I didn't quite manage to understand the point of that phrase from that rather short wikipedia article. By extension, I also don't see what you are trying to say with it - would you mind clarifying this to me?
There is no reason why good business and pissing off apple should not go hand in hand. Would be killing two birds with one stone, and I'd be all for it.
Not that I hate apple per se, I like their goal oriented non-compromising approach to developing a product and wish more companies would adopt it. I just don't like their goals very much.
It seems to me that if people are upset about this, it is because they realize two things:
3) While the iphone may not have a monopoly when it comes to smartphones, it is likely the largest player when it comes to smartphone apps. It has *almost* a quasi smartphone-app (or app store) monopoly.
2) The iphones competitors are not yet entirely competitive with apple on certain points. Most of all performance comes to mind, but this is also about how well everything is integrated on the iphone. The iphone is a more or less well polished product (although not entirely without flaws), wherease both android and maemo still have some rough edges when it comes to the user experience.
For these two reasons, people are well aware that this is going to hurt the other newcomers on the iphone-like-smartphone market, and they feel that apple is abusing their very strong position on this market.
What apple is doing may not be illegal but I can certainly understand the negative feelings it generates. I feel the same way, but mostly it frustrates me that the other platforms don't work harder to eliminate their rough edges to give the iphone some *real* competition. They are so close and yet so far away in my view.
I knew it was a bad analogy with respect to the legal issues, I even commented on it myself later on:)
About the friendship part: I don't disagree with anything you are saying, my point is simply that you don't keep a ledger where you enter each favor and before you help out your friend you check whether he has been doing you enough favors first. If you've become friends in the first place, odds are that you already have established that the relationship is going to be reciprocal, but as you said yourself, it's not about accounting to the nearest cent.
That is my view on FOSS as well. There is no point in trying to make sure that the person who uses your code is going to contribute back exactly the fair amount. In the FOSS community we should all be friends, I give something, you give something, and somebody else gives something else. As I stated earlier, If I create something useful to you and vice versa, we have both become richer for it - regardless of whether your contribution is on the exact same project I am working on. And this also works in chains where e.g. A helps B, B helps C, C helps A.
Just like friendships, the FOSS community depends on the whole thing to be reciprocal - not on a project to project basis, but on a sort of overall contributions basis. However, in contrast to a friendship, it doesn't hurt to give some outsider access to the code as well - he wasn't a part of the friendship in the first place and quite likely never intended to be. In a friendship that would leave you with a loss, in the FOSS community it doesn't (because you still have your code).
Now to your listing in the other post, very nicely done.
I contend that cases 1 and 2.2.2 are by far the most common cases - there are exceptions, but in my view they are so rare that it doesn't help to worry about them. Furthermore - you left out a very important case:
1.2 - The potential contributor (code/money/whatever) is scared of the GPL and doesn't even bother to check for other options. He might have been willing to contribute (parts of) his code back or pay money, but he is afraid of the viral GPL license. I have personally seen this happening at my workplace and also on other projects which I know about through my workplace. I try my best to explain it (because I do care about FOSS), but it doesn't always help.
In my view, case 1.2 far outweighs any of the cases that are not 1.1 (your original 1) or 2.2.2.
I certainly don't mean to imply that it's not your right to decide. I'm merely questioning the point in making the decision not to allow it. What do you gain by not allowing it, and what do you lose by allowing it? My answer to both questions is "absolutely nothing" - so what's the point?
I don't want you to change your position, it's your business deciding which philosophy you want to follow. I only want to explain my point of view, I hope you understand it better now.
Well, it's pretty much the same situation with illegal music downloads. There are *some* people who would never pay for a given piece of music - they just wouldn't. I don't want to specify how many people are like that, but I don't think you would disagree that they do in fact exist.
If such a person downloads the music illegally, he has clearly taken something without giving back. I don't think I'd have to explain where the feeling of injustice comes from. I sort of feel the same way about it.
However, if you look at it from the other perspective... The artist/publisher hasn't lost anything, because that person would not have paid anything regardless. So why should he really care?
And yes, to a certain extent I am claiming that people will do whatever they want (when it comes to legal stuff anyway, which is where the music download analogy has its limit). There are of course limits to this, but I feel it's a good generalization.
That nexuiz console project for example - they would either have taken the code or not - they would never have complied with the GPL or they would have done so from the beginning. So the GPL neither gained the developers anything or cost them anything, the matter is strictly value neutral.
For me FOSS is about sharing code. I give something, somebody else gives something else. Just like in a friendship, I don't want to keep track of who owes who how many favors, you just help each other out as you can. Sure, the balance will never be completely even and some people will abuse that. But in contrast to favors, code is an unlimited resource that doesn't diminish just because somebody helps himself to it.
And I don't see how your project is in jeopardy because it's not GPL'ed. people who care about FOSS will contribute anyway, and those who don't, won't. But your project is no worse off for using a BSD/PD license.
The ONLY problem I can see is a legal one - a closed source project taking your code and accusing you of copyright infringement. While that is indeed an issue, for smaller projects I consider it to be a minimal risk.
Well, because I don't lose anything if someone else close-sources my project. My project is still open, other people can still contribute to it - I have lost nothing.
In my view - if people want to contribute something they will, and if they won't they just won't. After all I don't go around feeling bad about any end-users just using my project because as you said before, its value neutral to me. If somebody else incorporates my source in their closed-source project that is exactly the same to me, it's just a different form of end-use*, I have lost nothing.
*I know that strictly speaking the term end-use isn't appropriate in this situation.
Just to clarify, if I have put something out there with the clear intent to get something back, it WOULD be immoral and unjust if they just closed-sourced it - and I would not call it irrational to feel that way. But since I have decided from the beginning that such a thing won't hurt me and made it clear that you can use this in any way you like, it's a different thing.
I'm just tired of needing small bits of code to do obvious task X in relation to a project and then having to worry about all that licensing shit. In the end I end up implementing it myself, because I just don't want to bother with that. And that really ruins the idea of F/OSS for me. Either you share your code or you don't, I just don't want to deal with the licensing mess, I'm not a lawyer, I'm a developer.
I have not released many projects, but I have released some minor stuff, and I always use public domain for it. I don't want other developers having to worry about licensing and credits if it's just a stupid algorithm for a well known problem.
Of course, if it's just a feeling of injustice with respect to close-sourcing something open, you should use the GPL. I even share that feeling to some amount, but I reject it for being irrational (and I don't mean to brag about how rational I am because I am not).
It's not like I hate the GPL or anything, I just think BSD licenses or public domain licenses suit my ideals better. But to each his own.
I see your point and respect your opinion on this. In fact I found your post quite interesting, because it made the whole GPL philosophy thing more clear for me.
Nevertheless, I cannot help but think that your view on the matter is somewhat narrow minded, for lack of a better word. I dislike the GPL because it is not important for me to get contributions back on exactly the same project that I am working on. If I write something that is useful to you, and you write something that is useful to me, then we have both become richer for it.
Whether a third part uses the project as well is - as you say - of neutral value to me. And I don't see how that changes whether the use consists of incorporation in a closed source product or simple end-user use.
I have already spent time writing the code, why should I care if somebody uses it for their own? As long as there are other people like you or me who also make their code available, we have both gained something.
1) The fact that e.g. the US still exists does not mean that it isn't going downhill (which it is) 2) I'm fairly certain that there are/have been governments that are not democracies that have existed for at least as long, although I'm too lazy to check right now. 3) The ancient greeks had a democracy - where did that get them eventually? (hint: nowhere special)
Nobody is denying that MS did *something* right in order to get to where they are. Parent was arguing about technical merits however, and windows certainly wasn't ahead on that score.
windows had better marketing, foul play, and maybe (just maybe) it even ran on cheap pcs and had more backward compatibility. However, none of these are *technical* merits, which parent was quite obviously talking about.
I drive a lot through germany on their autobahn. There are places where there is a sudden strong speed limit without much justification, a camera to catch you after a relatively short distance, and then suddenly the speed limit is gone again (just after the camera).
Seriously.
I make it a habit to drive through there extra fast (in a foreign car with foreign plates) just to show them how much I care about their bullshit.
I tried getting a vodaphone callya (debitel) prepaid card - the phone and sms part works, but it refuses to do any data, although that is supposed to be included.
I suspect that is because I have a HTC hero, which apparently is not supported very well by vodaphone (i.e. you can't pick it when you're supposed to select your phone model on their website).
While I agree with most of your post (i.e. that the entire concept is stupid), I believe there are enough stupid people who will get suckered into it - it's largely a question of marketing.
I don't think they will be a big success, but I predict the service will be tolerable enough to stay slightly profitable.
furthermore, for that $280 extra you get to have a powerful computer which can also be used for video editing (think vacation video etc.), image editing, software development, rendering, you name it.
With on-live you likely have a crappy computer (and you still NEED a computer, so maybe you don't save $280 AT ALL) which can mostly only be used for gaming (only through onlive) and light office use.
1) No borrowing games (I considder that to be fair use, but I can see why someone might disagree) 2) No reselling of games 3) Valve can shut down your account, taking away your ENTIRE collection. 4) If you lose your password or otherwise somehow screw up (and if their support is disinclined to help you) - once again, your entire collection is gone.
Basically, they are COMPLETELY in control of what you can play and when you can play. If I buy a game, I own it, and I can damn well do as I please with it. Otherwise I don't own it, and then I don't want to pay as if I did.
It's true that most "professional" reviews rarely touch on the DRM issues (which is a shame), but I think that a important part of making a purchases decision is to look for feedback from other users. And you can pretend all you want that only geeks know about DRM, but the general concept of copy protection is well known, and getting to the truth is pretty easy if you just look around slightly.
I'm not denying that there will be some people who honestly through no fault of their own got burned on this because they're entirely too young or otherwise inexperienced to know about this stuff. But I dare say that the vast majority of gamers is aware of the general issue and just can't be bothered to fight DRM.
If you can't be bothered to do a quick 10-20minutes research about the game before buying it (checking forum comments, reviews etc.) then you deserve what you get, and as a matter of fact you would be a part of the problem and I hate you for it.
Seriously, stop going "ooh shiny" and buying whatever is thrown at you and start making some fucking informed decisions. This is a part of your fucking responsibilities towards the rest of society.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for all those morons who show the publishers that it's ok to include invasive DRM measures by buying everything that's being thrown at them. These very same morons are the reason that I was unable to play a lot of games that I dearly would have wanted to play, except for the DRM.
In my opinion these ignorant customers are even more to blame than the publishers, they should have said "hell no" from the get go, instead of just accepting it.
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I didn't quite manage to understand the point of that phrase from that rather short wikipedia article. By extension, I also don't see what you are trying to say with it - would you mind clarifying this to me?
There is no reason why good business and pissing off apple should not go hand in hand. Would be killing two birds with one stone, and I'd be all for it.
Not that I hate apple per se, I like their goal oriented non-compromising approach to developing a product and wish more companies would adopt it. I just don't like their goals very much.
Because market saturation typically means a larger customer base.
It seems to me that if people are upset about this, it is because they realize two things:
3) While the iphone may not have a monopoly when it comes to smartphones, it is likely the largest player when it comes to smartphone apps. It has *almost* a quasi smartphone-app (or app store) monopoly.
2) The iphones competitors are not yet entirely competitive with apple on certain points. Most of all performance comes to mind, but this is also about how well everything is integrated on the iphone. The iphone is a more or less well polished product (although not entirely without flaws), wherease both android and maemo still have some rough edges when it comes to the user experience.
For these two reasons, people are well aware that this is going to hurt the other newcomers on the iphone-like-smartphone market, and they feel that apple is abusing their very strong position on this market.
What apple is doing may not be illegal but I can certainly understand the negative feelings it generates. I feel the same way, but mostly it frustrates me that the other platforms don't work harder to eliminate their rough edges to give the iphone some *real* competition. They are so close and yet so far away in my view.
I knew it was a bad analogy with respect to the legal issues, I even commented on it myself later on :)
About the friendship part: I don't disagree with anything you are saying, my point is simply that you don't keep a ledger where you enter each favor and before you help out your friend you check whether he has been doing you enough favors first. If you've become friends in the first place, odds are that you already have established that the relationship is going to be reciprocal, but as you said yourself, it's not about accounting to the nearest cent.
That is my view on FOSS as well. There is no point in trying to make sure that the person who uses your code is going to contribute back exactly the fair amount. In the FOSS community we should all be friends, I give something, you give something, and somebody else gives something else. As I stated earlier, If I create something useful to you and vice versa, we have both become richer for it - regardless of whether your contribution is on the exact same project I am working on. And this also works in chains where e.g. A helps B, B helps C, C helps A.
Just like friendships, the FOSS community depends on the whole thing to be reciprocal - not on a project to project basis, but on a sort of overall contributions basis. However, in contrast to a friendship, it doesn't hurt to give some outsider access to the code as well - he wasn't a part of the friendship in the first place and quite likely never intended to be. In a friendship that would leave you with a loss, in the FOSS community it doesn't (because you still have your code).
Now to your listing in the other post, very nicely done.
I contend that cases 1 and 2.2.2 are by far the most common cases - there are exceptions, but in my view they are so rare that it doesn't help to worry about them. Furthermore - you left out a very important case:
1.2 - The potential contributor (code/money/whatever) is scared of the GPL and doesn't even bother to check for other options. He might have been willing to contribute (parts of) his code back or pay money, but he is afraid of the viral GPL license. I have personally seen this happening at my workplace and also on other projects which I know about through my workplace. I try my best to explain it (because I do care about FOSS), but it doesn't always help.
In my view, case 1.2 far outweighs any of the cases that are not 1.1 (your original 1) or 2.2.2.
I certainly don't mean to imply that it's not your right to decide. I'm merely questioning the point in making the decision not to allow it. What do you gain by not allowing it, and what do you lose by allowing it? My answer to both questions is "absolutely nothing" - so what's the point?
I don't want you to change your position, it's your business deciding which philosophy you want to follow. I only want to explain my point of view, I hope you understand it better now.
Well, it's pretty much the same situation with illegal music downloads. There are *some* people who would never pay for a given piece of music - they just wouldn't. I don't want to specify how many people are like that, but I don't think you would disagree that they do in fact exist.
If such a person downloads the music illegally, he has clearly taken something without giving back. I don't think I'd have to explain where the feeling of injustice comes from. I sort of feel the same way about it.
However, if you look at it from the other perspective... The artist/publisher hasn't lost anything, because that person would not have paid anything regardless. So why should he really care?
And yes, to a certain extent I am claiming that people will do whatever they want (when it comes to legal stuff anyway, which is where the music download analogy has its limit). There are of course limits to this, but I feel it's a good generalization.
That nexuiz console project for example - they would either have taken the code or not - they would never have complied with the GPL or they would have done so from the beginning. So the GPL neither gained the developers anything or cost them anything, the matter is strictly value neutral.
For me FOSS is about sharing code. I give something, somebody else gives something else. Just like in a friendship, I don't want to keep track of who owes who how many favors, you just help each other out as you can. Sure, the balance will never be completely even and some people will abuse that. But in contrast to favors, code is an unlimited resource that doesn't diminish just because somebody helps himself to it.
And I don't see how your project is in jeopardy because it's not GPL'ed. people who care about FOSS will contribute anyway, and those who don't, won't. But your project is no worse off for using a BSD/PD license.
The ONLY problem I can see is a legal one - a closed source project taking your code and accusing you of copyright infringement. While that is indeed an issue, for smaller projects I consider it to be a minimal risk.
Well, because I don't lose anything if someone else close-sources my project. My project is still open, other people can still contribute to it - I have lost nothing.
In my view - if people want to contribute something they will, and if they won't they just won't. After all I don't go around feeling bad about any end-users just using my project because as you said before, its value neutral to me. If somebody else incorporates my source in their closed-source project that is exactly the same to me, it's just a different form of end-use*, I have lost nothing.
*I know that strictly speaking the term end-use isn't appropriate in this situation.
Just to clarify, if I have put something out there with the clear intent to get something back, it WOULD be immoral and unjust if they just closed-sourced it - and I would not call it irrational to feel that way. But since I have decided from the beginning that such a thing won't hurt me and made it clear that you can use this in any way you like, it's a different thing.
I'm just tired of needing small bits of code to do obvious task X in relation to a project and then having to worry about all that licensing shit. In the end I end up implementing it myself, because I just don't want to bother with that. And that really ruins the idea of F/OSS for me. Either you share your code or you don't, I just don't want to deal with the licensing mess, I'm not a lawyer, I'm a developer.
I have not released many projects, but I have released some minor stuff, and I always use public domain for it. I don't want other developers having to worry about licensing and credits if it's just a stupid algorithm for a well known problem.
I don't think we're disagreeing very much with each other, so I'll keep it short. You said:
"why should someone else be able to sell it at a profit and not pass any of that profit on to you?"
To which I reply - why should they not?
(personal profit aside, we all want more money :))
Of course, if it's just a feeling of injustice with respect to close-sourcing something open, you should use the GPL. I even share that feeling to some amount, but I reject it for being irrational (and I don't mean to brag about how rational I am because I am not).
It's not like I hate the GPL or anything, I just think BSD licenses or public domain licenses suit my ideals better. But to each his own.
nevermind, the one shown in the robotviking link looks much better already (but still not good enough to fork out $8500).
Don't want to sound too negative, but while the quality of the carpentry itself may be "heirloom quality", the actual table looks like shit.
Seriously... If I was to shell out that much money, it should at least look somewhat elegant.
I see your point and respect your opinion on this. In fact I found your post quite interesting, because it made the whole GPL philosophy thing more clear for me.
Nevertheless, I cannot help but think that your view on the matter is somewhat narrow minded, for lack of a better word. I dislike the GPL because it is not important for me to get contributions back on exactly the same project that I am working on. If I write something that is useful to you, and you write something that is useful to me, then we have both become richer for it.
Whether a third part uses the project as well is - as you say - of neutral value to me. And I don't see how that changes whether the use consists of incorporation in a closed source product or simple end-user use.
I have already spent time writing the code, why should I care if somebody uses it for their own? As long as there are other people like you or me who also make their code available, we have both gained something.
1) The fact that e.g. the US still exists does not mean that it isn't going downhill (which it is)
2) I'm fairly certain that there are/have been governments that are not democracies that have existed for at least as long, although I'm too lazy to check right now.
3) The ancient greeks had a democracy - where did that get them eventually? (hint: nowhere special)
Way to miss the point troll.
Nobody is denying that MS did *something* right in order to get to where they are. Parent was arguing about technical merits however, and windows certainly wasn't ahead on that score.
windows had better marketing, foul play, and maybe (just maybe) it even ran on cheap pcs and had more backward compatibility. However, none of these are *technical* merits, which parent was quite obviously talking about.
A whole lot of speeding fines are utter bull.
I drive a lot through germany on their autobahn. There are places where there is a sudden strong speed limit without much justification, a camera to catch you after a relatively short distance, and then suddenly the speed limit is gone again (just after the camera).
Seriously.
I make it a habit to drive through there extra fast (in a foreign car with foreign plates) just to show them how much I care about their bullshit.
awesome - somebody should make this a real language. Who knows, maybe even me.
I tried getting a vodaphone callya (debitel) prepaid card - the phone and sms part works, but it refuses to do any data, although that is supposed to be included.
I suspect that is because I have a HTC hero, which apparently is not supported very well by vodaphone (i.e. you can't pick it when you're supposed to select your phone model on their website).
While I agree with most of your post (i.e. that the entire concept is stupid), I believe there are enough stupid people who will get suckered into it - it's largely a question of marketing.
I don't think they will be a big success, but I predict the service will be tolerable enough to stay slightly profitable.
THIS.
This is exactly what is wrong with current DRM infested digital distribution models. This is precisely why I will keep boycotting them.
Thank you for putting it so eloquently and concise, I just wish I had mod points to mod you up. This post deserves a +10 insightful.
furthermore, for that $280 extra you get to have a powerful computer which can also be used for video editing (think vacation video etc.), image editing, software development, rendering, you name it.
With on-live you likely have a crappy computer (and you still NEED a computer, so maybe you don't save $280 AT ALL) which can mostly only be used for gaming (only through onlive) and light office use.
No no no no!
1) No borrowing games (I considder that to be fair use, but I can see why someone might disagree)
2) No reselling of games
3) Valve can shut down your account, taking away your ENTIRE collection.
4) If you lose your password or otherwise somehow screw up (and if their support is disinclined to help you) - once again, your entire collection is gone.
Basically, they are COMPLETELY in control of what you can play and when you can play. If I buy a game, I own it, and I can damn well do as I please with it. Otherwise I don't own it, and then I don't want to pay as if I did.
It's true that most "professional" reviews rarely touch on the DRM issues (which is a shame), but I think that a important part of making a purchases decision is to look for feedback from other users. And you can pretend all you want that only geeks know about DRM, but the general concept of copy protection is well known, and getting to the truth is pretty easy if you just look around slightly.
I'm not denying that there will be some people who honestly through no fault of their own got burned on this because they're entirely too young or otherwise inexperienced to know about this stuff. But I dare say that the vast majority of gamers is aware of the general issue and just can't be bothered to fight DRM.
If you can't be bothered to do a quick 10-20minutes research about the game before buying it (checking forum comments, reviews etc.) then you deserve what you get, and as a matter of fact you would be a part of the problem and I hate you for it.
Seriously, stop going "ooh shiny" and buying whatever is thrown at you and start making some fucking informed decisions. This is a part of your fucking responsibilities towards the rest of society.
You are completely right, yes.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for all those morons who show the publishers that it's ok to include invasive DRM measures by buying everything that's being thrown at them. These very same morons are the reason that I was unable to play a lot of games that I dearly would have wanted to play, except for the DRM.
In my opinion these ignorant customers are even more to blame than the publishers, they should have said "hell no" from the get go, instead of just accepting it.