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Only Idiots Don't Give Back To Free Software
Julie188 writes "Downstream projects who take without contributing back to the upstream project defeat the benefit of open source and sooner or later, all organizations developing on top of open source code will realize this, contends Jim Zemlin, executive director of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. So the time for cajoling those users — even commercial projects like Canonical — into participating is over. Contributing is 'not the right thing to do because of some moral issue or because we say you should do it. It's because you are an idiot if you don't,'" he says."
Update: 08/30 21:40 GMT by S : Reworded summary to clarify that Zemlin wasn't referring to end users.
Contributing back takes money and can be counter-productive for the community too - especially if it's introduces lots of buggy or bad code. Someone has to go through all of that. This is especially true because whatever you say, making actual contributions takes time and isn't really high in the list of companies priorities. You can say all you want about short-term thinking, but it's just a fact of life. Companies can't really do anything with it - unlike most people seem to think, many companies are working with really strict budgets too. They don't have unlimited access to cash or resources.
If you truly believe in open source, you should let anyone to decide what they do with the code. Some will contribute back, and those will be good contributions. Then some won't, nothing is lost. The same is why I think BSD license is much better GPL - if you truly believe in freedom, you let everyone to decide themselves. After all, open source was created to free people from proprietary code and people telling them what they can't do.
I thought the benefit of Open Source was that the receiver can modify it.
The context of the statement was (intentionally) left out of the headline and summary. This isn't about end-users. Zemlin is talking about the financial incentive for contributing back to projects whose code a business or other organization is using. In other words, if your business tries to do things on its own, such as maintaining its own kernel, it's making an idiotic business decision because it's not benefiting from collective maintenance and improvement.
Here is the relevant section in the article:
Hardcore open source (well, fill in anything here, but in this case it's an open source guy) advocate thinks doing thinks the way he thinks should be done is smart, and doing things other ways is stupid.
For someone who's a professional advocate for Open Source, I don't think he makes a very compelling argument that it's in everyone's enlightened self-interest to give as well as take. Certainly I've seen better arguments to that effect in slashdot comments.
Yes, call us idiots. You know, not everyone is a computer programmer. There is a reason we are called the users. We use. Others make. I use a program because it does a task for me. Leave the task of writing software to those with the ability and interest to do so.
its millions of people trying to contribute code.
Not for trying to get money for the people you represent, but for calling people idiots and expecting them to open their wallets.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
...sometimes idiots *do* give back to free software.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
...the difference between open source and a proprietary model is to allow people to be idiots? Correct me if I'm wrong.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5wFDWP5JwSM#t=30s
If you are an idiot, it's probably better if you keep it to yourself.
His comment is about organizations, such as Linux distros, using open source code and not contributing back their changes to take advantage of the collective maintenance of open source code. That's why he uses the phrase "upstream project" in the summary and calls it a good business decision in TFA.
Here all along I thought we were a cut above the rest. Now we're idiots if we don't pony up. He's sounding like Steve Ballmer.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
then it's a GOOD thing they arn't contributing their idiocy to these projects, rendering the end result idiotic.
Guess I'm an idiot then......cause I haven't given anything for the Linux stuff I use.....or all those free Apps for my Mac and iOS device.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Contribution isn't just about programming. A feature request is contribution. Documenting how you used the software to achieve something and sharing that is contribution. Even a good clear bug report is a contribution. All of these things can make the software more useful, no programming required.
If you do cross over into the programming end of things, it's a total no brainer though. Do you want to maintain your private fork of the code with your feature in it, or do you want to hand it back to the hackers and let them make it better for you...
Only an idiot expects to get something for nothing.
Indeed. Hell, if everybody was a programmer, nobody would need one. We "idiots" keep programmers in business.
This open source mindset that you should give back. Is really a bad way to look at it.
If you are just focused on giving back on Source Code or Money then he is not seeing the big picture.
OpenSource Developers kinda scoff at the value of market share.
The fact that someone is just using the product is giving back. Because it is one more person who will probably use the product again if they like it. They will use it in work where others will learn and use the product. Then at some point there will be a need to change something and someone in the chain will want to add to the project. However if the person using the product will feel guilty using it, they probably will not let it spread to others as they don't want to share guilt with others. Thus reducing the chance it will fall in the hands of someone interested in fixing it.
The fact that the TiVo used OSS software could have allowed for a much rapid growth as other manufactures would begin using OSS and they would have contributed back, mostly because it may be cost effective to have those changes as part of the main code line vs their own patches. But the OSS community went and said Ohh look their Bad lets make GPL3 that stops these evil money making people from using OSS in that way. Basically sending a chilling effect across the industry. Microsoft mess up big time. They allowed their flagship products to linger for 10 years, Open Source Software was seen as ready to take its place... But they stepped on their own feet and made their rules even tighter, allowing Apple to come in and take the gold.
At work I had to be sure I never imported a GPL Library, because the rules would conflict with the companies business model.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Network World and /. have both given this story an unnecessarily inflammatory slant. Zemlin's argument is "Maintaining your own fork of Linux for your product or service is an absurdly large amount of work for precious little return - if you let your business put much time into such things when there's no benefit to your business maintaining its own fork; it could simply pass patches upstream and let upstream take on some of the maintenance worries, you're being an idiot".
Arguably, there is some logic to this. Lots of companies sell Linux appliances - either as virtual appliances, pre-loaded on hardware or as embedded systems - make changes to lots of things but never submit patches upstream.
I think I'm starting to see why corporate PR-spun statements are always so bland. There's no way a corporate PR department would let something like that through precisely because of the likelihood of such slanted articles resulting from it.
Are they idiots for not wasting their time on the project or for using some crapware 10 years behind commercial state of the art, anyway?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Yeah, I mean, look where that got Linux.
Contribution isn't just about programming. A feature request is contribution. Documenting how you used the software to achieve something and sharing that is contribution. Even a good clear bug report is a contribution. All of these things can make the software more useful, no programming required.
In theory, yes.
In reality, no.
Feature requests are ignored. Bugs are ignored. (There are some exceptions, of course, but as a general rule open source projects are disastrous at considering feature requests and bugs that don't have accompanying source code.)
Comment of the year
So what he's essentially saying is "if you don't believe or act like me, you're an idiot". He'd be a perfect fit for our Congress. Hey - I even have a campaign slogan for him: "Vote for me or you're an idiot!"
I always thought of reporting bugs to the developers as a way of giving back. If I were a developer, I'd be grateful to every bug report. But with the recent debate about the long list of unconfirmed Firefox bugs, I now begin to feel like someone who asks for free lunch. That's an unfortunate trend. That way, I'll end up figuring out a workaround to the problem and keep it to myself. Wasn't the idea that the wheel shouldn't be invented again and again one of the main reasons to adopt and advocate FOSS?
most open source utilising services don't contribute back and they don't even need to give source to users.
why? because the "software" runs on their server machines, they never give the software away, they just give access to using that software. this web 5.0 stuff just pushes more sw to that road.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...I guess my choice is clear.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
It depends on why you made the changes in the first place. If you did it just to be a nice guy or whatever, then it makes sense to contribute back. If you made changes because you think the changes give you some sort of advantage over your competitors, then contributing back may make you the idiot.
I guess that would depend on whether my private fork would somehow give me a competitive advantage or not. Would the iPad sell as well if anyone could have iOS running on any old tablet. I guess it just depends on what you are trying to do. Apple gives back to open source in many ways, but they certainly don't give back everything as that would negate their efforts in setting themselves apart.
Only idiots build free software
I know of a company who needed 16 bit GIMP so they made the changes needed and tried to contribute them back, but it was rejected. They found out later that they were not the first to offer this fix, all were rejected. Now GIMP is still 8-bit despite the need for the greater depth.
The fact that we can talk to Linux users contributing back to the community is a wonderful thing, because how many software vendors will accept anything more than feature requests and bug reports from its customers and distributors.
Yet I also think that this idea of reciprocity is dangerous. It is great that Red Hat contributes code for code, but what is wrong with Ubuntu packaging up the system in a palatable form in exchange for code? Or, to go further afield and look at the user (yes, I know that the article is not about users), what is wrong with a charitable organization using Linux without returning anything to the FLOSS ecosystem? They are, after all, contributing to society in other ways.
What matters in the great scheme of things is that we give as much as we take.
Great engineers write code because they love to and cant stop. Mediocre and lousy engineers write code (for some reasons) so they get ego points "contributing" to open source and hope to pad their resume. The great engineers then have to evaluate and fix their lousy code. Or it slips by and the whole suffers. I would love help from the great engineers for my open source projects but would prefer no help at all from the rest. Even then it will take work to make sure its up to my standards or biased egotistical opinions. "Its a cathedral not a bazaar". The best software I've ever seen and used was written by very few people, usually only one. A few exceptions (say Linux itself) but shouldn't be taken as the model for Open Source but rather a magical exception.
I am an idiot and I worked tireless hours working for free. Now I want you to become an idiot as well
"Submit a patch" is open source's way of telling you to fuck off.
Submitting a bug report usually gets some response like expecting the user to build the thing from the source repository and repeat the bug.
The author of TFA and the submitter of this story are the same person - Julie Bort. She is just creating sensationalist nonsense news by extracting sound-bites out of context from the interview. This is an example of a bad summary, and bad, sensationalist "journalism". This loses the point of the interviewee and projects him in a bad light, while getting self-promotion for this so-called "reporter". *makes mental note not to take any writing by Julie Bort seriously*.
Absolutely. Tripping over a bug and submitting a good bug report is quite valuable. If you can include the necessary information to reproduce the bug then you have gone way more than halfway towards fixing the bug.
With modern linux distributions you don't need to be a technical expert to file a bug. The system will catch the crash automatically and hold your hand as you prepare the bug report, and then it will submit the report for you. It's not hard at all, and will pay off directly for you, if the developers fix the bug and you don't encounter it any more.
Politicians do it. Large companies do it. They don't know how to cure cancer, nor do they know how, but they're good at raising money or making money. Those entities donate to Cancer Society because that's the only way they know how to help.
I can't code to save my life, but I am willing to donate money to open source projects. Am I an idiot? I suppose. But I have other skills (graphic design, art, etc). Likewise, I could call him an idiot for not knowing how to do the things I'm good for; the things that I do as my profession.
incredibly fucking awesome engineers get paid megabucks to do their job and then they jump in their Ferrari, go home to their lingerie model wife, get a blowjob right before their private chef serves them their meal, and then, if he's in the mood, bangs her sister - the swim suite model - while the wife watches and masturbates.
BTW, you'll never see them post on Slashdot because:
They're creating awesome World saving software
They're shopping for a new Ferrari
Banging their model Wife or her sister or her lingerie model friends or all of them at once.
Or he's reading tech journals while sipping single malt 500 year old scotch.
Sleeping from all the work and model banging he has been doing.
Yes, call us idiots. You know, not everyone is a computer programmer. There is a reason we are called the users. We use. Others make. I use a program because it does a task for me. Leave the task of writing software to those with the ability and interest to do so.
You didn't read the article, it's about people who improve the code and don't give back the improvements.
Aside from that, merely being an advocate is a good and valuable contribution to an open source project. The more users there are, the more attention a project gets, the more bug reports get filed, the more programmers hear about it and use it.... etc.
You can file bug reports, yes? It's in your own best interest to do so, and it's a good feeling merely to point out a bug and see it fixed. And it makes the software you use better.
But that isn't what the article was about, the tag line is misleading.
They're still better at it than proprietary software. In the worst case scenario, you can fix it yourself or hire someone to. In the best case scenario, I've had, on some rare occasions, bugs fixed in open source software the same day I reported them. I've never had a bug fixed in any proprietary software ever.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The title of this post is way too inflammatory. I suppose it would be OK if everyone read the article, but they are already pissed off. All the non-programmers (and some of the programmers) feel they have been directly insulted. And without the context of the article, they have.
Basically it's a troll that evoked a flame war, it should not have been posted that way.
There are tons of different ways to "give back" IMO.
For example; a company like Ubuntu may not contribute actual code, but by promoting and "modelling" Linux the way they do they manage to attract the attention of many people. People of which some could turn out to be potential contributors (not everyone can properly code, just like not everyone can properly document stuff).
SO if someone claims that Ubuntu "doesn't give back" then I think he or she is an idiot who doesn't seem capable of looking beyond "what's in it for me (or us)".
boy talk about trying to insult people. Ya know what your an idiot if you speak like him.
(paraphrasing...) The good of the many outweighs the good of the of the one.
I always thought the purpose of open source was to contribute to the collective of man-kind's resources. That the idea was to increase the value of what we all possess and have access to, in an effort to increase quality of life and human knowledge. Isn't it the concept that if you contribute to the pool, so will others, and we will ALL benefit from our shared resources and intellect?
It is simple... users contribute simply by using... which increases demand. Without demand, there would be no product. Thus, by someone using an open-source product, they are contributing to the demand. The higher the demand, the more opportunity for said product to evolve.
...read a slashdot summary and automatically assume it represents the article, the truth, or any combination thereof and then go off half cocked with their posts.
The article makes a relevant point; if you don't contribute IN SOME WAY to something that helps your business or organization perform or compete, then you are an idiot because you are shooting yourself in the foot. It's why I got involved with the projects I have in the past, it's why I try to stay involved in Joomla!; namely because they benefit me and my clients and ask for little in return.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Except Ubuntu, which can best contribute by keeping unity contained to it's own OS.
I'm speaking as someone who used to pay the license fees for shareware that I used.
With GPL'd software, I can contribute DIRECTLY to the people writing the code. And I have done so.
And I will do so in the future.
Now, some people will think that I'm the stupid one for paying for something that they're getting "free" (without paying in this case).
So what? What do I care what they think? Why should I care about which license they think is "better" or "more free" or whatever else? Why should I spend any more of my time trying to convince them if they don't see the situation in the same way I do?
There will ALWAYS be a segment of the population that thinks that they're smarter or whatever because they don't pay for something they use.
If you can get all of your changes accepted upstream, you don't have to bother distributing your changes
If? More like "as if". The maintainers of Linux appear not to want Google's Android patch set.
I thought it was funny.
God! You people are sooooo fucking serious!
Yes. Because using the word 'idiot' to describe people who don't do what you want/expect them to do is a GREAT way to convince them to change their ways.
My code is trash. I don't want to pollute so I don't contribute.
Oh boy, an ad hominem attack. I'm sold!
Is that the thought process they're expecting on the other side?
I didn't even bother to read the article, because plainly whoever wrote it is a pompous ass.
Now that I've got that out in the open, they should be humble and gracious going forward.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I build embedded Linux systems, I will not modify any code. Only use the platform to run our proprietary applications. Although I would love to contribute code back, this is not possible because whilst we use a lot of foss we don't change anything. I can easily see why there will be more companies that are in this position. For me the only thing I can give back to the community is helping people on a forum or mailing list.And I believe that is just as important as contributing lines of code.
Open source is just open source but the licenses reflect different ways of thinking about open source
One way to look at it
BSD, MIT etc licenses are akin to contributors donating code. "Here is code we found useful, feel free to use it any way you like"
LGPL is about contributors sharing code. "Here is some very useful code you may want to use but don't make it your own by modifying it unless you want to share all your code as well"
GPL is about producing code under a specific ideology/religion. "This is community code and is maintained as community code. You can use it as community code if its fits your purpose but it will never be your code unless you are also interested in creating community code"
The expectation of getting back also goes up as you go down that list because of that thinking but it also means the level of activity and community size goes up.
If something is open source or free then why complain about anyone not giving back? If you think people should give others something then perhaps they should charge or put more restrictions on it.
Do I donate money for using CCLEANER for free? No. Why? Because its free. Same thing with linux
That's like saying the ten commandments are not restrictive because you never wanted to sleep with your neighbour's wife in the first place, though you wonder after he wanders off on a three year sea voyage whether he is similarly disposed toward the marital customs of half-naked illiterates. The GPL must be the world's first moral code offering nothing to adhere to.
I don't give Linux much credit for pioneering open source. Yes, and Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin that he built his own hands. There's a reason why Linus rather than Steve Gibson is responsible for the Linux kernel: Linus had the wits to build on what came before him. At a minimum this included GCC/binutils, the TCP/IP network stack, Perl, TeX/LaTeX/Metafont, and the X Windows system, all of which claim greater precedence for pioneering in the collaborative space.
Linus was more like the Larry Wall of collaboration: he was gifted for the task of polygamous union. As it turns out, Perl wasn't the only way to do it. The great progenitors always leave a stamp of their gifts and weaknesses. While we're at it, let's give America full credit for the invention of democracy, and ignore any role the establishment of the British parliament might have had in this story. Let's forget Thompson, Ritchie, Kernighan, Hume, and Smith. There weren't there at the beginnings of the one true metropolis.
The GPL solves a problem in game theory concerning the forward gifting society which facilitates cooperation by replacing the technicalities of forward gifting with the established custom of a broad social institution. It's an eigenvalue in the game theoretic matrix of cooperation/competition. There are other eigenvalues, too, such as the BSD model, and the proprietary model.
I often read that there's enough food in the world to feed everyone; as soon as we distribute this food so that everyone eats, we can cross proprietary off the list as a gruesome expedient of our savage past. Proprietary is also a distribution model, but you can see the cracks already. The last three winners on Survivor all signed a blood bond in the first episode to honour the GPL.
Sometimes I think the GPL came to Stallman in a flash of insight while watching A Taste of Armageddon back in 1967. The whole system would be so much more efficient if we just flipped a coin to determine those who will starve. If you're going to subject yourself to a coin flip about stepping into the suicide booth, you want to first examine the source code. If the booth were provisioned by Diebold, it could be a gruesome end. No one would take that risk, and nirvana would die on the drawing board. Seriously, that whole episode makes you think deeply about the provenance of the source code. Spock muttered "fascinating" but the crew had learned by then not to ask.
That episode should have been titled "An Eigenvalue Too Far", but this was before Slashdot and the four digit user ID, so there was no-one to get it.
I also think Stallman was influenced by some of those 1970s PBS series on the origins of life in which replication puts the yin/yang hammerlock on metabolism. Source code is replication. Metabolism is everything else everyone contributes to pushing the source code around. Metabolism does not function in the role of the one true eigenvalue, so it was quickly discarded on the road to manifesto. Putting all your eggs into the metabolism basket as Ubuntu tends to do is kind of risky for the long term concerning those mysterious failures of the uniform distribution of metabolic inputs from our savage past. Replication is king.
After all that, what is this guy actually saying? You might stray into metabolism, but sooner or later you'll succumb to the blinding light of the one true eigenvalue and return to the flock?
The curious thing, though, is the tendency of the one true eigenvalue to wink out like a dying star, only to be replaced by an even b
Doesn't that make it NOT free?
People somehow feel "if I take something as big as Linux, it would be only fair if I contributed something of similar scale. And since I can't, too bad..."
No. If a set of pieces of software is used by 100,000 people, and each contributes equivalent of only 0.001% of the volume/workload/cost of the set, then the set will double in size.
Grab as much as you wish, with both hands, freely, then slightly nudge a single small thing ahead in exchange, and everything is fine and fair. If everyone gives such a small nudge, the progress will be rapid and fluent, no matter how much they take from the common pool. You don't have to
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
who uses LibreOffice because she can't afford the brand name suite should learn java and contribute to the project or else she's an idiot? I like OpenSource projects, but some people who are big pushers of it sure have a way of sticking their foot in the mouth.
Slashdot is getting worse all the time. It used to be that the best contributors to a discussion were able to bring new things to the table and make reading this site worth it. Now huge effort is wasted for each new story doing nothing more than correcting stupid mistakes and outright falsehoods that are contained in the summary. It's very disappointing.
Fuck you.
How's that business model working out for ya?
*hides in flame-proof safe*
Calling people idiots. He's young looking, maybe not so mature? Let's see, what has Jim Zemlin done... The about him from his blog. His staff page at the Linux foundation. Seems like... a manager in marketing? Aside from blabbing off, what are his contributions?
... than lines of code in the kernel.
Ubuntu is one of the biggest popularizers of Linux, if not the largest. Getting Linux in the hands of newbies means that later on, a certain percentage of those newbies become contributors.
Linux needs fresh meat. Without fresh meat, Linux will turn into the equivalent of some weird BSD variant with a total of 10 users. Ubuntu brings in fresh meat.
I also have problems with "contributing" being only counted as the number of lines of code in the kernel, as if userspace does not count. I'm sorry, but I can't do anything with a bare kernel. I'm bloody tired of douchebags from Redhat and elsewhere using kernel contributions as the sole metric of "contributing."
--
BMO
Some changes make sense to contribute, and others don't.
Bug fixes and general improvements that you don't want to maintain need to be contributed. It's in your own, selfish best interest. You would be an idiot to try to maintain them forever.
Enhancements, extensions and additional layers which provide distinctive features to give you competitive advantage need to be architected so that they exist in your separately linked, proprietary code. You would have to be an idiot to give everything away, unless you are Stallman. But, maybe he is an idiot anyway.
Would MS Windows sell as well if anyone could have Windows running on any old PC? Oh yeah, they do sell quite well and can run on any PC!
Granted, there's a flaw to that (Windows isn't open source), but the "on any old tablet" is totally bunk.
Webkit (used by Safari) may have been a better example, and Apple does give back to webkit, which reduces the amount of work they have to do to maintain patches against the mainline which is also getting improvements from Chrome, KDE, and others, and that's exactly what the article is about.
So, they've thrown up their hands in failure while trying to make the argument that contributing back is "the right thing to do" just because they said so. They have to resort to calling anyone who doesn't contribute back "stupid", because obviously doing things that are in your own long-term, practical self-interest can't be a moral issue. Perhaps these aren't the people who should be making arguments in favor of open source software.
It's certainly influenced me.
I've been messing around with a little project at home and i was planning on just tossing it over the fence as gpl cos i don't really care. I've now changed my mind, and instead I'm going to have to hunt around for a license the specifically prevents the code from ever being infected with the gpl. Possibly one of the Microsoft licenses (ms-pl?) I think.
Little tip: Stop being complete zealots about your "one true license" cos it just jacks potential supporters off.
...the difference between open source and a proprietary model is to allow people to be idiots? Correct me if I'm wrong.
There, fixed that for you:
The difference between open source and a proprietary model is open allows people to be smarter.
I remember helping write some of the copy pasta at the bottom. Seems like forever ago I was chilling on IRC with Klerck, Sexual Asspussy, and occasionally Ian would drop by.
Slashdot trolls were and still are the best trolls there were.
And now apparently free as in unpaid overtime.
Your time has passed. No one is shocked by "faggot" or "nigger" anymore; you have to really hit home and completely rape every belief that they hold dear. The age of the GNAA is over now, and they have less a chance of a return to relevance than Ron Paul does..
For me, the enshrinement of reciprocity paranoia, has probably always been the single worst thing about the GPL.
The entire attitude is fear-based. There is an assumption that you have to use antisocial behaviour in order to force people to reciprocate, and that FOSS software in general will cease to exist if you don't.
FOSS software doesn't exist because of reciprocity paranoia, and never has. FOSS software exists because people have problems, enjoy writing software, and therefore enjoy writing software to solve said problems.
The authoritarian leftist GNU/cultists need, as always, to very forcibly be told to shut up. Their rhetoric and toxicity will only accomplish the same thing it ever has; driving people away from Linux and FOSS software who might otherwise meaningfully contribute, if it wasn't for their behaviour.
I'm not using FOSS UNIX at all at this point. I would be using FreeBSD, but I have a 64 bit machine now, and the amd64 port was still a little shaky when I tried it.
Linux, however, I gave up on ages ago. The community is the single worst part about it. For reasons exactly like this one, Linux's userbase simply are not worth the pain of dealing with.
They are the upstream for Unity, contributions go to them in that case.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
If you find a truly bad bug chances are it will be fixed quickly, if the project is maintained. I've had a patch in less than an hour. The thing is that someone's pet bugs generally don't fall into that category.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
What is worse is companies, like Misys, creating divisions called Misys Open Source Solutions just to use the "open source" tag for marketing. They may create one worthless application like "Open Carbon World," put a tag "Changing the world through Open Source" and conveniently leave out the source. They then move on to create commercial products on this "open source" tag. Misys Open Source Solutions has started to make a lot of noise recently with fake awards and their executives contributing to books called "Paper Kills 2.0." They advertise this on Facebook and similar sites but leave out their contributions. It's just so silly and childish.
Post it as a front-page story--then we promise to be impressed.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Remember when some dual-licensed BSD/GPL code was taken GPL only?
Wailing and gnashing of teeth.
DESPITE the original code being made available.
BSD does disappear when someone takes it propriatory. The version they give you has been disappeared. Additionally, here's a query: since the combined code is still BSD licensed, if I were to "steal" the source code, is that fine with the BSD license, or is that code REALLY gone now?
And yours is just whinging about how SOMEONE ELSE should do all the work, dammit!
Tell me, how many times have you actually had a bug report that was, say, fixed, with propriatory software?
Nope, GEGL gives you 16 bits. That you didn't know this kind of precludes you actually knowing of what you speak. That you didn' t know WHY your patch was refused (GEGL gives floating point colour) shows you're either lying or don't care.
After all, open source was created to free people from proprietary code and people telling them what they can't do.
Open source wasn't "created." It was a relabeling of other people's work.
Free software was created to advance the four freedoms.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
All of a sudden that "free" software isn't looking so free.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I've been saying this for years. If the project is at *all* actively maintained, then anyone who develops against it is economically best off to contribute their changes back. If you don't contribute your changes back, then you have to maintain your patches and update them every time any change in the underlying code base causes them to break -- which happens often if the project is active at all. The more substantial your changes are, the faster they will bitrot and the harder they will be to maintain and the stronger your incentive will be to get them committed upstream ASAP. When do you want to contribute your patch upstream? As soon as it's ready. Today would be good. Yesterday would be just fine. Get that sucker in the repository stat, and let everybody *else* update *their* patches to accommodate what *I've* done, while I move on and do something else.
Restrictive share-alike licenses like the GPL are unnecessary. The various permissively-licensed projects (e.g., XOrg, the BSDs, and so on) are doing just fine. Code gets contributed back just fine. The very nature of what it means to maintain a proprietary fork argues against doing so, in a very practical way. The main-line upstream code base will always outpace you.
Granted, this wasn't always true. Back in the days of minicomputers and dumb terminals, when internet access only existed at a handful of sites and CVS had yet to be introduced, collaborative development moved much more slowly, and it was possible for a proprietary vendor to keep up with upstream changes. But those days are gone.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
There is no such thing as bad publicity
How do you explain KDE 4.0?
Feature requests are ignored. Bugs are ignored. (There are some exceptions, of course, but as a general rule open source projects are disastrous at considering feature requests and bugs that don't have accompanying source code.)
And one of a few things happen:
- Another group forks the project, pays attention to bugs/requests and implements them. Original project withers and dies.
- A competitor arises with a different code base, pays attention to bugs/requests and users flock to the new project.
- Company tries to run roughshod over the community. Community gets up and leaves (and probably forks the source).
- People put up with until one of the above happens.
At least with open source projects there are options. They may not be palatable options to most users but then most of us find distaste in paying Microsoft every year or two for a reskinned Office Suite / Operating System.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Oh BS -- GPL is a pie-in-the-sky communist-like ideal in which you get kicked out of the commune if you actually try to assert some independence.
I don't understand, care to elaborate? And no, not about the "communist-like", but the part after "in which...". I don't even step on the "communism" debate.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that GPL 'is not about telling people what they cannot do' -- it sure as hell is.
While it does prohibit one from doing something I disagree that it's what "GPL is about", I see it as means to an end, and the end is what GPL is about.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.