Slashdot Mirror
Ximian to Change License for Mono
A Commentor writes: "According to news.com Ximian is changing the license to Mono from GPL to a variant of the XFree license. Apparently this is due to a partnership with Intel." Update: 01/28 15:03 GMT by T : There's a story at NewsForge as well, where RMS weighs in firsthand on the license choice.
so what this means is that companies can leech more talent and code from the open source community in a profitable way? a bad decision for open source in my opinion.
Just as glibc and gtk are LGPL and not GPL, switching the license for the class libraries to a license that allows commercial software to be used with Mono is a good move.
.Net may fizzle or end up being a bridge for viruses from Windows, which will make the choice of license less important, as no one will be using it. If it does work out, it might mean that you can finally buy Linux software at CompUSA.
;)
I would have preferred the LGPL, but an X-style license is better than a lot of alternatives.
Of course,
I'm not sold on the whole clone-MS thing. On the one hand, it could lessen MSFT's grip on the market. On the other, MSFT will probably maintain incompatibilities with Mono, making Mono much less relevant. For instance, I doubt that they will ship a ".Net clean" version of Office that would run on Mono. Ditto for other cash-cow programs. However, I'll bet that Minesweeper.NET will be one of the first successes for Mono.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
is that Intel and HP are contributing to Mono.
I find it somewhat amazing that these two would risk the wrath of Bill. HP I can almost understand, since they're in the Unix business (for now anyway), but Intel would be in big trouble if MS dropped support for Itanic in favour of AMD's Hammer.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I'd rather see pragmatism than evangelism at this point. Some form of .NET style framework is going to become a standard in the next few years, and I'd rather it were an open source one than an MS one. 50 volunteers and 5 Ximian developers simply don't stand a chance against MS. If it takes a BSD-style license to get Intel and HP on board, then so be it. Evangelize later, once you've got the leverage and mindshare.
True enough. I knew about most of those, although not all. But this is a little different. It's one thing to support an alternative technology, but Mono is a direct frontal attack. If MS is really reorganising itself around .Net, then contributing to a clone is roughly equivalent to contribuing to Wine.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
You're making the assumtion that there is much/any improvement on MS's part to the BSD TCP/IP stack code.
What do you want "passed back"? Windows itself? If you're a GPL advocate, the answer of course is, "YES! A small fragement of Windows used our code so now we should by RIGHT have full and complete access to everything that is Windows!".
But that's an even sillier argument then it sounds out loud...
If possibilities like MS using the BSD network stack kept BSD developers up at night, they wouldn't be developing BSD licensed code. If such things do keep you up at night, then you shouldn't consider writing free software, and thus probably use the GPL.
My
Ideas, concepts, and whatever else is included in those classes might as well be written for Microsoft, for free.
Yeah, so what? I mean seriously, so what?
Just do Microsoft a favour and virtually work for them for free while you're at it!
Since I don't have to pay to get Mono, Miguel is working for me for free. I like that. It's cool. I don't have to pay Miguel a damn thing to get Mono. So if Miguel is working for me for free, why can't he work for Bill Gates for free at the same time?
Or is Free Software not the issue here, and you could care less what the software is as long as someone you don't like gets screwed?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I know that you read /. from time to time, as I got an e-mail from you in response to a posting. Perhaps you can enlighten us here, because I'm really confused.
In discussing the LGPL vs GPL for libraries, you mention the idea that if the ability doesn't exist outside of the library (ie readline) you should GPL it. Then, if someone wants to use your library, they need to GPL it, and this advanced free software.
However, if you are reimplementing a standard (i.e. glibc) then you should use the LGPL so that others can build on your work.
So, assuming we shared your goals of using licensing to advance free software, I still don't see how this hurts.
Right now, in the pragmatic marketplace, the Unix vendors are retreating up the ladder. Linux and GNU based systems are replacing the low-end UNIX system. Proprietary UNIX is slowly being confined to areas where Free Unix-like OSes can't perform. I think that worrying about liberating Unix users is quite silly. At this point, any markets that Unix competes in will belong to GNU when it matures to that level. UNIX isn't the enemy, its the advanced team. Crippling the commercial UNIXes in a Unix vs. MS fight really hurts free software, as we have a Free Unix, but not a free Windows. The Free Unix will displace the non-Free Unixes, but if the service runs on Windows, you won't liberate those users.
From this view point, I fail to see how this licensing change hurts thing? These classes are duplicates of the Microsoft classes. As they are based upon compatibility, you can't really do much with them directly. I don't see the leverage that even GPL'd versions give you.
If your goal is to prevent Sun from using this work to sell Solaris in this market, I think you are missing the situation here. The first choice that is made is Unix vs. WinNT. If WinNT wins, then your free tools are ignored. If Unix wins, then GNU systems get the job if they can handle it, otherwise a Unix is chosen. When the server is replaced in 2-3 years, it will likely be replaced by a GNU system.
We can't offer things that Sun and HP can. If they do the job, GNU systems kick in when they can handle it. If Win32 gets the job, you are unlikely to liberate them.
Please, explain how crippling the development efforts advanced free software?
GNUstep could have done wonders had the project been nearly completed 3-4 years ago. It is just coming to maturity now, and will likely me 2 years from true usefulness.
This industry moves quickly, and GNU is making it move faster. Any space gets eaten by Free Software within 5 years of existance now, with good prototypes in 2-3 years. Isn't it simply enough to speed up the Free Software Goliath? Why attack the Unix vendors, they're adopting the GNU way slowly as they can.
Alex
The GPL is designed to generate a common wealth of software, an
expanding base that does drive competition in the commercial market,
regardless of the licenses being used in the market.
On one end of the spectrum of licenses you have the growth of this base of
Common Wealth code.
On the other end you have the extream of closed down tight proprietary
code that is done so as a matter of milking it for every penny you can get
out of it, profits focused to a few.
If all code was proprietary, you can be certain that we would not be
anywhere near as advanced in this technology as we are today.
The BSD License doesn't help the Common Wealth code base as much as GPL
does. But the GPL doesn't help the proprietary code base any more than
vice versa.
So, do you build upon Common Wealth or slow it's advancement thru such
licenses support some other point in the spectrum?
In time it will become clear that compromises such as what the BSD license
allows, will act counter productive to the GPL objective/goal. In time,
thru the compromise, the GPL will become heavely constrained by those who
use the compromise to place barriers to advancement in front of the GPL.
Consider a piece of BSD licensed code, open to be improved until someone
comes along and pulls it behind the curtain and slaps patented piece of
software on it, effectively preventing anyone else from advancing that
software in that direction in an open source manner.
It should be worth noting that IBM is the Leading US patent holder, being
granted more patents a year than any other company or party, in the US.
This particular story regarding Mono is a good indication of....Ok it's ok
to make the engines available for free but we are gonna own all the tires
and gas.....and these engines won't be able to go anywhere without our
permission, and that's for sale.
RMS sees possibilities and then applies human greed to the equasion to
determine what to expect. I now this because I do it too, and it's always
right.
So Sure RMS seems to be extream, because when dealing with the devil,
there is no such thing as compromise. Only an illusion to lead you to
think so, untill it's to late for you to do anything about it.
Most folks that use a BSD license intentionally use it so that businesses can have the option of using it in proprietary software. If they're comfortable with that, so be it. They're not being ripped off if they intentionally allow this.
As someone who uses a BSD license (and wouldn't use the GPL if my life depended on it), I would say that this is the crux of any licence flame war...
But I will say that most BSD programmers don't care about whether or not their code is used in proprietary software. Mostly, people who code BSD software only care about writing good software - software that they want to use.
But, on the taking over the world lark, BSD software takes a different approach to the GPL. The approach is known as 'raising the bar'. If there is BSD licenced software which is better than your commercial software, then why bother with continued development on your source (especially if your shareholders find out that some geeky schoolkids, who probably don't even speak english ;-), are giving away what your highly skilled engineering department is late delivering, and over budget on nerf guns...)
As an approach, raising the bar has already been very successful:
There are several other places where raising the bar is working too, like OpenGL, where XFree86 is slowly becoming the de facto X/Windows standard. With the slow death of custom graphics hardware, don't be surprised if XFree86 takes over entirely from The Open Group.
Regards,
-Jeremy