns RMS loose on Ballmer as well? ;)
First off, I recommend anyone and EVERYONE should listen to Richard Stallmans speech he gave on Tuesday. It really opened my eyes and ideas about GPL and GNU and Linux. For one, i feel bad for calling GNU/Linux just Linux. Linux=the kernel, GNU/Linux=complete OS. GNU TOTALLY deserves credit for their work and adding 4 extra characters (GNU/) is not much to ask IMO.
The GPL obviously does not make a program you write required to be licensed under the GPL. Again, listen to Stallman because he does a good job talking about that. Open source does NOT equal free software!
All of the MS cronies obviously just want to mux GNU/Linux, GPL, Free Software, and Open Source together as one because that way people will be confused when some say they are not the same or don't even know the difference. Then people argue about this and that while MS is running off to the bank. GNU/Linux lets you write your own proprietary code based off of GPL'ed code. You just can't release it to the public that way. Did you understand that??? You can take GPL'ed code and modify it to your liking and not have to release it to the public!!! Its called FREEDOM!
Open Source does not necessarily mean free software GODDAMNIT! You can take open source code and modify it and release it w/o the source and thus is not free anymore. VERY common sense to me.
Has Ballmer ever written or worked with source code or programming? Does MS really innovate? MS has a good marketing team and can buy out competitors (innovatations) like there's no tomorrow!
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
help customers understand when they are crossing the line . . . so they can't do the wrong thing.
So downloading a song I don't own is copyright infrigement!?!
Gee.... had no idea
To Microsoft: This word you use...Innovative...I do not think it means what you think it means.
And, btw, when the government builds a road, while everyone may be allowed to drive on it, there are still restrictions of use. I don't see what the big deal is.
As for GPL software being cancer... Did you ever notice that with proprietary software made by for-profit companies, the source code is only made available at a price? Guess what? If you want to use that code in software that you produce, you must pay royalties. Of course, if you want to give away free software, you're out of luck, because you won't get money from sales to cover the royalties. That means you are forced by the closed-source license to release your software as closed-source.
How come Microsoft calls this closed-source self-propagating license "innovation" while calling the GPL "cancer"? Because their words originate not from logic or a consistent set of ethics and values but rather from the big money bags. Nothing necessarily wrong with not-so-enlightened self-interest, but you really shouldn't take a used-car salesman's word on anything.
"We have and continue to innovate within the spirit and letter of the law. We continue to do what we have always done, because we think it's 100 percent correct."
:)
*cough*bullshit*cough*
at least the 100 percent bit was relevant
Funny, Steve is starting to sound like the BSD folks, except the BSD folks don't put quite the negative spin on things. I guess if he doesn't want the government supporting GNU license software because MS can't use it in their code, then they shouldn't support MS development because we can't use MS's code in ours. I guess the government will have to turn in to a BSD shop :)
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Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Let's face it, it is not the GPL that threatens Microsoft. It is not FreeBSD. Or XWindows. It is Linux that's threatening them in the core of their business, the OS that gave them the leverage they need to get where they are.
So if I'd be Gates or Ballmer, I'd start trying to break Linux based companies. Demolish them seceretively. Buy large amounts of stock and dilute their value. Disencourage people from investing money in them by making them swing up and down on a little rope. And meanwhile, give the masses something to chew on like an open and public attack on the GPL.
Then again, that's just me.
If linux is a cancer, it must be some sort of weird "reverse-cancer". I'll be the first to admit to being a linux-newbie, but in the course of setting up my own Linux web server, I've already noticed many of linux's reverse-cancerous attributes:
:: Linux reverse-eats money from my bank account. Over $3000 is still in there that otherwise might have been spent on 2K disAdvanced server. It frightens me to think that Linux can somehow infect my bank account in this manner.
:: Linux reverse-spreads to my memory and hard drive like the cancer that it is. All sorts of free memory and drive space are present in the system compared to the *ahem*copy*ahem* of 2K server on the box next to it. I've been meaning to get this looked into by someone with more experience than I, but just haven't had the time. I hope it isn't contagious; I spent good money on 512MB of RAM to power that 2K server and would hate to see it suddenly able to get by on much less.
:: Linux's reverse-cancer infects Windows, which in turn reverse-infects my mind. Every time I power up my Windows workstation, I have an uncontrollable urge to replace it with Linux.
After careful analysis and consideration of the facts presented herein, I must come to the upsetting conclusion that this Linux thing is incredibly dangerous. I advise everyone to immediately forward a copy of this fact-sheet to their congressional representatives and demand that Linux be classified as a level 4 pathogen and steps be taken to ensure it's immediate eradication from existence.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Slavery is freedom.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Interesting though that MS happens to be the same itials of Multiple Sclerosis, a debilitating disease affecting the brain and nervous system.
Linux and Open Source needs a real spokesperson with face recognition amongst the "normal" populace. We will never be able to debunk these blatant Balmer lies if we do not have a proper spokesperson that can gain the media attention that Microsoft can gain.
This claim he has been continually making regarding how using any Open Source software infects all your software is blatantly untrue.
This battle front that Microsoft has created is not one we can fight on Slashdot and expect to win. This is a battle that we must fight in the mainstream media.
We need to reach "Joe" computer-user through the media. So that when "Joe" computer-user is approached with Linux, he/she won't run for the hills screaming about the dangers of cancer.
The Open Source community needs to begin talking the intellectual property talk and walking the intellectual property walk in regards to how closed-source programming is a stagnet pond that breeds life taking bacteria. If Microsoft wants to scare "Joe" Computer-user then let's scare "Joe" Computer-User.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Oh no, that means my entire computer has become Open Source! Since I dual-boot doesn't that mean that my installed Windows 98 SE has become open source as well?
I mean I have had Linux "touch" some Windows files... Hmm... Does anyone know how to perform Chemotherapy on a hard drive?
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Hello. I am a Linux newbie, I've only been using Linux (RH 7.1) for the past few weeks, but that's not the case. The case is, Microsoft FORCED me to begin studying Linux. Yes, you heard that right. I've never taken Linux seriously in the past, but I do. I am sick of these shitty PR stunts and other BS that Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA are pulling out. Some people I've talked to say that they would like to have something other then Windows, but they're stuck with it since everybody else uses it. Well, I have the guts to shout it out loud: FUCK YOU Microsoft ! I am not going to let Mr. Bill Gates dictate me how to use my computer, what hardware to buy and what software to use as well as what music to listen to (MP3 rippers working in XP ? Hah!). I DO respect uncle Billy for what he has archieved as a person, he put his company to a great height, but that doesn't mean I am OK with that. Hell NO ! I am running dual-boot between Win2000 and Linux right now and I am spending less and less time in Win2000 every day. Every day I spend learning Linux, I learn something new about the way computers work and how software is developed. I am now taking part in the Open Source movement by beta-testing Mozilla and submitting it's bugs. It's a "little thing", but I am kinda proud of that :) As for this article/interview...I find it funny. Linux ? A Cancer on Intellectual Property and Innovation ? ROTFLMAO ! It was MS which admitted to using OpenBSD code in Windows XP and not vise-versa... Oh, wait...Microsoft OS'es are close-sourced right ? So you can't put their network code to some actually good use. If somebody is this cancer of the computer industry, it's Microsoft and the Open Source movement is the cure. "Free Software = BAD, Money = GOOD", gotta love that, eh ?
/me OFF
"The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work." So the goverment should give their money to the already-rich MS instead of innovative, but poor programmers ?
Open source is not available to commercial companies. Does that person have ANY clue ? Oh wait, that's FUD !
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. That guy has to check the LGPL license.
Linux is not in the public domain. Need I say more ? The scary thing is, it seems that the big decision makers seem to be actually believing this complete bullshit. Anyways, my fingers hurt.
Since cancer affects all the parts of the body (eventually), does this mean that MS will be affected by open source, too? :-)
Cancer spreads. Pretty soon M$ will be lying in a coffin.
Are they going to hike up the price of an upgrade after that time?
Actually, in your scenario it is fair, since by your own numbers, that one guy paid 74 percent of the tax collected. The actual proposed tax cut plan would be more like that one guy paying in only 70 dollars (33 percent of tax collected) and still getting 40 dollars back (67 percent of the tax cut).
My point all along has been that if you count all of the proposed tax cut (including the estate tax repeal, which apologists consistently ignore), the tax break is not equal, because the rich get back a percentage larger than the percentage they paid.
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#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
But don't forget to factor in the inevitable cuts in government services due to the lost revenue.
Let me try an analogy: say we buy something together and split the payment 60-40. Then we get a partial refund, and I try to claim 90 percent of it, arguing that "Of course I should get more back, I paid more in the first place."
"But not that much more," you'd rightly object. And that's exactly our objection to Bush's tax cut: after everything is factored in (like the estate tax repeal that you skated around), the rich are getting back a bigger slice than they put in.
Hmm, how `bout a cut in the payroll tax? Funny how that never seems to get mentioned in tax-cut discussions, even though the large majority of Americans pay more in payroll tax than in income tax.
Yes, which is why they, and I, object to the rich trying to shift more and more of the tax burden off their backs and onto the backs of the poor and middle class.
No, they didn't. Inflation-adjusted tax revenues were down for several years after Reagan's 1981 tax cut -- and that in a growing economy, when inflation-adjusted tax revenues would be expected to increase.
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require 6.0;
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
? `Scuse me, where did you get "rich people are evil" out of my article? All I said was that, White House spin to the contrary notwithstanding, their proposed tax cut does disproportionately benefit the rich (yes, even in disproportion to how much tax they're paying).
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require 6.0;
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
This is the big lie that conservatives keep repeating, desperately hoping to convince the poor and middle class that the government isn't screwing them over at the behest of the rich. The petitioner follows the so-called "liberal" media in repeating unchallenged the White House's deceptive numbers, which deliberately omit the effect of the proposed estate tax repeal that disproportionately benefits the rich. When the entire tax proposal is considered, the richest one percent, who pay 20 percent of all federal taxes, will receive at least 36 percent of the tax cuts -- some estimates put it as high as 43 percent.
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#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
Great well founded and logical argument you idiot. Get off our side.
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Lets see.. in america high school education is free. All americans who have benifited from education system should work for govt. (or people aka humans/americans) for free. It is similar to software right? If I modify/extend the GPLed software I give it away for free. Since, I am extending my intelligence thru education, all work I do should be given away for free.. Something wrong with GPL?
I am really not surprised that MS is resorting to bullying CTO's and technical buyers with PR like this because they lose on straight techinical merit.
For example, my Linux web servers run for many months on end with no problems. My home windows 98 box p3 866 from Dell with 384 Megs of RAM needs to be rebooted every 3 days. Its amazing how often I get this kind of message.
"System resources are low. Some programs may not run. Windows has a limited number of system resources available. When you have many programs open, or you open a program that uses many system resources, Windows may run more slowly and some programs may not run properly. Quit some programs to free up system resources, or restart your computer. "
Imagine.. This never happens on my Linux Servers...
What is worse is that closing programs does not free up system resources.
Now.. If only the games I played were on linux...