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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?
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? But how can all those VCD Dealers in Malaysia get busted by the Motion Picture Association of AMERICA?
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.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The open-source development community is an international treasure and should be protected as such
Exactly! And what do you do with international treasure? You bury it away in some dingy, windowless room where no one will ever find it, without an visitors.... to prevent it from getting stolen, y'know.
Hence all OSS developers really need to be locked away in.... uhh ehrmm... oh, NM.
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
Yep. Only these museum looters have sued the curators and are selling tickets to the public to see the exhibits that they used to get in free to see.
I wonder if the use of "looters" is intended to point towards the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged.
Casting the Free software movement in the mold of objectivist capitalism might be an interesting thought experiment.
If proprietary software vendors are the "looters" the intellectual efforts of those who can for the sake of those who cannot, it turns a lot of the corporate FUD on its head.
Because open-source software is in the public domain, support was provided by local engineers, creating Brazilian jobs, Hall said.
WTF?!? It's NOT public domain.
Hall seems to know what he's talking about, so I'm going to guess that the article author - Matthew Broersma - did a botch-job in paraphrasing him. Note that this comment isn't actually in quotes, unlike four other comments attributed to Hall.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Why would somebody using an open source code be called a 'looter'
That is not who is being called a looter in TFA which you apparently didn't R. The looters mentioned in the article are an analogy for SCO. Maddog says that the world needs to step in and prevent SCO from destroying the international public treasure of the OSS the way the U.S. should have stepped in and prevented the destroying of the international public treasure in the Iraqi museums. He gives examples of Munich, the UK, and Brazil as places where local governments at one level or another are supporting OSS. He did not even remotely imply that someone using OSS would be a looter.
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
I did RTFA and, while Hall indicated that looting of open source is a potential problem, he did not seem to me to be proposing any solutions. IMHO, the most important "protections" are to closely circumscribe software IP:
* ban software patents;
* allow enforcement of software copyright only where irrefutable evidence of infringement exists;
* provide a cheap, fast track method of dealing with frivoulous claims;
* free legal aid for non profit open source providers, but making deliberate misappropriation of IP a criminal offence.
A relevant quote from Lawrence Lessig's blog:e rits can never be quashed. There is no one to say âenough, letâ(TM)s move on.â(TM) So every great idea that your type creates, weâ(TM)ll just wait, watch, and then take. Always.â paraphrased from a conversation with someone from within one of the (how many are there?) largest proprietary code companies.
âoeWhat you donâ(TM)t understand, Lessig, is that your bullshit âopenâ(TM) or âfreeâ(TM) types will never â" NEVER â" be able to compete with corporate organization. Squabbles-about-egos-pretending-to-be-about-the-m
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Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
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"?
Behold the Proper Capitalization Nazi! The first letter of every sentence must be capitalized. Additionally, the pronoun "I", used to refer to oneself, must also be capitalized. I have also informed my friend, the Proper Colon Use Nazi, of your infraction. Prepare to have your malignant colon rectified!
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I wasn't commenting on the orignal claims of 170,000, I was commenting on the /.er's claim that only a few were stolen, so in that context, yes it is the part that struck me.
The
Guardian reports "33 major items and around 2,000 minor works have gone". So to use the 33 number as the "real" number of items stolen is almost as bogus as the original claim (an exageration factor of 65 compared to a factor of 81 for the original claim). Over 33 major pieces and 2,000 pieces minor pieces from a museum in the birthplace of civilization is NOT inconsequential however it may relate to the original claim. Civilization is not about to be reborn again anytime soon so there is no replacing those items. Toss the numbers around however you'd like, there was a significant loss.
This probably already happens. I know that I often spot a nice technique in GPL or BSD code and use the idea (not the code) in my own programs. Seems perfectly legitimate. I also pick up ideas from co-workers, magazine articles, books, and so on. As long as you are not outright copying the code why would that be considered a problem?
I think that more and more that OSS is being used as an 'open university' where ideas are tested and played with. As long as no patents are involved the ideas and designs do not belong to anyone.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]