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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."
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?
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.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
I think Gates was (awkwardly) trying to make a philosophical statement, akin to his infamous declarations that open source was communism. He clearly doesn't account for the fact that software does not have to be sold as a for-profit-license-lease system like Microsoft does, but rather can simply be one aspect of a service-and-support business model, rather like how printer manufacturers practically give away printers but make their money off the ink cartridges and specialty paper.
I don't think Gates is consciously lying. I think he's just a demented wealthy has-been who has long hated and feared open source, but never really bothered to understand what it is or why it's such a successful development model.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ah Ha! Your forgetting about Netbios! They invented a newer, buggier version of existing DNS protocols. I doubt anyone would own up to that particular mess.
I'm a little bit confused by Mr. Gates assertions that somehow there is some gun to the heads of everyone who uses the GPL.
This reminds me of the new standard that CEOs are using for suing their competitors. According to them, if they have a competitor that has cut into their profits, they have a "fiduciary responsibility" to their shareholders to sue the competitor in order to "protect the interests of the shareholders". Even when there is no reasonable cause of action - no damage, no harm, no violation of patent or trademark. Even if there isn't a reasonable expectation of winning the suit, a suit is brought to cover the ass of the CEO for letting the competitor make headway.
I get the feeling that Gates is sort of doing the same thing. Even though he knows his charges are completely bogus, he feels he has to bring them anyway because something he considers "competition" has appeared in his rear-view mirror.
Nice system these "free markets", huh?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Businesses improve on GPL products all the time; IBM, Sun, even Apple. They do it for profit too.
Bill's point was that businesses can't take GPL software and improve upon it or link proprietary software to it without the viral nature of the GPL taking over.Yeah, that sure is a problem for him. Also, I can't take Stephen king's novels, improve on them and resell them without the viral nature of copyright laws taking over. Gates is just being two-faced. He wants to make a profit selling copyrighted software, but he doesn't want to pay the people developing copyrighted GPL software their required fee (any code added and distributed in future).
The proof is in the pudding, they made use of a BSD based TCP/IP stack and TCP tools for many years before they rewrote them. Obviously they don't have a problem with BSD licensed software, only GPL licensed software.Microsoft's business model and entire culture is based upon locking in users and making it hard to switch to competing products. Pretty much everything they make includes such a component. They don't like GPL software because it makes this sort of lock in impossible and forces companies using it to constantly offer the best product all the time or lose out to competitors. Actually keeping their products competitive based upon real features and merits is not as profitable.
Laissez-faire would imply the absence of patent and copyright laws, would it not? After all, those are instances of government-dictated feasibility.
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
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.
Most GPL code is written by people paid for their work. Especially most of the code from the most popular projects. There's no reason you can't pay people for drug research and then open the results. Seeing as the public is paying for ALL drug research anyway (whether through grants, tax-breaks, or just the purchase price of the drug), why not fund drug research publicly and give away the results?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
If someone wants to deny you life saving drugs because you're broke, and you'll die if you don't get them, can any action you take to get those drugs be wrong?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
As a Linux user and student, I have paid for free software. Testdisk comes to mind. Of course, it's called a donation, but whatever. I would pay $20 for that given the chance. I'm glad I didn't have to, though, because when I needed it I couldn't have given the $20 fast enough (no credit card)
Bull shit. You must have some self-maintaining garden, or otherwise your figures are WAY off. There are a lot of private farms that handle their own distribution on a subscription model, grow small quantities so storage is not an issue, and charge a hefty premium for all-organic, locally grown produce. Their economy of scale is much better than yours, and their margins do not resemble what you are describing at all.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
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.
If you want to talk "protecting the interests of the shareholders"...
Why does no one ever say THIS is the reason Microsoft creates crappy software?
As a corporation, Microsoft does not make most of it's billions in the software they create, rather the services and support they sell alongside those products.
Also, as a corporation, they are required BY LAW to act in the interest of their shareholders. So, if Microsoft was to create a beautifully written, bug-free software product, they would be doing their shareholders a disservice because not many people want support for software that works.
As crazy as that sounds, if you think about it's not too far off. In my opinion, THIS is why open source software is better, because they aren't legally obligated to keep bugs in the system just so they get their support contracts renewed.
I think a few quotes from one of my favorite articles ever explains this quite nicely:
Nathan's blog
The support information usually is free both in the free speech and free beer senses. The problem is just that a mediocre man page and some sparse comments in the code is not want many people want. You're not paying technical support people and consultants to quote the manual to you. You're paying them for the fact that they actually know the information already and understand it better than you.
At least, that's the theory. Some of them are clueless, too, but hopefully those don't stick around in the business long.
True for vegetables, but open software often IS really free(gratis) for the bulk of users.
That's because once the veges are used, they no longer exist, and sharing them reduces the amount available to each consumer. The cost of software is all in producing the first copy. Subsequent copies are free.
In fact, Bill G is talking gibberish because there's no way to talk logically about the huge cost of the software industry.
Low-cost reproduction is a troubling flaw in capitalism, and has been for a long time. Britney Spears and Bill Gates do not themselves produce anything that is valuable enough to justify society's rewards to them, but while their cost to each individual in society is low, we tolerate it.
Our socio-economic system is badly skewed as a result.
The media barons of Fleet St, et al, were the first of course, and it's interesting to see that in the centuries that have followed, capitalism has still failed to evolve a solution to that flaw.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."