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ESR Writes About O'Reilly and FSF Differences
dopplex writes: "Over here at Linux Today, Eric S. Raymond has written an amusing piece in which A.) He analyzes the way in which we use the word freedom, B.) Examines the point of view of both O'Reilly and the FSF on 'freedom' and C.) Coins the term 'flerbage,' which I hereby suggest be put into immediate use, just because it's a really cool word." It's cheesy but it is a good way for people to understand the difference between Open Source and Free Software. (Oh, and I figured I'd just mention that I'll never use that F word since I think its stupid)
I can legally take a piece of BSD software, make binaries of it, and share the binaries with my neighbors.
I can legally take a piece of GPL software, make binaries of it, and share the binaries with my neighbors, offering in the README to sell them a CD of the source code for the price of media, duplication, and postage (GNU GPL section 3b).
What do you have to hide today?
Will I retire or break 10K?
on the planet and is a great example of why Linux is still a cute little backwater in the otherwise huge *desktop* software market. How many people outside of /. care enough about whether the software they are using is "free as in beer" or "free as in speech" or what license it is issued under that they would switch to a competing product? How many? 100 - 1,000 - 10,000? Laughable numbers compared to the installed user base of Windows. Look, most people view software as a tool. Think of it as a Craftsman wrench. They only get bent out of shape when it doesn't work and what happens then? You think your average Joe will fire up a forge in his garage to cast a newer, better wrench or repair a broken one? No, he's going to take it back to the store.
And now we come to the really interesting part of the argument: what happens when there is one store that sells that tool while their competition sells tools that, while workable, have to be assembled from their component pieces but are purported to be better as their designs are on the internet for all to see and copy? Joe average user wants to get the job done and the company that publishes their specs on the internet can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, he goes to the store that provides what he needs.
This is the situation in which we find ourselves. For all of this hoopla, the real problem of trying to build a product comparable to windows is being gradually tuned out. For the life of me, I can't seriously think that MS is "afraid" of any open source initiative with this kind of shit going on. I don't know who coined the phrase but "lead follow or get out of the way" applies wonderfully here. The open source community is like two birds fighing over a dead squirrel in the road with an 18 wheeler bearing down on them.