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BSA Study Demonstrates Open Source's Economic Advantage
jrepin writes "The fundamental premise of the latest Software Alliance study — that licensed, proprietary software is better in many ways than pirated copies — actually applies to open source software even more strongly, with the added virtues that the software is free to try, to use and to modify. That means the potential economic impact of free software is also even greater than that offered by both licensed and unlicensed proprietary software. It's yet another reason for governments around the world to promote the use of open source in their countries by everyone at every level."
Sorry, just because the message is one that some might like I can't get past the messenger. The BSA has spent decades lying to the public and politicians and using math that would never pass muster in any college in the developed world. They have lost any and all possible credibility they could ever possibly have, especially when it comes to on of their 'reports'.
I'm sure this will offend a lot of people here that are open source fans who would love to cite this. However I'm not about to become a hypocrite and give them credibility now just because they are saying something more palatable.
Switching to GIMP, my productivity is about to go through the roof!
It's not about productivity, it's about economic impact. The article is kind of tongue in cheek poking fun of BSA's erroneous numbers manipulation to show that "properly licensed software" contributes oh so much to the economy. For clear reasons, your switch to GIMP from (presumably) a proprietary software alternative wouldn't move you from one column to the other unless you were to somehow pirate GIMP. While pirating GIMP is possible, you'd like just install it legally by downloading it with references to the GPLv3 license. Whether or not you believe it, GIMP with a copy of the GPLv3 is actually properly licensed software -- putting it in the column of the nebulous cloud of software that the BSA claims inflates our world economy to staggering heights.
To try to quantify the "productivity" of GIMP versus something else like photoshop would likely be subjective, nebulous and not 1 to 1. This isn't about productivity, it's about piracy. The author is pointing out how much of the mad moneys comes from open source software and all but accuses the BSA of co-opting that figure to appear to be their own work.
My work here is dung.
Actually, I see switching from Photoshop to the GIMP to be a productivity killer. You'll be using all that extra money on new time-consuming hobbies like a new boat to take fishing, new golf clubs for those sunny afternoons, new hookers for those lonely nights, a new wife when the old one finds the golf clubs...
In reality one should support anti-piracy and open source systems.
With the following understandings...
Some Software Projects can be better maintained and designed using a priority software model. Sometime to get it done, the incentive of money is the best way.
Some Software Projects can be done better with Open Source. The project is interesting enough to have enough supporters to keep it going.
There are some projects the license doesn't matter much.
These ideas are not really in conflict it is only pig headed nuts who try to make them seem that way. When choosing software there are a lot of factors to consider. Sometime those thousand dollar license fees, or the freedom to alter source code are least of your concern, compared to getting support, and hiring staff proficient in the software, or just general product quality.
However whatever license you choose for your software it is important that you try to follow it. If you have say a GNU license, you better make sure you don't accidentally let some of that code slip into your own product, by some naive developer or manager who think GNU = Public Domain. In the same vein you need to make sure your commercial license are equally maintained, as you have already weight the good and the bad and chosen your product and you should take what you expect.
Piracy of commercial software is bad, it is just as bad as taking a GNU product and relicensing it, without the appropriate permission. Making software take a lot of time and resources. Just to toss the software creators license aside, will only make things worse.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
My question to the submitter is, why must the government do the promotion? In what way does this have any relation to the daily lives of citizens and businesses?
LOL, just get your wife interested in golf, it worked for me.
Now she's the one asking if we're golfing tonight, and the weekend golfing is a given.
Can't help you with the hookers or the fishing boat though. You're on your own there.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
While I do not disagree, in principle, with the conclusion in OP, you can hardly trust the conclusion of something the BSA publishes - which is less of a study than it is an argument for software licensing made up after the conclusion was reached to support their point.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
He didn't seem to care when the first judge denied his warrant. Or the second judge. It takes three judges to approve the warrant, they're breaking department guidelines, but he only feels remorse 4 years later when the truth slowly trickles out.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Commercial software offers someone to pin liability claims against if there are problems and loss incurred as a result. Open Source basically turns that around and make it the user's responsibility. Hey, you had the source code, why didn't you look at it? From a business perspective, it's easier to be able to have a vendor to blame and sue for software issues than for the business to say that we'll take responsibility for adoption and use of said software and take on any liability from such use.
it's similar to the "no one ever got fired for buying from x" mentality.
If you must blame someone, blame the lawyers and our litigious society.
I know you're not being entirely serious, but for some of us, half the point of a hobby like golf is to break away from the wife and responsibilities.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
How does commercial software give you anyone to pin liability on? All of it that I've seen either disclaims liability entirely or limits liability to refunding your money (even from major vendors like Oracle it reads like "if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces"). You definitely won't be able to hold the vendor liable for the cost of lost business due to the failure of their software. Sure it gives you someone to blame, but you're still left holding the bag when it comes to the actual money the failure cost you. At least with open-source software, if the failure's bad enough the business can put it's own resources to work fixing it. Contrast that with commercial software where the business has no choice but to sit and wait for the vendor to decide the problem's important enough for the vendor to fix it.
Oh, I was being entirely serious, but I do understand your point.
My wife and I actually play golf together anywhere between 2 and 7 times/week, and usually with friends. It's how we both get away for a break from stuff, see some of our buddies, and is a major influence on our vacations.
But it also means that while some of our friends need to check with the wife or can't play some of the time, both of us want to get out golfing as often as time allows.
Sometimes, having a hobby with the wife is a good choice as well.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This is not a knock against the quality of F/OSS. However, I can take a piece of commercial software and show auditors that it is FIPS or Common Criteria certified, which is important for the legal eagles, especially with regs like Sarbanes-Oxley, FERPA, PCI-DSS, and other items.
Say something like a downed production machine or a security breach causes an audit, and the bug that caused it was within the OS or application:
Scenario 1: The software is shown to be commercial, with the pretty ribbons showing it was certified (AES library is officially certified by NIST), etc. Logs were shown that updates were pushed out on schedule, and that there was an IDS/IPS system in place. The auditors find that shit happens, due diligence was done, and head home.
Scenario 2: The software used is solid, but doesn't have the certifications. Even proof of everything well maintained by IT, they go in and report findings that it was "from an untrusted/unknown vendor with an unknown security reputation". Then someone gets sacked because something has to be done or else the company may lose its ability to process credit cards or have the SEC step in.
These certifications have nothing to do with the software's actual security. However, there is a big difference between secure in the eyes of the law and the auditors (CYA), versus actual security.
This is the same exact reason why antivirus software goes on the Solaris, Linux, and AIX machines... not because they will get infected, but so the legal department can tick a check box saying that "all servers have AV software present."
First they're allowing gays, now they're looking into free software... the Tea Party is really gonna flip out now.
Switching to GIMP, my productivity is about to go through the roof!
Hmm... If you script everything in Python, that might actually be possible... Would be interesting to try...
Uh huh, every government clerk uses Photoshop and other highly specialized software to do his/her day to day job.
I had 1 problem, then I used the GIMP to solve it, and now I have 99.
Assuming that a bitch ain't one, congratulations on the new responsibilities that have been given to you after you have demonstrated your ability.
make them disappear faster.
FOSS fundamentally negates the need for a BSA.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Uh huh, every government clerk uses Photoshop and other highly specialized software to do his/her day to day job.
What do government clerks have to do with anything?
So Can I....
http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industry/government/certifications.html
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Most of the pointy haired types and politicians who will be shown the BSA study will never read past the Executive Summary on page 1, many will not even do that and will just look at the difference in height of the blue and brown bars labeled $53 Billion Additional Value. There are a few pages with impressive phrases like Macroeconomic Analysis and tables with lots of numbers -- so it must all be well researched and thus true.
Glyn Moody -- who is he ? Do they read technical articles ?
The important readers are the politicians; protecting against piracy is obviously the right thing to do ... and for those not convinced a donation to a favoured cause will help convince that the guys showing the report are sincere.
My point is that if you think that a detailed deconstruction of the study is the right way to expose this: then you are deluded. Properly presented reports showing the other case is a better way - but much harder since OSS does not have the money to ensure that the correct message is understood. Not impossible: just harder.
This is not a knock against the quality of F/OSS. However, I can take a piece of commercial software and show auditors that it is FIPS or Common Criteria certified, which is important for the legal eagles, especially with regs like Sarbanes-Oxley, FERPA, PCI-DSS, and other items.
This is a super silly argument.
Certification of F/OSS happens quite frequently. It's in fact often easier to certify a F/OSS project than a proprietary project because the certification process usually demands full access to the source code (that the original vendor may not even be able to grant access to, since his own software may be depending on other proprietary software library binary blobs under the hood).
Also, F/OSS can be "commercial" software, just like proprietary software can be "freeware". And it's equally correct to assume that a person can get fired if he chose a perfectly working unknown freeware proprietary solution with no certification backed by a one-man team over a well-known heavily used F/OSS commercial solution backed by a large company with certifications up the wazzoo.
I shouldn't respond to a troll AC, but I want to say two things:
1. People should never settle. If they're not finding the right one, that's unfortunate, but they'll never be truly happy if they settle.
2. I've spent quite a bit of time studying people and personality types. There's a ton of variation in personalities that a lot of people don't even know exist. I'd like to think it's just because they don't know to look for it, but I suspect it's more that they can't imagine that everyone isn't like them or possibly even think that there's something wrong with people that are different. More introverted and/or inwardly focused people sometimes need time to themselves. It literally drains energy having to deal with people. Dealing with friends and family drains less energy than dealing with strangers, but it can still be a drain. It doesn't mean we love our families any less.
It took me longer than I expected to find my fiancee, but it eventually happened and we're both very happy. We go hiking and backpacking together on a regular basis. We've coached and still play soccer together. We have intelligent discussions that I've rarely been able to have with other people. That said, I still occasionally disappear into my office to play a game, read, or fiddle with my gadgets. I need that time to recharge, as does my fiancee.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.