Slashdot Mirror
Linux Corporate Influence: Boon or Bane?
Mark Tobenkin writes "Are corporations exploiting the Open Source community? The Linux Public Broadcasting Network has video interviews with Ian Murdock (of Progeny and Debian fame), Martin Roesch (author of Snort), Jeremey White (CEO of CodeWeavers), Bradley Kuhn (FSF), Mike Balma (Linux Business Strategist for HP) and others on the evolving OSS business models. The interviews center around whether integration with proprietary products endangers the Open Source effort or increases consumers' freedom to choose."
Isn't that the right analogy?
Language lets people communicate ideas. The fact that a group of people may choose to communicate in private doesn't deter you and I from communicating.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
...a corporation exploiting Linux quite nicely ;)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I SCOff at the mere suggestion, sir!
Get Adobe and Macromedia to port to Linux and I think you'll see a major increase in usage.
The question is, "Is that really the goal?"
Do you want lots of users or lots of contributors?
Do you want to be the virus target by virtue of numbers?
If you do, then get some of the larger applications to port. If not, then why worry?
No Zen is good zen
Are corporations exploiting the Open Source community? Would they make money if they did?
And the answer is.. "Yes".
Thank you, please proceed to the next /. discussion.
If I use Linux, am I a bad person?
Corporations have specific needs. If OSS can fill that need, then they will try to use it. As long as the software's license is not violated then I don't see the problem. If you think this is a problem, change your license to something more restrictive.
I find this interesting in that many of you want to see OSS flourish, compete with major software houses (like Microsoft), and be used by as many people as possible. Now that this is starting to happen, will you claim that the spirit of OSS is being violated by corporations and resist its growth?
These interviews regarding the corporate influence on Linux are discussing SCO Intellectual Property. By watching them you agree to pay SCO $699 per viewing.
$incerely Your$
B.McBride
Speech: Free
Beer: $699.00
The Quiet War Over Open-Source
By Jonathan Krim
Thursday, August 21, 2003 [original article]
Every day now, it seems, we do battle with technology. If it isn't spam, it's worms. If it isn't the worms, it's viruses, or hacking, or identity theft. Sometimes, it's the gadgets and software we buy that are still too hard to use.
But as technology in general, and the Internet in particular, drives deeper into the fabric of daily life, battles also rage behind the scenes. They are struggles for control over how the Internet should work, over who sets the rules for its pipes and gateways and who owns the material that moves through them. These are the wars fought with armies of corporate lobbyists, technologists and citizen activists but largely ignored by the general public. And none is larger, or carries higher financial stakes, than the issue with the eye-glazing name of intellectual property.
Consumers are getting a taste of this right now, as the major record companies sue hundreds of people for stealing their works by using file-sharing programs. On another front, "open-source" software, which relies on collaboration and sharing of computer code rather than traditional for-profit development and distribution of programs, is capturing the attention of cash-strapped governments and businesses as a less-expensive alternative to commercial products.
Open-source software has been embraced by some companies that are building businesses around it. But it is the bane of others, including the industry's most powerful player, Microsoft Corp. The world's largest software maker is lobbying furiously in state, national and international capitals against laws that would promote the consideration or use of open-source software. So alarmed agents of Microsoft sprang into high gear in June after a surprising quote appeared in Nature magazine from an official of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The official said that the Switzerland-based group of about 180 nations, which promotes intellectual-property rights and standards around the globe, was intrigued by the growth of the open-source movement and welcomed the idea of a meeting devoted to open-source's place in the intellectual-property landscape.
The proposal for the meeting had come in a letter from nearly 60 technologists, economists and academics from around the world, and was organized by James Love, who runs the Ralph Nader-affiliated Consumer Project on Technology.
Love and others argue that in some areas, such as pharmaceuticals or software that powers critical infrastructure or educational tools, developing nations in particular would benefit from less restrictive or alternative copyright, patent or trademark systems.
In short order, lobbyists from Microsoft-funded trade groups were pushing officials at the State Department and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to squelch the meeting. One lobbyist, Emery Simon with the Business Software Alliance, said his group objected to the suggestion in the proposal that overly broad or restrictive intellectual-property rights might in some cases stunt technological innovation and economic growth.
Simon insists that his group does not oppose open-source software, or discussion of the issue, but fights to defend the notion that a strong system of proprietary rights offers the best avenue for the development of groundbreaking software by giving its inventors economic incentive to do so.
And he said that the BSA's governing board, composed of several companies in addition to Microsoft, unanimously opposed the letter and the meeting.
The U.S. government, which wields considerable clout in WIPO, might not have needed prodding from Microsoft to demand that the idea of an open-source meeting be quashed.
Lois Boland, director of international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,
MoFscker
Everyone keeps making the incorrect assumption that Free software is "Free as in Speech". Wrong.
Free Software means "Free as in Freedom". The software itself is Free, unshackled by anything. The outcome of this is that the software would always carry its source around with it, and it couldn't lose its Freedom because it is legally protected from people who would seek to usurp that Freedom. The GPL specifies the rights of the Software, and it does a good job in protecting the Freedom of the Software.
Think of the GPL as a Bill Of Rights (U.S.) or Charter of Rights and Freedoms (CND) for software. It lists the Freedoms that cannot be taken away from the software.
Since the GPL and Free Software (and OSS by association) pertain to the Freedom of Software and not the matter of Choice, there is nothing to talk about except that it is up to the user whether they intend to use UnFree (enslaved) software on their system.
Perhaps one day we will all use unshackled software on our systems, but until then it is imperative that we focus on the ills of software enslavement rather than on welcoming software slave traders into our midst.
As long as people understand that they can get the same product for free with a little more effort put into setup, any "exploitation" is acceptable.
That said, the problem has always been getting name recognition without advertising or other corporate-type actions.
It is really amusing how Sun goes on to spread FUD about Linux in enterprise in light of the SCO lawsuit, yet they go on to employ Linux related solutions whenever it cuts the operating costs and overhead. Mad Hatter is a good example of this. Sun is stabbing Linux in a back when releasing press releases by pushing their queer Solaris/Unix in news reports how Linux might be dangerious in terms of IP infringment, yet you see them deploy Gnome and praise it for own gain.
and lets not forget, Linux is Unix, by Sun.
ie "Free as in (free) speech" or "Free as in (freedom of) speech".
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I was thinking about how difficult the SCO mess is to explain to a layperson -- it's front page news for nerds, but it doesn't sound very sexy to everyone else.
Here's my idea for a story you can use in case someone asks you at the water cooler. It's not a perfect analogy to OSS, but then, what is?
Imagine that there's a group of amusement park enthusiasts who love scary, innovative rides. The big 6.28 Flags parks around just don't cut it -- they're far away, admission is expensive, and the rides are boring and dangerous. So the fans decide to move to a new town, Penguina, and build their own park.
The Penguinans just love good rides, and they know how to make them. They work together to build a communal park that's scary as hell. Everyone chips in to come up with a new ride design, or build a ride. And each ride is open to everyone around, for no charge.
Eventually, word of the up-and-coming Penguina Park gets around. Lots of new residents move in each year to help build it up. Even more numerous are the tourists who just come to have fun -- more fun than they ever had at 6.28 Flags.
Eventually, the park gets the attention of ride vendors, big companies like UBM2 and startups like Red Beret. These companies can't buy out the park, since the Penguina residents agreed to never let that happen. But they can invest in the park ("this ride was sponsored by UBM2") and sell related merchandise, such as park maps, guided tours and seat cushions. Eventually Penguina Park gets so popular that everyone from government employees to Star Trek helmsmen go there for the biggest thrills they can have with their clothes on.
Then one day, Vomit Unlimited, a fading rollercoaster company with some good rides to its legacy, comes along and says to the Penguina community: "Guys, there's a ride in your park that's based on one of our designs. We didn't say it could be a part of your little hostel."
"Oops," rejoin the Penguina residents. "OK, tell us which ride and we'll take it out."
"I can't tell you that, it's a secret," says the Vomit Unlimited rep. "But I can't let you keep riding it for free, either. I've got no choice but to claim ownership of the whole park. Oh, don't worry, you can still use the rides. You'll just have to pay us $299 each to get in."
Naturally, the Penguina residents find this absurd. So do the corporations -- volunteer work is one thing, but they're not about to surrender their investments. UBM2 dismisses Vomit Unlimited. Vomit Unlimited sues.
"Oh, come on," entreat the Penguinans. "You can't win against UBM2. Just tell us which ride is yours."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple," croaks the rep. "You see, there's actually a whole series of rides that we own across the park. Infrastructure, too, so the park won't run at all if you take out our property. Now, buy your tickets, kids, since we'll be charging $699 soon." Scrawny guards with Vomit Unlimited logos (brown-green puddles with chunks of Chef Boyardee) begin to take positions around the park entrances, threatening to poke the eyes of any trespassers.
The amusement park trade journals laugh at the shop, but the mainstream papers take it seriously, leading people to wonder if there's a serious problem with the communal Penguina system.
Blood vessels breach. UBM2 sues Vomit Unlimited. Red Beret takes aim. But Vomit keeps spewing warnings to everyone who rides, from the government on down.
How will the craziness end?? Stay tuned!
I often wonder if corporations basing their whole infrastructure off of linux (and other free software) is really fair to the open source community. Corporations who have embraced open software (linux specifically) are really saving themselves a lot of money. It'd be nice of those coporations would kick back some of their savings into supporting open source projects and initiatives.
On the other hand, without wide adoption, the rate at which Linux has developed probably wouldn't be any where near what it currently is. The best way to find bugs and feature requests is to get as many people as possible banging on a piece of software until it fails (or seems deficient in one area or another). So maybe the exposure, feature enhancements and bugs found are the proper 'payment' I spoke of.
Mr. Fish's real handle can be found here.
Murdock: You want answers?
LPBN: I think I'm entitled to them.
Murdock: You want answers?
LPBN: I want the truth!
Murdock: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has Linux opertaing systems. And those operating systems have to be guarded by men with compilers. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. McBride? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for BSD and you curse Red Hat. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that BSD's death, while tragic, probably saved desktops. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves desktops...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at LAN parties, you want me on that kernel list. You need me on that weekly Debian update.
We use words like l33t, code, haxor...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a Slashdot punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very apt-get I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a orphaned package and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!
LPBN: Did you order the Debian swirl red?
Murdock: (quietly) I did the GNU OS you sent me to do.
LPBN: Did you order that Debian swirley thing to be red?
Murdock: You're goddamn right I did!!
Of course, for clarity, they had to edit it a bit.
Commercial programs make for choices. It provides an option instead of "Go write it yourself". Maybe GIMP doesn't do it for you and you need the full Adobe Photoshop. And if you do, you need to go with one of the OSs where Photoshop exists, yes?
It's not like they would be a threat to the free programs - things the mass market wants or needs gets written, it's the more advanced or obscure stuff you get in commercial apps. Not to mention many people have time "invested" in specific apps that they would like to keep.
There's a considerable number of programs for which there are a market, and people are willing to part with the cash, but there's none or too few OSS developers. Sure, a single company could do a "work for hire", but there's no mass-market equivalent. You don't see thousands or even millions of people pitching in a couple dollars to write an OSS piece of software, but the same people would consider paying for a commercial app.
I think commercial applications and OSS programs push eachother forward. The commercial programs need to be better than the free if they want to get any money for it, while the OSS programs see where they are still lacking and could catch up. Not that OSS software can't be innovative itself, but there's no doubt that commercial applications have a great pressure to sell upgrades, while an OSS project can basicly declare itself more or less "done" and just focus on perfecting that.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I mean, c'mon, this is America -- aren't exploitation and cooperation the same thing?
experimental audiovideo minimalism: Rebuild All Your Ruins
It's no different than when your favorite local band gets a big record deal.
At first you're ecstatic because now you'll hear them on the radio, see them in big venues, etc. Then you start to get annoyed at all the new fans who only know the songs off their "big" album and not their older, infinitely better stuff.
Finally they stop playing their old stuff totally and you decide they've "sold out" just because they're more popular than they used to be.
All's true that is mistrusted
= We work, you profit
Let's say that I want to build something, and I want to sell it for profit. I can either take a lot of time and duplicate work that has already been done many, many times, or I can use something that I am legally allowed to, as long as I respect the license that it is available to me through, and I am good to go. I may make modifications to code, but if I provide this code to the people that I distribute the product to (and to the developers who wrote the original code, if they want it), all is good.
If I were creating something like what I've described, I wouldn't be making my money with the software. I'd be making it with the hardware, the "thing" that someone would be buying. A thing where Linux would either not be important to the customer or would simply be a nice attribute, not the defining characteristic that sells the product. What the product's end results or operations are is what would sell this hypothetical product.
I believe that what should make my product sell above what others could do similar is the quality of the craftsmanship. Linux is a part of that, but my own labor for what I have personally created, be it something electronic, something furniture-wise (depending on what this device does), and the like is where I show my stuff.
No one is forced to buy my product. They could develop one themselves, or they could buy one from someone else, but the quality of my product should set it apart.
If Linksys et al. had been playing good with the GPL in their embedded wireless routers, I would say that they would be the model of how this should work. Unfortunately they haven't been. Their own pieces of the puzzle are their interface drivers and their user-configuration stuff, as far as software is concerned, and their hardware is obviously all theirs. This is valid. Not releasing the GPLed code that they've modified is where I have a beef with them.
It's great to be wonderfully idealistic like Richard Stallman, but paying rent makes more more pragmatic. If I work to develop something, it's mine unless I choose to give it away. The stuff that I use from someone else isn't mine. So, I respect their choice on distributing it via GPL, thank them for their contribution to computing, and go on from there.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Ultimately, businesses MUST be able to succeed with Open Source Software for Open Source Software to become truly successful.
The plan is that opensource software is a commodity and developers shall make a living supporting, extending, and customizing the software for custom corporate needs. In reality what we are seeing is American and European developers working on opensource prjects for free and the support and customization work going to India for $2 an hour.
Perhaps we should revisit the "support and extend" business model?
Why would you care? If big, small, medium X business uses source code typed by a few hackers that don't want anything for their effort in the first place, what does it matter? If anything is to be said, these hackers should be greatful someone is using thier typing skills. Most open source sits around for years taking up space but doing little in return. I say, good! Let them eat cake. I don't care.
The link for CodeWeavers is wrong. It's www.codeweavers.com
-newman
You release your code under the GPL, and if a company decides to exploit it in a way that doesn't violate the GPL but pisses you off, then too bad. Suck it up. Deal with it. Either suffer, or write under a different license.
This is exactly the same question that keeps coming up when people look at unpleasant military organisations using open/free code, and has the same answer. If you don't like it, don't release it to them.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I interviewed a sales guy today and the focus is marketing two experienced NT/Netware admins. They'll support the systems they're used to handling but they're going to learn Samba and Mars_NWE and start whacking those systems where appropriate.
...
a nic i386
I've been 'exploiting' an Open Source OS - just placed a php/postgres developer, and my ill gotten gains from his work are what is going to feed the marketing weasel. Am I an evil corporate scumbag? I wore a t-shirt, jean shorts, and sandals to work today, and nobody said shit about it because I'M THE COMPANY PRESIDENT!!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh! I am a slashdot.heretic - see below:
[panic] ~> uname -a
FreeBSD panic.slashdot.net 4.8-STABLE FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE #13: Fri Aug 1 14:39:01 CDT 2003 puzzled@panic.slashdot.net:/usr/src/sys/compile/p
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
Windows has been the de facto virus target, but that doesn't seem to have increased code quality...
I think a paranoid requirement for security, at the cost of hardware support and "cool features", makes for the best security. Look at OpenBSD. It doesn't have SMP support, or many of the other features of FreeBSD. What it does have is a system in which every incoming line of code is reviewed for security implications, one of the most secure on this planet.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
It has aspirations of becoming to vector graphics what gimp is to bitmap, and is taking the right steps towards following in it's footsteps, and soon may be second best in it's field just like the gimp is (if it isn't at the moment).
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Excellent!
This is, without a doubt, the best
Of course it doesn't.
No matter how something gets used, there is nothing that is going to take away your ability to use the open source/free software. Just because Microsoft makes Office available, doesn't take away your ability to use Open Office, etc. Of course, it's only the GPL people that are worried about this, becuase they live in an entirely different world than everyone else... If this was about BSD/MIT software, there wouldn't even be a discussion.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Much more plausible
Still waiting to see how it ends...
Without having listened to the interviews (yeah, yeah, so I didn't RTFA, or LTTFI in this case, so sue me), I'm going to respond to what comment was posted to the ./ front page about them. Here goes.
What's the point of this? Is corporate influence good or bad for Linux? What? From whose perspective are you asking?
I really don't think that the question itself is worth asking. You can't boil a complex set of technologies and interactions down to a simple "it's great!" or "it sucks!".
Based on the list of people interviewed, I'd imagine that more than just the Linux kernel is being addressed -- GNU, distros, free software in general.
Is modifying it all to work with new systems a good thing in general? I'd say yes, as it's always nice to have interested people making sure that code is truly portable. Note that I'm not saying, "more users mean more bugs found!", but that if a company wants to spend time and money fixing portability and compatibility issues, then I don't see how that's a bad thing.
Anyone contributing to a project has a reason for doing so. This is true whether they're paid for it or not -- either they're working to meet their own needs, or the needs of someone else. Code gets implemented for a reason, and I think that saying "Is corporate involvement in Linux a good thing?" is similar to asking "Was DJ Delorie's port of GCC to DOC a good thing?"
Obviously, if someone spends resources making free software into something that is useful to them, then it could be seen as having been a "good thing" for them.
Are corporations exploiting the OSS community? I don't know. Define "exploit". I'd imagine that for every company "exploiting" OSS by using it without contributing there are 1000 people who downloaded and installed OSS without ever having contributed anything back.
Maybe there's something Zen-like to my point of view on the topic. Is widespread adoption of GNU/Linux on the desktop a good thing? Is widespread adoption of computers in general a good thing? Is it better for Linux to improve, or for Microsoft to pull their heads a little further out of their asses with regards to quality control? These are questions you can't answer without context. Good for whom? For the desktop user? For me? For you? For your employer? Your grandmother? Residents of Uganda?
Until context is provided, I suppose the answer to the question, "Boon or Bane?" is simply, mu.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Every summer I give Linux another shot as my desktop OS. Time and time again I go back to Windows. Why? It's less of a hassle. /me shrugs
Dependencies, incompatabilities, nightmares... There needs to be a better way to unite the Linux community to make a superior product. Until then, Windows will remain on top for the desktop OS. But once you do that, legal issues and crap will occur...
_________ Help me get a PSP!
I usually do not call to mod up anons but well put. I totally agree, we need to use open source without silly treats of violations of terms of use. Business people hesitate to use open source not because they do not know about it but they do not know how to pay for it!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
But they'd probably do "shared source" crap, and no one would pay attention to, much less touch, the code.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
You are either a company president or a lying sack of shiite (or both)...if the latter, then shame on you. If the former, may I please have a job?
Nobody is forced to write open source code. The developers are either people who write something voluntarily on their own initiative, or are doing it for hire for some other person or company,
The people who do it on their own initiative obviously are getting some benefit, or they wouldn't expend the effort. The people doing it for hire are being reimbused for it by those who hired them.
The beauty of open source software is that its creators are not the only ones who benefit from their efforts. Rather, everyone of us who use their products are enriched. Neither the developers, the distributors or the end users are harmed by the software development. Everybody involved is better off.
If you view people using code released under an open source license as "exploiting the developers", you are welcome to use the traditional proprietary licensing schemes for your code. That's called freedom of choice.
Sure there are a lot of commercial apps for Linux. As I see it so what. Linux is still Open Source and there is nothing stopping OpenSource people to make their own versions of the software. Some people (Oh the Horror) actually want to sell the code that they put thousands of man hours in, and that is their choice. OpenSource is supposed to be about freedom and with freedom there will be people doing things that you may not want them to do with it, that is the consequence of being free. I see any new application commercial or otherwise good for Linux. It allows it to have a wider user base and become more popular. If you don't want the application because it is not OpenSource then dont buy it. If you want the application then buy it. These are choices that adults need to make. If they are boycotting something they will normally face some sort of disadvantage to prove the point.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You sir are a talented actor.
I don't see any problems with corporate influence on Linux in general. The key issue, however, is to be smart and careful about licenses and to keep the agendas and strategies of the corporate contributors in mind. Some companies are trying to push software with proprietary licenses onto free software platforms, other companies pick free software licenses that are not in the best interests of free software.
Sun, for example, is making a big push for Sun Java-derived implementations on Linux, but large parts of that platform are only available as proprietary software from Sun. Making free software dependent on a proprietary implementation is probably not a good idea.
Qt is another example. It actually ships under the GPL, which is a free software license. But in the case of handhelds, Troll Tech's business interests have caused them to adopt a platform that excludes other toolkits from the same platform: they basically want the commercial Linux PDA market to themselves. Even on the desktop, FSF-endorsed projects like Gtk+ are covered by licenses like the LGPL because free software proponents believe that sometimes a more lenient license than the GPL is actually better for achieving the long term goals of the free software movement.
Even when corporate support of open source comes with no strings attached, it may sometimes still not be all that good. IBM has released a lot of software in open source form, software like LVM and JFS. For IBM that's a good deal because it lets them move their AIX customers to Linux. But LVM was rejected by Linux for inclusion into the Linux kernel, and ReiserFS and ext3 are better alternatives to JFS and far more widely used; a lot of corporate contributions just add redundant bulk. And JFS has become the object of SCO legal claims. While those are probably bogus, it shows another way in which accepting corporate contributions too indiscriminately could be a problem.
So, overall, I think corporations have a lot to contribute. But you always have to keep in mind that, even though they may be talking the talk, their interests are not aligned with the goals of the free software movement, or even the goals of the open source software movement.
So what if commercial software is compatable with OSS, it raises the bar and make OSS software better. Choice is component of freedom and the choice to pay for some software is a matter of personal preference.
We want exploitation by companies! The more people that use our software the better off we will be!
This depends on how you measure the "success" of OSS.
Having contributed to OSS in the past, in admittedly a fairly minor way, I figured my contribution was a success when I got a few email thank you's from people who I'd helped out. I couldn't care less whether an OSS project I contribute to has 10 or 10 million users, whether they're hackers at home or large corporates, although I obviously don't speak for the maintainers of any individual OSS project.
Projects like Apache have benefited from having IBM and others employ experts specifically to work on Apache. Win-win for all concerned. As others have said, if a business wants a new OSS accounting package developed, maybe they should consider kicking in some compensation for the people who write/debug/document the package.
The thing that you and many others seem to miss is that OSS is an approach to software development; it's not a free-for-all where you ask or demand that some software be written and it magically appears. If businesses want OSS to succeed, then they should contribute something rather than just downloading software.
There's a HUGE number of unemployed coders out there right now, and many would be willing to work on OSS development for a relative pittance. Rather than complain about the lack of features in OSS software, why not track down one or more of these guys, offer them some cash and get them to write OSS code for you?
If you do that, and contribute the code you've paid for back to the OSS community, then you can say you've "got it" and I'll agree with you. If not, and you complain about OSS not being suitable for business use, then you're a parasite.
Are corporations exploiting the Open Source community?
Well fricking _duh_! What are they supposed to do, woo it?
LBPN's next stop is SCALE 2x. SCALE is held in Los Angeles, CA on November 22. Jeremy White and others interviewed will be speaking at SCALE.
I like the GPL. But my feeling is that sometimes I want to give the users Choice. Let them choose to do "good" or "evil". Their choice. Which is why I like the BSD licenses also. Ultimately, who am I to force my views of "good" on them?
Improvements to the Windows codebase as a result of emerging exploits is blocked by one simple fact. Microsoft doesn't get paid for fixing defects. They get paid for selling a new copy with "new" features.
There is really an enormous significance to the difference in development models here. Open source is driven by need for functionality, whereas business is driven by profit.
Maintence is a business expense, and security fixes are maintenence. Until a company such as Microsoft can figure out how to be paid reliably for maintenance, you truly aren't going to see much of an attitude change.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
I think it is blatantly obvious that corporations who currently support OSS, while adding propcode to the mix, are setting up that OSS for the fall. REMEMBER YOUR HISTORY, FOLKS - IBM LOVED MICROSOFT...TILL THEY WERE JILTED. Same thing here. Love it now, because you will be betrayed. Search your code, and look at the corporate relationships. Pride cometh before the fall...
it is not only wrong, but it leads your readers astray and allows others to draw wrong conclusions.
After checking certain things out for myself, I have just decided to go insane and start gibbering and looking for a shopping cart to fill with garbage sacks and dead puppies....
Stupid Humans.....
You have violated the bylaws of Educated though Vile Inductees of Linux (EVIL) by disclosing your position. Your GirlFriend (TM) has been replaced with a SheMale (TM). Please report to Daryl's office for possible reassignment to the saltmines. Next time post anonymously!
With Os X and Linux sharing much of the same code and structure it should be possible to create a development system that works for both.
That would double the market share and would make it attractive for companies like Adobe and Macromedia to join.
Wow, an article on the influence of business on open Source Projects which consists solely of videos in Quicktime which cannot be viewed on any open source platform or with any open source viewer. Maybe corporate influence is very very bad after all! :P
The GPL employs the same much-to-long copyrights as the rest of the world. In order to be really free the GPL should contain a clause that the software becomes public domain after 10 years.
etymology n.
or
Etymology, n.
from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow."
-- Mike Kellen
If Redhat and Suse are known *as* linux, there's a big problem for any other commercial distros out there... like Mandrake.
l e.jhtm l?articleID=13100775
Ofcourse with microsoft.com running off Linux as a result of Blaster worm
http://www.internetweek.com/story/showArtic
Who knows what kind of influence it will have. (remembering that MS claimed that open source generally, and GPL specifically, code, is viral (not the license) in nature, and untrustworthy... and that it has BSD stacks (open source), and Hotmail ran on BSD...)
it puts the food on the table. Now, Corporations exploit everyone and everything they possibly can. That's not so good, but it's part of how capitalism works (and we know what happened with the other guys). But OSS business concepts usually produce real added value, because the big money is in providing, say, db services and client interfaces to huge corporations that need them. And that's IMO pretty much a win-win situation. But greed never was pretty ;)
--v
And indeed, I don't think it's a bad thing. Let me give a comparison.
Here in Lithuania, we have a ton of factories that didn't have the cash to stay open, and closed their doors. So there's all this factory equipment, all these factory buildings, sitting there idle. Or it was that way for the last 10 years, anyhow.
Anyhow, you have smart international companies coming in and buying up this property cheap, and putting it back into production. Chevron; Yukos Oil; Food Line (I think you know it as Food Lion), and so on. Now, I'm of mixed feelings about this. You see, on the one hand, Lithuanian property, which *should* have been divided up among the people, *should* have been available for privatization to individuals, instead is going to profit these international corporations.
On the other hand, if they can get this stuff working, then they have every reason to try to keep it producing. So if they keep it producing by (for example) paying the workers a real living wage, then this is good. On the other hand, if they keep it producing in the US Energy Company style -- bring in soldiers, point guns at the workers and say "your choice is die fast with a bullet or die slowly by starvation", then that's a bad thing.
Either way, Lithuania ends up having this great big sign "Exploit me". With any luck, a responsible company will do so, and it will be good for everyone involved.
Well, it's the same for OSS. We say "It's free! Really free!". That's like saying "Exploit me!". Now, if a responsible company (Apache) does this, then that's good. If, on the other hand, like SCO, they try to bring out the big guns and say "die now or die later", that's a bad thing.
But that "Exploit me" sign? Well, that's also called advertising. Or a sale. And OSS is, well, one darn good sale. I've come, I've bought (who can resist the price?), I've called my friends and family to come too.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
"The interviews center around whether integration with proprietary products endangers the Open Source effort or increases consumers' freedom to choose."
Integration with proprietary products is largely a corporate question --- how much proprietary software are you running on your Linux box at home? In the corporate arena where some proprietary stuff exists the issue is not about. Corporations rightfully don't give a rat's behind about giving employees choice. That's a lock-down environment. Choice comes into play in the larger scale interoperability --- can one half of the organization work with the other half.... that comes down to protocols. If the corporatization of open source software enhances protocol compliance then great.
The worst thing corporatization can do is cause a fork -- like any other OS developer. If their fork wins because it's has bigger backing so be it. If that happens because it scratches a corporate itch so be it. If you don't like the direction a project is going then fork.
Communities efforts do not only produce Open Source Software but also Open Content information assemblages and databases. In this cases, volunteers do not contribute pieces of code but documents, data etc. Think about the Open Directory Project or Wikipedia. Is it possible that no one has got his own opinion about the private (commercial) use of projects like these? The point to make is not an indeological one: Commercial use of "Open Source" data and information goes against volunteer developers system of value. The point is to assess whether the supposed "exploited" information can be subtracted from the "Open Domain" for good and its original quality level dramatically decreased (think about Google mixing genuine and paid search results). So, do the "popularity and diffusion advantages" due to Commercial-Private use of Open Source exceed the foregoing pitfalls (smaller public domain - lower quality of information conservancies)? I think thee is no general answer, the assessment should be carried on case by case.
My company needed to make use of GNU's Tar utility. We have a program that needed to pack and unpack tar files at will. To avoid packaging the software with tar.exe we wanted to see if we could integrate Tar into our software. The question was if we did this, would we just have to provide the altered tar code, or would it make the entire program open source. This is what I think they are talking about when they mention exploitation. I can see why this sort of activity would be frowned upon by the OSS community. A letter of inquiry to GNU received a rather interesting response. In a very long reply, we were told that they couldn't tell us whether or not we'd need to make everything open source or not since we were not the kind of people they were making software for. They could not spend their donars money letting us know if that was okay or not ( even though the reply took much longer than a simple 'yes it's okay' or 'no it's not' ) but if we were willing to pay them for their efforts they could provide an answer.
You are missing one difference. No matter how many gunked up distros are released you can always customize Linux to your liking. There will always be distros like Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, LSF...etc.
So there will be Linux for the masses and Linux for the geeks. Why does this necessitate a jump to another OS entirely?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
There's no problem with corporate America using Linux. Its just corporate America are like the dinosaurs. They don't understand why Linux is so good or how it got to where it is. They just think its the next big thing that will make them rich. It won't.
Linux isn't about making everyone rich. Its about making everyone work together so we don't have to work so hard. And that will make us rich. If you consider time to be some form of money. The money shouldn't matter to us, but for some strange reason its all we think about.
Yes, people make many incorrect assumptions. Such as "free means free as in something". No, "free" means "free" as in "free", which should be obvious to any student of the tautological school of metaphilosophics. Claiming that "free" is in any way related to speech, beer, or freedom fries, is just sowing the seeds of confusion. Freedom is not freedom at all, in fact, but slavery. Except that it is a slavery we freely choose. Which is of course an abuse of our freedom of choice. But overall I have to confirm that the parent post is principally free of what we laymen call "common sense".
Holy crap.
The GPL is a license. This means a set of terms and conditions defined by the creator of a work as regards the use of the work. The GPL specifically seeks to define a model in which source code can be both distributed and protected from abusive reuse.
Using terms like "slave traders" is an incredibly silly attempt to polarise the discussion. My company has made free software since 1995, which we package under the GPL. But we provide the same software under a commercial license. Does that make us heroes or slave traders?
The author of a work has the right to distribute it under any license he likes. What part of this "freedom of choice" do you not understand? I completely support, for instance, Microsoft's right to distribute their software under their EULAs, which is why I don't buy their software.
The GPL is no "better" than any other license except in the view point of its users.
Too many people think they have a "right" to get software for free. This is not true: software is incredibly expensive to make, painful even, and the best products out there have been produced at incredibly cost to the teams and individuals involved. A programmer, like any author, chooses how he distributes and/or sells his work. Period.
I'm as annoyed with fools who believe the GPL is a bill of rights or a holy document, as with the fools who believe it's "evil" in some way. It's a licence, a damn good one, but still a license godamnit, and as such intended to protect and reward the creative process.
It is up to the author, and (on this I will agree with the parent poster) up to the user.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Here's my take on this; I'll admit up front that I'm not an expert, and these opinions are just opinions.
First of all, there are loads of distros out there. So if one or two distros go really corporate, paying less attention to home users and hobbyists, who cares? Want intellectual freedom and a progressive stance? Use Slackware or Debian instead. You can download them for free. You might have to do a little more RTFM'ing, and have to learn how to build your own firewalls, etc, but isn't the acquisition of knowledge supposed to be good for you? Besides, a home-grown firewall tends to be a little tighter than the "one size fits all" approach taken by corporate providers.
Then there's another thing to consider: corporate Linux providers are doing research and improving their products. Any changes they make to GPL'ed tools have to be released to the rest of us, so they're going to be contributing. Overall, this will be good for the community.
Finally, the more Linux is adopted by Big Business(tm), the more likely it is we'll be able to use Linux both at home and at work. And, THAT is a Good Thing.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
"Freedom" in software includes the freedom to
download and use it without contributing anything.
I thought the point of free software was that you
could do whatever you wanted with it.
Any corporation basing it's infrastructure on Open Source got the potential to help the OSS community.
Think about it. Many corporations need to make changes to some of the software they got to fit their needs. If they are making modifications to an OSS, it'll still be an OSS (if it was licensed with GPL), so it'll be available to the OSS community.
That's a lot of difference with the MSoft "Shared Source". But that's also a difference with ERP like SAP who allows you to change the source code, but doesn't allow and/or force you to release it...
So, corporations may be good to OSS, because they could make changes that may seems trivials to free developers but that may be useful to corporations.
Montreal - Best city to live in!
Corporations employ geeks. Geeks use linux. As long as the open source integrity remains, let them make their money. I've considered writing open source software myself, and then marketing it with set up and hardware as an alternative to 9 to ? in a cube farm. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Ignorance kills, complacency kills, hatred kills, but usually not the ones guilty of them.
Do you allow everyone else to wear sandals and shorts? If not, then yes you are an evil corporate scumbag.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
A crazy software company called SCO is going down the tubes because Linux is better, so they are suing to try and steal it.
This is my sig.
A few projects use a butchered version of the GNU GPL. It could be be placed under the Microsoft GPL ($199 and 1 soul per license).
General Public License doesn't necesarrily mean GNU's GPL.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.