Not everything needs to be free
on
RMS on APSL
·
· Score: 1
Assume for a moment that the APSL will be fixed eventually & become a "free software licence".
The point here is not that there is a closed-source GUI on top of MacOS X Server. The point is that we now have a robust, fast, useful BSD-like OS for the Mac platform that we can build our OWN open source GUI's for if need be.
Apple has every right and significant business reason to keep the MacOS GUI proprietary, as it is their biggest asset. Not everything must be free.
First of all, the job of any for-profit company *IS* to turn a profit. It's their social obligation and responsibility. You don't do good deeds by bleeding cash.
Second of all, Apple hss a long track record of innovation: far more so that most computer companies. IBM is a successful inventor - they have thousands of patents, but a spotty innovator: only recently have they really been taking advantage of their amazing research staff for innovative products (their new hard drives for instance).
Apple has released 3 successful "revolutionary" innovations: The Apple II, Macintosh, and iMac. Compare this to Microsoft.
Indeed it does, though this does conflict with RMS' view that everything should be free.... do you believe this is an unworkable goal, just something that we can't do *today* ?
Personally, I think it's probably unworkable, unless we can find a way to keep indirect revenues for free software at the same levels as what we're getting for direct-revenue closed software. Software developers are *not* going to want to make less money (though I'm sure the market would love that:)... So, this doesn't look like an easy problem.
With indirect revenue streams being the only real type of cash inflow, I don't think there is a better way (yet).
For instance, you can work for a company that has such indirect revenue inflow, OR you can consult. (Or you can become a not-for-profit organization, like the FSF. Free software could conceivably be seen as a charitable cause.)
The thing is - indirect inflow most likely will dwarf the reveues of non-free software sold directly (for the near future, at least). This means that it's reasonable to expect that a free-software company isn't going to get insanely rich, nor will a free software developer working for such a company. This becomes a problem if you're talented and want a better than average lifestyle.
SO - It could work this way: Some software does not need to be open. Custom software through consulting, for instance. For the individual or small company, consulting and contracting are excellent ways to make an above average wage - while supporting free software (either by using it in your work, or just doing it in your spare time)...
I think there are some scalability limitations with linux right now. The IBM dude was referring to (I hope for his credibility's sake anyway) milllionS of hits per day..like amazon.com type scalability. [I believe they use Alphas and Digital UNIX]..
Of course, one would wonder how many people require that kind of scale, but businesspeople are (rightly, so) anticipating insane scalability requirements over the next decade as the herd "gets on the Net".
While DejaNews does scale well, I think he's probably talking about more than database access here: we're talking commerce transactions and decision support systems (with complex querys).
There are some things that are so large that you'd probably *want* to buy a Sun or Alpha box. Solaris is an excellently designed OS (and the source code is available to prove it)... Linux on those boxes probably would do a decent job too.
Whether this will be true down the road (Linux 2.4/3.0) is another story.
This also isn't just about scale, it's about reliability. Nothing is completely reliable of course, even amazon.com goes down the odd time.. BUT.. Slashdot *HAS* had some noticable reliability problems in past (mostly due to MySQL if I recall correctly). Sun boxes are known for their reliability vs. Intel boxes where unless it's a 1st tier vendor you don't really know the quality.
I read a lot. A LOT. My speed seems to vary.. sometimes I can plow through a book in a matter of hours, sometimes it takes days/weeks... the reason for this depends on the subject at hand and how my mind is treating that subject.
I read somewhere, i think it was InformationWeek's Secret CIO column, where he described three different types of reading (that some linguist in the 70's coined):
[i probably have the exact terms wrong, but the meaning is still there, i think]
- Absorption reading. This is very similar to skim reading: you intentionally read each line fast in order to absorb information in the least amount of time. Because you're reading fast, all that your brain is dedicated to is *absorbing*. This is good for reference manuals or novels.
- Retention reading. This is the typical pace when you're introduced to new concepts, or are reading material that requires some thought to understand. Usually this is how you read when you're studying for mathematics or some other subject that requires *understanding* and regurgitation of that *understanding* rather than just the information that is on paper.
- Synoptic reading. This is the highest form of reading, and is pretty slow. Basically, it's "reading in between the lines" - trying to get new (sometimes unrelated) ideas based on previous work that is similar to the area you're thinking about. Synoptic reading could be used to describe why the "Design Patterns" community was related: it took a lot of the ideas from Christopher Alexander's building-architecture work and applied it to their area.
I think those categories are good... For purely technical books, the first two would probably be most effective, but for "big picture" books like those on Design Patterns or software design, I think "synoptic" reading might be the best way to approach the book...
Excuse me, but Apple *is* going along with the obligations of being an Open Source (tm) company. Or at least OSI says so. It's not exactly an us vs. them situation.
Apple's intention is not to be evasive, it is to embrace the model while protecting their rear-end against shitty software patents.
Even if the GPL doesn't explicitly state it, what happens if it violates a (past/present/future) law or is proven unenforcable? Does it supercede the law? I think not.
Then don't use their stuff. If they create something, they have every right to keep it closed.
Free redistribution of intellectual property is a _CHOICE_ (today, and probably tomorrow).
The battle should not be "everything must be free", rather, "everything can be free, if we choose to". Attempting to restrict one freedom in order to increase another can be viewed as hypocritical.
Besides opening source code & ensuring it will always _be_ open, what more is free software about?
Eric has made it clear that the APSL *will* keep all contributed code in the open if the author didn't infringe on patents.
Unless of course, you want to overhaul the whole patent system (which wouldn't be a bad idea), but freedom should be fought for _one step at a time_, imho.
What, that gigabyte images were used? They're actually common in more areas than GIS: professional digital graphics processing for instance, uses files that are in the hundreds of megabytes for increased colour-depth (like above 32 bit)...
I was about 14 when Windows 3.x came out, and I can assure you, most people I knew were *NOT* saying how neat it was, they were busy deleting it off their drives....
BBS SysOp's especially in that era will understand. DesQView was usable for multi-node BBS', Windows was not. OS/2 was better still, but then the Internet caused many people to just forget about BBS' altogether (and OS/2...)
As you say, press-release "science" is "junk science". While there is some schred of truth to them, they're obviously not objective.
Almost all statistics that don't come from a neutral body are pretty much junk. Note that I include the statistics from Gartner & GIGA and Dataguess here too, as they're far from neutral in this industry.
I figured that most people knew that benchmarks like this are flawed, but fun to speculate on....Which makes me wonder what all the insane huff here is about. So Apple posted a benchmark, big deal. It's a "good sign" for Apple, but of course not conclusive, nor should it ment to be taken as conclusive. The flamers here sure seem intent on proving the obvious.
Y'know, when flames are on a purely technical level, I can tolerate them, but this is just plain silly. How old are you, twelve?
On the bright side: you're so far inside your bubble that you're not going to make one lick of a difference in this world compared to someone who's clued into reality, not their own distorted utopia.
Not as quickly as Apple, though. While I'm in favour of GNUStep and would definitely work on it if I wasn't bogged down with work, I don't believe they'll have as powerful a system as Mac OS X is now, and will be by year end.
GNUStep has been churning for a long time, and it has sort of lost a lot of its glamor because of that.
Success requires trust in the people you work with. Trust requires sacrifice, because no one is completely trustworthy.
Is the solution, then, to completely distrust those who've been untrustworthy in the past? Not by a long shot. It's about taking prudent risk, given an adequate reward.
The power of the MacOS desktop and Yellow Box development environment is PLENTY of reward to consider trusting Apple again.
While there were definite flaws to some of his premises, I think his overall argument is sound: the mass media can't describe "what source code is and why it's good when it's open" in a three-minute sound bite.
In other words: the mainstream has a chronic case of Attention Deficit Disorder.
...and that my friends, is the (potentially) major limiting factor to the open source trend: It expects mainstream programmers to become *more* competent.
Put another way, open source is partially an attempt to reverse a bad trend: instead of making programming easier for baboons, make programming easier for competent people who want to collaborate.
Think it will work? We live in a world where Visual Basic is the #1-used language and VB programmers outnumber UNIX programmers. Conservatively, (imho) 1/2 of those VB programmers are hopelessly incompetent.... it's going to be an uphill battle, but it sure is fun!
- they're to write - they allow easy accessibility to other applications/machines through Java's enterprise API's such as Enterprise JavaBeans, Java Transaction Service, Messaging Protocol, RMI and JavaIDL (CORBA orb). - they scale well - they encapsulate logic well so your web code isn't all gucky with embedded ASP or PHP scripts - Though if you like the above, Java Server Pages are an option, and actually *are compiled* on the fly to a servlet... so they're more efficient than ASP
Basically I view servlets as an equivilantly good choice to mod_perl. Only thing about Perl is that allows you to make one big mess of code to do something vs. forcing you to cleanly decouple/modularize stuff, which is a big maintenance nightmare over time if you start out with a quick'n'dirty solution (what doesn't ?:)
out of curiosity, what's better than Mod_perl + apache and a database? ASP+Win NT is "okay", but I wouldn't give it super marks. application servers like Netscape's or IBM's websphere? I think they have a lot of potential myself...
you make some good points, it's a pity you are so scathing - we could have had a good argument here.
First, please understand the target audience of my original rant. Yes, it was patronizing because the target was the prototypical "YoU CanNNOT ST0P Th3 L1NuX J1HAD!" Anonymous Coward. Normally, I would not be so patronizing, but I tend to get rather annoyed by the lack of clue displayed here more of then than not.
now, a rebuttal..
My points in favour of profit were based on the objective reason for profit: for-profit organizations exist for the sole purpose of economic performance. They achieve that through creating a customer.
That is an inherently *SOCIAL* function. Profit is a measurement of "how well you're doing" in terms of economic performance, and as you say, it definitely does not measure the "morality" of how you went after that profit.
Since organizations are a social construct they have a social responsibility to be a benefit to society, not a hinderance. No where did I claim otherwise.
My omission of the potential "social harms" of myopic for-profit thinking was due to the already insane length of the rant. Profit is a primary objective of the business because it NEEDS profit for survival, and society NEEDS profit for continued advancement.
This is what puzzles me about your responce: I agree with you - profit does not measure "how you got the money", because that isn't something you can measure quantitatively. Is this a perfect situation? Of course not. It does not make profit a "bad thing", however.
And you chide me for making a patronizing assumption that people "don't get what profit is". Patronizing or not, I'd be surprised if you can tell me with a straight face that the majority of people DO understand the objective nature of profit. Of course, if you disagree with my assessment of profit's objective nature, than I guess this argument is over & we agree to disagree, because that's the fundamental assumption I have, which is largely based on Peter Drucker's writings in the area of management & economics.
Clarification of my assumption about "freedom": I made the assumption that "fighting for freedom" is a battle achieved one step at a time - not all at once. That is my problem with RMS - he is not fighting the battle gradually, he's tackling it head-on, with relatively little progress, I might add (Linus is getting all the credit, isn't he?). I did not mean to allude that there is such a thing as "partial freedom".
Furthermore, by "economic justification for freedom", I was implying that RIGHT NOW, the "grand vision" of the free software movement *is not going to happen* with our current economic structures. These structures must change over time, and in order for them to change, there has to be an incremental, gradual shifting of opinion in favour of increased personal freedom.
It's the "boiled-frog" effect: if you want to change the world, do it one step at a time, otherwise you'll run into great amounts of opposition.
Finally, I think you misunderstand me with regards to "utilitarian" vs. "idealistic". This is primarily my fault for not elaborating my argument in the original rant, because I felt it was already way too long. I do not buy into the dichtomy of "utilitarian" vs "idealistic".
I simply believe that there are MORE effective ways of "changing the world" than the way RMS is attempting to do it. And I believe that the current capitalsim/free market system *works* and isn't going to go away, so any new structure will be a complement to it, not a replacement.
Slashdot Mirror
Assume for a moment that the APSL will be fixed eventually & become a "free software licence".
The point here is not that there is a closed-source GUI on top of MacOS X Server. The point is that we now have a robust, fast, useful BSD-like OS for the Mac platform that we can build our OWN open source GUI's for if need be.
Apple has every right and significant business reason to keep the MacOS GUI proprietary, as it is their biggest asset. Not everything must be free.
First of all, the job of any for-profit company *IS* to turn a profit. It's their social obligation and responsibility. You don't do good deeds by bleeding cash.
Second of all, Apple hss a long track record of innovation: far more so that most computer companies. IBM is a successful inventor - they have thousands of patents, but a spotty innovator: only recently have they really been taking advantage of their amazing research staff for innovative products (their new hard drives for instance).
Apple has released 3 successful "revolutionary" innovations: The Apple II, Macintosh, and iMac. Compare this to Microsoft.
Cygnus happens to make a lot of their money from their closed-source addons to the GNU utilities.
Indeed it does, though this does conflict with RMS' view that everything should be free.... do you believe this is an unworkable goal, just something that we can't do *today* ?
:)... So, this doesn't look like an easy problem.
Personally, I think it's probably unworkable, unless we can find a way to keep indirect revenues for free software at the same levels as what we're getting for direct-revenue closed software. Software developers are *not* going to want to make less money (though I'm sure the market would love that
With indirect revenue streams being the only real type of cash inflow, I don't think there is a better way (yet).
For instance, you can work for a company that has such indirect revenue inflow, OR you can consult. (Or you can become a not-for-profit organization, like the FSF. Free software could conceivably be seen as a charitable cause.)
The thing is - indirect inflow most likely will dwarf the reveues of non-free software sold directly (for the near future, at least). This means that it's reasonable to expect that a free-software company isn't going to get insanely rich, nor will a free software developer working for such a company. This becomes a problem if you're talented and want a better than average lifestyle.
SO - It could work this way: Some software does not need to be open. Custom software through consulting, for instance. For the individual or small company, consulting and contracting are excellent ways to make an above average wage - while supporting free software (either by using it in your work, or just doing it in your spare time)...
I think there are some scalability limitations with linux right now. The IBM dude was referring to (I hope for his credibility's sake anyway) milllionS of hits per day..like amazon.com type scalability. [I believe they use Alphas and Digital UNIX]..
Of course, one would wonder how many people require that kind of scale, but businesspeople are (rightly, so) anticipating insane scalability requirements over the next decade as the herd "gets on the Net".
While DejaNews does scale well, I think he's probably talking about more than database access here: we're talking commerce transactions and decision support systems (with complex querys).
There are some things that are so large that you'd probably *want* to buy a Sun or Alpha box. Solaris is an excellently designed OS (and the source code is available to prove it)... Linux on those boxes probably would do a decent job too.
Whether this will be true down the road (Linux 2.4/3.0) is another story.
This also isn't just about scale, it's about reliability. Nothing is completely reliable of course, even amazon.com goes down the odd time.. BUT.. Slashdot *HAS* had some noticable reliability problems in past (mostly due to MySQL if I recall correctly). Sun boxes are known for their reliability vs. Intel boxes where unless it's a 1st tier vendor you don't really know the quality.
just my 2c
I read a lot. A LOT. My speed seems to vary.. sometimes I can plow through a book in a matter of hours, sometimes it takes days/weeks... the reason for this depends on the subject at hand and how my mind is treating that subject.
I read somewhere, i think it was InformationWeek's Secret CIO column, where he described three different types of reading (that some linguist in the 70's coined):
[i probably have the exact terms wrong, but the meaning is still there, i think]
- Absorption reading. This is very similar to skim reading: you intentionally read each line fast in order to absorb information in the least amount of time. Because you're reading fast, all that your brain is dedicated to is *absorbing*. This is good for reference manuals or novels.
- Retention reading. This is the typical pace when you're introduced to new concepts, or are reading material that requires some thought to understand. Usually this is how you read when you're studying for mathematics or some other subject that requires *understanding* and regurgitation of that *understanding* rather than just the information that is on paper.
- Synoptic reading. This is the highest form of reading, and is pretty slow. Basically, it's "reading in between the lines" - trying to get new (sometimes unrelated) ideas based on previous work that is similar to the area you're thinking about.
Synoptic reading could be used to describe why the "Design Patterns" community was related: it took a lot of the ideas from Christopher Alexander's building-architecture work and applied it to their area.
I think those categories are good... For purely technical books, the first two would probably be most effective, but for "big picture" books like those on Design Patterns or software design, I think "synoptic" reading might be the best way to approach the book...
Excuse me, but Apple *is* going along with the obligations of being an Open Source (tm) company. Or at least OSI says so. It's not exactly an us vs. them situation.
Apple's intention is not to be evasive, it is to embrace the model while protecting their rear-end against shitty software patents.
Even if the GPL doesn't explicitly state it, what happens if it violates a (past/present/future) law or is proven unenforcable? Does it supercede the law? I think not.
Stop spreading FUD.
Then don't use their stuff. If they create something, they have every right to keep it closed.
Free redistribution of intellectual property is a _CHOICE_ (today, and probably tomorrow).
The battle should not be "everything must be free", rather, "everything can be free, if we choose to". Attempting to restrict one freedom in order to increase another can be viewed as hypocritical.
Besides opening source code & ensuring it will always _be_ open, what more is free software about?
Eric has made it clear that the APSL *will* keep all contributed code in the open if the author didn't infringe on patents.
Unless of course, you want to overhaul the whole patent system (which wouldn't be a bad idea), but freedom should be fought for _one step at a time_, imho.
What, that gigabyte images were used? They're actually common in more areas than GIS: professional digital graphics processing for instance, uses files that are in the hundreds of megabytes for increased colour-depth (like above 32 bit)...
I was about 14 when Windows 3.x came out, and I can assure you, most people I knew were *NOT* saying how neat it was, they were busy deleting it off their drives....
BBS SysOp's especially in that era will understand. DesQView was usable for multi-node BBS', Windows was not. OS/2 was better still, but then the Internet caused many people to just forget about BBS' altogether (and OS/2...)
if you're a student and join apple dev connection, you can get it for $99.
That's fscking cheap.
As you say, press-release "science" is "junk science". While there is some schred of truth to them, they're obviously not objective.
....Which makes me wonder what all the insane huff here is about. So Apple posted a benchmark, big deal. It's a "good sign" for Apple, but of course not conclusive, nor should it ment to be taken as conclusive. The flamers here sure seem intent on proving the obvious.
Almost all statistics that don't come from a neutral body are pretty much junk. Note that I include the statistics from Gartner & GIGA and Dataguess here too, as they're far from neutral in this industry.
I figured that most people knew that benchmarks like this are flawed, but fun to speculate on
Y'know, when flames are on a purely technical level, I can tolerate them, but this is just plain silly. How old are you, twelve?
On the bright side: you're so far inside your bubble that you're not going to make one lick of a difference in this world compared to someone who's clued into reality, not their own distorted utopia.
Have a nice day.
ESR and the Apache team are contibutors to this community in both code & ideas
all I see here is complaining. Show me the code.
Not as quickly as Apple, though. While I'm in favour of GNUStep and would definitely work on it if I wasn't bogged down with work, I don't believe they'll have as powerful a system as Mac OS X is now, and will be by year end.
GNUStep has been churning for a long time, and it has sort of lost a lot of its glamor because of that.
The license is a fair and equitable one, and it meets the OSD requirments.
Their actions increase the freedom of Mac developers to improve their platform.
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?
You can either be a complainer, or a coder. Pick one.
Success requires trust in the people you work with.
Trust requires sacrifice, because no one is completely trustworthy.
Is the solution, then, to completely distrust those who've been untrustworthy in the past? Not by a long shot. It's about taking prudent risk, given an adequate reward.
The power of the MacOS desktop and Yellow Box development environment is PLENTY of reward to consider trusting Apple again.
While there were definite flaws to some of his premises, I think his overall argument is sound: the mass media can't describe "what source code is and why it's good when it's open" in a three-minute sound bite.
In other words: the mainstream has a chronic case of Attention Deficit Disorder.
...and that my friends, is the (potentially) major limiting factor to the open source trend: It expects mainstream programmers to become *more* competent.
Put another way, open source is partially an attempt to reverse a bad trend: instead of making programming easier for baboons, make programming easier for competent people who want to collaborate.
Think it will work? We live in a world where Visual Basic is the #1-used language and VB programmers outnumber UNIX programmers. Conservatively, (imho) 1/2 of those VB programmers are hopelessly incompetent.... it's going to be an uphill battle, but it sure is fun!
Servlets are good because
:)
- they're to write
- they allow easy accessibility to other applications/machines through Java's enterprise API's such as Enterprise JavaBeans, Java Transaction Service, Messaging Protocol, RMI and JavaIDL (CORBA orb).
- they scale well
- they encapsulate logic well so your web code isn't all gucky with embedded ASP or PHP scripts
- Though if you like the above, Java Server Pages are an option, and actually *are compiled* on the fly to a servlet... so they're more efficient than ASP
Basically I view servlets as an equivilantly good choice to mod_perl. Only thing about Perl is that allows you to make one big mess of code to do something vs. forcing you to cleanly decouple/modularize stuff, which is a big maintenance nightmare over time if you start out with a quick'n'dirty solution (what doesn't ?
out of curiosity, what's better than Mod_perl + apache and a database? ASP+Win NT is "okay", but I wouldn't give it super marks. application servers like Netscape's or IBM's websphere? I think they have a lot of potential myself...
Cool. I agree with you. That pretty much sums up my perception of ESR's position vs. RMS'.
you make some good points, it's a pity you are so scathing - we could have had a good argument here.
First, please understand the target audience of my original rant. Yes, it was patronizing because the target was the prototypical "YoU CanNNOT ST0P Th3 L1NuX J1HAD!" Anonymous Coward. Normally, I would not be so patronizing, but I tend to get rather annoyed by the lack of clue displayed here more of then than not.
now, a rebuttal..
My points in favour of profit were based on the objective reason for profit: for-profit organizations exist for the sole purpose of economic performance. They achieve that through creating a customer.
That is an inherently *SOCIAL* function. Profit is a measurement of "how well you're doing" in terms of economic performance, and as you say, it definitely does not measure the "morality" of how you went after that profit.
Since organizations are a social construct they have a social responsibility to be a benefit to society, not a hinderance. No where did I claim otherwise.
My omission of the potential "social harms" of myopic for-profit thinking was due to the already insane length of the rant. Profit is a primary objective of the business because it NEEDS profit for survival, and society NEEDS profit for continued advancement.
This is what puzzles me about your responce: I agree with you - profit does not measure "how you got the money", because that isn't something you can measure quantitatively. Is this a perfect situation? Of course not. It does not make profit a "bad thing", however.
And you chide me for making a patronizing assumption that people "don't get what profit is". Patronizing or not, I'd be surprised if you can tell me with a straight face that the majority of people DO understand the objective nature of profit. Of course, if you disagree with my assessment of profit's objective nature, than I guess this argument is over & we agree to disagree, because that's the fundamental assumption I have, which is largely based on Peter Drucker's writings in the area of management & economics.
Clarification of my assumption about "freedom": I made the assumption that "fighting for freedom" is a battle achieved one step at a time - not all at once. That is my problem with RMS - he is not fighting the battle gradually, he's tackling it head-on, with relatively little progress, I might add (Linus is getting all the credit, isn't he?). I did not mean to allude that there is such a thing as "partial freedom".
Furthermore, by "economic justification for freedom", I was implying that RIGHT NOW, the "grand vision" of the free software movement *is not going to happen* with our current economic structures. These structures must change over time, and in order for them to change, there has to be an incremental, gradual shifting of opinion in favour of increased personal freedom.
It's the "boiled-frog" effect: if you want to change the world, do it one step at a time, otherwise you'll run into great amounts of opposition.
Finally, I think you misunderstand me with regards to "utilitarian" vs. "idealistic". This is primarily my fault for not elaborating my argument in the original rant, because I felt it was already way too long. I do not buy into the dichtomy of "utilitarian" vs "idealistic".
I simply believe that there are MORE effective ways of "changing the world" than the way RMS is attempting to do it. And I believe that the current capitalsim/free market system *works* and isn't going to go away, so any new structure will be a complement to it, not a replacement.
next weekend... i'm doing it with about 6 friends...we're going to watch
The Shining
Full Metal Jacket
A Clockwork Orange
2001
Sparticus
it'll be an all day thing. if we get a bunch of groups everywhere to watch them next weekend, maybe we can channel his spirit! (or not)