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BBC interview with RMS
An anonymous reader submitted an interview with RMS running over at the BBC. Doesn't really say much of anything
that you haven't heard before but it's a nice little interview, and its
not like much else is happening today :)
Except that in addition to selling it, you have to offer it for free, too. this simply isn't true. whenever you distribute GPL'ed software, you must offer the source code as well. you can charge whatever you want for the software, but either way, it must include the possibility of getting the source. you are not giving the source away for free, you are giving the source code along with the executable, and you are free to charge for that if you want to. the only difficulty arises because anyone you sell to can undercut your own price, creating a natural price point of zero, unless you believe in the natural good of humanity.
You only have to make the source available to people you distribute the binaries to. So if you sell source & binaries in the same box for $70, there is no need for you to provide either for free. Of course, you can't prevent your customers from giving it away for free, but that's a separate problem.
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E_NOSIG
I don't know. I'd call Linux and Apache pretty powerful. Emacs is certainly a powerful editor, wouldn't you say? PERL is a pretty powerful language too.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
there is one catch.
yes, you can sell the software, yes you do not have to give it away at the same time, and yes others can resell copies, but brand names can not be redistributed. if I was to buy a copy of redhat, and then repackage a bunch of copies and sold it as redhat, I would be liable for tradmark infringment. and if I made up a new name, people would not notice me as I do not have brand recognition, value added (as people would say "why not just go with RH since it is the same thing") and services.
so realy, people are drawn in to distrobutions becasue of brand recognition mostly. with tradmark and services that RH offers, it will be hard to get into the market.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
You sort of chose the worst possible example of obtuse licensing to make a point, and I don't think that's helpful in the big sense.
I didn't make the license obtuse - I simply decided to research the licensing on a product that is one of the more useful products that microsoft produce. Windows Terminal server would get a lot more use if people could read thre license and comply with it without spending a fortune on licenses they don't really need.
Your whole argument falls down here...
"So I quick connect to my Citrix server from the library Windows95 machine."
How many of the average Windows users have a Citrix server installed or hell even know what one is? Most would just use some web scheduling/address app that is accessable anywhere or pull out a regular address book or a Palm/WinCE based device.
So basically what you are looking at is the average school or business. If you are in any kind of business the bar of using most software is higher. Schools likewise have to jump through hoops. Yes it sucks but thems the breaks. But back to the point.
What you seemed to need was a service (access to your data) not a specific program. I'll bet with the time you took to analyse and read the licenses you could have searched Google (web+newsgroups) and found a solution. That's how you stop licensing madness, avoid the licencing madness and let the corp know they lost your business because of it and you had to resort to feeding their competitors.
"It would be easy to dismiss this comment as hippy-dippy-there-he-goes-again."
Seems to me that RMS has started the whole free software movement, in addition to making numerous contributions. I don't see how it would be easy to dismiss anything he says, he is the fount of this whole movement.
The Free Software movement is about sharing your efforts with others because it the right thing to do. The DMCA is a result of those who illegally infringed the rights of copyright holders. These are opposite ends of the spectrum. Those who believe that copying protected media is a reasonable thing to do should instead start creating their own art and give it to humanity via copyleft and stop stealing copyrighted artists works.
If it does not belong to you, don't take it. An no, I am not trolling, I just happen to believe in honesty
~Shine
The biggest problem with RMS is that he has said several times that not only does he think all software should be free, but you should be required by law to make your software free. There is no room in his philosophy for people to choose what type of software they want to use.
It's an internally consistent philosophical view. Proprietary software doesn't just involve a person or corporation "choosing" to make their software non-free; it also involves a government apparatus that helps them out.
If I want to use closed source, proprietary software, then dammit RMS stay the hell out of my machine.
But what gives you the right to create proprietary software in the first place? If I get a hold of your software, why shouldn't I be allowed to do whatever I want with it? It's like if I bought a candy bar, and was told that I was not allowed to share it, or use it in a recipe of my own, but had to open it carefully then eat it in a certain way.
I think what RMS is saying is that the kind of contracts which limit the free use of software you obtain are inherently immoral.
Note that I'm not saying I agree with it, but I do understand the position.