Shared Source vs. Open Source

leonbrooks writes "Microsoft are fond of touting Shared Source as being "as good as" Open Source, with a view to muddying the waters as much as possible, and so keeping as many people away from the benefits of Open Source Software (OSS) (particularly Software Libré AKA "Free Software") as they can. This new article analysing the differences arrives just in time for Microsoft's Australia-wide series of "Competitive Hour" misinformation sessions on Open Source, and includes a handy list of potentially showstopper questions. We'd like your help in putting these and other questions to the speaker during such misinformation sessions, with the dual aim of opening the eyes of many of the audience, and reporting back to us what was said so that we can refine the questions to close whatever loopholes are employed in evading these important issues."

Comments

Libre is without accent

[stm2]

In Spanish is libre, and not libré. (libré would be past participe)

Re:Libre is without accent

[Anonymous Coward]

no. In Spainish liberado is the past participle if the verb is librar. Libré is the preterit aka pretérito indefinido aka simple past.

Re:Libre is without accent

[luther]

Right, it comes from the French word I assume.

In french, libre also doesn't have accent.

Bernhard Rosenkraenzer (bero)'s article

[dwheeler]

For a similar "shared source vs. Free Software" article, see Bernhard Rosenkraenzer (bero)'s article, which makes interesting points about "Shared Source". It was at shared-source.com; it's no longer there, but you can get it via the Internet archives: http://web.archive.org/web/20011103204837/http://w ww.shared-source.org/index.html

Unfortunately, the "picking up your marbles" article uses nonstandard terminology and thus may end up confusing many readers. For example, it seems to equate "Free Software" with copylefting licenses (like the GPL), and "Open Source" with non-copylefting licenses (like the BSD license). That's extremely confusing; the standard definitions for both Open Source and Free Software include both the GPL and the BSD licenses. Also, "Shared Source" is still proprietary; trying to claim it isn't just confuses things. Proprietary software comes in at least two varieties: secret source, and "shared source". Licenses are confusing enough without using nonstandard, inconsistent terminology. Hopefully, the article will get updated - it makes interesting points, and the shifting terminology is unfortunate. For the moment, I would recommend Bero's article instead if you're looking for an article opposing "shared source".

An other way from the long dark past

[PeterJFraser]

In the days of big iron, most software came with its source code. The uses of the software knew who owned the software, but they could make changes to the software, distribute the source for those changes, and even sell those changes. You just had to make sure that anyone who picked up your changes had a licence to the orginal software, and also knew that if they put any changes into their source that the support for the modified software would be disowned by the original creator.

This way dealing with source code has disappeared, except for some companies that supply code for library routines. Such source distributions disappeared for two reasons. One was piracy (it didn't help), and the other was to simplify the problem of support. As systems became for complex the fact that the software was modified would became lost, the original software creators would spend a large quantity of time and money discovering and fixing other peoples bugs (this did help).

Even with its problems, I always liked this format of source distribution. It gives a revenue stream to the creators of software, and at the same time is allows further develepment, and bug fixes.

Public Domain != Freeware

[good soldier svejk]

This articel stumbles at the gate:

'Public Domain (AKA "freeware")- help yourself, there are no strings attached;'

According to convention, experience, common sense and the FSF Free Software Definition, freeware is not public domain software. It is propriestary software distributed as gratis binaries without source.