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Stallman Goes to India
SureshD writes "The Hindu is reporting on a 40 minute long meeting between Richard Stallman and the Indian President - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. After the interview, RMS said that the President was 'receptive' to his views that development of software should be seen as a political and social issue and not just from the technological point of view. Interestingly, the article mentions that the President had prepared for the meeting by downloading and reading Stallman's biography (Free as in Freedom) from the Internet."
Possibly, with GPL, India may be turning the braindrain the other way round. You often need somewhat mature code to play with in the beginning of your career, and, after all, there are hundreds of sourceforge/freshmeat projects which need to be better maintained.
Gates' view towards india is simple: Get the 15% of developers to use MS, and that'll provide the basis for MS.
Interestingly, unlike in the rest of asia, software piracy is never an issue with MS although software piracy is rampant...
Maybe, but apparently even Microsoft recognizes that OSS is a feasible alternative for India. Otherwise they wouldn't have been forced to drastically lower the price of their offering.
He is fairly eccentric. I've met him twice and he's... uhh... he could do with a visit from the Queer Eye TV show.
However I suspect the real reason that he's considered a "loony" in the USA is because he doesn't bow to the almighty dollar. I'm not trolling. Americans seem overly concerned about money. Notice that one of the first things an American asks after learning about free software is "how will programmers get paid?" No thoughts about how it can help less fortunate countries, or less fortunate districts within America. No thoughts about how sharing software would lead to advancements in software because programmers will be freed up to work on new and exciting things. No thoughts about advancing science or technology for the benefit of mankind. Not even thinking that maybe these hobbyists write free software because they want to! An American's primary cause for concern is "where's the personal financial gain?"
I think this is because USA punishes people without money. If you don't make lots of money you live on the streets. There is no socialism. No "safety net" if you lose your job. It's shameful for an American to be without money. Success is tied with being rich. Poor people are "losers". That makes it hard for an American to get past the "no cost" aspect of Free Software and start to understand the freedom aspects.
I'm not saying money is unimportant. But RMS sees a balance between money and sharing. Between proprietary interests and the public interest. He tries to communicate that software is not just about technology and "innovation". It's also about political and social improvement. America rewards financial success, not social improvement, and I think that's really sad.
NB: And I'm not saying that Americans only think about money, or that no other culture has similar disdain for slackabouts, or that no other culture pursues financial success as a means of evaluating worth. I'm just saying that it's more exaggerated in Americans. That's just my ignorant opinion (I've never lived in America) but I suspect my ignorant opinion is not unique and not far off the mark.
I don't think he does. Corperatists have long enjoyed exploiting Americans since early on, but for good or ill, unions and labor laws have made it hard to compete in the current climate. Naturally, they outsource to nations that don't have these kinds of laws.
On the one hand, the corperatist has his eye on cheap labor. It's one of the principle foundations of capitalism, and technically, there's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, they lobby relentlessly with law makers to ensure that new-comers will be at a significant disadvantage by making the entry-level cost of competing too high for even the brightest would-be entreprenuer.
Of course, what does this have to do with "free" software? Well, it's obvious that many corperations have a vested interest in keeping individuals from competing at their level, and the fact of the matter is, you can create very professional and profitable systems using the tools found under the GPL.
Proprietary software is something that corperatists are comfortable with. They can control it through tiered licensing schemes, and even control how a person may use the software, and to what extent. This allows them to control the growth of any would-be competition, and even prune it if necessary. The average "Merkin" is none-the-wiser of their schemes, and it all gets wrapped up in nice, neat, legal redtape.
Enter The "Free as in Freedom" software.
Corperatists can't control it. Therefore it is difficult to impossible to control their competition. So they whine to the legislators they need more patent laws, copyright laws, and generally speaking- more of every law out there to keep those pesky would-be entreprenuers out of the "Free Market".
So if you love freedom, and you want to be free to pursue your goals in life, what is the best way to stop them? Go outside the US. Make sure that the rest of the world has these tools and that they become standard issue before their governments become poluted with corperatistic protectionist laws. With other nations having such an advantage, the American people might just wake up and smell the bullshit that these exploitationists have been shoveling. Some of them might actually send off a letter to their congress saying, "If we live in such a FREE country, why can't we have these tools as well? Hell, even those damned commies have better software than we do!"
And so the repeal of corperatist legislation may begin, and a FREE MARKET can take its place where people may buy and sell goods without the overbearing corperation run beauracracy that we have today.
And don't you damned corperatists go calling me a libral. It's not communism or socialism. It's called a Free Market and Free (as in Freedom) software will give rise to newer and better Free Markets. Corperations controlling the legislative body of government better deserve the moniker of communism since currently they control production, labor, and distribution, and, largely, the social and cultural life and thought of the people. In spite of all their hand-waving about being American capitalists, they are the very essence of un-American communisism.
If we are ever to truly be free, we must stand as individuals and stop licking the hand of our corperate puppetmasters.
To control or be controlled. Which is it?
OK, I had the guts to take this "Karma Swan-Dive". Let's hope it's not in vain.
Um, insightful? wake up modkids.
Yes, it is restrictive. "Share and share alike" is all very well. "Use a single GPL'd function and have to give away my entire source base" is another matter.
In capitalism, the seller sets the price and the buyer decides whether it's worth it. What are you, some kind of kooky communist? Don't use the GPL'd stuff if you don't want to pay for it, don't use Visual Studio if you don't want to pay for it.
In addition, it's not a zero sum game, so if I "steal" some of your GPL'd code, you still have it, so you have no grounds to bitch about me making it proprietary.
If you make it proprietary, I don't have the legal right to it anymore; nor does anyone else. That's the sense of "having it" that's important. Idea monopolies artificially raise the price of information.
The GPL has its good points, but to say it's not restrictive is to ignore reality.
You warty troll. The GPL has but one restriction- don't use GPL'd software in the creation of proprietary software. This restriction has special network effects: it reduces the freedom of any one party from reducing the freedom of everyone else. The GPL only restricts restrictions, that's a net gain for "unrestricted" software.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
It's definitely a possibility, but people often seem to charge ridiculous amounts.
Most software isn't free as in beer. You have a choice of how to pay for it. Will you pay in money or in source code? That's the proprietary / GPL difference.
it's a bit annoying considering everyone else is getting it for nothing.
They aren't. They're paying in source code. You can pay in source code too, if you like. Or you can just not use the GPL library.
I really don't understand your problem. You seem to think that because you can read the source code of a GPL library, and download it and link it to your program without paying a penny, that you should somehow have the "right" to do whatever you like with it.
Here's a clue: the GPL is not taking away your freedom to use that library - it is giving you the freedom to use that library, if you agree not to take that freedom away from anyone else.
Maybe you should be thanking the authors for making it possible for those who can't afford huge license fees to write software, instead of cursing them for preventing you from charging huge license fees for their software.