I see you clearly lost the argument since you had nothing to say.
In your world
400 man years put into a movie (or about $20 million) = one person paying $20 million and everyone else getting it for free
yet in if it was not IP, for example an iPod, an iPod cost several million to design, and produce, including millions to make the factory to assemble them etc. If we were to make them the same as you propose for IP the first one would cost $XX million and the rest would be sold for the price of goods.
Instead, they sell them for $299. Each and every one of them includes a paying for a percentage of that initial labor and startup costs.
Why are you okay paying those costs in the case of an iPod but not in the case of software? Simply because you can steal the software easily?
Your arguement is that if it's not made to your specs then you don't have to pay for it? Hmmm, that ferrari is not to my specs, I guess I don't have to pay for that either.
There is no difference between material things and intagible things except that intangible things are easier to steal. Both require labor. Both have no value outside of the labor they represent. A house only costs $100K because it presents $100K of work. The house really only exists because of the labor to assemble it. The wood was free, provide by some trees, the concrete is also free, provided by diging up materials from the dirt. The only reason they cost anything is because you are paying the person that dug the concrete or cut the trees, you are paying the person that drove them to the place to build your house and you are paying the guys to assemble them into a house. The actual materials have ZERO value. The only value is the labor attached to them. So it is exactly with intagible IP. They represent labor. That fact that you can steal them by copying changes ZERO except your ability to be a thief.
Idiot, you can't afford to pay the $200 million it cost to make Lord of the Rings paying for 500 people for two-three years worth of time. Therefore you should be happy you are only being charged $10 to $20. You have no right to copy.
Wrong! That media product represents someone's time. That time is NOT reproducable. If I hire you to do my taxes, once you are finished I can copy the tax forms you filled out infinitely, especially if I make you do them electronically. Does that mean I should't have to pay you? If I do have to pay you then you need to pay the media producers exactly the same way. They did some work, you want the results of that work. That the results can be copied easily have nothing what-so-ever to do with the fact that someone WORKED to make it.
Yep, no tangible good. Perfect. Why don't you come work for me. I'll never acutally pay you a salary because you are not giving me any tangible goods so no one has lost anything have they. This is great. I'll have a giant company and everyone in the world will work for me for free, none of them will lose anything tangible, it will be great!
I don't know about your website but from mine I get almost nothing but questions, the answers to which are in the first 5 hits on google. Most of these questions are from kids. Kids and most people in general don't seem to get searching.
it's not just my code. That was the point in the original message. several others contribute as well, we can all share the changes, no need to ask our companies for permission to include the code since it's BSDed they already have the rights to include the code.
not everything I have for is a library. There are many tools as well, some of them have code inside that I might want to copy and paste into other tools. My BSD releases let me do this. LGPLed wouldn't. It's just less work all around to BSD for me.
I'm the opposite. I like BSD over GPL and have released all my open source code as BSD. The reason is simple. I can use my BSD code at any company I work for or contract with with no restrictions. I can't use any GPLed code because the company I was working for would have to decide of they want the rest of their project to also be GPLed.
So, at least in my case, I win by using BSD over GPL, so does any company I work for and so does every developer using or contributing to the code.
Japan has had both streaming TV video and TV tuners for years now as has Korea.
Vodafone has generally had TV tuner phones where as AU has streaming phones. On AU, any of the phones labeled "WIN" are phones that can stream. They support 2.4megabit data reception and you can signup for unlimited use for $38 a month although currently only for use on the phone (video streaming, web, email). If you plug it into your computer then it's metered.
Desktops ARE cheaper with Windows than with Open Source because the apps for getting things done on Open Source just aren't there yet.
Of course that probably depends on your job. If your job is to read e-mail and browse the web, maybe open source is up to it.
If your job is graphic design or advertising there is no Illustrator replacement for open source and Gimp is not 1/10th as good as photoshop so while Gimp is free, since I can't actually get the job done and even the jobs it can do take more time in the Gimp it ends up being MORE expensive to use free (as in beer) software in that case then paying the $700 for Photshop and getting the job done.
The same will be true for page layout, a common desktop task.
For word processing open source might be up to the level of Windows now except of course for collaboration between various companies
For group based stuff, nothing on open source yet matches Exchange + Outlook. Ximiman Evolution is trying to get there but they are not there yet.
So, it's VERY EASY for MS to say that with a straight face because in most cases it's TRUE.
Time = Money so
Free + lots of hours of struggle > Not Free + less hours of struggle.
I guess the difference is most GPL based companies don't require you to get a commercial license. They operate hoping you'll pay them for support by otherwise they are at your mercy. AB though is not doing that, they specifically are trying to force you to pay by the way the structure the code etc.
I guess techinically there is nothing wrong with that, a commercial solution would cost money as well. It's just seems different than most other GPLed projects. Almost deceptive as in "hey look, this thing is GPLed! Oh, not really. Well it is and it isn't. etc.".
I think you are missing my point maybe? Or maybe I am missing something.
There is NO POINT WHAT-SO-EVER for them to make MySQL GPLed except to try to get contributions from people not at AB. If all they wanted was public code where all new code written came back to them under their terms then they wouldn't need to use the GPL they just make the MySQL license that said "you can use this code but any changes you make our ours".
So, assuming I'm not missing something then if the point of GPLing the code was to solicit contributions then it's hard to believe that some how all those contributions have managed to not actually be GPLed themselves such that AB can distrubute them under non GPL terms.
Is it possible? Yea. It's also possible Bill Gates has a heart of gold but both seem extremely improbable at least to me.
I didn't mean you couldn't assign rights. I meant you could not RE-assign them. You can't take code that is GPLed and not written by you and re-assign the rights of that code.
I see your point though how they don't have to take any contributions that don't follow their rules. It seems funny that they would still be considered open source heros in that case though. Lots of GPL supporters like to argue that the GPL prevents corporations from exploiting your work for profit and yet AB would be doing exactly that in this case. Basically saying "give us the exclusive rights to charge money for your work or make your own fork".
Of course I'm not personally against corps using my code which is why I BSD my stuff:-p
It's the other way around, unless your project is internal only you have no right to keep your changes to yourself or the right to require them to abide by any more restrictive rules than the GPL allows for.
In other words, in order for AB to require you to have a commerical license they would need their commerical version to 100% free of any GPLed contributions. Inserting one GPLed contribution into their code would make the entire thing 100% GPLed and therefore they would have to provide some way of obtaining it.
The fact that the main distro (the one used by 5 million sites) is the GPLed distro would suggest that most contributions are GPLed and that it's unlikely the commerical version has keeped those GPLed contributions out. In fact I believe the are 100% the same code. The only difference is the supposed license. That means requiring a commercial license is violating the GPL.
The issue of how much doesn't really matter. It's like you can't be 1% pregnant. Either it is legal for AB to distro GPLed contributions as commerical code or it's not and the fact that there are GPLed contributions in the code makes all of it GPLed and hence no license is ever needed and it can't be re-licensed.
This whole topic reminds me of question to which I've never gotten a good answer.
One of the supposed benefits of Open Source in general is that lots of people can contribute, add features, fix bugs. This includes the GPL.
GPLed code and GPLed contributions stay GPLed forever.
MySQL is GPLed. MySQL sells a commercial license. Do you really believe the commerical version of MySQL has ZERO GPLed contributions to it? No bug fixes from anyone outside AB? No feature additions from anyone outside AB? While I admit it's remotely possible, if there are no outside contributions to MySQL then what's the point of it being GPLed? If there are then it's illegal for them to redistribute a version of MySQL with the GPLed contributions in it under some other license.
Apple normally appears to get things right but this Airport BS is just a gimmick since without a remote it's functionally not very useful. I don't want to have to walk up a flight of stairs to change a tune or skip one I'm not in the mood to hear and given that there have been similar products on the market already from Sony, Toshiba and LinkSys and they they are all MORE functional this Airport should NOT be news.
I'm sorry but it seems like you completely missed my point blinded by your hatred of Microsoft and your religious like belief in the GPL.
There are plenty of projects that companies use AND contribute too that are BSD style. The advantage of BSD style is that companies can help each other and other developers as well without having to give up their entire code base. It's pretty simple and the examples I gave are all true.
If 5 different parties are working on various image processing apps none of them, companies or otherwise might want to make their apps open source OR GPL but they may have no problem sharing a library or other small piece of code among each other. A BSD style license lets them do that. GPL requires them to decide to either give up everything or not to share at all with each other.
> and because it means treating businesses like charities.
I would say quite the opposite. BSD style allows businesses to safely be charitable. There are all kinds of libraries I'd like to use in my commerical software. I would contribute to those libraries, add new features, fix bugs and put the chances back in the public. Under a BSD style license I can do that (and I do). I can participate and give back to the community. Under a GPL license I can't contribute unless I give up my entire application.
I'm sure others are in different situations but it is disingenuous to label BSD style as treating business like charities. From my point of view it allows business to contribute to charities.
There are good examples. The Boost library, the STLport library, libpng, libjpeg, xceres, etc. All of those I believe are BSD style. They are therefore used in lots of non-open apps but allow companies to support and contribute back to the libraries.
IMO the GPL style only really fits certain kinds of software. Printer drivers, the issue that supposedly start the GNU movement in the first place, those work as GPL because the product is the printer not the driver. Apache might work as well because it's a platform. The product is the solution provided using Apache (a website) not Apache itself. (Although it was BSD until 2.0 no?)
Other things though like most Application software, the App is the product. I'm not saying you can't GPL an app, I'm only saying it's not as easy a fit.
Personally I think all libs should be BSD (not GPL, not LGPL). That would allow everyone, both open source advocates and commercial software people to contribute to them. I think in that case every one would win.
Will you be making these same arguments when Virus writers are making real biological viruses that kill millions of people instead of computer viruses that lose millions of dollars?
Script kiddies, hackers and crackers being able to make biological viruses is not that far off.
I'm sure all those people that die because of it will be happy to know that you believe we are better off if we let people make viruses and expect each person to patch their own bodies or that because the people that have natural immunity survive we are somehow making humans better by letting the virus writers do as they please.
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I see you clearly lost the argument since you had nothing to say.
In your world
400 man years put into a movie (or about $20 million) = one person paying $20 million and everyone else getting it for free
yet in if it was not IP, for example an iPod, an iPod cost several million to design, and produce, including millions to make the factory to assemble them etc. If we were to make them the same as you propose for IP the first one would cost $XX million and the rest would be sold for the price of goods.
Instead, they sell them for $299. Each and every one of them includes a paying for a percentage of that initial labor and startup costs.
Why are you okay paying those costs in the case of an iPod but not in the case of software? Simply because you can steal the software easily?
Your arguement is that if it's not made to your specs then you don't have to pay for it? Hmmm, that ferrari is not to my specs, I guess I don't have to pay for that either.
There is no difference between material things and intagible things except that intangible things are easier to steal. Both require labor. Both have no value outside of the labor they represent. A house only costs $100K because it presents $100K of work. The house really only exists because of the labor to assemble it. The wood was free, provide by some trees, the concrete is also free, provided by diging up materials from the dirt. The only reason they cost anything is because you are paying the person that dug the concrete or cut the trees, you are paying the person that drove them to the place to build your house and you are paying the guys to assemble them into a house. The actual materials have ZERO value. The only value is the labor attached to them. So it is exactly with intagible IP. They represent labor. That fact that you can steal them by copying changes ZERO except your ability to be a thief.
Idiot, you can't afford to pay the $200 million it cost to make Lord of the Rings paying for 500 people for two-three years worth of time. Therefore you should be happy you are only being charged $10 to $20. You have no right to copy.
Wrong! That media product represents someone's time. That time is NOT reproducable. If I hire you to do my taxes, once you are finished I can copy the tax forms you filled out infinitely, especially if I make you do them electronically. Does that mean I should't have to pay you? If I do have to pay you then you need to pay the media producers exactly the same way. They did some work, you want the results of that work. That the results can be copied easily have nothing what-so-ever to do with the fact that someone WORKED to make it.
my point exactly.
Yep, no tangible good. Perfect. Why don't you come work for me. I'll never acutally pay you a salary because you are not giving me any tangible goods so no one has lost anything have they. This is great. I'll have a giant company and everyone in the world will work for me for free, none of them will lose anything tangible, it will be great!
and you can tag your pictures.
Here's a way cool example:
http://www.downgoesthesystem.com/devzone/exiftest/ final/
I don't know about your website but from mine I get almost nothing but questions, the answers to which are in the first 5 hits on google. Most of these questions are from kids. Kids and most people in general don't seem to get searching.
it's not just my code. That was the point in the original message. several others contribute as well, we can all share the changes, no need to ask our companies for permission to include the code since it's BSDed they already have the rights to include the code.
not everything I have for is a library. There are many tools as well, some of them have code inside that I might want to copy and paste into other tools. My BSD releases let me do this. LGPLed wouldn't. It's just less work all around to BSD for me.
I'm the opposite. I like BSD over GPL and have released all my open source code as BSD. The reason is simple. I can use my BSD code at any company I work for or contract with with no restrictions. I can't use any GPLed code because the company I was working for would have to decide of they want the rest of their project to also be GPLed.
So, at least in my case, I win by using BSD over GPL, so does any company I work for and so does every developer using or contributing to the code.
But that's just me, your mileage may vary.
Japan has had both streaming TV video and TV tuners for years now as has Korea.
Vodafone has generally had TV tuner phones where as AU has streaming phones. On AU, any of the phones labeled "WIN" are phones that can stream. They support 2.4megabit data reception and you can signup for unlimited use for $38 a month although currently only for use on the phone (video streaming, web, email). If you plug it into your computer then it's metered.
Desktops ARE cheaper with Windows than with Open Source because the apps for getting things done on Open Source just aren't there yet.
Of course that probably depends on your job. If your job is to read e-mail and browse the web, maybe open source is up to it.
If your job is graphic design or advertising there is no Illustrator replacement for open source and Gimp is not 1/10th as good as photoshop so while Gimp is free, since I can't actually get the job done and even the jobs it can do take more time in the Gimp it ends up being MORE expensive to use free (as in beer) software in that case then paying the $700 for Photshop and getting the job done.
The same will be true for page layout, a common desktop task.
For word processing open source might be up to the level of Windows now except of course for collaboration between various companies
For group based stuff, nothing on open source yet matches Exchange + Outlook. Ximiman Evolution is trying to get there but they are not there yet.
So, it's VERY EASY for MS to say that with a straight face because in most cases it's TRUE.
Time = Money so
Free + lots of hours of struggle > Not Free + less hours of struggle.
I guess the difference is most GPL based companies don't require you to get a commercial license. They operate hoping you'll pay them for support by otherwise they are at your mercy. AB though is not doing that, they specifically are trying to force you to pay by the way the structure the code etc.
I guess techinically there is nothing wrong with that, a commercial solution would cost money as well. It's just seems different than most other GPLed projects. Almost deceptive as in "hey look, this thing is GPLed! Oh, not really. Well it is and it isn't. etc.".
So in otherwords, AB is gambling that no one will fork MySQL and make them irrelavent? Kind of like the X Windows fiasco?
I think you are missing my point maybe? Or maybe I am missing something.
There is NO POINT WHAT-SO-EVER for them to make MySQL GPLed except to try to get contributions from people not at AB. If all they wanted was public code where all new code written came back to them under their terms then they wouldn't need to use the GPL they just make the MySQL license that said "you can use this code but any changes you make our ours".
So, assuming I'm not missing something then if the point of GPLing the code was to solicit contributions then it's hard to believe that some how all those contributions have managed to not actually be GPLed themselves such that AB can distrubute them under non GPL terms.
Is it possible? Yea. It's also possible Bill Gates has a heart of gold but both seem extremely improbable at least to me.
I didn't mean you couldn't assign rights. I meant you could not RE-assign them. You can't take code that is GPLed and not written by you and re-assign the rights of that code.
:-p
I see your point though how they don't have to take any contributions that don't follow their rules. It seems funny that they would still be considered open source heros in that case though. Lots of GPL supporters like to argue that the GPL prevents corporations from exploiting your work for profit and yet AB would be doing exactly that in this case. Basically saying "give us the exclusive rights to charge money for your work or make your own fork".
Of course I'm not personally against corps using my code which is why I BSD my stuff
It's the other way around, unless your project is internal only you have no right to keep your changes to yourself or the right to require them to abide by any more restrictive rules than the GPL allows for.
In other words, in order for AB to require you to have a commerical license they would need their commerical version to 100% free of any GPLed contributions. Inserting one GPLed contribution into their code would make the entire thing 100% GPLed and therefore they would have to provide some way of obtaining it.
The fact that the main distro (the one used by 5 million sites) is the GPLed distro would suggest that most contributions are GPLed and that it's unlikely the commerical version has keeped those GPLed contributions out. In fact I believe the are 100% the same code. The only difference is the supposed license. That means requiring a commercial license is violating the GPL.
The issue of how much doesn't really matter. It's like you can't be 1% pregnant. Either it is legal for AB to distro GPLed contributions as commerical code or it's not and the fact that there are GPLed contributions in the code makes all of it GPLed and hence no license is ever needed and it can't be re-licensed.
but if the code is GPLed than contributions are GPLed. You can't force contributors to assign rights, that would be a violation of the GPL.
This whole topic reminds me of question to which I've never gotten a good answer.
One of the supposed benefits of Open Source in general is that lots of people can contribute, add features, fix bugs. This includes the GPL.
GPLed code and GPLed contributions stay GPLed forever.
MySQL is GPLed. MySQL sells a commercial license. Do you really believe the commerical version of MySQL has ZERO GPLed contributions to it? No bug fixes from anyone outside AB? No feature additions from anyone outside AB? While I admit it's remotely possible, if there are no outside contributions to MySQL then what's the point of it being GPLed? If there are then it's illegal for them to redistribute a version of MySQL with the GPLed contributions in it under some other license.
Apple normally appears to get things right but this Airport BS is just a gimmick since without a remote it's functionally not very useful. I don't want to have to walk up a flight of stairs to change a tune or skip one I'm not in the mood to hear and given that there have been similar products on the market already from Sony, Toshiba and LinkSys and they they are all MORE functional this Airport should NOT be news.
I'm sorry but it seems like you completely missed my point blinded by your hatred of Microsoft and your religious like belief in the GPL.
There are plenty of projects that companies use AND contribute too that are BSD style. The advantage of BSD style is that companies can help each other and other developers as well without having to give up their entire code base. It's pretty simple and the examples I gave are all true.
If 5 different parties are working on various image processing apps none of them, companies or otherwise might want to make their apps open source OR GPL but they may have no problem sharing a library or other small piece of code among each other. A BSD style license lets them do that. GPL requires them to decide to either give up everything or not to share at all with each other.
> and because it means treating businesses like charities.
I would say quite the opposite. BSD style allows businesses to safely be charitable. There are all kinds of libraries I'd like to use in my commerical software. I would contribute to those libraries, add new features, fix bugs and put the chances back in the public. Under a BSD style license I can do that (and I do). I can participate and give back to the community. Under a GPL license I can't contribute unless I give up my entire application.
I'm sure others are in different situations but it is disingenuous to label BSD style as treating business like charities. From my point of view it allows business to contribute to charities.
There are good examples. The Boost library, the STLport library, libpng, libjpeg, xceres, etc. All of those I believe are BSD style. They are therefore used in lots of non-open apps but allow companies to support and contribute back to the libraries.
IMO the GPL style only really fits certain kinds of software. Printer drivers, the issue that supposedly start the GNU movement in the first place, those work as GPL because the product is the printer not the driver. Apache might work as well because it's a platform. The product is the solution provided using Apache (a website) not Apache itself. (Although it was BSD until 2.0 no?)
Other things though like most Application software, the App is the product. I'm not saying you can't GPL an app, I'm only saying it's not as easy a fit.
Personally I think all libs should be BSD (not GPL, not LGPL). That would allow everyone, both open source advocates and commercial software people to contribute to them. I think in that case every one would win.
Outside of libs it's a more difficult issue.
Will you be making these same arguments when Virus writers are making real biological viruses that kill millions of people instead of computer viruses that lose millions of dollars?
Script kiddies, hackers and crackers being able to make biological viruses is not that far off.
I'm sure all those people that die because of it will be happy to know that you believe we are better off if we let people make viruses and expect each person to patch their own bodies or that because the people that have natural immunity survive we are somehow making humans better by letting the virus writers do as they please.