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Responses to ADTI Paper
Everyone and their brother has something to say about the silly and incoherent ADTI paper released yesterday. It doesn't even seem worth the effort to me - it's so internally inconsistent that I can't imagine it convincing anyone of anything. Nevertheless, David Skoll of Roaring Penguin has a good rebuttal, and Newsforge ? pointed out that the MITRE study that's been kicking around for so long is now public, and took a look at the differences between the two. Update: 06/11 18:43 GMT by M : Another rebuttal, by John Viega and Bob Fleck of Secure Software.
really just a front for MS to push a political agenda around? i've never heard of ADTI (although i do know who Alexis DeTocqueville is) until now, and they don't seem to be a legitimate research organization.
really, if open source poses a threat to national security because of the availability of the source code, then we should also remove all books from libraries because of the same threat they pose to national security.
Me email iz skyewalkerluke at microsoft's free email service.
Is how obviously biased the paper is - it's badly sourced, badly written, badly argued (there's holes in their arguments big enough to drive the proverbial truck through, like, "GNU doesn't let you steal source code for profit - the bastards!" - when proprietary licenses will throw you in jail for stealing source code), and so far, badly taken by anyone who knows anything about technology.
The counter argument (I read it on The Register this morning) is well written, well argued, has plenty of great sources, and except for the "Adapt or Die" bit repeated over and over again which showed his own bias (cool, but probably not the professional white paper people care about), it was a convincing argument.
So what was the point? If this "independant think tank" was paid for this research, whoever funded them should ask for a refund. If they did it to prove a point, someone should go back to "Presenting Important Arguments 101" and come back when they can present a logical, convincing argument.
All this appears to be is something a backpocket Sentator can wave and say "Look at this important research that proves why we need the GNU Illegal Code Act of 2003!". And sadly, most voters won't care because they don't know any better.
Then again, my 3 month old son doesn't know he shouldn't eat his hand. Same difference, I guess.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The government's productive alliance with private enterprise is also relevant particularly when its decision to use GPL source code would inherently turn away many of its traditional partners. Security, as well as other impracticalities make GPL open source very unattractive to companies concerned about intellectual property rights. In effect, the government's use of GPL source code could inevitably shut out the intellectual property based sector.
The Government must choose software to maximize national security and minimize government expenditure. It owes absolutely nothing to the "IP-based sector" or any other corporation. What was it I said before? Oh, yes: "Tough. Adapt or die."
It seems to me that many corporations are complaining about loosing their ability to make a profit. They expect the government to legislate things to help them. The author hints to this here but, let me add to it:
Running a business is a privilege granted by the people (business/vendor license). There are no rights, promises, or guarantees that running a business will earn any profit.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
IBM has a billion worth of marketing efforts put behind Linux.
Why dont they put forth some study on Open Source and GPL to counter these silly childish efforts be ADTI ?
I hate to say this, the Govt and the industry would definitely listen to Big Blue than a bunch of geeks.
Rapid Nirvana
Wrong.
If write a program and distribute it under the GPL, I am free to re-license it in any way i choose since i own the copyright. I can't bring back the GPL versions but I can sell another version along side of it. No one else owns the GPLed version, but they are free to modify and distribute it under the terms of the GPL.
page 13
In the U.S., the software sector accounted for approximately 319 million jobs in 2001
But according to the CIA Factbook:
Labor force: 140.9 million (includes unemployed) (2000)
GPL's biggest obstacle is the terrible misconception posted here. The uninformed seem to believe that GPL'ed code is forever tainted by the license and nothing can ever be done with it. We see people saying this on every single /. article on the GPL. It's bullshit, but people in the know don't seem to be all that driven to refute it in big print. It's the basis of most attacks on GPL, and we're still doing doing enough to get the truth out. I mean, how can GPL prevent me from licensing my source to someone for profit, when GPL is something to applies towards others and not the author?
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
No, communism isn't "You have to share your toys".
It's everyone has to have a job and everyone gets paid the same. It's also about ensuring nobody has any more than anyone else.
Its absurd to think that forcing people to work a difficult job to get paid the same as working an easy job is anything at all like the GPL license.
You aren't forced to use the GPL license, and, more importantly, if you do choose to use GPL software, you aren't forced to accept the license, and, even more important, if you do choose to accept the license, it doesn't force you to give any of your other software away that you might own (every heard of what happened to people that owned too much stuff during the communist days? gulag.).
Saying GPL is communism is like saying the public health care system of most 1st world countries is communist because everyone gets equal treatment.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
This goes back to the Halloween Papers - which correctly identified the GPL as "immune to FUD tactics". But that's all they've got, so they're trying it again and again.
Microsoft's competition model is to wound their enemy (Netscape, Word Perfect, Novell) and wait for them bleed to death. Copyleft (the GPL, the MPL) is the wound to Microsoft that they cannot heal.
http://rocknerd.co.uk