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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.'"
* AND * breaking the license. Using open source software within the terms of the given license is not looting. Commercial products != evil.
He was refering to companies who were trying to destroy open source software by claiming IP rights over them. They are the "looters", not OSS users.
Did anyone notice that he basically called theft of IP "stealing"? Isn't this what we've been fighting in the music area, that it's breaking copyright etc, but not stealing?
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
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.
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/
he basically called theft of IP "stealing"? Isn't this what we've been fighting in the music area, that it's breaking copyright etc, but not stealing?
:-) ... the equivalent for SCO would be someone that takes the candle everyone was lighting off of and locks it away where no one can see it or light off it.
Something like the shard of pottery with the earliest known human writing is a treasure that belongs to everyone so the looters in Iraq were taking something that belongs to everyone and trying to make it private. In that sense the analogy with SCO is a good one.
Also, if you take Thomas Jefferson's famous analogy that "he who lights a candle from mine gains illumniation without diminishing me" (from memory so don't quote me
But in the other favourite /. case of music, surely lighting my candle from yours (copying a song) is depriving the guy who sold you your matches (the artist).
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
Isn't this what we've been fighting in the music area, that it's breaking copyright etc, but not stealing?
Yeah, and if I cheat on my taxes they can lock me up for "tax evasion"; but they d***ed well better not acuse me of stealing. That just wouldn't be fair.
I hereby move that the Open Source and Free Software movements be combined and reorganized as The Society for Pointless Debates Revolving Around Semantics and Nomenclature or SPDRASN. I think that SPDRASN should be pronounced "spud raisin" and that a spud raisin is a wrinkled potato, not a white grape. What do you think?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk