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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."
short-sighted
[/grammar police]
Ok.. so tell me what has OSS innovated? What was new and radical that others have tired to copy?
Real tech support
stability that the people making the "free" won't get bored and move on to something else
stability from knowing that it's not a one-man project
product liability
knowing a problem can be fixed without requiring an armada of high paid consultants
etc, etc, etc.
Seems open source takes a whole lot off the table from the very start.
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.
That's the problem with people who have never worked in IT... they can't understand how a person providing a good or service in exchange for money isn't greed. The idea that a company would be happy to pay if it gains them assurances of support should something go wrong is completely foreign to FOSSies.
There's a reason MS and Apple have successfully competed against "free" for as long as Teh Lunix and Teh FOSS have been around.
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.
No, you would probably go down in history as an idiot that doomed Africa.
You see, it costs money to develop drugs. Money that usually isn't just lying around waiting for someone to need it. It comes from people that want something for their money. They would be happy to lend you the money to develop your drug, but they want something for it. If you don't want to help them, they certainly aren't going to help you - or the rest of the world.
So, likely as not under your terms nobody would ever develop your drug to save Africa. Africans would keep on dying and you would go down in history as a selfish monster that was responsible for millions dying needlessly.
It isn't greed to get paid. It is instead greed to think that everyone else should support you because you are a nice person.
Wow, submitting an XML schema for ISO standardization. That's a HUGE innovation. Good thing other people are willing to copy this "innovation" or ISO would be rather bored from a lack of submissions.
Unless of course, you're implying they actually COPIED something from ODF into OOXML, your argument is rather weak.