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Bill Gates On the GPL — "We Disagree"
Dionysius, God of Wine, writes with a link to an Ars Technica story, quoting Bill Gates: "'There's free software and then there's open source' he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. With open source software, on the other hand, 'there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.' Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,' he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business. (Yes, Linux fans, we're aware of how distorted this definition is.) He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: 'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."
Nothing wrong with greedy. Just, when you're competing with 'free' you better bring a lot to the table.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I think I'll be sticking with Cygnus, God of Balance.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Isn't this the same guy who says that when they cure cancer, he'll buy enough of the cure to distribute it to everyone in the world for free?
news why? Seriously did we really need to be told that?
load "$",8,1
OSS typically goes after mature late life cycle applications, such as OS's, Office suites, etc.. If Microsoft was truly on the cutting edge of innovation, I dont think they would care either way....
:)
Meaning, people can say what they like, but in my opinion OSS is capitalism's way of preventing companies from profiting on a product the developed indefinitely... And this is a good thing, in my opinion..
I was thinking "AIDS" but I typed "cancer"... no really, I was....
Also I realized it was a false analogy before I typed the post.... ok, fine I didn't...
<boggle/>
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"If you steal drugs, you should be able to charge for them".
There, much better.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
What if you invent diseases?
Well, viruses.
Well, a platform that viruses thrive on.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Today they just kinda seem to go together so very well.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
If there's anyone I hate more than stupid people, it's intellectuals.
Cos this makes no sense. It makes no sense.
And we all know what that means.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
This sort of "article" is just flame bait. It doesn't provide any new information nor does it push any sort of point with facts or clarity.
In order to create a good quality drug, you have an enormous amount of costs. (R&D, materials, FDA, distribution, ect). Open source does not have a corporate cost associated with it. People develop it for free, and they do it for personal pride. If the costs are zero, why should you expect to get paid for it? *Note: Nothing is free, it takes peoples time. However, this time is "Donated" to the project, which makes it more of a non-profit entity.
Sure, but he has a problem with some people choosing to not charge for them?
Yes, and as such those who can't afford the drugs may die. Perfect system huh?
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
Conversely, if you basically steal the idea that other people have come up with, and implement them in a proprietary manner, you shouldn't go around claiming you invented it.
The list of things that MS basically borrowed or copied from Xerox, UNIX, Apple, and general computing research is basically
Mostly I just remember things like Kerberos being hijacked, made incompatible, and claimed as their own invention. Fuck, they'd pretend to have invented TCP/IP if they'd been successful in forcing everyone else to adopt their version of it.
Not to Bill Gates: We disagree too.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You are sooo right.
Because if somebody else invents better drugs to give away for free, you're sunk.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
...but I have this fuzzy notion that there are licenses outside of the GPL -- ones that even allow being both for profit and open source. I'm using the simple meaning of open source, admittedly.
RMS would have an argument with Gates' definition of free software. It's free as in speech, not as in beer Mr. Gates.
or soon will be.
I bet Stallman would flip out if he saw his implied improper use of the word "free software"...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
'Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software'
I've been using Linux since pre kernel 1.0 days. This explains why there is still no IDE support and I am stuck with that damn A.OUT executable format. I really wish they'd at least add support for more than VGA graphics. I know it's asking a lot, but I'd also like DVD and USB support.
There's a shocker ya.
Of course Gates is going to support M$ and its business model. To do otherwise would be harmful to the company's shareholders, including himself.
On one hand, Bill Gates' political views are treehugging Washington hippy style "redistribute the wealth, man" socialism. And then when it suits him and his half-assed-quality company, he pretends to be an objectivist.
Somehow I don't think Ayn Rand would be able to talk to this guy with a straight face.
Their argument is based off a strictly capitalist view. If you consider the notion that there is no way to claim your work as your own once it is under the GPL and generate a profit directly from it, in this world view, it's a waste. They see GPL as a trap where once entered, there is no escape.
This view is flawed because it assumes there is no such thing as altruism, and that shared benefit from availability can't outweigh the potential benefit of carefully planned and limited sharing. This kind of idea comes from Economists who take the tragedy of the commons and the failures of universal communism to ridiculous extremes, making rules out of specific observations. Society is created from compromises and sharing, and open source is about developing a healthy society amongst developers.
That said, I do personally like to be able to release closed source versions of things, and allow others to do the same. The BSD and Eclipse licenses appeal to me more than the GPL.
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone would regardless if I asked), but doesn't the GPL not only allow improvements but stipulate that if you improve the software you are required to give back the improvement to the community, or something to that effect? Saying that you can't improve on software covered by the GPL seems like a bald-faced lie, not a mere distortion. Not that I'm surprised he said it, but maybe the author could call him on it instead just labelling it a 'distortion.'
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Old dogs really can't be taught new tricks...
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
Can I improve Windows? Unlikely. Not without getting a job there and spending several years moving up the ranks to be in a position where I can fix* things.
Can I improve Linux? Yes*
Why? Because the source code is there for me to play with and fix the bugs* in the software. I can't do this with Windows. I can file a bug report and perhaps they might fix it in a service pack or just write back and say it's intentional.
*Granted, what I think is an improvement might be a step back in someone else's opinion, but at least I have the choice. Like Neo did.
Summation 2
Mod Gates -1: Troll.
Also note that he re-defined Free Software, confusing it wizh Freeware. He's either dumb or malicious, and considering his track record, I'm inclined to say that doesn't have to be an xor.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: 'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."
Sure, so who cares if a few million die as a result. You made your money!
http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060703093225AAsmMFT
It's just a few more days until Bill steps down from leading Microsoft. Poor guy, he's been fighting the GPL all these years and now can't remember what it is and what it's for.
We miss you Bill!
!news or slownewsday....
both seem fitting.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Ask most successful business men about if they would rather own something completely or have a market where there is healthy competition, and most will tell you that they will do anything to block competitors.
So if we look at the GPL and many other open source licenses we have a problem where the intellectual property can not be completely controlled. Now in a market where you can make money by fairly offering support and ancillary services why would they view this as bad?
If you own the intellectual property behind a product you have the ability to 'strike out'. You can screw up marketing, sales, development, etc and still be protected from someone else doing the same thing better. But if you sell services for GPL/Open products you have to conduct business the 'proper way', and deliver a better product then your competitors.
I'm not trying to bash the windows here, as if you look at Bill's investment work outside of Microsoft he tends to do the same thing; look for something that he can take 100% ownership of a marketplace. And I doubt you will find too many CEOs of large companies who would not take the chance to do the exact same thing. Even though most of these people have business/economics knowledge of how capitalism should work with healthy competition & innovation; they would much rather be unmerciful and dominate to make more money now, and find a way to be charitable, or 'play nice' later. Basically if they can own it, they will, and if something stands in their way they will try to crush it, denounce it, or produce FUD against it.
yes this is radical. holding up this kind of neoliberal ideology costs the live of several million people/year. (10 million are starving each year). million of death just to be able to cling to some stupid ideology.
property is exclusion.
Or is it the fourth?
First, free software was basically open source, and it was published in source code in magazines and on user group tapes and places like that.
Then there was freeware, which was binary only. I don't know if this counts as some kind of free software or a separate term.
Then RMS said that "free software" was software that couldn't be made non-free. A lot of people thought that was a bit over the top and 10 or 15 years later the term "open source" was settled on.
So we have GPLed "free software" and MIT/BSD/CC/... "open source" software.
Now we have this:
"There's free software and then there's open source," he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries.
What he's calling "free software" means "free samples", not even freeware. And I'm sure that RMS will disagree with his identification of the GPL with "open source".
Sheesh.
n/t
This space available.
He sits there with that eight hundred pound disaster known as Vista and then thinks he has still has some position in the community to poo-poo another development model? Well, at least he's not calling the FOSS community communists any more, and for all that "squandering" it's pretty amazing just where you'll find open source, including on Windows boxes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Did Gates just compare Windows to drugs? huh?
So all the jokes about MS giving software to schools cheaply like a drug dealer are right?
After that, I can't think straight....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
How about "I think if you invent [ anything ], you should be able to [ do whatever you want with ] them."
Sorry if that's too radical for you, Bill. If something is made open source, it is the inventor's choice. It's not as if you invent something, plan to make a nickel off it, then some jerk comes along and open sources your invention before you get a chance.
If you don't like the license, don't use the software.
the GP post never mentioned wanting tesco to give away food.
... wait for it ... FREE! So do you think it right that tesco tell you you CAN'T produce food from your own garden and either use it yourself or give it to friends?
However, if you have a back garden, you can grow potatoes for
Er? WTF?
I think he has closed source and open source software mixed up. Open source licenses, pretty much by definition, allow anybody to improve the software. Closed source licenses, not so much.
There is a legitimate philosophical debate about the ability to profit from creation, but as long as these kind of outright lies which are absolutely backwards are going to be spread instead of making serious cogent arguments for the potentially legitimate points which might support the closed-source model, there is not really much to discuss here. Gates is, instead of making a serious argument, simply spreading outright lies to create FUD around open-source. Its not surprising, given the amount of personal financial interest at stake and his past behavior on the issue, but its still breathtakingly dishonest even considering the source.
Talking about improving about software, it looks like closed source software hasn't improved a lot over the last few years, especially one operating system. He must be a long time mac or linux user to forget about that one. Who is this Bill Gates anyway?
Fudging is what you do when you are a smart monopolist.
Lies are what you use when your mind is gone.
Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software
That is an incomplete statement. How about we add a little bit to it: Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software to make money off the original work they got for free
There, that's more like it. When you realize that's the "complete sentence" that's running through his head, it makes sense. Fortunately, not everyone thinks that way. Just because you can't improve GPL'd software to make a profit, does not mean you cannot improve it.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
"Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,' he claimed"
Actually, Bill, it does the complete opposite.
On his own, one man can only go so far; but with the help of his friends, he can achieve anything.
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Well considering that he considers Vista an improvement to XP, I am certainly happy that GPL prevents people from "improving" the software...
'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."
Well if I invent the cure for AIDs then I can't give it away? And I can't license my drug patent so that it can't be used unless you plan on giving it away. I realize that selfless acts do seem radical to him. The tax write benefits and goodwill generated by any company agreeing to the terms would be priceless. They would go down in history as the company that saved Africa. Bill Gates is being either a short sighted idiot, or a greedy lying sob. I can't decide which.
Just seeing the title reminded me of the family guy episode with the drive by arguments
*while driving*
Bill G: 'Hey Steve, that looks like that young upstart Stallman who's been touting the benefits of open source software'
Steve B: 'oh yes, lets get him!'
Bill Gates: 'Oh Richard!.... WE DISAGREE!'
*speeds off*
Remember, kids: drugs are bad for you. Even if the dealer says you'll like it, it's nothing more than an expensive, antisocial habit that you'll come to regret once you're hooked.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Just like Neil Armstrong's statement when he landed on the moon left out the "a" - "One small step for a man", what Bill actually said was: "GPL creates a license where nobody can ever improve the profits on software"
Sorry, he's not the richest. I think he's third or forth now. Carlos Slim is richer. I think he might've been beaten out by Warren Buffet, though, leaving Gates in third place.
I guess the recession is hurting us all.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
But all businesses face competition, and the most devastating tends to be from competitors who follow different business models. Clones are much easier to see off.
The most interesting thing here is Gates acknowledges the competition and is starting to fight [more]. Entirely following Ghandi's script: "First they ignore you, then they laught at you, then they fight you, then you win."
That's one area where (commercial) software development and pharma are a bit closer. Most pharama companies spend significantly more on marketing than on R&D - Merck, for example spent $7.6 billion on marketing vs $4.9 billion on R & D, according to their 2007 10-K filing. Microsoft, similarly, spent $11.5 billion on marketing and $7.1 billion on R & D.
You can think of open source software as being mostly the other way around. There's significantly more spent on development (in terms of donated time, resources, etc) than on marketing.
You don't invent drugs, you discover them. The trick is figuring out the right drugs to use, and the manufacturing process to get them produced at an acceptable cost.
Patents are a balance struck to encourage capitalists to invest in things which ultimately help us all when they enter the public domain.
The link provided only provides paraphrased quotes based on notes made by a field reporter. Get me a full transcript where the quotes are put in context of the presentation, and then perhaps we can have a good discussion about this.
He must know a lot about the drug business. If you get them hooked on a free sample, you can charge whatever you want, and your users end up "stealing" to get their fix in the end!
stuff |
I disagree with Microsoft licensing structure, and a lot of the concepts of intellectual 'property' in general. 'I think that if you buy a product, you should be the owner of that product.' ::shrug:: 'That may seem radical.'
You really haven't invented all that much.
MS-DOS you bought and what you bought was a cheap clone of CP/M that ran on the 8086.
Basic? That was invented at Dartmouth and you never paid a cent that I know of to the inventors.
Widows? That was a pretty bad copy of MacOS and MacOS took a lot of ideas from the XeroxStar.
Excel is a spreadsheet and you took a lot from Visicalc, BoeingCalc, and Lotus123.
Word????
IE, Outlook....
Nothing really new here.
Oh... You want to take others code that they give away and then sell it for a pot of money and then not others do the same to yours....
I have no problem with people wanting to write software and sell it. That is their right. I have no problem with people that want to write GPL code and give it away or sell it. That is also fine and I support their right to do that.
I don't support the idea that you can tell people that they can not control their work. Even if they decide to give away their work.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I think the reason Stallman hasn't responded is because he passed out when he read that and hasnt regained consciousness...
No sig for the moment.
Sounds to me like he still doesn't really understand the difference between free "as in speech" and free "as in price". That he still doesn't understand non-fiscal incentives after all these years means that he will likely never understand them, and thus will never be able to manipulate them to his advantage. Let's hope this mind set is pervasive at Microsoft.
"So that nobody can ever improve the software for the purposes of selling the improved codebase as a product sold exclusively by their company."
Of course, the GNU statement "You can sell GPL'ed software" really should be reworded "You can sell GPL'ed software provided you don't use exclusive codebases as a business model and instead use other methods of product differentiation like branding and support".
Both Microsoft and GNU tend to shorten things in the interest of catchiness and propaganda.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
"There's free software and then thereâ(TM)s proprietary software," he suggested, noting that Microsoft charges for its software in most countries. With proprietary software, "there is this thing called the EULA, which we wholeheartedly agree with." Proprietary software, he said, creates a license "so that nobody except us can ever improve the software," he claimed, relishing the opportunity for support contracts and related business. He went back to the analogy of loan sharks: "I think if you have them by the balls, you should be able to charge them through the nose, or break their kneecaps," he said, adding with a shrug: "That may seem radical."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bill Gates a Troll? Seriously, though, it is news. In the same way its news when a president says something. Even an evil one.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
The people who first identified the molecular structure of air should charge us all $5.95 per breath.
Deliberately obtuse is what I'd call Gates' ravings. The software can't be improved? The hell you say.
For instance, I wish Bill would please explain to me how I'm able to plug and play USB devices using GPL software on Linux without a problem, whereas 10 years ago it was a struggle fiddling with drivers and scripts and definition files?
Bill, how is it that now I am able to burn CDs using GPL software on Linux from a graphical interface on Linux, whereas 10 years ago it was mostly took fiddling around with drivers and scripts and command line utilities with tons of arcane options?
How is it, Mr. Gates, that I can drop a gross monster of a program like World of Warcraft into a Wine installation on Linux, a well-known GPL software competitor and emulator of your software protocols and programming interfaces, and have that program run flawlessly, whereas that same feat 10 years using GPL software was an impossible, horrific mess?
Stop talking. You only point out the weaknesses in your silly argument.
Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries
Yeah, like the neighborhood drug pusher giving away free samples to the kids to get 'em hooked. Shame on you, Bill. Oh, wait a minute, that's the new business model - to hell with ethics and morals as long as you can make a buck. How much money is enough, Bill? Huh?
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
What does it even mean to say you "disagree" with a license? Is it newsworthy if someone "disagrees" with Microsoft's licensing?
Nothing to see here, folks.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Given that the GPL is a virus, Bill is spot on. The freedom offered by the GPL is limited, forced and therefore paradoxical and self defeating.
But then you don't become one of the richest men in the world by being stupid, as a lot of very opinionated people round here seem to think.
You can't? What are these people doing then?
Ok, let's push the analogy a little more.
This is an interesting argument, but really -- what are you getting with that over-the-top equipment? Bizarre drugs with side effects that kill you. A lot can be achieved without that fancy gear.
Remember... you can't expect a Finnish undergrad to invent an OS that takes over the world either. Quality people do find a way to express themselves.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
He clearly meant that, "Closed-source creates a license so that nobody can ever improve the software (implied: unless the original developer can be bothered)". He knows this all too well, having run Microsoft for the past nearly 3 decades. If there's one thing every Microsoft operating system has showed the world, it's that with Microsoft's closed-source software, nothing ever gets fixed unless Microsoft deigns acknowledge the problem and then gets around to make an effort to fix it. Nobody else can do this, since they don't have access to the source.
the poor in underdeveloped countries enter the digital age by creating a really inexpensive laptop and equipping it with a free operating system so the OS won't cost as much as the laptop and the people won't have to pay license fees to the world's richest person.
Well, the world's richest person won't have none of that. When attempts are made to get you to put an SD port on the laptop fails, the next step is to get rid of the employee who is opposing the "Secure Digital" port. Method? Pay off his boss? Net result? He's demoted, other employees are told not to report to him so he has nothing to do and no one to do it with. His position is eliminated and what he used to do is now done by a technical Luddite who takes orders from someone else. The laptop now has an SD port and can run Microsoft's XP. Too bad it will be too expensive for the poor to use. Was that the game plan to begin with?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I agree with some of your sentiments but you seem to be using FOSS when you should be referring to GPL only.
... There's a reason MS and Apple have successfully competed against "free" for as long as Teh Lunix and Teh FOSS have been around.
I would never, ever, ever let my company get shackled into open source. Every company which has done so, has done it to their own detriment, because it revokes all their ability to choose. It also limits their ability to grow, but that's a side issue.
Apple does not compete successfully against FOSS, they have incorporated and leveraged FOSS. FreeBSD and Mach are core components of Mac OS X and Apple has made some of their code FOSS, HFS+ for example. Apple is an excellent counterexample to your claim that those companies that get involved with FOSS suffer. Use BSD-style code for the commodity parts of your project and only write code for the parts that differentiate you, in Apple's case the UI is a good example.
-J
after resigning from ceo post. now he is using it to spread bullsh#t instead. 'gpl ensures noone can improve the software' is it why there are sh@tload of excellent software that are now running almost half of the web ? please, bill, cut the crap, at least in retirement. get real.
Read radical news here
Oh, hey, why stop there, when you were just getting going? After all, the monopolist's argument complained about drug companies not being able to charge enough for their inventions, yet a considerable portion of the modern pharmacopeia comes from old [indigenous] knowledge. You know, odd tree barks and fungi and leaf decoctions. These details, hard-won by untold generations of experiment and oral tradition, are then translated into writing and big science, industrialized into reliability, proven, marketed, etc. etc. As biopirates, they appropriate the knowledge, claim ownership, and invest hugely in its marketing (a big part of its 'development'). The 'invention' is actually the implementation of mass production of ancient knowledge.
Then they whine about generic drug clones being theft. The patent system is the safe where they lock up the knowledge to claim it as theirs. It really is the california gold rush (with all its nastiness) out there in drug patent land.
Damn those pesky terrorists
If you disagree with Microsoft's EULA, you cannot use the software.
If you disagree with the GPL, you can use the software.
I guess it does make a difference. But probably not the difference you were thinking about.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Gee Bill, you CAN charge for GPL software. If you are the copyright holder, you can release it under multiple licences (like trolltech does).
The difference is that your customers won't have vendor lock in with GPL software.
What kind of "drugs" were you talking about? The kind that fix allergies or things like methamphetamines?
How about linking to the original Wired story? This is why content providers are struggling.
We can't make money on this software because our usual business model will not work. They're giving away for free, software that we would charge our customers.
People can and have improved on the software. And some people make money on services and support. ie. Red Hat
And if a company decides to give away for free, they should do that too. On a related subject, many doctors go heavily into debt to fund their educations. Yet some of them give away their services for free. That seems radical too.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The GPL does not prevent you from negotiating a separate and different agreement with the copyright holders and operating under that agreement instead of the GPL. The MySQL project (which seems to have fallen out of favor recently here on Slashdot) is an example of such a licensing scheme. Now, in practice it may be difficult to track down and negotiate with each of the individual copyright holders who have contributed to a GPL project, but it is not impossible to do so if one really does not want to release improvements under an open source license such as the GPL.
"Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software"
Typical! the BSD license is open source and not encumbered like the GPL... But then again to the OSS community at large the GPL is the only open source license!
TBM
On the desktop FOSS does go after a mature established market. On the server and appliance side it is very innovative. Xen and KVM are innovators in virtualization. Linux and BSD are innovators in appliance and embedded space. JeOS is an innovative idea. FOSS has spawned some innovative business models that wouldn't have been considered a decade ago. Business have innovated on top of FOSS to create billions of dollars in revenue and tons of high paying jobs.
OSS sucks. It relies solely on the benevolence of others to develop it. If people don't get paid to write software, they're not going to care whether people buy it. If the software sucks, oh well, they're still not making anything.
Thats only true, however, in a monopolisticly competitive or oligopoly market. Which the software industry isn't. If Microsoft had some actual competition in the OS market, Windows would probably be ten times better than what it is today. Just look at what happened in the web browser area, before Firefox gained popularity, IE hadn't been updated in over a year. Once there was some competition, though, Microsoft had to start improving.
What we really need is not OSS, but some more commercial software companies to inspire competition and innovation in Microsoft. Apple at least has come up the rails lately, but we still need more.
Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!
'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical."
So... Microsoft's software programs are drugs. Why isn't the Bush Administration doing anything about this? Isn't the war on drugs still going on even though the war on terror is too? Drugs are a terror to those addicted to them. Bush should declare Bill Gates an enemy of the state and put him in Gitmo where he and his team will be forced to work on linux distro sourcecode for the rest of their lives as punishment.
Name a place where OSS has truly innovated, as opposed to copied-with-minor-improvements, and see how different you are from Mr. Gates....
Hmmm, let me get this straight. Closed-source software can be improved. Open-source software cannot. Ok. I think I missed something here but nonetheless let's try to make some sense out of this statement. Suppose I build some sort of product that has a 3rd software component. Now suppose that there are bugs in that software component, which you can rest assured there will be, since no software is ever completely perfect. Ok, now that we've set up our example situation, a situation that occurs in reality quite often, let's see. If that software component is closed-source, we can ask its producer to fix the bug, and maybe it will happen, but chances are that it won't, because they have more important things on their priority list, like going golfing. So we end up doing all kinds of kludgy workarounds, and the product isn't as reliable as it should be. And you get products on the market that suck. On the other hand, if that software component is open source, we can ask its maker to fix the bugs. And they might be nice and fix them, for the love of programming. Or they might have more important things to do, like going golfing. In which case, we can fix it ourselves, or hire someone to fix it, or find someone online who feels like fixing it for free, or whatever. So there are options. And the open source program gets improved. What in the "F" word is Gates flapping his trap about?
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
So, in other words, Windows == heroin? And Vista is a particularly bad batch?
Well, that explains my messed up laptop. I think it just OD'd on Vista.
"Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that anybody can improve the software,"
there, fixed that for ya. =P
http://kered.org
Not only is it a distortion to say that you can't improve Linux software, but the statement makes these additional distortions:
* It represents gratis as "free software" which is not the common usage in the software field these days
* It represents Microsoft's gratis software as "improvable" which it is not
* It represents truly free software as non-commercial and/or non-profit which is very much untrue
Overall, it's just an amazing pile of horse droppings. Not far from what I expect of MS.
You know what would be awesome? A *single scrap of evidence for your contention that
'although some people get paid to do this, most do it in their free time while getting paid to work another, "real" job.'
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Then RMS said that "free software" was software that couldn't be made non-free. A lot of people thought that was a bit over the top and 10 or 15 years later the term "open source" was settled on.
No. RMS has always maintained that Free Software includes BSD/MIT licenses. GPL is a free software license that remains free but it's not the only free software license.
This is a fallacy. Everyone borrows from everyone in the computing world, it's called "standards" like in the case of TCP/IP. It's just not about creating new things- it's about maintaining better things.
Microsoft LICENSED the GUI-interface from Xerox in exchange for stock, same as Apple. In the case of Apple, they took something that was being sold for crazy amounts of money and released a similar product(Windows) that ran on dirt cheap hardware (but had better memory management).
If this is your definition of theft, then it's endemically impossible for open source to create or have created anything. Ever.
It's rare that a large corporation ever really "creates" anything too radical in computing. What has Apple invented? Mac OS X is a well implemented version of Mach with BSD Compatibility layer, running a DPS-based OPENSTEP window manager. Apple creates nothing anymore, they just implement things well.
What separate(d) Microsoft, Apple, or Be (for example) from the stodgy unix model is:
A) Not using a monolithic kernel (Microsoft, Apple, BeOS)
B) Not using X (")
C) Not relying on consortium development (Apple pretends parts of os x are open source, but they are not community developed)
Beyond this formula, technologies are forked(in a sense) and improved to be made into commercial software systems. Most of the innovative new technologies that work their way into these industries come from start-ups. In this sense, unix-based systems remain so close, yet so far away as long as they keep maintaining ridiculously expensive and schizophrenic technologies like X.
So perhaps Bill Gates would have been better off saying that they should be able to sell their work, not their invention. There is truly no open source equivalent to things like DirectX (SDL is a sad mockery), Visual Studio, or Microsoft Office (I really wish OpenOffice compared). People buy these products because they're still top notch and useful, not because they're unaware of free alternatives.
Will someone please point me to something innovative from the open source world that isn't just a free alternative to something else?
I find it kind of interesting that in the same interview Gates manages to equate his own company's software to drugs by bringing up the pharmaceutical reference AND he manages to look like he's been using drugs by claiming the GPL does the exact opposite of what it does. Nice choice of analogy there, Bill.
"Just a fox, a whisper."
I've been researching them for some time now...!
Move all sig!
I think that was the whole point. (Improper use of "free", not flipping out Stallman).
Bill G. knows a lot better than the deliberately false statements he made. He is most certainly aware that there are differences of opinion within the F/OSS community and much confusion outside that community regarding the Free vs. Open debate, and that the advocates of "Free" are referring to freedom, not price. He is deliberately exploiting that confusion to associate "Free" with price and disassociate it with freedom, because the last thing he wants is for everyone to realize that it is freedom which is denied to the end-users of proprietary code, and because people naturally assume that the higher the price, the higher the value.
About his comment that Open Source creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software', well, in that case he would have been absolutely truthful IF it were clear that he was referring to Microsoft's "Open Source" licenses. But he is still being deceitful because wants the audience to assume he's talking about the same license he mentioned in the previous sentence: 'there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.'
After running and supporting both Linux and Windows - I can tell you, you pay to run Linux too by buying magazines about Linux and getting support.
The difference is Linux is a living OS while Windows is cast in only one mold.
I would rather pay $400 in magazine subscriptions per year then 1 license of Windows. (mind you, a MSDN subscription is nice to have too)
Nietzsche is God - The Dead (the Grateful ones)
I speak England very best
billg recently visited utexas.edu and lectured computer science and computer engineering students. I was able to luckily attend even though Im a lowly Unix sysadmin for ece.utexas.edu. :)
:/
I asked him during the Q&A if his view of the GPL and free|open source software had changed since the days of his (in)famous 'Open Letter To Hobbyists', especially given the explosion of Linux in the enterprise during the last decade.
His response? The GPL is a poison, more or less. Sigh.
I know this is wildly off-topic but.. the link in your sig is intriguing, so I clicked on it, but I have to say the proposal is pretty awful. It's basically talking about just creating a platform that exactly resembles the PC anyway, and gets rid of all the benefits of having a console. It talks of making a standard, then letting invidual companies make different machines that comply with the standard, though that will lead to different specced machines, which then will just get back to the PC thing of having to check requirements. Having a set hardware standard will also limit innovation on the hardware side. It complains about too many different consoles and variations of hardware on consoles, when the variation among PCs is almost infinitely greater, and yet people somehow manage, thanks to drivers and directx/opengl. You'd have to do the same kind of thin with the open console spec to get the same hardware/software compatility in an open console, and then you'd need more RAM and processing power to deal with the extra OS and driver overhead, etc etc.. the idea of an open console is intriguing, but after the first 4 paragraphs of the proposal I don't need to read on.. that guy needs to rethink his reasons for wanting to specify an open console standard, because basically he's going to do away with all of a console's strengths and end up with another PC if he doesn't watch out.. the only difference he claims between consoles and PCs is being able to plug into a TV.. well, my laptop plugs into a TV using a DVI->HDMI connector. Sorry to be so negative but the idea isn't really going to work - especially since the only consoles that are really conflicting right now are the PS3 and the 360 - the Wii caters for a different market (though obviously there will be lots of people that fit into both the 'hardcore-HD-gaming' and the 'no-depth-fun-gaming' markets depending on how much free time and friends they have :p )
which is totally what she said
Actually, his definition of "nobody" is pretty simple. Anyone who doesn't contribute to Microsoft's bottom line is a nobody.
Ballmer has made that clear, by committing to the end of life for Windows XP even though, Vista in his words is "a work in progress". Moving everyone to Vista contributes to Microsoft's bottom line and nobody important (i.e. anyone outside of Microsoft that doesn't contribute to their bottom line) disagrees.
His example with the pharmaceutical companies points exactly to this mindset. Most of the new drugs created today are "lifestyle drugs" instead of drugs that actually cure your illness. In the former, you're on the hook for multiple payments for years. In the later, you just pay once. Universities or University Hospitals that actually focus on finding a cure tend to follow the collaboration model since reputation gives you tons of benefits, and it gives society tons of benefits. For profit pharmaceutical companies care more about lock-in to squeeze as much out of their clients as possible for as long as possible and use various techniques (like patenting a minor variation once the original patent expires) to extend the life of the patent. Without Generic Pharma, the "nobody"s of the world would be on the hook forever and without both them and University Hospitals, no actual improvement in the pharmaceuticals would happen because any improvement that lowers costs or reduces the need for the pharmaceuticals would hurt the bottom line, even though it would benefit society.
Similarly, no-one can improve Windows XP except for Microsoft. If Microsoft wants to kill Windows XP and move you to Vista and you have no choice but to use Windows. It sucks to be you. You or anyone other that Microsoft (e.g. Sun, Apple, IBM, etc) can improve Windows XP with any feature that you need from Vista (if there is such a thing) or Linux or Mac OSX.
is paid for by taxpayers. NIH and universities do an awful lot of the research that big pharma repackages into drugs which we pay obscene amounts for. Also unfortunately, big pharma commissions lots of study's and only publishes the ones that are favorable. How many times do I have to read about a new drug that had prior studing buried by NDA's that showed it was lethal, but the study wasn't shown to the FDA. I appreciate the drug companies do some good work. It's a pity it is clouded by all the bad things they have done. I'd also like to prescription drugs prohibited from advertising on TV/web.
Good luck with that...
You know there is always the chance to discover something without experience or equipment, but that is rare - kind of like finding $20 bills on the street. Yeah, it happens but I wouldn't make a business model out of it.
Linux - Comp Sci is in a far, far earlier stage that most other sciences or practices. Secondly, just how much stuff in Linux that was paid for via another means was contributed? For instance, IBM spent billions on Linux, including the value of contributed materials that they (read their customers) paid for via traditional means. That's funding. Further, they intend to make a profit out of it by bundling it with traditional products that are paid for: Hardware, software, consulting...
How's that working out for you? Find a cure for HIV yet? Dengue? Marburg? Ebola? BSV? Malaria even?
Dr. Salk managed to find a vaccine for Polio without these expensive toys. When asked about the patent for his vaccine, he is quoted as saying:
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"Open source achieves the impossible"
- Bill Gates
It's strange, isn't it? That a man who spends his time currently as a philanthropist cannot understand people donating their time to free software.
Apparently it's only charity if you can spend it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You know, I usually hate when people post movie quotes but in this case, it seems like the only real reply.
'Mr Gates, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.'
Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,' he claimed...
Completely false. Not only can people improve the code, they can do so under a model that isn't too different from what he's familiar with (and, in some ways, pioneered).
If you wish to improve traditional proprietary software, you must pay the IP owner for a license to do so. The same is true for the GPL, except that the currency is different: instead of paying in money, you pay in code. How difficult is that to understand?
He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: 'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,' he said, adding with a shrug: 'That may seem radical.
Actually, you can charge for GPL software. You still have to follow the terms of the GPL -everyone who gets the software has to be able to get the source at no additional cost- but you can charge whatever you want.
Innovative free software was common before the more user oriented free software. BSD, Mach (the microkernel powering MacOS X), the X window system, TeX, and many early Internet applications were all both innovative when the came out, and free software.
There are two trends which can explain your impression. The first is the GNU project, which explicitly did not wish to innovate, just make a free version of Unix that happened to be technically superior. For the one component where they did innovate, the kernel, their GNU component failed, and an (initially) much less innovative kernel filled the spot instead. (Later, Linux has seen lots of innovation).
The other is the re-release of once unfree software under a free software license. That gave us stuff like Firefox and OpenOffice.org.
But for Firefox, remember that the original browsers from CERN and NCSA were free software, so even here free software pawed the way for non-free software.
Maye that is the trend:
1. Free software break new ground. This is because basic research is not profitable on the short term.
2. Non-free software commercialize the application areas. The touches needed to make it end user friendly is not interesting to the researchers, and the distance from a "proof of concept" to a "product" is short enough for private enterprise to span.
3. Eventually, competition will make the area "commodity", no big profit is possible. At this point, a free software license facilitating cooperation makes most sense.
You could argue the same happens with drugs.
1. Basic research is mostly done on universities, and/or financed by foundations such as Bill Gates own.
2. Drug companies do the expensive tests needed to make the drug approved, something that has little scientific value, but enormous practical and commercial value. They are awarded with a patent.
3. Eventually, the patent expires, and the drug becomes a commodity.
There is no reason why people shouldn't be able to create software, share the source, and give it away. If Microsoft's software isn't significantly better, they lose the market. That's life with competition, Master Gates.
Just as there is apparently no reason why Microsoft and other large corporations shouldn't be able to move jobs to countries where the labour is so much cheaper that your local employees can't compete.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
if i use the drug analogy and compare software to drugs i would think FOSS is some good quality marijuana grown in an organic garden no chemical pesticides or any other harmful methods used, and MS-Windows is some dangerous chemical drug cooked up by a mad scientist and sold on the street corners to its addicted customers at exuberant prices...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Anyone in their right mind that is involved in computing and has knowledge of the GPL knows that the GPL does not do what Bill Gates says it does. This is a fact. The GPL, in fact, does just the opposite of what is said by Bill Gates.
What Bill Gates is doing is preying on the fact that many decision makers have never taken the time to understand the GPL. He's essentially a "the sky is falling" type of guy who is doing this to scare development away from open source. He's attempting to do several other things, such as slowing the adoption of alternative OSes to Vista, putting some black marks on the face of ODT due to how much incredibly bad press OOXML has gotten, and trying to keep others from adopting another platform for the future development.
I mean really, the GPL has statements specifically which state you can modify, distribute, reap profits, etc. It just says that if you use the work and derive anything from it by distributing it, you must give back your changes.
Bill Gates, in this regard, is showing how incredibly stupid even one of the richest people in the world can be. Yet, this isn't stupidity in regard to the GPL because Bill Gates knows perfectly well what the GPL does and how it works and hence he isn't being stupid about it, he's being stupid in that the GPL is becoming widely known and people hearing his comments begin to really understand how insanely stupid his FUD really is--we are smart enough about the GPL now to know what he says is wrong. He's stupid because he is making these comments in direct contradiction to what the GPL actually does. He's not out to say that he wants to use GPL code in his product and he can't because he has to give back. This would be one of the biggest PR debacles of all time for a proprietard company. What he's saying is this:
Open Source and the GPL are succeeding beyond his wildest nightmares and he's upset that his closed source idea stealing criminal monopoly company is having difficulty competing.
In the end, maybe we'll have Linux become the general desktop for productivity applications, internet, music, movies, etc., and Windows will be the desktop for gaming. In the end, all software ends up in the same place, meaning that the feature sets are there, the bugs are whittled away, they go through an upgrade cycle. The difference would then be in what extras the computing platform provides. Since it is obvious that Linux has a huge base of development and that Windows has essentially be relegated to a few large corporations building the mainstay applications, then when the Open Source world's applications catch up (and is all free), the Open Source world will have succeeded Windows as the platform of choice. That's how it will be, it is inevitable. Is it going to happen overnight? NO. Not at all, but the coming is in the works and anyone with even a bit of foresight can see it happening. It's inevitable.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Well, you do make it obvious you didn't read the whole thing because what you argue here is the exact antithesis of the project. The difference between a console and PC gaming is that all the machines have the same hardware, the same OS and the same performance so developers dont' have to worry about that complexity and can optimize their code for that target of singularity. ;)
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
GPL is here to stay and is catching up MS products on almost every front. The resistance is futile ;)
Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse delendam.
Even billionaires know how to play that game.
Seriously, if I was Gates, I'd make comments like this every now and then just to stir up some Linux fanboi hysteria... Not like he has much else to do these days.
I'm just waiting for him to invoke Goodwin next. Gates: "You know, the Open Source movement in many ways resembles a kind of socialism first promoted by Hitler and the Nazis...."
(Yes, Linux fans, we're aware of how distorted this definition is.)
We? Who's "we"? Is "Dionysius, God of Wine" one of those accounts that a bunch of friends contribute to? Or is it him and Timmie? At any rate it's a rather wimpy rejoinder.
Open source, he [Gates] said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,' he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business.
I think Billy Boy was misquoted here, because it's fucktardedly wrong, and the richest man in the world can't be that stupid, can he? Or does he think that it's us that's stupid? But at any rate, Proprietary, closed source is the one that creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software." Open source is open by definition, and by definition anybody with the right skillset can improve it. If I want a better Firefox I can compile one. If I want a better IE I have to download Firefox or Opera.
And I bemoan the squandered money I spend when I buy closed source, particularly when I have to buy the same damned program over and over because the new version that I can't fix is completely incompatible with the old version. As the athiests say, thank God for open source!
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Damn you Bill Gates. You're spreading ridiculous notions of what open source is. He should have said the GPL is a license which makes it so that no one can ever improve the software and monopolize the market for its distribution. That would have been correct. As he said it, it's totally false and reality is quite opposite: the GPL makes it so that anyone can improve the software, forever. Microsoft software has the shitty ass disadvantage that no one "can" improve it except Microsoft plus no one can distribute it except Microsoft. This is a pretty dumb thing for someone to say, perhaps you get dumber with billions.
This is off topic, but you are wrong about pharma research. Most of it is done at universities by students and professors who then licenses it to the pharma company for a cut of the profits.
This is a flawed analogy for Bill to use as well: almost all universities (in the US at least) benefit from public subsidies, wether it be tax breaks, Pell grants for students or land grants when the university was built.
Another flaw with private pharma research is different companies will not co-operate. See the history of the 'AIDS cocktail' and how India had to ignore patents so they could make one pill with all three meds combined. This was better for the patients.
What a pile of tripe! The richest man in the world, who has built the biggest illegal monopoly in human history, is complaining about FOSS. He can go fuck himself with a fist punched up his ass.
Hmm... I distinctly remembered reading that different companies could implement the hardware, and missed the 'stringent hardware requirements' bit, sorry. I still think statements like "Graphics hardware in particular has recently hit a plateau" is a load of bull, because to double your graphics power, you basically just need to double up the transistor count, since graphics rendering is emminently parallelisable.. games controllers have also come in all variety of different shapes, but admittedly they do have a similar number of buttons and very similar functionality (apart from the Wii's controller of course). I do think though that if the dream came to pass and the standard was implemented by all the big players, that there would be less incentive to develop faster graphics processors unless the PC gaming market was still going strong?
which is totally what she said
'I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them,'
Yes you should be able to and you are. Where does it say in the GPL that one MUST charge money for the code, or to use it??? Hmmmm???
With GPL software, you are 'able' to sell it if you choose to, but the software must also be freely available to download and use for no charge as well. Perfectly legal.
So what's wrong with that Bill?? It's my G-Damn software. Not yours. So fsck off and go sell your software to the suckers who want it. No ones gonna stop you and you are 'able' to legally do so. I chose not to charge for it. So just who are you, Bill, to tell me that I HAVE to charge people for the software THAT I WROTE?? Hmmmm?
Gates is smarter than that, he knows this very well. But it's still a threat to his dinasour business model.
(This is offtopic, and I'm ok with that. I know I'm feeding a troll, but this does iritate me)
Here's what I do, because I'm cheap and don't mind helping the environment.
I ride my bike to Tim's. Lock it up outside. Walk inside. Give them my travel mug and order my double-double. I watch them pour the sugar, cream and coffee directly into my mug and hand it back to me. No paper cup. And I save my nickel (and gas money).
If you stop and think about what you are complaining about for a few minutes, you would realize you are not coming across as very bright.
Drive throughs are primarily for lazy people who don't care about money (have you seen the cost of gas lately) nor the environment. They also are for people who think they are in a hurry (more often they would actualy get faster service if they walked inside). For drive throughs to succeed, effeciency trumps all. Hence, they prepare your order before you get to the window - how can they do that without your mug? They waste a paper cup. Try ordering it black next time - no guarantees, but they might just pour direct from the pot to your mug...
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
is this article here? It's just a show of unethical behavior and the obvious. A competitor with a history of backstabbing plays down open source, is this actually news? It certainly isn't new. Wake up editors.
Not only that, but I also would love to have decent wireless support with wep and wpa configuration which is easy to use and *gasp* actually works.
.. you can not make one that works.
It's actually quite easy. If the OS doesn't support it yet, use hardware that does. Let me explain how easy it is.
Pick up any modern access point that supports client mode. Configure it as a client using any secure protocol you wish. Plug the CAT 5 cable into your laptop NIC. Surf. In testing this, I even tried it with a Windows 95 laptop which has no USB (not supported under Windows 95) and a 16 bit cardbus adapter. The laptop has no built in NIC. Using a NE2000 compatible 16 bit PCMCIA card, I was able to connect to a WPA router with Windows 95. It also works with Linux.
Many manufactures are unwilling to release driver specs because the power, frequency and other paramaters are regulated by the FCC or other regulations. 3rd party software may put the device into illegal operation, for example using settings for Japan while in the USA would be illegal and only limited by the version of the driver shipped to the American market.
Oh, and decent audio, open source should really make up its mind and create a good/stable/usable audio stack. Between oss/alsa/pulse/artsd/esd
Correction.. Try the one that does work great. Look up Ubuntu Studio. I use it for a low latency multi-track recorder instead of a high latency Windows version.
http://ubuntustudio.org/
As always, use proper sound hardware. On the cheap (under $50), the Behringer UAC series is plug and play for a reasonable quality USB sound interface. SB anything has serious hardware limitations if you are trying for recording at various bitrates and resolutions. Read the forums. before buying audio hardware. Firewire is also not a good linux choice at this time.
Audacity with a good mixer board and the USB adapter gives CD or DAT quality recordings. We use it for demo and practice CDs.
Windows requires long buffers so playback while recording is a problem. Ubuntu Studio uses low latency so layered multi-track recording is easy. Record the rhythm track, lay down the lead guitar track, then the keyboard track and bass guitar, and finish with the lead vocal. Now it's ready for the post production mix and adding the wet tracks with reverb, chorus, etc.
Audacity is easy to learn.
The truth shall set you free!
"We don't care."
So, Bill Gates says you can't improve open source software. Well, we know this to be a lie.
What you can't do is take someone else's work, make additions (I'll leave the subjective "improvement" classification to the gentle reader) and create a new product with your additions without also making your additions as available as the original work.
Bill Gate's and Microsoft sell boxes of crap. Lots and lots of boxes of crap. They don't care whats in them, nor do they care about the poor customers stuck with it. Witness Vista.
Their business model is the monopolization of commodity computer software that forces customers to buy boxes of crap from them.
Operating systems are a commodity. They all could easily be handled by a non-profit foundation.
Office packages, same thing, what else can you do to a smart typewriter? Spreadsheet? Drawing package?
Sure you can make incremental improvements, but innovation is over. Its done, we did it, lets move on. Set up a foundation to manage "Office Software" (This is sort of what ISO ODF should have accomplished.)
Microsoft doesn't want that of course, they can't compete on a fair basis without their monopoly because, lets face it, they suck. Their software sucks, their quality sucks, their tech support sucks, they completely suck. The only reason why people buy their boxes of crap is because they need to use it to communicate with other people who have Microsoft boxes of crap. As long as they have proprietary standards their monopoly is safe.
GPL would prevent their proprietary standards and would undermine their monopoly. Once people could use something other than a Microsoft Box of Crap (MBOC) they will. A lot of people I know have switch to Apple in the last two years because they are fed up with the Microsoft boxes of crap that they have been stuck with. Companies I work with have recently started using "OpenOffice" for contractors and employees without a demonstrated need for Microsoft office.
If Microsoft were actually a competent software company, they would be able to embrace GPL and create some very cool software and improve the public infrastructure (GPL). They could make tons of money selling boxes of MS GPL Office (people wouldn't care), really be open, and make money on support.
I guess being a monopoly, with all the suits, bribes, manipulation of governments, payouts, still pays better than ethical business.
"There's free software, and then there's open source"...
Bill Gates runs a software development company and looks at the GPL from that perspective, not from the users perspective which is the only thing that the GPL and GNU based software actually cares about.
Yes, the GPL license is totally biased towards the END USER's so called "freedom".
Yes, the GPL license prevents developers from expressing their freedom as a result of the GPL bias towards END USERS.
Since I'm also a developer I concur with Bill Gates on this. Freedom is restricted for developers who would like to take advantage of some excellent GPL and GNU code projects out there. Developer freedom is restricted since the GPL prevents the developer from maximizing their potential monetary gains by keeping THEIR enhancements to a GPL/GNU project secret and private.
In this regard the GPL license is anti-capitalistic, or more accurately "communal" or "communistic" since it creates "communal" property, specifically the piece of GPL licensed software in question, that prevents the developer from making a profit by selling his modified versions. The GPL requires that if you distribute your changes in binary form to others you must also distribute the source code.
It is a well known business practice of developers to keep their source code private and secret so that they can maximize their profits. The GPL prevents developers who would like to make money from doing so by this restriction.
Most developers who have looked into the GPL for profit purposes will have come to these conclusions and either looked for ways around it, as Red Hat and a few others have, or moved on to greener monetary opportunities in the software business.
The fact that the GPL license sets up a modern day "software commune" isn't surprising when you consider that the creator of the GPL was essentially a person with 60's hippy ideals. Which by the way is perfectly fine as it's his choice.
I am, however, surprised that Bill Gates would even bother commenting on this at all since these facts about the GPL and GNU software are well known. So what is really going on I wonder?
By the way before the GPL cult members attack the above conclusions (or me) for expressing a point of view that they find they don't like please understand that there isn't just one point of view on the GPL. There are many points of view and some of them are widely different than yours. They can be true at the same time. Yes, I know that many of you don't feel like you are in a "GPL cult commune" but that is sure what it looks like from over here (and when I stand in your shoes as I have).
You are free to use and develop software for the GPL license. Please continue doing so as some of it is actually quite good. Just don't expect all professional developers who wish to make money to join your GPL clubhouse.
Advice to Bill Gates: there are true free and open source projects such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, LLMV, Apache, etc... that would love to have injections of cash on the scale that Microsoft would bring and would love to have your participation. You can even keep some of your own changes to yourself as you wish. Oh, isn't freedom wonderful. Natually you can use the software for whatever purpose you want without paying anything for it, you can not hire any of the experienced developers who created it as you wish. It's up to you - as that's FREEDOM, TRUE FREEDOM for YOU Bill Gates. You can even make these decisions after you've worked with the True Free Open Software for years. As you wish. As you need for business reasons or whatever other reasons you might have. Welcome to the world of Truly Free Software.
Now let me run, because being this slashdot, I see the hordes of nerds come with the torches and pitchforks =oP.
Not everyone here is in attack mode but are part of a community to promote and improve the product. I meant to put this in my other response but hit send too soon. It's easier to attract with honey than with sour. Promoting FOSS anytime.
Oh, if you have a problem, post a request for help instead of a criticism. The hordes of nerds still come running, but with suggestions instead of pitchforks unlike closed source software problems.
Try criticizing the MS product license which permits installation on only one of your PC's instead of Open Office's GPL license which permits installation on all your PC's. The hordes defending the MS license with pitchforks will appear instead of the nerds who will help. One can be fixed, the other can't.
The truth shall set you free!
True, the idea that OSS stops anyone ever improving the software is hypocritical BS and FUD, BUT...
remember the GPL is very restrictive in that it doesn't allow linking with code released under certain licenses. That is, the GPL prohibits, say, linking with licenses like the APSL, meaning it's difficult to port things like Bonjour and ZFS to Linux well.
Overall, I dislike the GPL because it doesn't allow you to link your GPL-licensed code to, say, a shared (but not properly open) source bit of code. I tend to magnetise towards the MIT license, because it is GPL compatible and allows cross-linking with proprietary software.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
The underlying issue here is the difference between scarcity based ecominics and abundance based economics.
Our current economic system is based around trying to address the problem of limited resources and a general situation of demand being greater than supply. The most scarce resources (relative to demand), have the highest monetary value, which restricts overall demand and rewards those who increase its supply. There are many perversions and inefficiencies within the system, and can create a lot of unnecessary work, but its worst except for the all the others so far.
Instead of using barter, we now use money. It is very fungible, but has no intrinsic value in of itself; its only value is based on its scarcity. For instance, if the US government simply printed enough money to give every man woman and child one million dollars, it would not instantly cure poverty (as we would all be millionaires), but rather cause sudden hyper-inflation as the value of money would adjust according to its newly perceived scarcity level.
The GPL is based on the underlying idea of abundance economics. We assume that supply can easily meet demand, and that value should be assigned based on natural abundance and intrinsic usefulness. The idea is to maximise the total "usefulness" in the system, rather than trying to optimise "who" has it.
With things like software, once the initial work has been invested to create it, the cost of making a second copy is negligible. Thus if we remove any artificial scarcities associated with it, such as a monetary cost, we can maximise its intrinsic value by offering everybody a copy (this assumes less people would want it if it had a monetary cost associated with it, and that bandwidth and storage space where sufficient).
Which is more valuable, diamonds or air? If we started charging for air, would it become more valuable? And how much money, time and effort would it cost to create and maintain a system to monitor usage, charge money for and prevent unauthorized breathing? What would be the side effects in society as a whole to setting up such a system?
While free software lacks some of the financially driven man-hours of commercial software, the lack of financial cost and proprietary software licensing, means various other things in the system can be greatly optimized, such as access to source code, community bug fixing and even the ability to simply apt-get install.
Scarcity is based on fear, and that seems to be a fairly big driving force in most of our lives. If we lose our jobs, we can't pay the rent or buy food, thus we are often willing to work doing things we don't really want to do. When the things we produce and trade suddenly become abundant, we become afraid that we will not be able to create "scarce" things for the purpose of trade.
Bill Gates did become the richest man on the planet through putting a toll booth on top of something that was naturally abundant. In essence, continually renting software rather than selling it. The issue Bill Gates raises is how society as a whole will manage to allocate man-hours for future software development, if we eliminate scarcity. It is possible, and has been demonstrated, but simply requires a different business model. Its one that has proven can work, but is unlikely to lead to the profits Microsoft is used to making. Its a question of what in the system should we aim to optimise, and what are the side effects of optimising it in a different way.
It was the same question asked at the dawn of the industrial revolution, when cheap factory made goods suddenly reduced the scarcity of manufactured goods, thus threatening the livelihoods of those making things by hand. The issue will get even worse when we start inventing functional replicators and the ability to copy information starts to extend to being able to copy physical objects.
The truth is that by reducing the number of man-hours required to produce products for our needs, we increased the amount of stuff we could individually have,
If the entire landscape of software consisted of only GPL code (something Stallman and FSF advocate), could it support the millions of developers currently making a decent living writing (and selling) software? I would have to say, 'no'.
Billy Gate:
What's this? What this? Documentury?
Man right here, this is my business, you know? Sueing, scamming, whatever . .
It's slow, you know? Business is off, sales are down.
Seems like half my customers . . they don't even need me anymore.
They;re getting software free, off the web.
How am I supposed to compete with that?
Got IT? Well next time something works, don't blame Microsoft!
We didn't do it!
I wish we did . . .
What an idiot. Doesn't he realise? Can't he see? It should be "with which we disagree"! Not 'which we disagree with'!
A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.
Of course, one must point out that the GPL is in fact not an open license, but a Free Software license. As to the drug analogy being radical... In what way is the desire to make ridiculous amounts of money on an ancient patent radical? Its the norm!
And they do give. That's not a problem is it?
I'm not sure how coherent is the idea that it's necessary to invest so much in a simple doctor that most people cannot afford his care, so much in a medicine that the poor must remain ill. This is not how smallpox was eradicated.
Hey - there's a system in place for mainstream medicine and it's working for some. I'm not saying it's bad. It's great for the people who can afford it. More power to the people engaged in that system.
Now everybody else needs medicine and care too. Who are you to deny them?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
How's that working out for you? Find a cure for HIV yet? Dengue? Marburg? Ebola? BSV? Malaria even?
Come on. Modern medicine is expensive. The odd example of serendipitous discoveries that didn't cost and arm and a leg doesn't disprove that.MD
Who says? It happens all the time -- if it is advantageous. Companies develop compounds to market them together, support clinical studies of other companies, license out drugs that they don't want to develop, and exchange knowledge and data on scientific conferences. Not that long ago I actually received training from people who work for the competition. Pharma companies are fairly rational about this.
Packaging two drugs in one pill may be trickier because it actually amounts to help a competitor sell his drug. Companies often will draw the line there. But then, drug formulation is a difficult art too, and putting two drugs in one pill isn't as trivial as it sounds and may be far more expensive than you imagine.
As for universities licensing a drug to a pharmaceutical company in return for "a cut of the profits", they can try — but most universities don't have drugs to offer, only targets and tools, and they tend to have badly inflated expectations of what pharmaceutical companies are able and willing to pay for those. Such negotiations frequently drag out or break down. On the whole, companies far prefer to deal with commercial suppliers.
Open Office only exists because MS Office was created and people are to cheap to pay for it. Linux exits only because Unix exits and people are too cheap to pay for it. Without the progress of MS apps we would still be using that same apps that we were using in the early 90s.
While he is off by saying software will never be improved, he right that progress would be drastically slower.
And there is nothing wrong with wanting to get paid for your efforts. That's not greed. I doubt any of us go to work for free.
GPL on Bill Gates: "We disagree."
Nothing to see here. Move along.
At least open source software is free. I'm through paying for software that crashes and then being forced to pay for an "upgrade" to software that crashes, but needs an expensive new machine just to run... in between crashes. Vista, schmista, I'm sticking to XP until I figure this Linux thing out and then I'll probably say goodbye to MicroSoft products except at work.
As long as people keep telling me that Vista is -worse- than XP, I don't want any part of it anyway. Not even if it was free.
Innovation. You're doing it wrong.
I don't have a problem with his comments/opinion
I will mind if they translate this opinion into a form of policy to restrict our ability to develop open source and limit our choices in other areas of the computing world.
Do YOU go to work for free!? Is it greedy to want to get paid for your efforts???
When your medicine is so expensive that the untreated sick are infecting others you're not part of the solution - you're part of the problem.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I honestly believe that one of the reasons that there's so much support for FOSS is as a form of retaliation against Microsoft et al. If there wasn't such discontent against Microsoft and such general aboslute hatred of same, I think FOSS' momentum would not be quite the same. Sure, i think FOSS/Open Source would still be quite viable and alive, but this hatred motivation is quite strong and i believe it to be much stronger than the altruism factor.
I can't believe I'm reading this. You're arguing that because you can name diseases that haven't yet been cured, therefore there's no point to modern, research-based medicine?
I suppose you would prefer living in Medieval times. After all, their medicine didn't involve medical research using "expensive toys" like electron microscopes. And they didn't have pharmacutical companies which make "Bizarre drugs with side effects that kill you".
What they did have was a life expectancy of 20 to 30 years...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
there would be no evil profit-killing generic drugs. Yay Closed Source!
No, seriously, Gates chose probably the worst analogy he could possibly make. I mean, comparing closed source software developers to the kinds of companies which gouge people in need as much as they can? The kinds of corporations directly responsible for things such as the lack of proper medications in the poorer countries in the world? (because although there's often enough money to manufacture the drugs they have patents and hence international monopolies, which means even if they give the drugs away for free there's a limited supply since no one else is allowed to make them)
Basically our esteemed William used the worst possible example of the dirty side of Capitalism to characterize Closed Source software. Oops!
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
In the case of physical items, resources are required to produce each one. In that case, it makes sense to charge (and pay) for each one. Furthermore, in the case of particularly limited resources, it makes perfect sense that the resource should be controlled and rationed out (in most cases to the highest bidder), since otherwise the resources would just get exhausted and their potential benefits would not be optimized.
In the case of knowledge "items," duplication can occur ad infinitum at zero resource cost. Not only that, but tremendous social/economic benefit can be gleaned from that duplication. Therefore, the economic arguments that justify our handling of physical items do not apply to knowledge. Furthermore, the inclination to control knowledge (as one might control a limited physical resource) is outright economically harmful (one example being keeping drug research secret (in order to preserve a competitive advantage and resulting in astronomical RnD costs) rather than forcing open collaboration (in order to optimize the value of everyone's research dollar)).
Yes, research costs money, there is no question. However, taking control of every person in the world, so we can take control of how they use the knowledge we have given them, is not the only means of ensuring that researchers get paid. If it were, I would change my tune, but it is not. Give me an open-knowledge world and if all production of music, movies, research, etc., comes to a grinding halt I will agree that we should pass some laws. However, this simply would not happen...economically speaking where there is demand there will be supply, one way or another. Human entrepreneurial ability is where I put my faith...not ill-fated laws that cause great harm for an entirely imagined benefit.
As an aside, generally speaking, advocates of FOSS and/or file sharing do not also advocate rampant theft of physical property. That is very telling.
At the time the Walkman was released, there were no comparable portable devices for playing spooled cassette tapes. The Walkman, therefore, classifies as an invention.
One of the major innovations to the Walkman were realised with radical changes to the tape spooling, using spring mounted mechanicals, to prevent jogger-effect.
The devices continued to see several improvements in battery performance, weight, form-factor and headphones.
Cheers.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
"so that nobody can ever improve the software"
I think I speak for all of us when I say, "WTF?!?!"
Fear the penguin.
"I bet Stallman would flip out if he saw his implied improper use of the word "free software"..."
Stallman doesn't even know what free software is either. Recently, he posted on OpenBSD saying it contains "non-free" software (he was told, he says). After being shot down on that point, the argument narrowed down to OpenBSD's Ports repository "encourages" users to use "non-free" software so he still calls OpenBSD "non-free".
When it was pointed out to Stallman, who admits to doing no research of his own - only what others tell him, that GCC, EMACS and the FSF provide binary support for non-free software and, again, that is okay in his eyes because HE has a pure soul so it is justified but for others it is bad. The man is splitting hairs down to the nanometer on what is "free software" to the point to cause a no-win, perpetual argument.
> bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business.
OSS as a business model is a result of evolution. 25 years ago there were many business models in the computer industry. One of these became dominent, that of slash and burn. Using bundling, 'per box' pricing, vapourware, buyouts and simple theft, one company eliminated its competition and took most of the market for itself.
Other companies would struggle to make a living in a niche market, but this inevitably meant running their products on Windows and being a 'microsoft partner'. As soon as their revenue became worth taking MS would crush them, or buy them, or bring out their own competing product (probably bought from another).
The only survivors from this process were those that prevented stealing of the software, could fork it if the originator was crushed, and was dispersed so it couldn't be bought.
That the market today is made up of Microsoft plus a few partners too small for MS to bother with, Apple and FOSS is due entirely to MS killing off everything else.
MS's current attack is on the ultra portable laptops and ultra cheap PCs. ASUS eee, OLPC, and such are now being equipped with XP. This is not to make money, it is likely that it is costing MS millions to make it happen and the XP will be free, or almost free, just like the $3 XP Basic. MS is scared that Linux may become a business, create jobs, establish a market and show that Windows is not necessary.
There is nothing wrong with making money from products that you develop, as long as you are the one who actually developed the product. The idea of GPL is that two heads are better than one or in this case 2.xx million. What you cannot do is take the code that someone else developed under GPL, call it your own and make money from it. If Microsoft wants to make money, they should try being original for a change rather than consuming other companies to make up for their own inadequacies (Yahoo). They complain because the Open Source community is hitting them squarely in the pocket book and rightly so. I can put together a fully-functional Ubuntu system which does everything that Vista can and more, and not pay a nickel for software. Down with the man!
' Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,'
Whereas closed-source software is always improving?
I am sorry but I just spent an entire day fighting bugs in Word and Excel trying to document a product. After more than 10 years of development, for profit, closed-source, Microsoft Office is the most bug-ridden, annoying POS software it has been my misfortune to use. Damnit, Bill, I am not even trying to do anything sexy; just paste a few pictures, generate graphs and add a little text with running headers and footers. I spent more time fighting bugs than doing real work.
Pot, kettle, black!
One thing you can be certain, he is not dumb.
Rethinking email
OK, here we have it: Bill Gates himself admits that Microsoft is like the big pharmacy companies: 5 % R&D expenses, 95 % marketing expenses, and completely inflated prices.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Now that Bill has already established his history of destruction and decimation of the software community, now he can state anything he wants, even though it is ridiculous, inane and superfluous with complete disregard for the people of this planet. Bill Gates also pretends to care about people with philanthropy, which his tax analyst does out of malice for content of civilization.
note that even within the open source community there are factions opposed to the GPL.
The GPL is not the only open source license, and many people do not think it is a very good one. Licenses like BSD, MIT, BOOST, APACHE, and so on are seen as more free by some (including myself), and more compatible with other licenses.
The GPL is intentionally viral. Some people who live purely in the open source world see this as a good thing, obviously. However, myself and most other developers I know live in a mixed source world, and don't want the license from one library imposing it's license on your entire application.
GPL and LGPL are fine for some things; however, they have many surprising and not particularly well known clauses and ambiguities that make them poison when shipping commercial software.
February 3, 1976 AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS By William Henry Gates III To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market? Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000. The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour. Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid? Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft. What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at. I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software. Bill Gates General Partner, Micro-Soft
Bill Gates is a dumb ass.
That's not stopping us from using them for meaningful communication.
What virus has been eradicated since the invention of the electron microscope? Can you name one?
The electrons in this message are 100% recycled. No Bosons were harmed in its manufacture.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The difference is free as in the FSF's 4 freedoms and free as in "free of charge". There is no "Free". None of the FSF's documentation refers to "Free".
The capitalization just looks stupid.
http://outcampaign.org/
awwww
Have been considerable. NSA, NASA, many others have all contributed a great deal to free software.
When the government develops software it belongs to the people and should be distributed if possible. The same with collected data of all sorts.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
At the risk of being ignored and the slight chance of duplicating what someone else has said, I think Bill Gates has a sort of point.
As he is stating, there is a distinction between free software (BSD) and open software (GPL).
As I was reading the comments, there was the suggestion that his position is analogous to having a grocer not allow you to grow vegetables in your backyard. This is the equivalent of being against the BSD license.
If the grocer went further and said that if you found a better way of cultivating the crops and had to share it with them in order to eat their produce, then this would be a better analogy to the GPL.
The point is precisely that open source software carries viral consequences for the business that uses it. They can no longer make an improvement that advantages them -- they are legally required to share it with everyone. And in a certain sense, we do all gain by this since we gain the feature described.
In another sense, however, we experience a negative result. Businesses are no longer able to profit from ingenuity in the same way. Anything they do they must share, so they cannot reap the benefits of their own research.
Why did I just get an image of Bill Gates on a street corner in the bad part of town with a "Vista Ultimate" box under his trench coat?
Someone should should show bill gates microsoft's linux (yes they did try this, and there is a reason it didn't survive) and tell him to go suck it! GPL is the future Resistance is Futile!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now there is GPL and open license, and M$ complains of competing with free software.
Hurts to wear the shoe on the other foot, doesn't it?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
As he sure sounds like he was on something....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
clippy ? NO!
"Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries."
Where's my free copy of Vista? I wanna run it on my Pentium 3 machine crawling on 256MB of ram.
If you invent a drug you absolutely should have the right to charge for them. But if you invent a drug you should also absolutely have the right to give them away under any damn terms you choose.
-Tom
Open source, he said, creates a license 'so that nobody can ever improve the software,' he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business.
"Spike's working for Adam? After all we've done-- nah, I can't even act surprised."
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
BG: Fair is STUPID! We want JUSTICE! Gubernment: there you go. ... A few months pass...
BG: Justice is unfair, WE WANT REGULATION!
Gubernment: Ok then... ... a few months more...
BG: REGULATIONS IS NOT ENOUGH, We want SELF-regulation!!
Gubernment: Whatever man. Here's to you and THe Self-Aware Corporation!
BG: Thats more like IT!! >FREEDOM' AT LAST!!! MUAHAHAHAHAA
And so did the CorporateGovernmentTakeover movement take off.
Okay, that's assuming he was, no doubt his fanboys will argue he is/was.
I enjoyed his vague "ubiquitous computing" statements. Soon or later, ya, that will the case.
As for his take on the GPL I'm puzzled, usually once thieves go big they like laws which make it illegal to do what they did. Then again M$ was a one trick pony.
I agree with him to a point. If you invent something you should be able to profit from it.
If, however, you WANT to give it away (and tell everyone how it works, and how you made it)... I don't really get why that's a problem.
The GPL is voluntary. If you don't want to give back your changes in the open source, then it's just like a commercial license -- the code within is off-limits.
Fair enough all around. MS can keep their code under wraps. Others can GPL it.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Wow, this seems really timely given the subject matter. Perhaps this is what Bill meant? Freedom from Intelligence The True Meaning of "Free Software" http://www.theobjectiveobserver.com/articles/technology04.shtml
Bill gates is on drugs with his life mate ballmir(or however you spell it). we all know he's gay and hates open source.
wtf, that's retarded. isn't it the whole premise of open source that people -want- to improve it (hence allowing everyone access to source code), with or without compensation..! obviously, compensation is important for pharmaceutical companies where R&D is really expensive. for OS software development, the cost is really just man- (or woman-) hours, and if people -want- to develop then let the code be free!
If you don't like the GPL, don't use GPL'd programs and libraries - and don't license your software as GPL. If you're still after open source, choose public domain or BSD for example then.
What he criticizes GPL about is not what the GPL is about! So the critic is totally groundless and misleading.
There is an error in your reasoning. You are conflating the world public and the U.S. public. Currently the research for medications is paid off by a combination of taxes and the profits from selling and licensing to people around the world. With the current method, the world benefits and the world helps pay for the R&D. In the theoretical "give away the results" situation, the world benefits and the United States pays for the entirety of the research. That is a significant difference.
The fatal flaw in all pro-proprietary arguments which bag the GPL for being "viral" or restricting the manner in which you can make extensions is that GPL is INHERENTLY less restrictive than proprietary software.
This is because the GPL specifically grants end users with additional rights (beyond copyright), and doesn't take any away.
Hence, say what you will about the GPL if you are advocating a less restrictive license (such as BSD), but you cannot claim the GPL is restrictive if you are advocating a proprietary license.
Open source promotes competition
Closed source promotes collusion
Slashdot = Sarcasm
So, you get a free lunch and complain because you can't sell in in the streets?
Oh and clearly, no GPL software has ever improved.
Nothing to see here, move on.
"16-bit cardbus" does not exist, you mean plain PCMCIA (cardbus is a 32-bit extension to PCMCIA).
Secondly, there are 16-bit, PCMCIA, Wifi adapters that work with Windows 95 (I've used them), the old Orinoco and Prism chipsets for instance (and they are also supported by Linux).
Using an ethernet-to-wifi setup is a workaround. Easy-to-use linux Wifi tools suck (but at least they exist, I've yet to see a comprehensive GUI for bluetooth for instance).
NetworkManager: No support for roaming. Doesn't properly handle wifi adapters than can be turned on/off or removed. Causes system to hang while it searches for the preferred network on boot.
Wifi Radar: No WPA support. Never connects first time on my system, sometimes refuses to connect at without help from the command line.
Wireless Assistant: WPA support does not work (for me), had to write a wpa_supplicant configuration file manually and set it to run wpa_supplicant before connecting.
Seriously, how hard is it to write a decent GUI wrapper for iwlist, iwconfig and wpa_supplicant?!
If you're going to compare with extreme communism, compare with extreme capitalism.
Extreme capitalism leads to a feudal system.
that some licenses prohibit linking with GPL. After all, if ZFS were licensed differently, it would be possible to link it to GPL code.
BSD can manage it. Apache can manage it. MIT can manage it.
...that money doesn't always equal brains. Or maybe he's just lying. Take your pic, his products, his persona, and his legacy are all pretty much a standing joke for most tech people already, and it's not going to get better when he continues this ludicrous Luddite act.
Next thing you know him and Jobs will start a foundation against Linux. Oh wait, I think they already have that.....
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Wait, he didn't GPL that speech, you are so gonna get sued for that code fix! HACKER!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
well there is never black (x)or white ...
... they rely on the "community" to effectively make a working version 0.1 or even lower
... all i made public yet is educational only and never intended to be a usable software at all.
... sometimes the lgpl is suitable too ;)
however though open source is a good thing when you need to alter some little things (or bit bigger too)
gpl does not provide the whole meaning of open and free of use.
however some stuff thats made public under gpl is crap
a usable software takes time to create and opensource projects really profit of few contributors only...
these should be rewarded.... as they deserve, though (not disproportional)
however
so if you make some useable software consider to use bsd or alike
free pirated windows, free viruses, no free anti-virus....
or is it just me...
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
nice.
Bill, wait and watch.
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
typical "communist violence" reports often include, after a paragraph of volumnious adjectives and possibilities, a small note like this (if they do...): ... :-)
out of the 100 killed, about 10 dead were from the so-and-so group.
which means the 10+ killed 90 communists in what they label "communist violence"
Flawless reporting.
Sorry to mix issues here, but interested people can head over to http://www.anti-cnn.com/ to see exactly this type of manipulation by the media. A golden rule in the print media is :
The bottomline is the headline.
Screw it well and you get more spice, or sometimes a good *price*
Bill has always been multi-talented. I guess, after microsoft, he's headed towards News Corp. That's what he's probably planning and practising for
Realistically speaking, he's lost most other options, I guess.
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
The smallpox vaccine predates the electron microscope by 135 years. This vaccine is the only one FDA approved for use today.
Although electron microscopy was available in 1931, some 24 years prior to Dr. Salk's Polio virus treatment I don't believe they were used.
Perhaps these fancy tools were used in the modern refinements to polio vaccine:
HPV vaccine
There is no chance that a vaccine that costs $360 a course is going to eradicate anything.
Help stamp out iliturcy.