Sunbird really was just a standalone version of Lightning and shared the same backend code. The problem with it is that it lacked all the email and addressbook integration that Lightning provides with Thunderbird. I guess it also was more and more difficult to maintain as Lightning integrated closely with Thunderbird.
We are currently developing a full-featured, professional-grade, Calendar (actually "groupware") server. It is based on standards such as CalDAV and even CardDAV (which has no RFC yet). The implementation of those is not yet complete but we are getting there. So it works well with Thunderbird/Lightning but not yet with Apple iCal.
Also, the web interface provides a look similar in look and feel to the Mozilla applications. We did this in order to provide a good integration between the user environments (web interface and Mozilla clients) and to provide a simple yet useable interface....
Probably your consumers haven't heard about the philosophy behind free software. "Consumers" have always been told that their software shouldn't be copied or modified, so I think it is normal for them to not realize what freedom they get from free software and to base their judgement only on convenience.
I think in the long run that GNU/Linux will win because people will realize at which point they were dependent on other companies/people. It will just take time to achieve because people may not see the advantage of using free software directly. And it will also take time to make some sort of applications available because of the patents surrounding them.
If you make MacOS X win, the same exact thing is likely to happen from what happened with Windows. This, because the economical system in which proprietary software evolve is based on competition (one winner, many losers) while with free software, the economical system is based on collaboration (everyone win).
Free software is not a matter of "freedom of choice" between different OS's or software, because free software resolve that point by permitting users to modify their applications if they wish. It is not a matter of "workability" either, since you can fix bugs or make them fixed by a developer around you.
That is the reason why it is important to promote the GNU/Linux platform as a free Operating System invented to give users certain freedom, rather than a technically-interesting alternative to Windows. Not to mention, the convenience brought by the "Linux" OS was possible mainly because of the freedom given to its users through the BSD license and the GPL...
This is also why it is important to call the system "GNU/Linux". Not only to give credit to GNU, but to make people realize what the "GNU" part of the system was made for.
I don't agree with you: - First of all, Richard Stallman was working with his own free software community in the AI labs of the MIT back in the 70's. At that time, "proprietaryness" of software was not an issue and there was no need to promote free software in itself. So he is maybe not the first working with and for free software, but he certainly didn't after the BSD people. - Second, BSD (at least a certain version of it) became free because RMS himself contacted those people and convinced them to make a free version. Beforehand, BSD was proprietary and distributed under a special license which reserved access to its source code only to the AT&T people and the UCB people only.
Re:Correlation between liking Motif and license?
on
RMS On 'Open' Motif
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· Score: 1
"they have not made Motif available within the free software community; instead, they have invited the people in the free software community to leave the community by using Motif." -- RMS
This is where he's wrong. To that part of the free software community that only uses free software, Open Motif is indeed free in all senses. It's only if folks have already chosen to leave the free software community by using a non-free OS that OpenMotif becomes non-free.
Therefore Motif is not free software either. Maybe he expressed it badly and this case is quite subtle (it was the same problem with the Qt license not so long ago). The fact that you are writing non-free software with a free software toolkit is a "bad thing". But it is no excuse for the toolkit to become non-free software. Otherwise it would mean "we will be friendly with the open-source/free software people, and we still have the opportunity to be proprietary anyway." To day, proprietary software is still the norm in the non-GNU community, so it is not a strong commitment to the free software community. Only a way for them to attract a couple of people.
Let's see if their changes to their license will be sufficient. But btw, if those people want clearly to be involved in our community, why would they bother for another free software license since the BSD and the GPL licenses are plainly free already...
Unfortunately WierdX relies strongly on non-free (as in speech) components. I tried to execute it a few months ago with the kaffe JavaVM and although it started, it was refusing connections because of problems with the rgb database.
Moreover, Swing, a non-free extension to Java, is required. So it is similar to the use of LyX (GPL) which relies on XForm (non-free).
Those areas of development need to be adressed by free software developers if we want complete freedom in the Java world. Things are moving, but maybe not at a sufficient speed.
While I totally agree with you, maybe this case might be taken as an example where the "open-source community" should have some humility. <BR> Yes, free software is theorically more secure, and in a broaden point-of-view less buggy. But it takes interested (and good quality, btw) developers to achieve quality software. <BR> In my opinion, free software should be fought for (for the sake of freedom). But if Freedom is not taken advantage of by Knowledge, those arguments might lack sense at the end... Quality is achieved by people who cares for it.
Probably RMS would be happy with the share of this new and improved version of gcc. This is even one of the freedom the GPL is there to defend. However, the fact of sharing only under binary form would not be a good thing, since it would violate the GPL and furthermore, it would violate your access to other freedoms than just sharing...
Slashdot Mirror
My bigger concern is Lightning's fate after it hits 1.0. Lightning's predecessor, Sunbird, was killed at 1.0, after seven years of development.
Sunbird really was just a standalone version of Lightning and shared the same backend code. The problem with it is that it lacked all the email and addressbook integration that Lightning provides with Thunderbird. I guess it also was more and more difficult to maintain as Lightning integrated closely with Thunderbird.
Don't forget SOGo, still in development though:
http://www.inverse.ca/contributions/sogo.html
We are currently developing a full-featured, professional-grade, Calendar (actually "groupware") server. It is based on standards such as CalDAV and even CardDAV (which has no RFC yet). The implementation of those is not yet complete but we are getting there. So it works well with Thunderbird/Lightning but not yet with Apple iCal.
Also, the web interface provides a look similar in look and feel to the Mozilla applications. We did this in order to provide a good integration between the user environments (web interface and Mozilla clients) and to provide a simple yet useable interface....
The software can be downloaded from http://www.inverse.ca/contributions/sogo.html. Also, you can play with it on http://sogo-demo.inverse.ca/.
GPLing old games could help people port those games to other platforms, as well as improving them and probably fixing bugs in them.
So for the case of GPL'ing source code for a platform such as the SEGA ones, it surely isn't useful. But it may be useful for other modern platforms.
And I suspect that it may be useful for SEGA too, because so much people will be able to use then that "old SEGA game".
Probably your consumers haven't heard about the philosophy behind free software. "Consumers" have always been told that their software shouldn't be copied or modified, so I think it is normal for them to not realize what freedom they get from free software and to base their judgement only on convenience.
I think in the long run that GNU/Linux will win because people will realize at which point they were dependent on other companies/people. It will just take time to achieve because people may not see the advantage of using free software directly. And it will also take time to make some sort of applications available because of the patents surrounding them.
If you make MacOS X win, the same exact thing is likely to happen from what happened with Windows. This, because the economical system in which proprietary software evolve is based on competition (one winner, many losers) while with free software, the economical system is based on collaboration (everyone win).
Free software is not a matter of "freedom of choice" between different OS's or software, because free software resolve that point by permitting users to modify their applications if they wish. It is not a matter of "workability" either, since you can fix bugs or make them fixed by a developer around you.
That is the reason why it is important to promote the GNU/Linux platform as a free Operating System invented to give users certain freedom, rather than a technically-interesting alternative to Windows. Not to mention, the convenience brought by the "Linux" OS was possible mainly because of the freedom given to its users through the BSD license and the GPL...
This is also why it is important to call the system "GNU/Linux". Not only to give credit to GNU, but to make people realize what the "GNU" part of the system was made for.
I don't agree with you:
- First of all, Richard Stallman was working with his own free software community in the AI labs of the MIT back in the 70's. At that time, "proprietaryness" of software was not an issue and there was no need to promote free software in itself. So he is maybe not the first working with and for free software, but he certainly didn't after the BSD people.
- Second, BSD (at least a certain version of it) became free because RMS himself contacted those people and convinced them to make a free version. Beforehand, BSD was proprietary and distributed under a special license which reserved access to its source code only to the AT&T people and the UCB people only.
"they have not made Motif available within the free software community; instead, they have invited the people in the free software community to leave the community by using Motif." -- RMS
This is where he's wrong. To that part of the free software community that only uses free software, Open Motif is indeed free in all senses. It's only if folks have already chosen to leave the free software community by using a non-free OS that OpenMotif becomes non-free.
Therefore Motif is not free software either. Maybe he expressed it badly and this case is quite subtle (it was the same problem with the Qt license not so long ago). The fact that you are writing non-free software with a free software toolkit is a "bad thing". But it is no excuse for the toolkit to become non-free software. Otherwise it would mean "we will be friendly with the open-source/free software people, and we still have the opportunity to be proprietary anyway." To day, proprietary software is still the norm in the non-GNU community, so it is not a strong commitment to the free software community. Only a way for them to attract a couple of people.
Let's see if their changes to their license will be sufficient. But btw, if those people want clearly to be involved in our community, why would they bother for another free software license since the BSD and the GPL licenses are plainly free already...
Unfortunately WierdX relies strongly on non-free (as in speech) components. I tried to execute it a few months ago with the kaffe JavaVM and although it started, it was refusing connections because of problems with the rgb database.
Moreover, Swing, a non-free extension to Java, is required. So it is similar to the use of LyX (GPL) which relies on XForm (non-free).
Those areas of development need to be adressed by free software developers if we want complete freedom in the Java world. Things are moving, but maybe not at a sufficient speed.
While I totally agree with you, maybe this case might be taken as an example where the "open-source community" should have some humility.
<BR>
Yes, free software is theorically more secure, and in a broaden point-of-view less buggy. But it takes interested (and good quality, btw) developers to achieve quality software.
<BR>
In my opinion, free software should be fought for (for the sake of freedom). But if Freedom is not taken advantage of by Knowledge, those arguments might lack sense at the end... Quality is achieved by people who cares for it.
Probably RMS would be happy with the share of this new and improved version of gcc. This is even one of the freedom the GPL is there to defend.
However, the fact of sharing only under binary form would not be a good thing, since it would violate the GPL and furthermore, it would violate your access to other freedoms than just sharing...