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Borland Kylix Is Free - Sort Of.
StrawberryFrog writes: "Borland Kylix for x86 Linux is now free-as-in-beer for writing free-as-in-GPL'd apps. You can read all about it and download it from the Borland site."
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Once again an instituation that ALMOST gets it ... and then bans at least half of the "Open Source Community" by REQUIRING that stuff made with it be released under the GPL.
To hell with you, troll.
Why should Borland devote their time and money developing tools to allow you to produce closed-source software without paying a penny for the privilege?
And don't give me that "but I want to produce BSD-licensed software" bullshit. The BSD license gives everyone permission to do whatever they like with the code - if you want to grant this permission with regards to your own code, feel free. But who the hell are you to say that anyone can do anything with Borland's code? Don't like it? Write your own goddamn code, don't go trying to use libraries written by people who DON'T want to hand their work to Microsoft on a silver platter.
- Develop GPL'd software and pay nothing for Kylix
- Develop commercial software and pay money for Kylix
Sounds much like how QT is licensed. A good idea in my book and a great way to give back to the open source community. It's a great win-win scenario: they get customers for their commercial software and now we have another way to make great open source software.I'm sure somebody will complain that they require the GPL instead of a BSD or Apache style license, but since one may also purchase Kylix, I think developer that most needs are met.
And please, no trolling about "All software should be free and we should just pay for support." Like everything else in life, that works great for some things, but not everything. When rationality re-enters your perverse monochromatic view of the software business, gimme a call.
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free software kind of people are often averse to paying for software for their own use (quite understandably so: there's a plethora of free software that does a good job at all kinds of jobs out there), but we're not averse to trying things. and getting programmers to be familiar with kylix is most definitely in borland's interest. if i download kylix-free-as-in-beer, play with it a bit, and am impressed with it, maybe at some point later i'll recommend it for some serious development work (where the bills would be paid by a company, so the free software developper's averseness to paying for software doesn't apply).
Free is popular, to some degree, because it is also free but then there are free compilers. GCC is more popular though. A simple case but there are many more like it.
To large users of sofware, the free part is irrelevent, their biggest savings in using Free software come indirectly from initial purchase. They come from having many tool choices and being able to easily find the best (without having to waste developer time filling in product evaluation forms and getting trial license keys.
This already turns most off, so they just use MS stuff becuase it works for the rest. Almost. Some others do exactly the above and still others let their developers choose what works. They tend to choose Free software.
Then there are the other cost savings such as not having to audit for unlicensed software in a paranoid stupor less the BSA shut you down. There are many more widely documented.
So your client is going to sell your work? That's not how the service industry works. You write it on an hourly rate (or salary) and its Free. You wrote it becuase it scratched an itch that was worth scratching for the cost of development. You keep the rights as much as anyone else. Free. If its good, others may contribute to it. In time a comunity may form around it and you may become irrelevent to it. So be it, that is far better than you making a chunk of money for something that remains a distance from what it could become - if only you had the time...
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying "You must make your software Free", that would be tryranical.
What I'm saying is that the current trends indicate that in time you will find a competitive advantage in creating and extending Free software for a fee. Many already do.
The point is, when the Shareholders realise that Free Software makes them money (or rather costs them less) they'll want it where it fits and the technology policies of many corporations will change becuase of that.
The small developer will always have unwritten software to write but that larger corporates will find their products written for Free. They already are in many cases.
Many people fear that small developer will lose out if Free software becomes the consumers choice. I don't think this will happen (in fact, I think they'll be in high demand - suddenly they can know and support sytems knowing everything they are capable of knowing, not what they are allowed to know). But even if it does, this is not a reason to hold something back, nor can you stop it.
Developers are sellers. Markets are defined by the buyers and they will move in time when it suits them to do so.
I think you miss the point. Software is inherantly free. Bits are inherantly copyable, 1's and 0's are just 1's and 0's. Patterns. Copyable by nature of being digital. You can't stop this happening, so you have the tax payers fork over the fee to remove their right to do so. Tyranny knows nothing worse.
.Net. Do you hear them say half as much about Windows or Word any more? These are where they may most of their money and they are dying becuase of Free Software.
1000101001001010101001 is probably owned by someone. I'm probably breaking a law quoting it. It could be the key to unlock a DMCA covered product, it could be a BZIP2 compressed chunk of Mr Gates' The Road Ahead. It could be a million things but it is just 1's and 0's. Free by the very nature that they reach you machine as they already have.
The reason software is not free is not "natural". Its a ruling that has cost enormous amounts of money to enforce and "educate consumers" (brainwash). Why? Because of one reason. One that benefits far fewer people than it harms - it is in a commercial interest.
The majority of people have nothing to loose by mandating free software (or rather, retaining their rights to not granting software companies a stick to beat them with).
Given the current political establishment, this won't happen soon. Microsoft, Oracle et al spend far too much money pandering to the large parties to have them keep their faith. The people no longer care. Some write what you wrote. "We don't need free softare". Well, no we don't need it, but you can bet as sure as hell the commercial software companies "need" copyright protection and they will do anything to get it. Including jailing russians.
This path only leads to tyranny. Coporate tyranny maybe, but tyranny nonetheless.
At the end of the day, Free Software will win. People will come to trust it more and more in the future and closed software less and less. They'll also save money doing so. When someone like, say Ford or HSBC move to free desktops, the world will never be the same again. It will happen. Its just a matter of when. They don't like spending money and you can bet they are already looking at that avenure.
You should note It is already left to Microsoft to defend the "Commercial software model". Who else is? And why do you think they are?
Its their last chance. If they don't say something now, anything no matter how many know its crap, it will be too late tomorrow. In truth it already is. Who doesn't know about Free Software these days? Why would they ever return to only closed source now?
This trend started years ago and like most the encourage freedom and community membership, it is growing exponentially with the staturation point no where in sight yet. World domination will happen. It is simply a matter of when.
Microsoft know their time is limited in the 'commodity software' market. This is why they are changing licensing models, extract as much money as possible in the time they have left. Spread their focus into other areas, XBOX and
It is important to seperate the issue of Free Software and some of its supporters, you do that with your copy of Windows and Bill Gates.
At the end of the day, in future everything you want to do with a computer will be more and more free because others are making it so. Nobody can ignore that forever.
People, stop complaining about Borland writing commercial software for Linux. If you don't like the idea of writing GPL'd code in a proprietary environment then don't, no one is forcing you. In order for Linux to be more accepted as a commercially viable platform there needs to be solutions (such as Borland's) which will hold people's hands through the potentially confusing licensing problems and through the development cycle on a completely new platform. Don't expect any company to develop for Linux if all they have to go on is man pages and how-tos. Borland's software is important for those of us who believe that more commercial software for Linux will speed its adoption as a desktop computing platform.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
GPL: If you're going to use our source code, then you must release your source code back to us.
Borland: If you're going to make money off of code made by our product, then you must give money back to us.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
~sigh~... slashdot, slashdot, slashdot. The article says (for those too lazy/stupid/modemly-impaired) that it links all developed applications to a GPL'ed library, so therefore, under the terms of the GPL, your application must be GPL'ed as well. Short, simple, sweet. Now post away ;)
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Delphi 5/Object Pascal rocks (this is one seriously converted C coder), but it doesn't have CLX.
If Borland were to release a Delphi Open Edition, it could be a strong argument to switch from the VCL to CLX - and then later on... if you're using CLX, why not use Kylix too.
This is an awsome move by Borland, Kylix was prohibitively expensive and I just couldn't see it taking off on a Free OS, but now I agree, it's win-win.
Hmm this is a very interesting approach. Being optimistic, I think this can only result in:
- More Delphi developers (free as in beer is always an attraction)
- More Linux developers (Delphi is already a popular and easy to use language, but is not free for Windows)
- A set of libraries maintained by said developers
- More GPL'ed code.
A win for both Borland, OSS and for Linux. You might argue that this exludes other "free" licenses, but IMHO the GPL is the only way this could have been done. Eat that M$Borland sells Kylix to make money. Perhaps that's a new idea to some of you, but companies still do that. Out of the goodness of their corporate heart, they decided to make an Open Edition of Kylix for all of us GNU freaks (myself included). By doing this, we can hope to see a whole bunch more neat stuff developed under the GNU. I've been using Delphi for years now producing applications for a vertical market, and I believe it to be superior than C++, but please feel free to try it and form your own opinion.
I personally believe that Kylix may do more for GNU than anything has in the past. Look for BIG things to happen in Linux/GNU over the next couple years.
I have not seen it yet as I own desktop edition but only a few things are needed anyhow.
1. IDE
2. Compiler
3. Debugger
4. Ability to register component
If just these 4 things are intact there is nothing that cannot be easily built with it. You do not get the apache modules, so what it does not stop anyone from making a free version of the apache interfaces. What mysql missing so what just go grab free pascals version and compile.
Got Code?
Au contraire, they ABSOLUTELY get it.
They're using the strong point of the GPL --- no closed-source variants can exist --- to force people to BUY their product if they want to sell their binaries. This is a brilliant strategy and is impossible using any other license. If they did a BSD-style license noone would care to buy their commercial development kit, and if they disallowed you from distributing at all (demo lincence) it wouldn't get much exposure as noone except the developer can run it.
As they have it now, people can produce great apps using Kylix under the GPL (free advertising), once people want to sell their stuff they have to go to Borland and give them cash.
This is simple. Borland wants to be paid, and perhaps they want to stick it to Microsoft a little by supporting OSS in a backhandedsoret of way.
There were plenty of other options. Borland could have provided an Open Edition which has been crippled in some way, or is time-limited - neither of which solutions would incline developers to use the product for any extended perior or to the point where it's use is required by the product development cycle -,or has some arcaine licensing restrictions (as distinct from forcing users to distribute under the GPL) which would accomplish the same thing. I'm sure their lawyers loved this idea. Make a simple licensing statement that a particular pre-existing license must be used when developing using the Open Edition product, that would provide incentive to developers to buy the commercial product. Now, what license would provide such incentive. Ah - The GPL. Perfect
It's actually a vary shrewd move for which I applaud them. Vary sharp guys.
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Borland is trying to make a profit, and paying programmers to write free software will NOT do this. Microsoft did allot of underhanded stuff to remove Borland from the #1 spot in the PC development tools arena. Since then Borland has struggled to stay alive.
Borland is trying to provide something Linux desperately needs (IE: professional software development tools).
Borland and IBM will help provide many of the commercial programming and admin tools missing from Linux that are available on almost every commercial OS.
Some people need reminding that Linux is behind commercial UNIX in many important areas. My 1985 copy of SCO Xenix-286 has good stuff still missing from Linux.
Software you have to pay for on the Linux platform is good news for those of you not still living at home popping zits on Mom's mirror. It means that Linux is becoming a platform for commercial software too, and those of you who have REAL programming skills can get a good job.
At some point you are going to want to get paid for at least part of the work you do, so don't dog Borland for not giving away ALL the software they create (costing them millions).
If you cannot "get a life", then rent one.