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Bill Gates Says GPL Is Like Pac-Man
wrinkledshirt writes: "Bill Gates has finally spoken his mind on the GPL here. Interesting that he calls the GPL a PacMan-like entity considering that's how many of us view him and his company, but I digress ..." According to Gates, GPLd software "makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work. So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen." Or the development of a full Free operating system either, I guess. Perhaps he should issue a company memo to the folks running Microsoft's stats.zone.com, who seem to be using GNU/Linux and Apache happily without donating MS Office to the FSF. Wacka wacka.
I can't say I adore Microsoft, and I did made some Redmond bashing in my columns - I'm Linux guy after all, and as a columnist, I can write of whatever I want.
Today, I've been phoned from my marketing director who told me that I have to stop writing bad about Microsoft (or anything about Microsoft) because "I'm doing it all the time and people are getting bored reading my columns because I'm not writing of anything else but how bad Microsoft is" and that they will stop publishing my columns if I don't start writing about something else.
Indeed, I see that writing how bad the new licencing model is, how bad X-box might be, how wrong the Shared Source is - might annoy some people. I was devilish enough to cut "Shared Source licence" to simply "SS licence" :-) and was accused of presenting Microsoft as Nazi organisation. Of course, the short version of Open Source - "OS licence" which I compared to "SS licence" was Ok. :-)
I might just be paranoid, but it seems that MS needs lots of great reviews of their new products, so they can sell them as much as possible, which is the only way they can enforce new licencing model, and everyone who is showing the people the other side of the story has to be pushed away if possible.
However, this is not the question if I'm right or wrong. I just dislike the idea that Microsoft can put pressure to marketing people or directors of the magazine to avoid expressing any bad opinion about the company.
Right now, I'm seriously thinking of quitting my job as a journalist/columnist. I have another job (much better paid than writing for a magazine) so it won't hurt my pocket. I was doing it for the fun anyway. ;-)
But if we go one after another, what will you read in the magazines? Who is going to write about Open Source, GNU and Linux? Do we really want to read in all magazines that Microsoft rocks, and Open Source/GNU/Linux sucks?
infoworld speaks slashdot
0 6/ 18/010618opfoster.xml?0620weam
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"Anyone who thinks Microsoft never does anything truly
innovative isn't paying attention to the part of the company
that pushes the state of its art: Microsoft's legal
department."
--Ed Foster, The Gripe Line columnist, expresses his
distaste for Microsoft's license enforcement program.
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/
You're talking about two different things. Redistributable components like MFC, that you pay for by buying a development environment, and GPLed code. A good equivalent to MFC would be GTK which is licensed under the LGPL. Effectively yoy are given similar redistribution right but you must dynamically link the LGPLed code. QT is very different and IMHO licensed incorrectly. QT is available in GPL or commecrial form. If you don't commercialy license QT then you must GPL the program compiled against QT. Personally $1,550 is more than I'm willing to pay for licensed UI components.
Apache isn't GPL, It's released under the Apache License
All these programs are freely distributable and their source code is open. Therefore they form a system which anybody can improve. Why would you want to spend your time doing that? Its a hobby, you make your system better and you enjoy other people's changes. Well, geeks...
This logic forms an evolutional model of open creativity. Whether this is good or bad time will tell since the process of evolution is selective. Now the word "Linux" is used to describe this phenomenon and has become a synonym for this system (don't debate "linux" vs. "BSD", most people refer to that when they ask "so.. can you see WWW pages from the Linux thing ?"). Its like after 200 years people will be using the expression "Its a Linux!" to describe open creativity systems (if mankind hasn't extinct because of pollution though..).
There is one thing to realize. "Linux" can't be destroyed. Unless all these millions of lines of code are deleted from all the storage systems of the planet. "Linux" is only loosing if nobody is improving it, yet if for 10 years nobody touches it and then some kid edits 2 lines of code, you have "Linux" again.
On the other hand Microsoft can disappear.
That will happen if the profits can't cover the expenses.
So MS attitude is excused. In fact if you don't want Microsoft to disappear, or Microsoft emploees to lose their jobs for the survival of the company, I prompt you to buy their products. "Linux" does not lose if you buy commercial software.
I like having MS arround. It makes us more innovative!
Just, thinking how to reply to the unfair MS FUD wastes our time.
Now let this message be lost in the noise
You know, I know this is more than a little off topic, but I hear this subject come up so often, that I feel like I have to respond. Yes, I work for IBM maintaining OS/2 source (notice the AC moniker). No, it will _NEVER_ be open sourced. People in the community seem to believe that we have some kind of obligation to open up the OS source since it's no longer much of a power in the mainstream desktop market, and since it's their hobby, why not. What no one seems to quite grasp is that we have contractual obligations to some pretty big customers to provide support until at least 2006, possibly later (I believe that the idea is to migrate these people to Linux when the MCP and ACP products finally go out of service, believe it or not, but I digress...). There are millions and millions (and millions...) of dollars still being generated via support contracts and service extensions for the older flavors. This is still a highly profitable source of revenue, believe it or not, with very little cost to maintain (we're maybe a 10th of the size we were when the first OS/2 products shipped). Open sourcing the product is going to do more than piss a few people off - we're talking potential HUGE lawsuits and more than a few people (like me) would be out of a job. The sad truth is, that most of the developers that are still here keeping OS/2 alive have as much disdain for the GPL as ole Billy G does. I'm sorry, and I'm as much of a supporter of open source when I can be (I happen to believe more in the BSD approach), but this is not going to happen in our lifetimes. Get over it.
The "pac man" comment was also mentioned in a thread from yesterday's Slashback.
Alex Bischoff
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
This is the "then they fight you" stage I think.
Personally I've known this was coming for a while, pretty much ever since the original Halloween document. Microsoft is fighting back, not fairly (in some senses) but in a manner that should be expected. They are not attacking linux as not superior software, but attacking the principles behind Linux. The few details about how they got it wrong, well, no ones perfect are they?
Microsoft is doing what they do best, building Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt in the minds of those who listen to them, in this case those targetted would be businesses I think. Anyone who thinks they can use linux to build a business on top of, or use linux in anyway, must be "infected" with the doubt that maybe, just maybe, by using linux in some way (or any open source software) they will not be able to make any money without giving all their IP out for free.
Now we all know this is bullshit. Opensource != GPL, Linux Kernel != GPL, GPL != give everything for free, we (for varying values of "we") know this already. My company uses linux to build embedded firewall devices. The ability to do something in a stable OS, without paying $xxx for WinCE licensing gives us huge advantages in that our core OS is free. We then build on that. Our IP is not so much in the OS and the programs that we wrote to run on it (which are not all GPL/LGPL I don't think, or are under a different license), but in the propriatory tool we use to configure this system.
So I say let MS spread their FUD, and mix up the way that linux and oss/gpl are presented to the world, I'm waiting for the next stage after "then they fight you" which is of course "and then you win".
So far we've heard Microsoft describe Linux and the GPL as a cancer, Pac Man, and numerous other things. But while these comparisons may have some sort of PR or "scare" value, they only serve to mislead the public.
:) As with my other comment later on, this is how they are attacking the Linux threat, just like they said they would in the Halloween documents.
Of course they are are PR to scare people. How else can you defend a company in an indefensable position?
I say, go Bill! Bring it on, Bill. You're a damned fool if you think you can wildly publicise the GPL and still be able to define it in public opinion. Hell, Apple uses it, IBM can work with it. You think you has so much credibility that people ignore what IBM is doing, Bill? Don't you have the common sense to NOT PUBLICISE YOUR COMPETITOR'S PRODUCT? Yeesh! I don't remember you doing that with WordPerfect, or Netscape: in those instances, I remember you just making a product and acting as if it was the only thing anyone would ever want to use or know about. Now you feel you have to teach people NOT to use the GPL? Sounds like it's proving a worse threat, but you're damned stupid to change your tactics.
Now, that's what I'd say to ol' Bill. And at the same time I think maybe he's desperately trying to still get people to look at Linux, at the GPL, at all of that stuff at a time when Windows STILL DOMINATES. He wants people to look at the GPL while it still does NOT have a big place underlying lots of stuff in the mass market. He wants people to look at Linux while Windows still completely dominates userspace. That's why he's pushing the publicity so hard- because this is the best position of power he's likely to have for a while, unless he can stop the new threats and shift everybody onto even more Microsoft-based IT- and that's a very hard sell, and is not sure to succeed- and it's certainly going to have a harder time succeeding if this Open Source thing continues being used by Apple, IBM, et al.
It's interesting to watch- even clever- but I think it's an end-game, all the same. There are limits to how much power people will _consistently_ give to Microsoft. If they give too much they're capable of freaking out and pulling back, taking some losses and turning to something that seems safer: and to a large extent, GPL seems safer from an end user or semi-developer perspective, because it's the opposite of the pay-per-use thing Microsoft needs to go to: with GPL you own the programs. They're so hard to monetize that building in boobytraps and 'self-help' timebombs is completely pointless, and as a result they're ideal for the sort of person who wants to buy or assemble a thing and then be frugal and keep using the same thing for years without 'upgrades'.
This is why Microsoft is losing. Nothing lasts forever... the real question is, how much damage can they do in the meantime? And that, they're trying their best to do.
We're in step 3, folks.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
As applied to (Power) Pill Gates, right?
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
That was probably meant as a joke, but what do you think, say, MFC is? Plenty of people use that as a part of their applications.
I guess I just imagined using Rogue Wave products then. Or maybe I was smoking crack.
I have to make a point about "the open source community [having] a hard time getting into the main stream media".
I submitted a story about 3 weeks ago about Linux and a Linux project being literally headline news (front page, top story) in the Nikkei Keizai Shinbun (Financial Times of Japan, the most widely read business newspaper). The story was handled very cluelessly by Slashdot, and probably passed under everyones radar as a result.
I think the situation is becoming more of a case of the community being clueless to the outside world, not t'other way 'round.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Well, if your improvement is visibile to the user, then what prevents your competitor from just copying your ideas? After all if they have a lot of money they can re-implement the same features.
To that end, then, open source is still a scary idea for us. If we were to publish our code, it would instantly be snatched up and exploited
But if you GPL-ed your code, then the competitor could snatch it and use it, but as soon as they wanted to sell their product they would have to release their own source as well. Do you think they would do that?
It seems to me that GPL protects you better than keeping your code secret.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
If IBM still has that much of a market supporting OS2, then they should only support official OS2, and not open up the possibility of having incomplete installations to cope with, or other kinds of installations.
But IBM is offering support for some Linux distributions. They could do the same even better with their own product.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
It would confuse everyone
You mean as in "OS/2 is the future", "OpenDoc is the future", "NT is the future", "Java is the future", "Linux is the future",...?
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/featu res.asp
Look at what they're selling - gcc, g77, and g++.
Wierd, huh?
Engineering and the Ultimate
I think you're missing something. The point of free software is freedom for the user. It doesn't mean that the code needs to be publicly downloadable. So, in your case, you only need to provide source to the people who actually purchased your product, and only if they ask for it. That way, your competitors will probably only get the source if they buy it from you. I can't imagine a competitor going to one of your clients and asking for the disk with the source code on it, you know.
Engineering and the Ultimate
The funny thing is that Microsoft _is_ making money from selling GPL software. Take a look at
a tu res.asp
this:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/fe
You'll notice that their Interix PRODUCT includes g++, g77, and gcc, all of which are GPL products.
So, they are completely lying out their you-know-whats.
Engineering and the Ultimate
The funny thing about this is that the person who started the free software movement, RMS, makes money by selling software. He started selling tapes of emacs for $150, and now selling GNU deluxe distributions for a few thousand.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Actually, MS sells GPL software:
a tu res.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/fe
If you look at it, you will see that they include gcc, g77, and g++ in the package.
I think though you are missing the point of what people are saying about commercial software. Your statements are only true if you equate commercial and proprietary software. If you don't, they are false.
For example, Cygnus Solutions was a commercial software company. They sold free software. They made money. Red Hat is a commercial software company. The sell free software. They are (kind of) making money. ADA Core technologies is a commercial software company. They sell free software. They aren't public, so its hard to tell if they make money, but they've been around for awhile. So you see, GPL is not incompatible with _commercial_ software, only _proprietary_ software that restricts users' freedoms.
Another reason that free software people don't like Gate's comments is that they give the false impression that MS's software doesn't have these problems. For example, I can't use arbitrary MS software AT ALL, no matter what license I put it under. So, basically, they are twisting their side of the story so much that, although what they say is technically true, it gives completely false impressions. Then there is the outright lie about problems with the _use_ of the software, of which there is none (and MS software is infinitely more restrictive on use).
Engineering and the Ultimate
Check it out. MS themselves are selling GPL software:
a tu res.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/fe
It lists g77, gcc, and g++ as parts of the package.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Obviously, with a name like GPLwhore, you probably don't merit a response, but here is one anyone.
First of all, sharing software != screwing over others. In fact, companies that limit sharing forcefully are the ones doing the screwing.
GPL would not mean quick and swift death to the company's business, it would mean it needed to be re-thought. It would also probably take a while to make the change. If your company is based on screwing people over, it should probably be re-thought.
Engineering and the Ultimate
We are not talking about utopia. We are talking about ALLOWING OTHERS to share.
RMS actually _did_ make money selling free software. That's how he started off funding the FSF, and where most of the money comes from today.
The point is not, "does the new model work" which it appears to, but rather, "is my current business practice ethical?" If it's not, it needs to be changed.
Also, the FSF never proposed a business model. Neither did I if you notice. I just said you need to re-think your model based on what is ethical.
If you disagree with my ethics, fine. That's certainly valid. However, saying that businesses should feel free to engage in unethical practices (whatever they are) just to prevent it from affecting your livelihood is just plain wrong. It's one thing to say, "I don't think proprietary software is unethical because of this and this, so I will continue to sell proprietary software" It's quite another thing to say, "I think proprietary software is good because it gives me more money, no matter who gets screwed". Using ethics like that, we should all go into selling crack because it makes more money.
Engineering and the Ultimate
You said - Please don't compare our current business rules with selling crack
I WASN'T. You should read more carefully. I said intentionally unethical businesses practices are equivalent to selling crack. Which it is. Being intentionally harmful or unethical is no worse than selling crack.
As I said in my previous post, if you don't think it is unethical, then it is NOT the moral equivalent of selling crack, and we simply disagree.
What I take offense at is companies who try to justify being unethical using money.
I don't care if the "software industry" goes to pieces. The advent of the automobile made the "buggywhip industry" go to pieces. In the future, you will probably see most software being made by either (1) consultants or (2) IT shops collaborating together. In fact, that's how 90% of todays software is made. Only 10% of software is prepackaged. So, we're still only talking about a small part of the market changing.
Don't reject the ideals of freedom out of fear. If you are opposed to the freedoms outlined for software by the FSF, that's fine. Just don't do it because of fear.
Engineering and the Ultimate
You misunderstand something in the GPL
Even with the GPL, you are allowed to look at the code, study it, and then use what you learned to write whatever program you want, and you are not obligated under the GPL. You are only under obligation if you directly lift code.
As to your example of zlib, it's no different than a proprietary library that is small. Let's say MS releases office, and it includes a small little library (let's say 2K big) that has some really useful functionality. Do you have any rights to distribute it? No! Do you think MS would ever license it to you? Maybe if you paid them a few hundred thou. So the same applies to either side of the fence. The difference is that the GPL brings freedom while proprietary licenses bring division.
Engineering and the Ultimate
The fact that my code was initially derived from other GPL code (ie, the OSS output plugin) also threw a spanner in the works, but the principle is still there.
--
Or, in MS's case, they could just buy out (assimilate) the company and get their code.
That said, it's a very valid argument; both the GPL and proprietry license prevent code re-use. What is galling to Bill et al is that they can see the code, but they can't use it...
--
If code is GPLed, you have the choice of whether to use it - and get contaminated - or not use it.
If code is by Microsoft, only the latter option is available. You might get a source licence under certain terms by special agreement with the company, but the same is true for GPLed software also. (The copyright holder can relicense the work under any other terms.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
There's another way for corporations to view the GPL. Consider that for most companies (except Microsoft) acquisition, maintenance, and/or development of an OS platform (either as users or to develop product for sale) is a cost center. It sucks up resources (money, admins, developer-hours, etc) to provide basic infrastructure.
Companies are already realizing this in many appliance and embedded markets. Considerable numbers of such devices coming out that use a variant of Linux or some other open source OS (e.g. eCos for small-footprint embedded realtime kernel needs.) This distributes the development cost over the entire user base of these pieces of infrastructure code, and often eliminates per-seat (for development) and per-user (for distribution) licensing costs.
Wow, Bill Gates spinsterish take on the GPL sounds a lot like the other MS vocalists as well.
Kinda amusing, though.
"So what you saw with TCP/IP..." Um... what, exactly? TCP/IP is in the kernel, and making a system call doesn't constitute a derivative work. The only problem you'd have is if the interface was GPL'd (and it's not), but write your own damn interface then.
But even better was "it makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work."
Right. More like, makes it impossible for a commercial company to sell users individual copies of software based on that work with shrink-wrap licenses that keep them from using the software on two computers. Which just happens to be Microsofts business model. Oh well.
And what's this "cycle" he's talking about? Sounds like the "healthy ecosystem" he's talking about is more like a waterfall. The free software flows off the cliff into the commercial company, and never goes back.
Oh well. In the end, I don't really care what Gates thinks, or claims to think, or whatever. Still, I got a chuckle out of it.
The enemies of Democracy are
Same goes for GPL with exception that since they cannot build on top of that,
Yes, they can build on top of that. In the case of Red Hat, they have done so quite a bit. Red Hat has a lot of coders working for them. What the made you think they couldn't?
And suggesting that RH cheapens programming is retarded. Software is not a valuable merchandise? What do you mean? You mean it isn't valuable like, say, basketball shoes where you buy it off the shelf and every copy carries a price tag of $100? Well, so what. It never should have been that way.
The fact is that software is still incredibly valuable, and there are people who are willing to pay to get it. Just because selling shrink-wrapped copies is going to go the way of the dodo (only much more deservedly so) doesn't mean programming as a profession is going anywhere.
And last I checked, the RedHat labs developers were getting paid.
The enemies of Democracy are
If I wrote a web server and published it under BSD no matter how many derivatives will be made proprietary and what have you, my original code will always be free.
This is an important observation. Like copying an mp3, making a proprietary derivative is not theft.
But that doesn't mean it is cool. If someone uses my free software to make a profit, and they aren't giving me anything in return, then they are taking advantage of me. They are using my work to make money for themselves. And it doesn't make it any better to think "well, at least I didn't restrict their freedom".
Their are freedoms that others shouldn't have. The freedom to punch me in the face, the freedom to piss on my carpet, and the freedom to make money off my hard work.
Also, the original observation about using BSD code to remove someone else's freedom would be better stated as using BSD code to produce software that isn't free. If that bothers you. I'd rather that not happen, but that's just me.
Who gives me a right to enforce my choice of license on people who decide to extend and modify my code?
Um... you gave yourself that right... because you wrote the code they are using.
The enemies of Democracy are
How is it different from pair of shoes?
Because shoes have a material worth as a physical object, while bits do not. You buy some shoes from a shoe store, and the store has one less pair of shoes. Copy bits, and the original bits haven't changed. So both to effort and planning to develop (the original shoe/bits), but only one cost anything to produce(the shoe/copy of bits that you buy).
Observation: For most goods that have physical worth, it is natural to sell them individually, and to tack onto the price the costs of R&D, equipment, etc. You're paying more than the shoes cost to make, but nevertheless the shoes themselves do have value, and buying them makes sense. With bits, since each copy has effectively zero cost, why are we still paying for each copy? Now the only aspect of the price is the development costs.
So there has to be a way to recoup development costs. What is it? Don't know. But it isn't having to buy a copy of Windows for every computer in my home, even though I could put it on every machine with only one CD.
"And last I checked, the RedHat labs developers were getting paid. "
Yeah, so do Government workers. Does it mean that if all economical assets were owned and operated by Government these workers would still make as much money?
But your argument was about not making money off of GPL software development at all, and RHAT labs is a counter example. So now your argument is that it might not be the way to make the most money? That's pretty weak.
The enemies of Democracy are
And as such, don't release your code under the license.
If you mean the BSD license, then yes, I've made that choice.
If you can't stand the idea of people making money using something you worked on.. well.. doesn't that break the idea of code sharing?
No. Making code for others to use, then having them use it without give anything back breaks the idea of code sharing. It's sharing not giving.
In addition, doesn't the GPL allow that anyway?
Sure, and I appreciate all efforts to do so. The key with the GPL is that if they are going to distribute their product, they have to make their changes available as source -- they have to give something back. That's the important thing.
The enemies of Democracy are
How exactly is BSDL software vs proprietary derivative fair? Any new feature the BSDL software adds can be taken by the proprietary derivative immediately, and any new feature the proprietary derivative adds cannot be taken by the BSDL version.
Oh yeah. The very definition of freedom.
The enemies of Democracy are
*shrug* If it doesn't bother you that people use your code without giving anything back, that's your choice. Some people aren't bothered by having their personal information sold without their knowledge, or having the police surveil their homes without a warrant.
The enemies of Democracy are
One word: GPL. I vividly remember how much pain and bad press KDE folks got from FSF and GPL zealots. We are not talking here about some commercial entity trying to free ride on other people code.
Do you also vividly recall how, at the time, Qt was not free (no fue libre)?
Do you also vividly recall how, once Qt became free (se hubo libre), the bad press stopped?
It was in fact a commercial entity getting a free ride, though in this case it was the free app using their library. And they came around. Happy ending for all.
The enemies of Democracy are
It was not free as in speech, which is why I specifically used the more precise Spanish term "libre".
The enemies of Democracy are
>There's nothing novel about it anymore, and
>we're long past being surprised.
Actually, the reason it got posted was the escalation. From some nobody middle manager, to vice president mundie, to ballmer, and now to Gates. The thing is, nobody listened to mundie, they laughed at ballmer, and now gates is reminding people of his trial testimony. Microsoft's screming bloody murder and everybody's going "sucks to be you, doesn't it"?
Who do they escalate to afer this when people still don't believe them?
And once again, they're pointing out that the GPL is their real enemy, not free software. They're still happy to grab BSD code and embrace/extend/fork it to death. They're throwing a tantrum because the GPL won't let them fork off a proprietary version of other people's code.
Rob
Care to provide a link?
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
"So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen."
Neither would it have happened if those had been Microsoft's patented, closed-source innovations.
Until Bill agrees to open everything MS does and allow their "innovations" to prosper like TCP/IP did, I think I'd rather not see the GPL go away just yet.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Windows NT shipped with integrated networking and "internet ready" TCP/IP a year before OS/2 Warp shipped. It was also had the same price point as OS/2 and similar system requirements as OS/2, where DOS/Win was cheaper and ran on lower end machines.
IBM's biggest mistakes were not to subcontract code to Microsoft (the MS guys were the ones who figured out how to make a modern OS for the i286 CPU, for example). Instead their biggest mistakes were:
+ Shipping a "modern" 286-based OS in the first place when they could have beat everyone with a 32-bit, portable, i386 OS.
+ Selling a "power user" desktop system with NO integrated networking. It took numerous SKUs ($$$) and lots of futzing just to get an OS/2 box on a company network. TCP/IP for OS/2 2.x was $300 per machine, for example.
+ Refusing to market OS/2 as low-end server solution for fear it would cut into their profitable midrange stuff. NT kicked their butt in this segment.
+ Positioning OS/2 as a mainframe client when the world was going bonkers over other forms of client-server and mainframes were not selling.
+ Making it more stable than DOS/Win was good. However it never was *really* stable, nor did it have things like multi-user and file permissions, etc.
+ The "powerful" UI was powerfully disorganized and confusing until far too late.
Oh, why couldn't have the advocates glommed onto something reasonably nice - UnixWare for example - instead of OS/2.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
That must have meen the most confused, and confusing, articles I've read in a while... I couldn't even figure out what they meant half of the time!?
:wq!
Totally untrue. The FSF et al. have always agreed that you can run proprietary software on a GPL'd operating system, and even distribute the two together, providing source for the OS but not the proprietary app. This is because the app is not a derivative work of the OS. Proprietary software could run just as well on the Hurd, for example (although I don't know if there is any yet).
Linus did make a special exception to allow binary-only device drivers into the kernel in some cases, but in that case the OS + those drivers is a derivative work, since they're essentially linked in to the OS kernel. Maybe that's what you're thinking of?
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
If software is a service (and many including Microsoft seem to think it's heading that way) then you're not selling software, but SERVICES.
Red Hat for instance sells training and outsourced system management, just as IBM, Compaq, Sun, or many others do. Many companies will pay lots for that.
Many organizations developming free software will ask people to assign them copyright for their contributions. The FSF does that on FSF-sponsored projects to better the represent the free software interests, while others (Aladdin for ghostscript for instance) will do that exactly to be able to dual-license.
But the bazaar ownership might be a _desired_ effect: anybody can improve and distribute, but virtually everybody (and nobody) owns the code. This makes proprietarization virtually impossible, but it's a doube-edged sword.
Suppose for instance that a hole is discovered in GPLv2, and a GPLv3 comes out just to address that hole. In such a scenario consensus from every contributor would be required to change the licensing terms from v2 to v3, and it could be impossible to do so because somebody is unreachable.
microsoft doesn't seem to have a grasp of what they are saying when they say "open source"
what they usually mean is "those damned linux commies"
because they seem to forget about bsd every time a public statement is made about open source. this time, though, i think it was specifically the GPL they were taking aim at.
but, that being said, the statement above about commercial companies being unable to use GPLd software or improve it... well, there's a story today about Red Hat announcing its profitable status. there's a perfect example of a commercial company that's making money by doing just that. there's nothing keeping MS from throwing its considerable might behind a new sendmail or bind or what have you, making it work with windows, etc, and then selling prepackaged and preconfigured versions of it, granted that they also make the source from their efforts available. or taking some piece of accessibility or utility software that runs on *nix now, smacking it around long enough to play nice with Windows, then including it as a component of Office (again, with the requisite source code). it's that last bit, the "keys to the kingdom" that MS is afraid to give away - because they know that any effort they make in any open source software will give away too many of the proprietary hooks they have in their existing closed source efforts.
and then there's apple, who, while using BSD, and admittedly not GPL'd software, is actively improving not only their own proprietary products, but giving back to the open source community with improvements and additions of their own (darwin, drivers, developers, publicity). that's as good a model as there gets.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
What struck me about the CNET article was not Gate's analogy, but what percentage of the article was spent explaining free (and Open Source) licenses, and rebutting (by way of VA Linux's CEO, Larry Augustin) what Gates said.
Either we've got some friends out there, or Gates is really coming off as pointy haired. Or both.
P.S.: Yes, Richard, they blew the distinction between free software and Open Source software.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Becaise goin open source would add to the headaches of maintaining the code. Now, instead of a stable code base that they can manage and understand, they have one that anyone can change. Now, when a customer has a problem with program X, they have a new set of potential problems
hmm, how does Linus prevent stupid people from messing up his kernel? How does Netscape prevent stupid people from messing up their Netscape 6? IBM could open source OS/2 and then only accept reasonable and tested patches. IBM could then release their official IBM branded and tested OS/2++ kernel.
cpeterso
So what Gates is doing is, no matter how else one defines it, is saying the sky is Green. The problem is that you can go outside and see that he's full of it, and the more someone yells "The Sky Is Green" the more likely someone is to check.
His strategy is essentially hoping he can lie enough to get away with it - which seems pretty par for the course for M$ for some time.
My guess is Bill thinks that he's never going to be called to account for his actions and that he can keep getting away with it. The problem with lies of course is you have to keep creating bigger ones as you get caught.
So, as long as OS keeps rolling, Bill will have to keep fabricating, and perhaps we can have the joy of watching him self destruct.
What can I say, I'm a positive kind of guy in my own way.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Hell, n. - The state of being the richest man in the world and knowing something exists that you can't buy.
Have a kleenex, Bill.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There's some interesting speculative thoughts about computers and their impact on law ... one of the interesting claims found in <A HREF="http://www.erights.org/smart-contracts/index .html">www.erights.org</A> is that we are due for an era of prosperity (hah!) but only if we can bury copyright (as we know it). Given that the whole point of copyright is to restrict exchange (creating semi-artificial scarcity), the GNU approach of copy-left is already half a step along this path. Now I don't have the experience to judge whether the rest of the claims of utopia (capability computing, crypotographic protocols, smart contracts) will automatically lead to a brave GNU world but it is intriguing. Many of our concepts of "wealth" are likely to change over the next decade. In the pre-industrial age it was ownership of land, in industrial revolution it was access to resources (cough*colonies*cough), in the post-industrial economy a liquid capital market. Perhaps in the knowledge economy it will be computer-enforced contracts ... I promise not to create a BSOD when undertaking action XYZ. How much is such a promise worth? If you can attach a negative value to lost productivity, will Free software actually be cost-effective? This is going to be a really interesting area of research ... the ability to guarantee a software promise.
<P>
LL
Gates: I noticed that your web server is running on Linux.
PHB: Hey, Bill, cut me some slack, we don't have to use your software for everything!
Gates: Sure, but do you understand the GPL?
PHB: Well, I guess I've never studied it myself, but it just means it's free, doesn't it?
Gates: No, unfortunately if you use any open source product anywhere in your company, it makes it illegal for you to sell any software at all.
PHB: You're kidding, right?
Gates: No, seriously, believe me, I have to know about these things.
PHB: Yeah, I guess so. Well, thanks for the warning, Bill. I'll make sure my techies take the Linux off our web server first thing on Monday morning!
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
If you write a program and I write a GPLed addition to it, which you accept, you must release the whole program under the GPL. You do however have other options at the same time. You can take the original program, and even write new code to replace my addition, and then you have the right to re-license it in whatever way you want.
The original work, yours + mine, we control. I offered the GPLed code, you accepted.
The new work, yours, without mine, you control.
This means that in your example, you couldn't re-release the shared program under some other license without the permission of all authors. If some had vanished, you'd be out of luck. But you could take your original contribution and start fresh.
After all, if the other authors' work was small enough you'd want to ignore their wishes and sell the code, it should be small enough for you to quickly rewrite.
So, release code, your code is always yours. Release it under the GPL and what you're doing is ensuring that nobody else can wrap it up and sell it, without your permission.
You seem to neglect the fact that we are talking about companies that sell _software_. An analogous situation for your bank would be to divulge all your investment strategies and business practices to your customers and competition. How long do you think any business is going to last when everything it does is common knowledge. The _only_ way you can make money in that situation is to have the capability of doing something no one else can do with the information you have. Banks certainly do not fall into that category.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm not defending Microsoft, although I do think they have a point: to wit, I work as a Windows developer on a closed-source application. I cannot use a GPL'ed library in my app. Period. So much for "free" software (as in beer or speech). (p.s. I think the GPL is fine for apps, but LGPL is much more appropriate for libraries), but I digress...
I just think the poster's bank analogy was really bad.
Microsoft is just trying to spread FUD.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
>That's not true. You have several choices:
;)
>Contact the author of the library and arrange for a special license.
Then it's not GPL any more, is it?
>Release your application under the GPL.
When I'm running my own company, I just might do that, but in the real world, for me, that's just not an option.
>Don't use the library.
Bingo. Back to square 1.
>You're no worse than you would have been if the library had never existed.
Unless I happen to puruse the code and subconsciously incorporate some really good idea into my own application and suddenly get hauled into court for violating the GPL. Contrived? Yes. Possible? In theory, definitely.
Let's take zlib as an example. Let's pretend zlib, which is a really useful piece of code with a limited (albeit useful) range of functionality. Let's also pretend, for the sake of this argument, that zlib is GPL'ed, which I understand it is not. What that says is that if someone writes Windows XP, or even HAL9000, and uses this GPL'ed library, that the whole application (or OS!) must then be released under the GPL. Isn't that just a wee bit heavy-handed "Sure, we'll let you use our tool, but you have to give us everything you use it in." I won't go so far as to call ESR a communist or anything, but I think this is a crock. That's not a free license, that's an extortion license. Now I fully understand that I have the choice not to use it, and in the case of our hypothetical zlib, there are many alternatives, but it's not reasonable that one little piece of code should so radically affect anything it touches. In this case, I would consider the LGPL to be an optimal solution. I would be more than happy to contribute to any Open Source project I make use of, and since there's rarely a piece of code I use that I don't try to improve, when possible, this would be likely.
Now the GIMP, on the other is a huge application that does an incredible amount of stuff on its own, and I would have no philosophical problems with the GPL here, but in using the GIMP, you aren't so much adding the GIMP to your code, but adding your code to the GIMP. I may be splitting hairs, but this is they way I see it. zlib is not unimportant, nor less useful, but it doesn't do anything useful by _itself_, it's a tool that makes other applications work better.
NOw, I'm no apologist for Microsoft, and while the word "viral" is perjorative in its usage, and is probably also used in the hopes it will be confused with computer "viruses" by PHB's, I do think it is an accurate description of the GPL.
The GPL is an ideal. It's the perfect world we would all like to see and unlike communism (which has to rely on the fact that there is no evil to actually work as envisioned), it's an ideal that can actually work, but for most of us, we will never be able to fully embrace it, because at the end of day, we have to put food on the table, and since I have 11+ years of Windows programming experience, I can't throw it, and virtually-guaranteed good jobs for the forseeable future, away to try to live this ideal. It's great to be idealistic, but I have a wife and 4 kids, a house and two car payments. Besides, I like what I do.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Well, thanks for your clarification. However, if I am using Microsoft development tools, I'm _going to_ be able to distribute what I build with them. We're not talking applications, we're talking development tools. zlib is a development tool, but under our hypothetical situation where it is GPL'ed, I cannot use it in a closed source program under that license. That's why I think it's actually _more_ in the spirit of Open Software to make something like that LGPL. It doesn't actually do anything useful _all by itself_. It can only be useful when linked with an application. The GIMP or Star Office or even Red Hat Linux _does_ stand alone, and while it could be added to an application, that doesn't change its nature as a full-blown piece of software that does a task.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I work in a health care company. We have purchased software from big companies, little companies, and all in between. It all sucks, and access to the source code would have made the past ten years much more palatable.(sp)
I'm not saying that your company falls into this gap, but if what you produce is on par with the other garbage, your source code is only worth the starting point for some competent programmers to fix the bugs and add the features that we need.
Ironically, despite having the ability to sue, we don't. Can't afford the lawyers on our side, and we'd drive the offending companies out of business with their legal bills.
Anyway, hardly on point, but I wouldn't defend medical software (again, I don't know your specifics, so if it doesn't apply, ignore it.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
This all sounds reasonable except:
- It's not clear whether any actual problem with universities GPLing software and thus precluding proprietary development exists, so it's a bit silly to make the argument
- Chairman Bill's comments aren't particularly objectionable here (he actually makes the point of distinguishing open source from GPL), but are in a context of a pattern of deliberately confusing GPL with open source
- Chairman Bill's comments (while again not particularly objectionable here), are in a context of misleading precisely how GPL is viral (Ballmer's comments in particular make it seem as though developing software on or for Linux precludes you from releasing that software under a proprietary license)
I take this as a "good cop" interview to make what Microsoft is saying seem reasonable, while letting the misleading things Mundie and Ballmer are saying still hang out there. Of course, MS has poisoned the water so much that people haven't even read what Mr. Bill has said, and are leaping to damn it with all the appropriate arguments mustered against Ballmer. As you sow, so shall you reap.../*Sheer desperation. */
Not necessarily. If you go back and read the halloween documents and various other texts from Microsoft, you can clearly see that THIS is what they've been building up to. MS knows it can't compete on price points. MS knows it can't just buy Linux outright. So, what has it done?
It must sow the seeds of doubt to the people that make the purchasing decisions in their companies. They want these IT managers to say "well, we could go linux and save $xxx, but I might lose my job if all that new-fangled Open Sauce stuff doesn't work as well as SQL Server. I can spend $1000 and keep my job because no one ever got fired for buying MS, or I can do it myself and I barely know how to eject the damn floppy."
MS is going to spread more and more FUD against the GPL and against Open Source in general (although they do seem to grok BSD style licenses), just so that IT managers begin to associate Linux = GPL = I dunno about that. It's that slight hesitation that will put MS on their servers and not Linux.
And you know what? It doesn't matter how much screaming and hollerin' you do on slashdot, none of those guys are geeks and none of them read slashdot (okay, there may be a few of you, but you're clued in, right?). With no central FUD fighting agency in the Linux/GPL world with a large enough mouth to fight MS at their own game (if that's even desired). So, MS takes a cheap, invalid shot at the GPL, a bunch of retorts come out, but they go to slashdot, or some Linux.advocacy mailing list. These retorts are not going to Jennifer IT Manager. Jennifer just read in some IT magazine that Bill Gates and MS don't like Linux and the GPL and that's that; another server lost to MS.
Back to the original point, first MS attacked Linux directly by saying "Oh, Linux is slower than NT (see mindcraft)." Thousands of linux advocates cried foul while a few hundred went back and realized that it was true, and FIXED the problem. Then they tried saying "Well, you can't get support for Linux." And that brought about literally hundreds of fly-by-night Linux support companies, but also proved that you CAN get linux support. And with Compaq, Dell, and IBM jumping on the support band wagon (along with RedHat, SuSE, Caldera, etc), well, that pretty much cut off that line of attack.
So, realizing that the community can respond within hours of a MS FUD attack against *linux*, they devised a somewhat new approach: Attack the licensing scheme. We can't change the GPL, nor would most of us want to (there's always BSD). Get management's confidence in the GPL (that's not even the Operating system, that's not even an application.. There are no benchmarks to run or dispute, there is no business model that can be created specifically for a license (although there are business models that take advantage of GPL software, that's different)). Gates & Co has just put the OSS community in check and we don't realize it even yet. Again, they are sowing the seeds of doubt in the IT Professional world. "I don't know what this GPL is, but I want it the hell away from my software! It sounds unAmerican and unBusiness-like." will be the reaction from boardroom directors. And, geeks or not at the mid-bottom layers, that's the line you have to toe up to.
And, don't think about changing your software to BSD style licensing just to satisfy some bizarre need to sell to corporations. MS wants you to do that. See BSD TCP/IP and such. They understand that Open Source software has advantages. Do you think a company with 40 billion in the bank doesn't realize that if they can get something for free, they won't take it?
Think about it.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
They didn't do _anything_ with BSD'd Kerberos code. It's the Kerberos spec itself that has the empty field. They just put it to use. That's _ALL_. You admit this yourself but can't make the distinction. Whether they wrote their implementation themselves or used someone elses as a base, it's really irrelevant.
--
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
As for the notion of items #4 and #5 being possible if the reference spec was published under the GPL, it's sort of like saying I can write something based on an RFC protocol, modified to work only between my own software, and call it by the name the RFC calls it.
You continue to be confused by the difference between specification (RFC) and implementation (reference code). It's nothing like saying anything of the sort.
Yes, if they didn't use the reference code, then they probably could've done the same thing.
Not probably, definately.
The GPL (were the Kerberos code published under this, or even the spec (if one can publish a spec under the GPL)) would have at least required Microsoft to publish the changes they made to the specification if they wanted to use it at all.
There is no copyright on RFCs. Furthermore, Microsoft MADE NO CHANGES to any such spec. How many times does it have to be repeated: "The original Kerberos spec had an empty, unused field." MS didn't add an extra field, or change the used fields, they simply used a field marked (By the Athena/Kerberos team) "reserved for future use."
--
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
Microsoft might lose some sales to Linux if Office were ported, but I don't think it would be significant. All the current dual-booters who keep their win98 partition for games wouldn't change, right?
And I can't imagine too many Windows users shifting across. Speaking for myself, I have tried Linux and didn't find it easy to use or particularly useful for my field of work.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
You can expect Microsoft to make a direct attack upon GPL'd projects, claiming that some of the developers were privy to "shared source". They're going to claim that their proprietary code was used in the making of GPL'd software in violation of their shared source agreement. Bet on it!
Some nerve! It's typical, isn't it though?
"Shared source" is a direct attack upon the GPL because they're going to claim that we've used their code to make ours, ...despite the obvious fact that it's really the other way around.
A thousand leg worm snaking through the grass as businesses spin back and forth trying to keep up while spiders drop on thier head. It would be much easier for them to dodge the spiders if they weren't trying to keep up with that snake in the grass Microsoft.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
No, the GPL is bad because developers who wish to make money from their efforts can't use it.
.. but neither you nor Bill Gates nor Bozo the Fucking Clown has any right to dictate the terms of somebody else's development.
.. well, nobody forced you to download the software, did they? Gates wants proprietary software to be closed up tight so that he controls it all and he wants open-source software to be purely public domain so that he can steal it at will.
Then if you are developer who wishes to make money from your efforts, I would offer you the following piece of advice: Don't release your code under the GPL. This would seem to be particularly obvious, but apparently you haven't grasped it. If you want to develop under a different license, then knock yourself out
It is even more infantile to complain that the GPL does not allow commercial software companies to come in and incorporate somebody else's work against their wishes and desires. Well, piss up a flagpole, Bill; I don't work for you. If you don't like the license, or if you think it's too restrictive
In short, he wants to have his cake and eat it too. The GPL allows authors to prevent him from doing this.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
What no one ever mentions in anti-GPL rants (and let's face it, MS is tredding well worn ground, here) is that the GPL removes NO rights from you. In fact, if you just want to use GPL'd software you can ignore the GPL and it never applies to you.
What the GPL does is gives you a way around having to be restricted by copyright law, if you want it. Since Microsoft gives you exactly 0 ways to get around such restrictions (in fact their licenses restrict you BEYOND what copyright law gives them), this is high hipocracy.
But, then who expected any more out of Gates at this point.
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
[GPLd software] "makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work."
I wonder if Bill Gates has heard of Mac OS X?
The BSD open source license didn't stop Apple from putting a proprietary GUI on top of an open source foundation.
Quite. Bill was criticizing GPL, not open source generally. BSD expressly PERMITS a corporation to build upon, and even take completely private, the open source works. Note that Apple's re-release of Darwin was not under BSD, but rather the APSL, which is a far more restrictive license -- precisely so competitors such as Microsoft could not leverage its derivations without sharing its results. In this way, Apple gets to control which of MacOSX it wishes to keep private (Quartz/etc) and which it wishes to be more public (Darwin).
Viral licensing is very beneficial to a corporation that is issuing open source, and not so beneficial to the company that wishes to build upon it.
This, I believe, was Bill Gates' point. If so, he's probably not miles wrong.
and to think that we even bother to pay him any mind. Like the article mentioned, he does seem to be grasping at straws here. It's a sign of how great his desparation is that he's now trying to attack the character of Open Source, rather than the performance of it. He's throwing the first mud, but I hope we don't start throwing it back. To do so would put us on his level, afraid of the viability of our own software, and too wimpy and stubborn to do anything about it. My idea.. ignore him? And continue to crank out the good stuff that the Open Source +/- GPL community has been...
(and let's hope I haven't skinned my ignorance by putting something wrong in my/i. post...)
Insert mind here.
This thread of articles is getting old. MS isn't attacking open source, they are saying people need to pay attention to what the particular open source license they are dealing with actually says. In particular they are arguing that the GPL is virus like.
So what... it is... there is little question that that is the case (or maybe the BORG collective is a slightly better description). Anyone who has tried to use a GPL'd project in their non-GPL'd product would know that.
Brian Macy
And so on. I don't think this places Microsoft in very good company...
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
What are you talking about? Going open source doesn't mean that you let any monkey into your CVS repository to mess with the code.
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
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Contact the author of the library and arrange for a special license.
-
Release your application under the GPL.
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Don't use the library. You're no worse than you would have been if the library had never existed.
I fail to see what the big deal is. It pays to consider what the alternatives would be:-
Everyone should make their software public domain so I can use it. Well, why doesn't that apply to you?
-
Everyone should sell their software under a non-GPL license so I can use it. Nothing is stopping anyone from doing this, even if they have already released the software under the GPL.
So please, someone explain to me again, exactly what has the GPL cost us? What is the alternative that would be so preferable?--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
You can be sure that Microsoft isn't doing the business community a public service. They're not standing up to ring the klaxon to warn their peers of the dangers lurking hidden ahead. The GPL means little to them. Except that its a convenient pawn. A handle. A toe-hold. A way to attack the amorphous phenomenon that is Linux.
We've always said you can't attack Linux like the usual corporate entity. Microsoft knows this. And so they've changed their methods; they attack the concepts that are available with all the usual Microsoft tenacity.
If the GPL is just a pawn - what is the real game about? Cnet (all bashing aside) has an interesting writeup (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6291224.html ?tag=rltdnws). Its all .NET.
To make Microsoft's biggest, most aggressive gamble in its history (or at least what industry analysts like to portray it as) pay off - its going to take Windows servers. Sure, Microsoft will play the "compatibility" card and offer some .NET services on competing platforms. There's even noise about Linux being included. But dollars to donuts, in true Microsoft fashion, the full feature set... all the bells and glossy-pamphlet-gushing whistles will only live within Win2K servers.
Increased popularity in Linux (and *BSD - go, team, go) does not help generate the homogeneous Windows environment that'll make .NET a winner. Open source OS' are also providing an escape route from Microsoft's recent pricing squeezes (also mentioned in the referenced article). Sure, Microsoft may have nobody else but themselves to blame for that. But if you look at their motives a bit closer, you'll see its not marketing dollars they're after but a forced upgrade to technology that closer ties to .NET. The fact that this same squeezing makes *BSD and Linux more attractive is just an ugly side effect. It is also a route that they plan to cut off with smoke and mirrors.
So as a community, the Open Source folk can pat themselves on the back. We've arrived - we're a gen-u-ine threat. A big one. And for all the right reasons (functionality, freedom, etc, etc). But that just means the game now involves higher stakes.
Individual community members can argue / jihad over the finer points of licensing (and whatever will be Microsoft's next move on the board). But eventually all that'll get you is a square and a pawn. If we don't look up from the board once in awhile, we're going to miss the fact that we've been maneuvered out of the game entirely.
Me: Mr. Gates, your company decides on its own what compensation it requires for its products does it not?
...
BG: Yes.
Me: Would your company accept that said compensation would be decided by, say, Apple Computers?
BG: No.
Me: Your company enforces their wish for compensation through a legally binding contract, a so-called License, does it not?
BG: Yes.
Me: Do you think your company has the right to decide what clauses are in that license?
BG: Yes.
Me: Why do you then presume to decide for others what compensation they can ask for their 'product' or what license they choose to achieve their goal for compensation?
BG:
(GPL, BSD, CSS, whatever license you want. Because _you_ want it, not because you're told to. It is _your_ work after all.)
Karma? What's that again?
Heck, tell ya what, find me the source to any largely successful program which was built from anything BSD licensed, which is not in NetBSD, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD. I'd love to see it.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
What does the MS style proprietary license provide to a non-author company that the GPL doesn't? It's not like Apple has the right to steal, modify and sell a competing version of IE. Corel is never going to be able to use the code for MS office. Those people who do get the right to release modified code must do it at the beck and call of MS. Similarly, someone who wants to release a proprietary version of a GPL program would have to obtain the permission of the original authors.
On the other hand, if you want to modify the software for your own use, you'd pretty much need open source. You can set the options on MS code, but only the options the MS has deigned to let you set. For people who are unwilling to pay the 'price' of the GPL, how does it become more restrictive than a Microsoft license?
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
In the long run, it may 'cost' us the independance of the web.
I'm sure that Microsoft is going to get their money's worth out of customers for IE .. one way or the other.
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I strongly disagree. The GPL is free as in speech.. That is to say, you can't stifle people from being able to see, or distribute, the source to a GPL product. On the other hand, it is not free as in beer. It has a very real cost to it.
The cost of the GPL is that, if you modify the code, you can't keep it proprietary and sell only the object code. This is a cost that some companies (e.g. Microsoft) are not willing to pay. For people who are not willing to pay the GPL 'price', it sort-of reduces itself to a pseudo-closed source model, in that you can use the object code (in a free-beer way), but you can't modify it if you want to produce a proprietay version (what it really comes down to is that you can't steal the code).
If you start from the premise that the openness of any derivated code is the 'price' of GPL, then it becomes quite enforcable. If a commercial entity attempts to 'embrace and extend' a piece of GPL code, then you can demand both penalties, as well as payment of the 'price' (release of the priprietary wannabe code).
If you start from the premise that GPL is beer-free then you may run into a legal quagmire when you try to enforce it in court. If you try to treat the GPL like a shrink-wrapped contract on software that is free, then someone like MS can ask you to produce proof of the contract (though this might lessen the strength of their own shrink-wrapped contracts).
As for MSIE being no-cost.. It is only no-cost if you have purchased a windows or Mac operating system -- then it's price is really hidden in the cost of the OS. By the same token, the program is not modifiable by you. Unless you sign away you r life to get access to the source code, you can't even see the source to see if it's worth editing. Once you do see it, my understanding ia that the MS license is look-don't touch. Even if it wasn't, they often hold back key pieces needed to compile a full product, anyways.
This is where the GPL shines. It is fully modifiable, and fully redistributable. The 'cost' is that it's not stealable. You can't close the source and only sell the object. You can't limit future distribution. If you're not willing to pay that price, then you're still free (beer) to use the object code for yourself as if it were an MS-like license.
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
"There are people who believe that commercial software should not exist at all--that there should be no jobs or taxes around commercial software at all," Gates said. While that's a small group, "the GPL was created with that goal in mind. And so people should understand the GPL. When people say open source, they often mean the GPL."
I bet he was just itching to say "communism" instead of GPL.
Are you now, or have you ever been an Open Source developer?
From the article: "breaks that cycle--that is, it makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work. So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen. We believe there should be free software and commercial software; there should be a rich ecosystem that works around that."
Holy FUD Batman! Too bad the FSF couldn't get Gates on commercial damages in a court of law. The GPL allows you to sell code to whoever you want. You can use it internally to your hearts content! You can even change it for your own internal use and not give the changes to anyone, if you want - and don't people know how large the custom software market is?
You are PERFECTLY free to SELL GPL CODE. All you have to do to stay within the terms of the liscence is to give the source code to anyone to whom you have given a binary to. They in turn can do what they want, so long as they don't violate the GPL. Doesn't this make sense? If I paid someone to write code for me, I'd expect to be given the source as well as the binary. With that, I'd want to be able to do whatever I wanted with it - give it away to a million people, fine. Lock it in a closet, fine. The only restriction on ME if the code is GPL is that whoever I in turn give the binaries to, they get the source code. The code is treated as if it's "free" - in that no party can restrict the "freedom" of a user of the code to make changes or modifications to that codebase.
How does this interfere with business? OH, WAIT A MINUTE. It interferes with Mr. Bill Gates's business and profits! Oooops. This must be legislated away! If it hurts my monopoly, then there's just no way anyone else could make money doing it! They're all a bunch of dirty linux hippie communist baby-eating monsters! (Sarcasm, for the humor-impared..)
..don't panic
When the trial came around, they screwed up big time. They pissed everyone at the DOJ off and the result was that they did alot worse than they might have if they had played the game.
Gates and crew live in an isolated world in which they perceive themselves as invincible because there is noone who is going to tell them otherwise. As a result, they and reality are starting to become dissociated and the result is that some of the things they come out and tell us appear to be infantile and stupid.
Yes I think the execs at MS are arrogant enough to think crap like this might work. The sad part is, we have enough PHB's that it might.
You are an id10t! Companies that are failing becuase of bad business plans deserve to fail. If that biz plan is that they sell software that anyone can get for free, well that's a bad biz plan. It doesn't add any value, and value is what people pay for.
Nevertheless, GPL'd software can be used by companies who are profitible, and it won't prevent them from staying profitible. I work for a bank. Your argument is akin to saying that since my company can't effectivly resell the toilets that it has, that it shouldn't install and use toilets for fear of going out of business!
GPL'd software is a tool. It's a free tool. It's a tool that can be used to help make businesses profitible.
--
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Well, you could say it, you just wouldn't be able to take action against them (which presumably you considered before you released under the BSDL). And there's nothing stopping you from widely publicizing the fact that your original code does 99.9% of what the derived work does and is free.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I have played pac-man a couple of times, but i have absolutely no idea what it means to compare the GPL to Pac-Man.
Can someone fill me in on what the hell Bill is on about?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
That's not an artifact of the GPL. That's an artifact of the bazaar development model.
Microsoft is trying to tell you that the GPL has problems (and semantic shift to the idea that open source has problems) for people who want to buy non-GPL licences. If anything, it's the bazaar development model has problems in this area, not the GPL.
But then, if you accept outside contributions, I guess you close yourself off from this way of getting revenue.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Which, of course, the GPL does not preclude. It's always fair game to approach a GPL developer and offer to buy a non-GPL'd licence. Most developers (obviously not FSF members, but others) would probably do it, for the right price. Some developers, like Troll Tech, might even offer such a deal up front.
What Microsoft will never concede is that the GPL is just like any other software licence in this respect. The only thing you can't do is use the vendor's code in GPL-violating ways without their permission. Nothing prevents you from seeking permission, and offering money or other consideration for the privilege, just like you would with a proprietary vendor.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
but neither you nor Bill Gates ... has any right to dictate the terms of somebody else's development.
neither Bill Gates, the previous AC, nor I is trying to dictate the terms of anyone else's license. the point is to appeal to the developer's sense of what's good for the community they care about. I don't contribute to GPL projects because i think the license is suboptimal for the community i care about, which includes joe average consumer, who benefits more from free software than from GPL'ed software. TCP/IP is still the best illustration of this.
the point is also to appeal to those who fund research. they can usually influence licenses and have an interest in the average consumer.
It is even more infantile to complain that the GPL does not allow commercial software companies to come in and incorporate somebody else's work against their wishes and desires.
this is a rebuttal to the argument that the GPL shouldn't be respected, an argument which was never made. in fact, Gates's argument clearly presumes that the GPL is an enforceable license. Gates's is trying to show various people that GPL isn't nice or good.
of course, the people who use GPL are often the very same people who hate microsoft in the first place, so you might think that it's a wasted argument, but then again there are other battlegrounds on which this battle will be fought...
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
--LinuxParanoid
P.S. (Of course I agree that the main goal of such remarks is probably to cast FUD on the GPL; make IS managers wary about associating with something that Microsoft declares anathema. But the "keep your opponents small and fragmented" strategy is a well-recognized and even self-acknowledged MS strategy (see Alex St. John's remarks on the subject, etc.) Shouldn't Microsoft picking sides in the BSD vs. GPL vs. otherlicenses debate should send warning signals to ya?)
While all this Bill bashing is going on, I still find it hard to be so annoyed at someone who has just donated $100 million to fight AIDS. Counter-bitch all you like about how it's a tax cut, and how he has so much more money than that, it's still a nice thing I wish I could do.
Why isn't someone from Red Hat or VA Linux or IBM speaking out clearly about the elision in Microsoft's pronouncements on Open Source? At the very least, somebody should be pointing out that Microsoft applications and operating systems are not in the least bit available to be modified and redistributed, that no-one has ever been able to freely "build on" a Microsoft kernel.
Everybody on Slashdot already knows this. Linux industry leaders should be saying this. Loud. And in public. They could also dispense with this nonsense: "There are people who believe that commercial software should not exist at all--that there should be no jobs or taxes around commercial software at all" Which people, Bill?
fun to play with, gets attacked by evil entities, but can sometimes fight back and win?
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Now tell me, since when could a commercial company use proprietary code from another commercial company and build on it?
OK, maybe one of the few companies that regularly build on other's work (or just buys them out) is MS itself. Does Bill even know what goes on in MS nowadays? He sounds kinda like a misinformed layman.
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1. Research is done with public funding
2. Research goes to the National Technology Transfer Center or some other tech transfer organization
3. Research is then "licensed" to company X
4. Company X repackages the research and then sells it back to the public
This model works well for company X because it can take someone else's research, paid for with public funds, and then sell it back to the public and the government. WOOHOO, FREE STUFF!
Now in this model, both the public and the researchers/developers get screwed. The public gets screwed because they are paying twice for the work. The researchers/developers get screwed because they see their years of work lining someone else's pockets and not contributing freely to the public good.
Under the GPL, company X cannot steal other peoples research without contributing to the public good. If the work is by definition free and open, company X cannot get semi-exclusive licensing rights. Given this, if X makes "BIG MONEY" repackaging the research, then all kinds of companies will crop up to get a cut. Eventually profit margins become minimal and X tries to figure out some other way to expl^H^H^H^H make money.
So in essence, if your business model is "BE THE BIGGEST PIMP", then the GPL is not your friend. However, if you are a researcher/developer or the public as a whole, then it's kinda nice not to get whored.
Never argue with me.
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
So, Linux has an extensions eh? Then where is it? I don't see it in COPYING (in fact, if you diff the GNU COPYING and the linux COPYING, nothing is different). You seem to be a bit misguided. A proprietary application can run on GNU/Linux no problem. The entire Glibc is LGPL, so there is no problem with the C library (same for C++ and GNU Java libraries). As long as the application doesn't use kernel headers (since those are GPL IIRC) it is fine.
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HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Oh my, I can't believe they are making such blatantly false statements.
First off, you _CAN_ use GPLed code in proprietary commercial software. All you have to do is license it from the author of the GPLed software you want to use, that is all.
What GPLed software ALLOWS you to do that commercial software doesnt', is it allows you to use GPLed code without the author's permission at all, but if you do you have to keep your project open.
There are 2 occasions where it would be impossible to use GPLed software in a proprietary commercial product.
1. The author hates you and refuses to license the code to you.
2. The copyright on the GPLed software is held by too many people, so it would be too difficult to get an alternate license for it.
Now as for commercial software, to even look at the code to see if it would be something you might want to use you have to have some serious $$$.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
From the article:
"A person who's seen shared source is probably very contaminated and is going to have a hard time working on other projects"
Hmm... let's think about that for a second. Which software should be labeled as a cancer? Apparently Microsoft's own code is so contaminated that just by viewing it you're never able to work on a software project again.
Yes, I know that's out of context. Laugh anyway.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I usually stay away from this sort of post, but Bill Gates lives to piss me off, so FLAME ON.
"makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work. So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen."
Isn't that the point? To keep it all open, so Microsoft can't come in and screw everyone again? Look at what they did to kerberos- used it, and broke it for everyone else. Sendmail? They keep trying to proprietize email standards so that everyone is stuck using Outlook. The browser? Yes, nice to see people like Microsoft and Netscape flush consistentcy and standards down the toilet while going into a feature (Bloat.) war.
I don't see how ANYONE (Other than the guys running corporations like MSFT.) could want companies to be able to keep doing this stupid shit to the computing macrocosm. We need to do anything possible to keep free/open software going so that the scum at Microsoft don't innovate us right into set top boxes that we are charged by the hour to use, and anything else lands us in jail!
Microsoft = Communism!
That's right, the world's largest software company is little more than a Maoist personality cult bent on world domination! Just look at the facts:
- Microsoft's
.NET architecture is moving power away from independent PCs and towards centralized servers. .NET is collectivization for the 21st century!
- Microsoft software controls 95% of the world's personal computers. Windows is the software equivalent of a single-party political system!
- Microsoft ruthlessly squashes all opposition by giving away for free services you would otherwise have to pay for - a classic Communist tactic!
- Chairman Bill wears little round glasses! See any resemblance?
- Chairman Bill donates millions to charity. That's the kind of 'redistribution of wealth' our great country was founded to oppose!
Let your friends and family know today: Microsoft = Communism. We must fight this evil threat with every resource available to us. If one of your neighbors buys Microsoft software, the insidious Domino Effect means that your very home is threatened with Communist infiltration! You don't need to buy or use Microsoft software to be infected: it can install itself using an ordinary phone line! Even now, Communist elements within our school system are teaching your children to use Microsoft software! We must act now to stamp out this evil menace!--
Also, MSIE is NOT modifiable. At all. Writing Jscript for a page is not modifying the software. Nor is packaging IE using the IE Administration Kit. That is simply customizing options which are already built into IE.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Billy, and Craig
For those of you who are a bit fuzzy on the history, it went a little like this:
IBM: We like OS/2! We want to put it everywhere!
Microsoft: Pre-load OS/2 and we'll charge you retail for Windows.
IBM: (Sound of IBM stabbing OS/2 in the kidney.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Funny. These Guys don't seem to be having any problem with it?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Microsoft owns the copyrights to many of the bits of OS/2. You don't want the bits that are left, believe me. pmshell was cool and all but an object going haywire could screw up your entire desktop and force you to reinstall it. Linux already has HPFS and it wouldn't be too hard to implement extended attributes on any of the supported filesystems. The problem with EAs is, if you depend on them too much, you're pretty much hosed if they get damaged. Same as pmshell. And if the GUI were released, you'd end up with a single-system-queue hunk'o dung with an API that's so Microsoft it's actually painful. No, releasing the source to OS/2 wouldn't do anyone a whole lot of good (Except maybe the European banks that still use it fairly extensively.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The GPL is like Pac-Man. People using it can eat me.
Odd how two people can come up with such radically different intrepretations of a statement, isn't it?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And just as a side note, if I wanted to Shrink-wrap a GPL'd office suite with a printed manual and tech support, I could charge money for it, whereas I most certainly could not do the same thing with MS Office. So, actually Billy-Boy's argument as even less credibility.
I have a friend who is a tax accountant. Definitely an arcane field based entirely on his knowledge. But every bit of it is public knowledge. You or I could figure out the tax code, and even charge to prepare other people's taxes if we wanted to. But he is willing to do it. A lot of people arent.
ps. I helped him get his modem working when he upgraded to windows 2000 from win98. He was about to take it to a shop where they charge $40 an hour, even though he could have done it himself if he wanted to invest the time. After all, his hardware *is* supported and microsoft clearly documented their bug and patch.
The complaint about the 'viral' or 'Pac-Man-like' nature of the GPL makes me ask, "isn't Microsoft's license viral?" If I use a piece of Microsoft's code in my own, does Microsoft accept my right to "use any of that work or build on any of that work"?
OSS techs: What problems have you encountered when using open source?
Microsoft: I tried to compile this program and got a bunch of error messages. Someone told me to edit the Makefile, but I can't figure out what application produced that file as there's no filename extension. I tried notepad in case it was plain text but it's full of formatting codes or something.
OSS techs: What else?
Microsoft: I double-clicked on the README and instead of opening it just turned reverse video. What's the use of that?
OSS techs: Sounds pretty bad. Anything else?
Microsoft: I wanted to change my password so I edited the password file and when I tried to save it it said "Permission Denied". What the hell? This is my computer; I should be able to change anything I want! Who the hell is Richard Stallman to limit what files I edit or how I reuse his code in commercial apps?
--
Free Mac Mini
For example, this story asking why GPL rather than BSD by Evan Leibovitch on ZDnet yesterday, which struck me as surprisingly clueful.
no one ever got fired for buying MS
Gee, wasn't that what people were saying about a certain other company just as MS started its rise to power?
Now tell me, since when could a commercial company use proprietary code from another commercial company and build on it?
When that commercial company has the gold, for he who has the gold makes the rules. In Microsoft's case, competition is easy to get rid of if you buy them out. Only problem is that GPL'd work cannot be bought out.
Case in Point: This is one competition Bill can't control, so he'll whine about not being able to build upon it, because as a commerical company, he technically can't.
He's too afraid that if his company starts programming GPL'd work, "Microsoft Trade Secrets" might be given up...besides, anything that the coders write for Microsoft are owned by Microsoft. If a Microsoft programmer GPL'd his/her work, that would be a HUGE lawsuit waiting to happen.
Mr. Gates illustrates the precise reason the GPL exists. Or at least in part. One of the reasons it exists and is needed, is that some people in the developer community will simply take code, and not contribute to the development of the project as a whole. By using the GPL, you can ensure that any new work based on the old will have to benefit the entire project, not just one member.
You can image how much of the Open Source code would have ended up in MS products long ago if not for the GPL.
Nate
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
But maybe B.G. and M$oft managers may be scared of the fact that OSS is eating their _mind_ share: a growing number of programmers (especially young ones) are starting to use some free OS as their development platform ( being both cheaper and more open ). B.G and M$oft are afraid maybe that some of them comes out with the A Brillant Idea(TM), and release his software under GPL, meaning that :
If this will happen, they could only try to start from scratch and produce something better. While they could succeed, this is _lots_ more expensive and less secure than the other alternatives (they tried it with M$oft Net agains the Internet, and failed).
Therefore, here they are, prying the division in the OSS world among pro-GPLers and anti-GPLers, trying to convince tomorrow-maybe-software-geniuses not to release their software under GPL.
Ciao
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FB
You could hask Red Hat about that
And _software_ companies can still release proprietary software for LGPLed platforms (and 99% of libraries of any Linux distro are LGPLed). I.e. M$oft could release Office for Linux : it will sell easily, as long as is better than competitors (open source and not). But this would mean that they would have to play fair, and they are not used to it.
Finally, even though _software_ companies might not like GPL, many other kind of company, i.e. the great majority of the business world, are surely glad of all the gratis and free goodies in the OSS world, ad whish more!
Ciao
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FB
Then the authors decide to make a new issue of ythe library, but change the licence to GPL only.
This may be of some inconvinience, but nothing serious IMO:
IMVHO (since I'm not an author of free software), regardless from what RMS and FSF says, many authors LGPL their libraries because they want to gain user base, and because in case of libraries they consider linking as 'standard use' and not as 'derived work'.
IIRC, RMS already called once for converting LGPL software to GPL (when Linux was much hyped), but not even the GNOME developers did that (though they debated it).
Ciao
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FB
Not 'even RMS', but 'only RMS' (and a minority of free software developers).At least, this is my feeling as external observer.
By sure, OSS world is much more fragmented in its ethical/political/cultural positions than what seems reading FSF stuff. Linus, for one, openly disagrees with RMS about free software being an ethical issue (while still releasing his software as GPL with some exceptions for binary modules).
And I think not even RMS is agains what you called 'commercialism'. It _is_ against closed surce software in any form, and since he considers this an etchical issue, it puts it over any commercial issue (because moral >> business).
Ciao
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FB
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Althea A stable IMAP client for X. Now with SSL support.
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Hey now, let's look at the favorable comparisons here:
Sorry about that last bit. I don't know what came over me.
Software Shouldn't Suck
E-mail: frank at jacquette dot spamless com (remove the spamless!)
I spent two years of my life (10-11) playing and mastering PacMan. If Bill Gates would speek sooner, I could have put this on my resume as Linux related skills.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I've been thinking about this, and all I can come up with from this analogy is similar stuff to the many comments modded as Funny already posted. But what's bad about Pac-Man that can be applied to the GPL? Um, he eats a lot, runs around mazes and terrorises ghosts - I don't think I can stretch that one till it makes sense.
Then again, perhaps Billy's just suffering under the strain of it all and is headed for a nervous breakdown. Or smoking crack.
Please someone explain this to me or point me to a better article (one that had more than a handful of quotes).
So what did Bill do when everyone else had a better communications stack? He put one for "free" in his system, then there was the browser threat and "free" internet explorer was born. He has systematically bundled free things with his operating system to kill the competition. Now here is a for real free operating system and a long line of free things to ride on top of it. If anyone can see the pattern it is Bill.
The problem with M$ is that they use a idealistic business model. That is, let others develop (and innovate in the true sense of the word), and then either buy out the company, or fuck them over. Either way, M$ wins. They get more for thier money that way.
Unfortunately, in the real world, this business model is inherently flawed, as it causes the company (M$) to become very fat and lazy. M$ only has 2 things currently that are keeping it afloat.
These 2 weapons prove most useful for M$, except where GPL software is concerned, as GPL is not hindered by either. M$ lacks the one weapon (outside of buying off politicians) that can protect itself from the GPL. They lack creativity and a drive to produce the highest quality product possible. Its not that M$ employees are inherently stupid or mindless code monkeys, its that the management has the wrong goals in mind.
No matter how you feel about M$, remember that they introduced a generation to computers. Nevermind how, or what generation (hint: its mine). M$ once stood the chance of making it into the history books in a positive light. They've ruined that chance now, as they've already destroyed everything that they worked so hard for. Thats too bad. Greed tends to supercede all, I guess. Suffice it to say that my children will be raised on Linux and BSD instead.
A word to the wise for the masses of Linux GPL/OSS/Free Software developers: Forget about making money with your software for now. Have you guys looked at the latest SUSE/RedHat/Debian distros released in the last 2 years? Sorry guys, but I was happier with RH 5.1. Concentrate more on doing what it is you do well, than expecting to be paid for it. Well crafted code will line your pockets in due time. Just don't make the same mistake M$ did. ALWAYS put the product before profitability.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
a good question to answer in these type of arguments is 'what constitutes the release' part of the GPL, since what these companies are really afraid of is having to 'give up' their source code, etc. The GPL mandates that the source code be available to those you distribute binaries to (aka release). Perhaps there needs to be a clarification of what constitutes this 'release'. does a GPL webserver serving webpages mean you have released this GPL webserver to all its clients? NO! You have not distributed the binary for the webserver to anyone. You may keep all improvements to the webserver close to your black little hearts. does an applet written under the GPL being used by a web client have to be released under the GPL? YES! The applet code is being distributed to the user, and thus they have the same rights as you did to the source code. if a company extends some GPL operating system and uses it on all internal desktop, does it have to be released under the GPL? NO! They have not distributed the binary to anyone. (although this is a VERY fuzzy topic for me, in my mind this would mean their IT department has released this code to their users and they (the users) would have rights to the source.) i think the webserver example is a good one for companies to look at. if company A likes GPL product B and uses it to make product C, they don't have to distribute a single line of code in C unless they are distributing the binary for product C. at least... that's what i think :) i could just be spreading more misinformation, of course. and... IANAL, blah blah, etc, etc.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
"Free operating system" is a link to linux.com.
Bill, Hmmmmm
There is more on earth than the GPL and there is more in the world of open source than the GPL. He's not attacking Open Source or the concept of opening up sourcecode because you, as the developer, think that's fun and necessary. He's attacking the viral aspect of the GPL and states that people should look closely at the GPL before arguing that the GPL is an overall good thing. That's clearly ALL he says.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
After all, it's just software. Zealotery from any side of the virtual fence is redundant poop.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
So to cook it all up: OSS-ing OS/2 will put him out of a job and will generate a lot of lawsuits.
Seems to me, OSS-ing OS/2 is not the way to go.
Besides: OSS-ing OS/2 doesn't make it automatically GPL-ed. In fact, GPL-ing an OS is the most stupid thing you can do: you can't run binaries that are closed sourced. (that's why Linux has the extension in the license).
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
As of June 20, 2001 There are 14304 projects under OSI compliant license on SourceForge. Of those, 11981 are under the GNU GPL or GNU LGPL. That's 83.8 percent.
Plainly, GPL/LGPL has a monopoly in the category of Open Source licenses. Nevermind that there is other software under other licenses. None of them have more than 10% of the market. The closest competitor, BSD has only 6.2% of the market. They are really just a niche player with a loyal dedicated following and therefore don't count as competition.
We recommend that the GPL/LGPL licenses be broken up into several smaller licenses. To prevent the monopoly from re-forming after the breakup, all of these licenses should be mutually incompatable and they should be allowed to follow competing philosophies. Perhaps one could be "academic use only", another could be closed source freeware, another EULA'd and another BSD-like. The GPL/LGPL community would be allowed to keep a few core programs, perhaps GCC and the Linux kernel, but not any applications.
So, how do you like it? It's fair, it's justice; right?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen." Or the development of a full Free operating system either, I guess.
Even the kernel of linux is not GPL. Linus has made an exception for the linking of dynamic libraries and non-GPL drivers. Linux is not an example of a pure GPLed program.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
...and so far, Microsoft is winning.
You, me, and everyone else here knows the truth. What do we gain by discussing it here?
Get out there...grab a mid-level manager, an upper-level manager, or a VP, and TELL HIM WHAT'S GOING ON! You work at a job. Well, these are the people who are making the decisions! Tell them the truth!
Space invaders... you shoot at them, but they always come back and no matter how long you shoot and survive, you never win.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Microsoft would be mad>/i> to distribute software containing GPL'd components. It'd undermine their intellectual property, doncha know...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Oh, f*ck it. I must stop trying to post when drunk.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
GMT+1, so the sun is over the yard-arm, even if I am at work.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Microsoft would be made to distibrute software containing GPL'd components. It'd undermine their intellectual property, doncha know...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
And I'll say it again. We need to start a Linux anti-defamation fund. Sue the bastard when he lies or slandars.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
If Linux is Pac-Man Micro$oft must be....
1) Atari Pac-Man - everyone has a copy, so it has a 90% showing on Gartner's latest report. Everyone must be playing it then, right?
2) Berzerk - "Quarter detected in pocket."
3) Night Driver - Race against clock. Uh-oh - Mindscape is keeping time!
4) Space War - A sucking black hole at the center of the screen pulls everything in, and ultimately nothing escapes.
OK, maybe it's none of the above. What would it be?
I have never been addicted to the GPL.
I have never waited at the big dot for ghosts to eat
I have never put a quarter in a slot gor the GPL
I don't believe I have ever amassed 240 points for reading the GPL
As near as I can tell thery are nothing alike.
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This
The problem is that Bill Gates (like many) believe that it's OK to charge money for something (prob. because he has a lot of that) but not OK to exact what economists call an "opportunity cost": The GPL "charges" you via its restrictions on your future actions: Yes, you can use my code, but No, you can't close it off from others.
Seen in that light, the GPL is capitalist, too. It's just using a different measure of value than the almighty dollar. The only argument against the GPL -- and it's a weak one -- would be that companies don't understand the restrictions it places on them, so they could be "suckered" into underwritng code they intended to sell but cannot. On the other hand, I doubt Mr. Bill would have much sympathy for companies that bought a single license for Win NT and installed it on too many machines, because they thought it was a site license. I'm pretty sure Mr. Bill would say, "Tough -- you should have understood the license."
Companies that don't like the GPL are not prohibited from existing or competing. Of course, they'll have to "reinvent the wheel" on a lot of things, and they'll face the greater efficiency of an installed base and dedicated developers. While they're back-engineering the GPL'd code, the developers will be moving forward. Oh, well.... they can compete. No one gives them a preordained right to win.
The GPL is relatively clear and straightforward. A company that uses it without understanding it deserves what they get.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Kidding aside, I don't want to overdo the analogy but if Open Source is about anything remotely like money, it's about finding new ways to make money off common property... about finding a way to innovate without demarcating something as "mine! mine! mine!"
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
With GPL code, you cannot use the GPL library without giving up options. Specifically, you accept limitations on your future behavior because the terms of the license, to which you have agreed, include not selling the derived work. You've surrendered some flexibility and have thus paid an opportunity cost, since you no longer have some options available.
Personally, I don't see how the GPL is any more "evil" than the company with the proprietary library. Is that company evil because you can't use its library without paying a cost? At least with the GPL, you get some unusual advantages: Complete access to the source and complete assurance that, at least, your competitor will not be able to take your code and drive you out of business with it.
Is GPL the be-all, end-all? No. Is it evil and a threat to the very fundaments of the God-fearing, freedom-loving blessed Republic? No. It's just a license.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Though, to be fair, schools are not businesses. Nonetheless, what Microsoft seems upset about is that GPL forces you to find new business models...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
No, you guys are wrong...
Gates Says Linux Best OS Ever
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
A non-slashdot person actually sent this to me today...
Quote of the Decade*:
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if
Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running
around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and
listening to repetitive electronic music."
Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
* I have no idea if this is a real quote...
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
1. He's not being precise because "U" -- as in "Uncertainty" -- is an important aspect of "FUD". Blur the lines, tar everything with the same brush, try to get the people that don't read /. to associate Open Source, Free Software, and the GPL with anti-american, anti-competition, potentially dangerous...
2. Microsoft has "encountered" no problems with open source. At least in the development of software. Where they may have encountered problem is in the purchase of companies that have made use of GPL. Here, during the crash of the Nasdaq, MS is the perfect position to purchase all the techological advances it wants at fire sale prices. Anyone remember the term "poison pill"? It may be that the GPL is the "poison pill" that is preventing these companies from being consumed.
3. I have come up with a decryption protocol for Microsoft speeches. .NET".
a. Save the speech as a text file.
b. Globally search and replace all existing sentences with this string: "We need to build marketshare and mindshare for
b. Read the text file.
The speech has been decrypted...
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
A quote from Mr. Gates:
"A person who's seen shared source is probably very contaminated and is going to have a hard time working on other projects."
So now open source programmers are "contaminated?" I guess that means that they won't be employed by Microsoft and shouldn't be employed elsewhere. I smell a witchhunt brewing. Bad form, Mr. Gates. If you can't attack the movement, you'll persecute the followers? Sickening....
Of course, that would mean he has to pay for something everyone else gets for free, but, then, he can surely build something so... innovative over that dual licensed code, that everybody will prefer to pay him, rather than use some code so bad that the autors don't even ask money for it!
(Idiot Moderators: Yes, this is sarcasm. Don't fuck with my karma)
GPL "protects" implementations, not ideas. If TCP/IP was originally coded and released under the GPL then it would be true to say that you couldn't then use that code in your OS without releasing changes under the GPL yourself.
However, there would be nothing stopping you from reimplimenting the TCP/IP code. For Gates' to say suggest that this isn't the case indicates to me that he either doesn't understand the point of the GPL, or he is intentionally spreading FUD.
IBM got screwed by Microsoft when they partnered with them to produce OS/2. Microsoft jumped ship and produced Windows NT, leaving IBM with a lame duck (although a technically brilliant dead duck). That's what Microsoft does with partnering and source code sharing. IBM, release the source code to OS/2...
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Hmm, let's think about this...
IBM reminds me a lot of Space Invaders. Rows and rows of identical things with no discernable personality of their own, very slowly walking in lock-step with each other. Yup, that works.
Anyone got any others? What video game characters do M$ and Apple remind you of?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Please provide a link to or a quote from a publicly accessible license for MSIE that explicitly permits any redistribution without prior permission from Microsoft. I don't believe you.
Please provide a single example of a proprietary application that can be distributed on CDROM that relies on MSIE specifically to run. Be sure that it works on MSIE for Mac OS or Solaris. MSIE for Windows is not free either in terms of price or license, a valid copy of Windows is required.
You are, of course, wrong about the GPL as well. How is it that there is a Netscape that runs on Linux? As a further example, it is no problem to write a database front-end GUI that is completely proprietary but attaches to a GPL DBMS and distribute the two together on one CDROM.
It is even possible to write completely proprietary applications in Python or Perl (both GPL and Open Source languages) and distribute the Perl or Python interpreter along with your scripts. Sure, the source code may be available for your copyright protected, proprietary Perl script, but this doesn't automatically engender a right on the part of the user to either make changes and more importantly to redistribute the software or to install it on multiple machines or anything not specifically spelled out in your license agreement for that script.
I do not have a signature
Seriously. I think this summarizes the situation perfectly! It's like divorce court: what's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine.
GPL prevents such behavior, which is why MS is so eager to fight it. Fuck 'em.
sulli
RTFJ.
Well, according to Bill Gates, the GPL is like Pacman. If this is true, I would certainly hope that Gabe from Penny Arcade doesn't get to it any time soon.
Articles that reveal that Microsoft thinks the GPL is bad, evil, and opposed to everything that is good about capitalism is no longer News. You don't need to post them here anymore. Add them to Slashback instead. There's nothing novel about it anymore, and we're long past being surprised.
Seirously, the debate between open and closed source software and the varring degrees for of "closedness" of different licenses (from commercial, to BSD, to GPL) is a valid one but all Microsoft is doing is muddying the waters with stupid analogies and oversimplifications.
So far we've heard Microsoft describe Linux and the GPL as a cancer, Pac Man, and numerous other things. But while these comparisons may have some sort of PR or "scare" value, they only serve to mislead the public.
I can see why the I company as zealous about its licenses as Microsoft would dislike the GPL and argue against it, but when they start filling their arguemnts with information that is just incorrect, then it starts to become unethical. Microsoft can tell the world that Linus Torvalds controls all of Linux and that he's not accountable to its users or developers; but the open source community has a hard time getting into the main stream media to point out the (sometimes glaring) errors in Microsoft's arguments...and that's the problem.
...end paranoid rant ;-)
credo quia absurdum
The GPL, he continued, "breaks that cycle--that is, it makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work. So what you saw with TCP/IP or Sendmail or the browser could never happen.
I think what he is trying to say is that the GPL would have kept Microsoft off the Internet.
Gate's seems to think that the only reason there should be free software is so his company can "innovate" it into his product.
Viv
-----------
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
I mean I build on Microsoft source all the time, because its so easy to get a licence to use the code, and incorporate it into other apps.
I would define the gpl as more of a worm goes to one system spreads from there looking for more pacman sounds more like something that selectively targets each software it consumes (ie microsoft) gpl sounds more like something that kind of hits one place then uses that place to expand out even more (sorry not a troll just couldnt come up with any video game refferences)
"both the GPL and proprietry license prevent code re-use."
you can re-use GPL code in your private company and as long as you don't distribute your program you don't have to open the source to it. Only when you distribute your code do you have to GPL any derived works. Most in house software stays "in house" so this should not even be a concern.
That Linux was the beast OS ever. It's true, I read it on the Internet.
Next, I'd expect Billy to be up on the podium, giving one of those 'Fire and Brimstone' kind of messages.
--
'It's evil, and of the devil', he yells shaking his fist towards the heavens. 'Repent now, and let the light of microsoft fill your lives'
He moves quickly toward the front row pointing a microphone at on the the bearded programmers in the front row.
'Forgive, Billy, for I have sinned, I'd programmed on a free operating system, and have released code under the GPL!!!'
'I've seen men for more gone then yourself, turn to see the light...' Billy quickly moves his hand towards the programmers forhead, pushing him back, 'I rebuke the GPL!!! I rebuke the GPL!!! I rejuke the GPL!!! Can I get a witness??!?!'
'Praise microsoft,' the crowd shouts back.
At this point, the GPL has all the mystique of the Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot, and I think its proving slightly detrimental to open source.
Does anyone know of a writeup somewhere that explains open-source licensing in plain English? We need something we can refer people to. Its about time all of us advocating and using opensource software so adamantly get a full grasp on what it really entails.
WTF!?! The GPL does not say that a commercial company can't build on any GPL'ed work. It just says that if a company builds on a piece of GPL'ed work that they can't be jerks and hoard the source code. If anyone builds on a GPL'ed program and doesn't make the source code available, that's just plain stealing.
This latest bum-rush of MS-FUD makes me wonder if they're having problems making .NET work for Linux without violating the GPL
/*drunk.. fix later*/
He's saying, in effect:
Thanks, Bill, for showing us your true colours so clearly.
And this guy got into Harvard?
According to Gates, GPLd software "makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work.
erm.. and in what aspect is that different from the stuff Mr Gates is making himself?
Absolutely nothing at all, unless you count the fact that it's actually possible to take GPL'd work and use it for yourself. The funky rules apply only to distribution.
The real problem here is that Bill is making a drastic generalization. He's confusing a "company" with a "software company." Make the proper substitution in his statement (and also change "impossible" to "very difficult") and it makes perfect sense.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Seems to me that even if the GPL mandated that you handed your first born son over to the FSF -- if you don't like the terms of the agreement, then DON'T USE THE STINKING SOFTWARE! Microsoft makes it sound like we're all somehow FORCED to use GPL'ed software against our will. We're not. Nobody is forcing anybody to use GPL code. Don't like the GPL? Don't use GPL code. That simple.
Unfortunately, I have no doubt many folks will be persuaded by Microsoft's argument, simply because they failed to think it through. *sigh*
Gates does not like the GPL because he cannot incorporate GPL software in Microsoft's for-profit products. He likes free software -- but only if, by "free", we mean "free for Microsoft to take, modify, and sell without compensation to the original authors." That's his idea of how "free software" licenses should work.
And this is exactly what the GPL license prevents: Companies cannot incorporate GPL source code while not giving something back to the GPL community. It forces a barter system.
Gates won't even release a Linux version of Office as a for-profit commercial product, but he's mad that the GPL prevents him from raiding the free software repositories to create Microsoft's commercial products.
Statements by MS should be qualified by stating that the open source model does not allow for commercial profitablity for software companies. I disagree with that statement, but that's a more accurate statement of what MS is trying to say.
Software companies are created specifically to make software for private and corporate customers. But most software developers (myself included) do not work for a software company. I write software for an investment firm. If creating and/or using open source software is not profitable for a software company, well I really don't care. The company which pays me will make exactly the same amount of money whether or not I create and/or use open source software. In fact, it would be FAR cheaper for them to use open source... but I digress.
My fear is that corporate execs hear what MS is saying as "Open source bad for profit" and think it applies to them. Well it may only apply to them if they are exclusively a software shop. Companies not specifically in the software industry, but who hire the most software developers and purchase the most software, should take MS' comments with a big grain of salt and really pay attention. I think MS is using the term company when they mean software company so they can spread more rhetoric and fear without directly lying.
---
Developers: We can use your help.
I know that M$ has a different product than Oracle, but the second largest software corp. was one of the first big players to port to Linux. The others from Apple, SGI and Compaq didn't take this stance.
I don't get why M$ is doing this...
Their usual method is the embrace->control policy. If you asked me 5 years ago what I thought about how M$ was going to deal with GNULinux now, I would have said they would have ported their apps, packaged up their own distro, and tried to rub RedHat and the others off the face of the earth.
How hard would it be to port Office to X-windows, but only to M$ commercial version of X-windows, and then sell that? Most of M$ workstation customers think the GUI is the OS, and couldn't care less about the kernel.
I think that Bill will wize up though. Nobody at M$ thought the internet was going to be a big deal 8 years ago, and ol' Bill managed to turn M$ on it's pivot and take the whole corp. in that direction when he saw it coming. This is no different than how M$ started in the first place, ol' Bill believed that everyone would want a computer in the days when the big corps totally didn't think that was ever going to happen.
I think that in the next couple of months there will be a 180 spin at M$, and they are going to 'Go with the Geeks'. Seeing what the geeks were doing, and knowing the rest of the population will eventually catch up, is what put M$ where it is today. Either they will remember this, or they will miss the boat on this trend.
It's easy to write songs, you just sit down and write them?
It's unacceptable! We are like Pacman? You mean we all eat pills in the darkness while listening to electronic music?
/. /    |\/| |\/| |\/| / Run, Bill!
Oh wait.
 _
serveral hundred £$£'s !!! :-)
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - ONLY HARDER!
Wrong! If Bill wants to use my GPL'd software under another license, he's quite welcome to negotiate terms with me. It might cost him some money, though, and he wouldn't have an automatic right to bug fixes and additions contributed by others.
--
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
There is a grain of truth in gates' ramblings too. The mess of the licensing issues that Richard Stalin^H^Hlman created is and should be of concern to any software company who isn't keen on going full GPL. Figuring out what you can and can't do with all those pieces that have strings attatched to them must be every lawyers nightmare. Even da man himself seems to be a bit baffled by all this licensing mess. He still can't tolerate KDE which is now decidedly GPL compatible while he gives his blessings to GNOME which uses Mozilla for the rendering engine in its up and coming albeit deceased (yeah, go figure how that works!) file manager. Mozilla being under the MPL license is decidedly GPL incompatible. Anyone else see the hipocricy here?
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
I think it's really important for the Free Software/Open Source communities to make sure that everyone knows that merely USING GPL'd software exposes you to zero risk. It only comes into play when you start to modify it. And if it's licensed under the LGPL, you can link to the library, and keep your application proprietary. Most of the comments MS has made about the GPL is pure BS.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
According to Gates, GPLd software "makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work.
erm.. and in what aspect is that different from the stuff Mr Gates is making himself?
Yeah, it's a good article. I thought my /. article submission on this was pretty sarcastic but the Reg article has me beat hands down.