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Hall On Worldwide Open Source Movement
adamsmith_uk writes "There's an article up on ZDNet
summarizing an interesting speech from Jon "Maddog" Hall about non-US open-source, as well as protecting open-source from 'looters' - well worth a read: 'The open-source development community is an international treasure and should be protected as such, said veteran Linux advocate Jon "Maddog" Hall, in a talk in Birmingham, UK, that emphasized the role of open-source software outside the United States.'"
By its very nature, open source is available for anybody to use. Why would somebody using an open source code be called a 'looter' ?
Many IT decision-makers have a herd mentality (e.g. nobody was ever fired for buying Cisco routers). Open Source use passed a critical mass a while ago and enough of the herd is heading in that direction now that the obvious advantages outweigh the fear of the unknown. It's continued acceptance is a foregone conclusion at this point.
F/OSS advocates have to stick together. Divide and conquer still works, lo these many centuries later.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
The best protection open source can get is US legal precendents. The defeat of SCO would be a good start, then a decision upholding the GPL so that it gets taken seriously.
This would not only protect OSS, but allay the fears of fence-sitting businessfolk.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
to the "looting" of the Iraqi national museum (at last count, 33 pieces, not tens of thousands), I guess the open source community is pretty safe.
Here is a little quote from the article:
These treasures were created over tens of thousands of years, and all of a sudden, because of the lack of foresight of a few greedy people, a lot of them were removed from the world.(Emphasis added)
How safe is the open source community again?
Hank! White!
Not trying to be a troll here, but it just seems to me that if you were to take open sourced software and released it closed source, unless you did it in the US, you would be fine, right?
No, most countries have signed copyright treaties that mean that copyright is global. But beyond that, it is perfectly legal to release open source software as closed source if the license allows that. For instance the license for Python and Apache allow that. You must be thinking of the GPL.
But how can all those VCD Dealers in Malaysia get busted by the Motion Picture Association of AMERICA?
They can't. They get busted by their local police for breaking local copyright laws that are created in order to be in conformance with international treaties.
I think the real legal threat to open source is the fact there isn't a huge legal padding fee behind them, hence the Open/Free (yes they are the same) software, no money exchanged.
It is because you do not understand what Open Source and Free software are that you think that they are the same and that they are both equivalent to GPL when neither is.
Linux International seems to have gone dead. It was amazing how LI was able to protect the Linux name from the insane US trademark system. But the LI web site seems to be complettely stagent. Instead of taking a stance on SCO's attack on Linux and Open Source, the LI web site continues to praise Caldera/SCO as a Corp. Sponsor.
When the source to the system you are employing is open to all, you have an advantage that cannot be matched by the closed-source vendors: The possibility of having someone local (and cheap) help support your system. It's standard, it's known, it was probably studied at school. Compare that to closed-source where you are dependent on the vendor or its designated partners for support.
Now as the article says, if you are a large corporation you might want to hire another large corporation for support. That's their right, and it's fine. But if you are a small company, or an entity with limited funds (such as a non-profit), it's nice to have the choice to get a local guy to help out instead at greatly reduced costs, and possibly even better quality if he or she is enthusiastic about the program in question.
Open as in free. Can't beat that advantage.
RMS has done alot of great service towards free software but he is a fanatic. Just read India's communist newspaper for more info . His comments on the SCO case show he does not care about the Linux kernel being fudded out of corporate America. He only cares about his precious gnu and views Linux as not part of it or just a kernel. This shows his radical side because he hates anything corporate.
I shudder whenever he opens his mouth. He really does make us in the free software community look bad.
Maddog however cares about Linux acceptance in corporate America and is in favor of other non gpl ( or non free according to RMS ) OSS like FreeBSD.
I wish people would look up to Maddog as the opensource leader instead of RMS.
http://saveie6.com/
Nationalism.
I think this is the greatest strength of the OSS movement. When a government or country is going to invest millions of dollars into IT, doesn't it make sense for that money to be kept local? Munich signed SuSE, a Germany company. It only makes sense.
The great thing is that this fragmentization is a strength of OSM. A lot of small companies all working on OSS independantly, but all of them providing benefit to each other. It is a system where competition makes everyone stronger.
-Eyston
If you think about it for a bit... about a tenth of a second should be sufficient in most cases... no.
Copyright violation is not stealing. Let's all say it together: copyright violation is not stealing. It's just copyright violation.
What SCO is doing, however, is attempted theft (although not in the conventional sense). They're trying to take the IP for themselves, so no one else can have it (at least without paying SCO). This is taking from someone. Not just making a copy for themselves without permission. This is theft, not copyright violation.
His use of the term is almost ironically correct.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Already done. Check! OK, what's next ?
Disclaimer : if you don't have a sense of humour, you probably shouldn't read my posts
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
This approach can have massive benefits outside the United States--the country where most proprietary software originates--allowing greater price flexibility and a focus on specialized needs, Hall argued.
ZDNet generally sucks. It's doubtfull a free software advocate would really say that. Free software has the same massive benifits inside the US as it does outside the US. The Free Software Foundation is headquartered in the US, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens are US citezens. Chances are that Hall mentioned that some software makers in the US might not be happy if free and open software supplanted their eXPensive wares and ZDNet inflated it to that. Software developers, like other profesionals, have long transended national boundaries. Only a maddog would think that US citezens and businesses have something less to gain from free software than someone in the UK.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Probably more expensive then the Microsoft offer, bear with me: Acording to the Register (and other sources, like Heise) Steve "Ape Dance" Balmer interrupted his skiing holidays in Switzerland to shmooz the Munich major and lure them in with very, very steep discounts. Munich however conducted a detailed study about long term aspects (not only costs, but the cost of being an addicted junkie in 5 years, when the dsicounts are no more 90%) and didn't let themselves be fooled.
Why not download a totally free distro and burn it to CD assuming you have the in-house resources?
Because that's not the way you do it, when you have to replace 14000 desktops. That might be fine for a company of 10 or 50 people, but not for a project of this magnitude. "Licensing costs" are probably irelevant here, it's primarily integration and services
SuSE teamed up with IBM in order to execute this project.
Hope this helps
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