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FT on Europe's Open Source Option
Anonymous Coward writes "The Financial Times offers a very interesting read about Linux, its possibilities for business, and its threat to Microsoft. Also a second article about "Europe's open-source option"."
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Only if you REDISTRIBUTE the binaries as well! This makes it sound like any in-house change must be published.
We have been doing much work for lots of private industrial companies all over Europe by make the modfications to FreeBSD and Gnu/Linux kernel for years and just now starting to see jobs from the USA.
Oh too, to make a clarification, most of our work has been on FreeBSD (my specialty actually) because we recommend it for companies because of the more flexible license, but we like the work on Gnu/Linux too.
All the best,
--Achmed
Swaribabu Consulting Inc. -- We code so you don't have to
World Business Report this morning. Very good indeed that Linux gets more and more publicity among businesspeople too.
Karma. Moderation. Is my
Apart from the big Linux piece highlighted, the paper's Lex column carred a note on Linux as well today (it was in the dead tree edition - the online bit is subscription only.)
To explain, the Lex column is a very influential daily piece of analysis, read by the financial world's movers and shakers (mainly in the UK). I'd quibble about a few points - MS's Office franchise is (financially) secure? Linux suffers from "real security issues"? Nonsense. Anyway, for review purposes, here the piece:
"Technology investors should be thinking long and hard about Linux. The free, open source operating system has moved beyond the beard and sandals stage and is no longer just an option for bleeding-edge early adopters and those theologically opposed to Microsoft. Linux, whose mascot is a cuddly penguin, has developed teeth. The technology has emerged as a credible alternative for corporate IT departments and is winning significant share in the $200bn server market.
"Sun, Hewlett-Packard and IBM - which have traditionally marketed high-margin Unix equipment and software - are among those that have suffered from Linux's growing popularity. All three have seen the writing on the wall and have begun supporting Linux, but the transition from Unix, with proprietary hardware and software, will be painful.
"For the moment, Microsoft has not been overly affected by Linux's rise. Open source software is unlikely to gain even a foothold in personal computer operating systems, so Microsoft's $10bn Windows monopoly remains impregnable. Its $8.8bn Office franchise is equally secure.
"Nonetheless, Microsoft cannot be complacent. The long-term threat to its $6.5bn server business is real. Microsoft's model has been low price, high volume, but for the first time it is being undercut on price. It can argue that Linux suffers from real security issues that are only now emerging and that the operating system has a tendency to fragment, making it difficult to ensure applications' reliability. But it has a real marketing battle on its hands."
Not to mention the fact that Americans INVENTED THE COMPUTER, which started the entire industry for which Europeons are patting themselves on the back for excelling at.
It *really pains me* to defend Europeans in this discussion, but I must point out that Alan Turing was English, and Colossus was one of the most significant developments in computers. And don't forget that Britain also made major contributions in the development of the atomic bomb and radar.
Of course, many of us don't consider Brits to be "true Europeans" since they speak a fractured form of English, which is the language of the most successful societies on earth.
The only good weather is bad weather.
"C++: USA"
Bjarne Stroustrup is a Dane last time I looked. The architect of C#, Anders Heljsberg, also comes from Denmark, and Denmark is in the EU.
Europe has 50+ years of co-operation, and a history of it. Not everyone together, but a history of country alliances.
WWII, France, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark etc.
WWI, France, UK
The Brits and the Dutch used to have alliances against the French and the Spanish. The Germans and Austrians are pretty pally, lots of parts of Europe used to be owned by other countries, e.g. most of France by England, Alsace by Germany etc etc.
The Napoleonic wars were everyone v Napoleon. The Crimea was Brit and France v Russia.
In terms of the European defence industry being a joke, pretty harsh. Look at the contracts the US Goverment awards and look at the sub-contractors, Thales, Bae, Rolls-Royce are most often there.
Violent Crime in terms of rape and murder is MILES lower in Europe than the US. Muggings et al are higher, so we have unhappy people who live, and the US has unhappy relatives of people who died.
This isn't bloody American bashing, its laying out how Europe likes to co-operate to compete with the US Globalisation plan. Its a clash of cultures, each has their advantages and disadvantages.
Europe knows that the US is the biggest fish in the pond, but it also knows (to its cost) that being the biggest fish doesn't give you the right to dictate as you only get embarressed by what you did 100 years later.
WWI was started because the empire building powers thought that you could still fight a war from the 1800s with technology in the 1900s and that having plebs shot wasn't a very bad thing. Europe learnt alot from having tens of thousands of people die in a day.
Namely War does actually suck.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Thereby forgetting that your much praised democracy also stemmed from Europe (not to mention your language, bulk of your culture and most of your country's inhabitants' ancestors).
No, just not having mentioned it. Of course, we made a few adaptations that made it more successful. I also remember that the French tried it next, and ended up with the French Revolution, one of the most brutal episodes in the history of the west.
As for the US having to clean up our mess, the US were too busy looking in the mirror to see Pearl Harbor coming. It's only then that you interfered in WWII.
Not to save Europe, but to retain a market for your exporting companies and to save your OWN asses from communism that was closing in on you quite rapidly. Don't go telling me that the US were so noble to "save" Europe because Eisenhower/Roosevelt felt sorry for us. It's all about the Benjamins, it is now, and it was then.
What is a Benjamin?
Also, you seem a bit confused. WWII was a fight against the Nazis, not the communists. I suggest you check your history books.
And the US did a lot of noble things. Not *only* out of humanitarian reasons, of course, but noble none-the-less. We rebuilt a *competitor* (Europe) using our own money in the Marshall plan. We kept thousands of our young men in Europe for decades to protect Europe from the depradations of the Soviet empire. We brought Japan from a feudal state to a more modern, much freer democracy.
Would you have preferred to have been absorbed by the USSR? If so, I refer you to two books: "The Black Book of Communism "(written by French intellectuals) which highlights the crimes of communist governments throughout the world, and Alexander Yakovlev's "A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia." If those don't convince you of the evil of actual communist governments, you are hopeless!
What business did you have interfering in Vietnam? Korea? etc..
Stopping the global spread of imperial communist Russia. The Korean war was started *at the express order* of the KGB by Kim Il Sung, who spent World War II in Russia as a KGB asset. He invaded South Korea (in violation of treaties).
The Vietnam War was an (unfortunately successful) attempt by the Communist regime of Ho Chi Minh to conquer the South. A little history item for you: after the French colonialists (Europeans, btw) were thrown out of Vietnam, it was divided, and the people voted with their feet as to which regime they wanted. Huge numbers moved south to get away from the communists. The South Vietnamese government was hardly a shining example of democracy (or anything else), but it was preferred by its people to the alternative.
Also I hear of quite a few neighborhoods in the bigger cities of the US where the police don't even dare to patrol anymore.
Well, so much for the quality of European media! What you hear is total nonsense. Where did you hear it?
And how about slavery? Sure, there have always been regimes that made use of slave labor, but your fair and democratic USA made use of it on an enormous scale for centuries.
As did Europe, which initiated and profitted mightily from the African slave trade. And our country spent 500,000 lives to eliminate slavery in our country, and we did so!
If you are so exercised about slavery, how about condemning the Sudan, where slaves are still bought and sold? I have heard a lot of bloviations from Europeans about how bad the US is, but little about the real evil in the world! Selective morality seems to be a modern European attribute also.
Also tell me which country in the EU still executes prisoners? None, I can tell you.
Actually, Britain still has capital punishment for sabotage of naval facilities. However, I am not ashamed of our record of capital punishment. My state also executes those who have preyed upon their fellow human beings.
You're also right in your previous statements. But the rant above just goes to show that bot the US and EU have dirty hands in many ways.
Every nation in the world and every group has dirty hands... it just depends on what the situation is and when it happened.
If it werent for The West as I'll call them collectively, there'd probably be a lot less war in this world than there is now.
That is pretty pathetic. You might be right - of course. Some brutal dictator *might* just take over the whole world - that would end war all right. But to blame the wars in the world on the west is so silly that I am not going to bother refuting it.
--
The only good weather is bad weather.
Here is what the FSF says on this very issue:
Q- Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?
A - The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization.
But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the users, under the GPL.
Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you.
Again this is specifically addressed by the FSF:
Q- Does the GPL allow me to distribute a modified or beta version under a nondisclosure agreement?
A - No. The GPL says that anyone who receives a copy of your version from you has the right to redistribute copies (modified or not) of that version. It does not give you permission to distribute the work on any more restrictive basis.
Q - Does the GPL allow me to develop a modified version under a nondisclosure agreement?
A - Yes. For instance, you can accept a contract develop changes and agree not to release your changes until the client says ok. This is permitted because in this case no GPL-covered code is being distributed under an NDA.
You can also release your changes to the client under the GPL, but agree not to release them to anyone else until the client says ok. In this case, too, no GPL-covered code is being distributed under an NDA, or under any additional restrictions.
The GPL would give the client the right to redistribute your version, but in this scenario the client will choose not to exercise that right.