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Big Names Dominate Open Source Funding
jones_supa writes: Network World's analysis of publicly listed sponsors of 36 prominent open-source non-profits and foundations reveals that the lion's share of financial support for open-source groups comes from a familiar set of names. Google was the biggest supporter, appearing on the sponsor lists of eight of the 36 groups analyzed. Four companies – Canonical, SUSE, HP and VMware – supported five groups each, and seven others (Nokia, Oracle, Cisco, IBM, Dell, Intel and NEC) supported four. For its part, Red Hat supports three groups (Linux Foundation, Creative Commons and the Open Virtualization Alliance).
It's tough to get more than a general sense of how much money gets contributed to which foundations by which companies – however, the numbers aren't large by the standards of the big contributors. The average annual revenue for the open-source organizations considered in the analysis was $4.36 million, and that number was skewed by the $27 million taken in by the Wikimedia Foundation (whose interests range far beyond OSS development) and the $17 million posted by Linux Foundation.
It's tough to get more than a general sense of how much money gets contributed to which foundations by which companies – however, the numbers aren't large by the standards of the big contributors. The average annual revenue for the open-source organizations considered in the analysis was $4.36 million, and that number was skewed by the $27 million taken in by the Wikimedia Foundation (whose interests range far beyond OSS development) and the $17 million posted by Linux Foundation.
I'm assuming that's original Nokia and not the cut-off body part that had been assimilated.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Concentrating on the money these big corporations give to Open Source foundations and ignoring the salaries they pay to dedicated Open Source developers is a ridiculous comparison -- a drop in a bucket.
You mean to say that the people with the most money are the ones donating the most to fund open source development?
Why is it that RMS is quick to call all proprietary software unjust, and yet gives a free pass to chipmakers for not publishing their masksets?
I would also like to hear RMS' answer regarding that.
The average annual revenue for the open-source organizations considered in the analysis was $4.36 million, and that number was skewed by the $27 million taken in by the Wikimedia Foundation
Then compute the median. That's standard practice if an outlier disrupts the mean. It's not like this is rocket science.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
His answer regarding that (stupid IMO) is that chips are circuits, and therefore, they don't have to be 'libre'. Of course, one of the things he made sure GPLv3 did was get rid of 'Tivoization', which was locking down a flash on their STBs. Had TiVo used a mask ROM instead of flash, he would theoretically not have had any issues
Here you go, in his own words:
http://www.linuxtoday.com/infr...
That's right. Me, for example. My job is to maintain and improve some software my employer uses, and help others in the organization learn to use it. Since the software system is open source, all of my bug fixes and many of the improvements I do are sent back upstream. (Some aren't generally purpose, but are specific to my employer and their needs.)
It's true that copying hardware is hard in a way that copying software is not, but only to someone who does not own a compatible factory.
He agrees with you and even made the parallel printing press example for books beofre 50 years ago.
Just as the right to modify code is only directly useful to those who can program
But the right to -copy- code is useful to everyone.
f the masksets were open, anyone with a computer could refactor or simplify the maskset to make a slower but compatible device on older cheaper process tech
But they'd STILL need a factory.
His position is simply pragmatic. The pressing ethical concern for software freedom does not (yet) exist to the same extent for hardware (because you need a factory) to exercise the freedom. He even allows that (e.g. via nanobots) it might one day become as easy as software, and at that point presumably he'd be more interested in it.
Nor does he disagree with your argument at all, in any way -- and welcomes, even encourages people like yourself to work towards open hardware goals. Its just not 'his' cause.
I don't think you can really "disagree" with that!
No they wouldn't - the vast majority of silicon vendors are fabless, while some silicon developers don't even sell complete chips at all, only 'IP blocks'. It is absolutely possible to have free/open source chip designs.
I think the big stumbling block currently would be the very limited FOSS tools for synthesis and layout.
A mask set is not likely to be the "preferred form for modification"; for digital logic that would typically be VHDL or Verilog files.
If only Intel could do the FOSS WiFi drivers, like for FreeBSD
No they wouldn't - the vast majority of silicon vendors are fabless
But the price hurdle to having a 3rd party fab produce your custom chip is still significant. His analogy to the printing press stands.
It is absolutely possible to have free/open source chip designs.
Yes. It is possible. It is even a good thing, and RMS is all for someone doing it. Its just not HIS project. He's not -against- open hardware in anyway. He's just explaining why he's not personally as passionate about it.
And at the end of the day it doesn't really matter if your hammer design is proprietary or open source:
a) You still have to buy the finished hammer (hardware); as few of us have the means to produce one. (contrast to the ease of producing a copy of software)
b) The finished hammer itself isn't copyprotected. The design files might be, but the final product isn't. And there really aren't that many cases where there are restrictions on what we may do with hardware after we buy it, including modify it, or incorporate it into another project, etc, etc, etc. (Contrast: relative to software; consider things like the bnet server emulator; consider the EULA, etc.)
I'm with you. I'm pro open hardware. But I also agree with RMS, it is different, and I understand why its not his priority.
By all means though, make it yours.
Why is it that RMS is quick to call all proprietary software unjust, and yet gives a free pass to chipmakers for not publishing their masksets?
Because his focus is on software, which is the wrong spot to attack the problem. You should be starting at the bottom, not in the middle, otherwise you end up with the exact situation we have now. There is an open operating system running atop a mostly proprietary hardware setup with mostly proprietary driver interfaces to that hardware. Even now, decades after RMS started the free software movement, open drivers (which are the reason it got started in the first place) lag behind their proprietary counterparts in pretty much every category because it's trying to work with a proprietary hardware device.
The free software movement is still hammering away at the desktop trying to get adoption of an open OS on a closed platform and integration with closed devices even as it moves to being less relevant. As others have stated before there were opportunities to innovate in the smartphone, tablet and wearable categories but the fixation on the closed desktop has led to the creation of proprietary incumbents in these new spaces too. Open source won't gain widespread adoption as being innovative and disruptive until it actually comes up with something innovative and disruptive.
Right now it's confined to dev and admin tools that most users will never use or know about and perhaps that's enough but I think most free software activists have grander ambitions than that. If you grind away long enough you'll get that square peg in the round hole even though it won't be pretty, or you can move on and create something new, innovative, unique and truly disruptive and beneficial to people.