The problem was finally solved by a clean-room reimplementation of the utilities (GNU) and the kernel (Linux).
It didn't solve it, it just created yet another entry to the UNIX wars, it didn't supplant the major players BSD, Darwin, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris. The problem was that developers had many systems to target, Linux hasn't solved that, it is solved by having multi-platform frameworks and language standards.
But that's just them using open source technologies, whether it's GPL or BSD makes no difference. Why does it matter if they are just using them for their business?
Software as a service isn't quite the same as distributing software. The GPL is a distribution license, not a usage license
Right but these days SaaS is becoming much more common, the idea that "the GPL strictly states that nobody is allowed to put handcuffs on you" is outdated and antiquated, that statement also ignores Tivoization. These have been addressed in the AGPL and GPLv3 respectively but those have not seen wide adoption, indeed even the project central to Tivoization denounces it because it doesn't see Tivoization as a bad thing. The GPL in that case is a vehicle for "tit-for-tat" rather than freedom.
If you fork BSD-licensed free software into proprietary software, the derivative doesn't cease being BSD-licensed, it is now a BSD-licensed proprietary program.
Yes I should have written BSD-licensed sourcecode.
Relatively speaking, yes. You're kidding yourself if you think any significant proportion of users or developers care about software freedom. It's about freeware, open source and technical merit but not free software, that's the reason we don't really have fully open source tablets, phones, PCs, laptops, smart watches, etc... Because nobody cares about that but sometimes it's useful/convenient to use open source and/or freeware and often that also happens to be free software.
That's why RMS is getting all uppity about Clang/LLVM (in this instance and in others), that programs that are not the embodiment of free software ideals are gaining popularity because people care about open source, freeware and technical merit but not free software.
XP had more demanding specs which was adopted pushed the netbooks out of their value point (they failed to be competitive with low-end laptops).
No it didn't, even the first Asus eeePC was later released with Windows XP. Even at that $200 price point there are still netbooks available, even new ones with Windows.
BSD-style license does not guarantee these freedoms, and Stallman sees wider adoption of projects using those licenses as a threat to free software.
But why is that the case? I know there is the contrived case of a codebase being improved and re-packaged under a proprietary license but that just doesn't happen, part of the reason is the original codebase is still there and other people can still use and improve upon it. The most popular web server in the world is licensed under this model and it hasn't happened there.
It's a fear of the corporate value-add, a fear of competition. A fear that a BSD codebase could be augmented with new functionality and the source not released, as you rightly say the original codebase is still free and people are free to add to that. But also a process running a binary built from GPL code can communicate with a process running proprietary binary so it's not much more difficult to extend GPL programs with proprietary functionality either if that's what they actually wanted to do.
I find it funny that considering all of the hate directed at RMS and the GPL that it took so f*cking long to replace gcc.
Why? RMS's views have often been unpopular but ultimately people are more concerned about the technology itself than the ideology that bore it, especially when that ideology doesn't affect their use of it.
GNU even managed to get it's own kernel built faster than the anti-GPL whiners managed to replace gcc.
But nobody uses it because from a technological standpoint there is no reason to, again nobody cares about the ideology.
The seems to be worrying about a bait and switch scenario, or a embrace, extend, extinguish play.
So you're suggesting that a company will add some functionality and release a proprietary version. Well you can do that with the GPL too, just add your proprietary functionality into a different process and have the GPL program communicate with that process. In both cases you could take the open source code and implement the new functionality yourself.
Sure: the GPL strictly states that nobody is allowed to put handcuffs on you.
Nope, for example if people run GPL software as a service it isn't running on their machine and they also don't have the code for it.
BSD is more along the lines of "anybody can stick handcuffs on you".
How? If you have BSD-licensed software you are no less free than with GPL software. You're thinking of proprietary software, which is not the same thing.
But the point is moot because the vast majority of end users (probably almost all of them) don't know - nor have any need or interest in knowing - whether the software they use is free software or just proprietary freeware. Ultimately it's just a binary, whether the source code used to compile it is licensed under a free software license has absolutely no consequence in terms of control for almost all end users.
So he's basically afraid of competition from a better product, and instead of upping his game he's playing unfair with regard to access to "his" products?
Most people could see this coming. Open source is great for developers, freeware is great for end users and free software just happens to be compatible with both of those and thus provided a vehicle for them. Now it's being done in a way that is also compatible with proprietary software and therefore RMS doesn't like it. So, as you say, he needs to up his game and create a better product that just so happens to be free software because nobody cares about free software in and of itself.
His complaints center around the fact that restrictive free software licenses are incompatible with proprietary licensing. It's a "my way or the highway" approach not to software development or technology but to ideology. That is the problem, most people - including developers - are interested in open source, not necessarily free software and most end users are more interested in freeware than they are free software.
Now his fear is that where free software rode the coattails of open source and freeware it is now in danger of becoming obsolete because it is the proprietary-compatible open source software that is really providing the innovation here. GCC, GDB, emacs, etc... haven't provided much in recent times despite the drastic shifts in technology so other projects have come to replace them.
Free software needs to be more than just an ideological advantage because most people don't care about the ideology thus there is no advantage. It has to be better software.
How? They used Windows XP, people wanted that and bought netbooks but when tablets came out people preferred those, that is all that happened. Anybody could buy a netbook over a tablet but virtually nobody wants that.
This is why I don't like developing for Microsoft's stack. They seem to want to throw everything out every few years and start over.
Like what? COM is still supported now and was introduced over 2 decades ago, MFC is still supported and it has been around even longer than COM! They still support their C/C++ compiler and runtime, the.Net environment is all still there despite being over a decade old. Even with things they removed support for like F# or IronPython they have released as open source.
Silverlight is an example of something that most definitely should have gone, just like Flash should, as it is primarily a proprietary plugin for web content and has been replaced by open source javascript and the standard HTML5, how can anybody but a rabid MS fanboy ever conclude that that was a bad thing? But they released the toolkit as open source anyway.
There's nothing stopping you from doing that and if it's viable then people will do it, if it isn't viable then they won't. Stop worrying about it and let the market decide.
Someone might think that those companies wouldn't want to share the software because they would lose a competetive advantage but that's usually not the case.
Of course it is! If a company has developed software that has allowed them to improve their processes and increase their profits you are clearly deluded if you actually believe a company would just willingly give that to their competitors.
I find it hard to imagine windows 7 running well in 400MB of ram
All I said was there is significant a reduction in the amount of base memory used by the operating system.
In practice taskmanager has shown booting to the desktop taking around 1GB A Windows 7 desktop is pretty much unusable with 1GB of ram 1.5GB at least lets you boot up and run office or a web browser.
A lot of it depends on the device drivers you have loaded. Once you're loading high performance graphics drivers, shell extensions, accelerated DWM, etc... of course it adds up. There are various tools that help you to strip out the unnecessary things of a Windows install too. Anyway that's beside the point, from Vista, to 7 to 8 there has been a marked reduction in memory usage.
The issue is when manufacturers change the product you bought without your consent, after you've bought it.
No that isn't the issue here at all. In fact you need to connect the drone to a computer and explicitly apply an update that by definition changes the product.
I liked writing blog posts and student worksheets on the train. I wanted to code lightweight programs in Python and Javascript. I didn't need a heavy, full-sized laptop for that, but I certainly needed a keyboard. It happily played back the audio and video files I needed in class, and connected perfectly happily to any standard projector.
Now all of that is done on tablets and if you need a keyboard then just attach a bluetooth keyboard cover.
That the market for netbooks is smaller than the market for tablets, I understand; however, the niche I was in was well-served by the eeePC, and in trying to embrace and extend customer appeal, they extinguished the netbook.
Nobody extinguished the netbook. In fact netbooks still exist and are still being sold, it's just that nobody wants them, instead they opt for a much more capable ultrabook or their needs are better served by a tablet.
Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources recently. Five years ago, when netbooks were the "next big thing", Windows XP's life was extended because they couldn't get Windows 7 squeezed into the specs of the netbooks at the time.
Yes which is why netbooks of the time ran Windows XP - an operating system from 2001 that ran on much less powerful hardware than netbooks - and they ran it fine. Many of those netbooks also ran Linux except relatively nobody in the target market really wanted to run Linux.
Im afraid there is really no merit to your argument that Windows 7 killed the netbook, in fact the netbook isn't even dead, there are plenty of netbooks still on the market and even quite a lot of them that run Android.
They were cheap, underpowered with low resolution screens and poor quality trackpads making them a race to the bottom competing only on price. They were only useful for the sorts of things that are easier on a tablet, everything else is better on an ultrabook which is why the market has expelled them.
The problem was bloatware -- MS apps had expanded to fill the vacuum of a much bigger computer... but why? I would love to see computing becoming more efficient, rather than algorithms abhoring a vacuum.
Citation? Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources and on Linux you can use reduced-functionality shells on and less graphically intense window managers to remove the need to load the high-capability graphics drivers that take up a lot of memory.
I'm not sure what "MS apps" you're referring to that have "expanded" or what you mean by that. For example say you open a built-in application like Wordpad, on Windows 7 it uses about 20mb of RAM, open Wordpad on Windows 8.1 and it uses just over 9MB of RAM. Then there's the base install of Windows 8 which brings the memory footprint from 7's ~400MB down to ~280MB of RAM.
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The problem was finally solved by a clean-room reimplementation of the utilities (GNU) and the kernel (Linux).
It didn't solve it, it just created yet another entry to the UNIX wars, it didn't supplant the major players BSD, Darwin, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris. The problem was that developers had many systems to target, Linux hasn't solved that, it is solved by having multi-platform frameworks and language standards.
But that's just them using open source technologies, whether it's GPL or BSD makes no difference. Why does it matter if they are just using them for their business?
Software as a service isn't quite the same as distributing software. The GPL is a distribution license, not a usage license
Right but these days SaaS is becoming much more common, the idea that "the GPL strictly states that nobody is allowed to put handcuffs on you" is outdated and antiquated, that statement also ignores Tivoization. These have been addressed in the AGPL and GPLv3 respectively but those have not seen wide adoption, indeed even the project central to Tivoization denounces it because it doesn't see Tivoization as a bad thing. The GPL in that case is a vehicle for "tit-for-tat" rather than freedom.
If you fork BSD-licensed free software into proprietary software, the derivative doesn't cease being BSD-licensed, it is now a BSD-licensed proprietary program.
Yes I should have written BSD-licensed sourcecode.
Nobody?
Relatively speaking, yes. You're kidding yourself if you think any significant proportion of users or developers care about software freedom. It's about freeware, open source and technical merit but not free software, that's the reason we don't really have fully open source tablets, phones, PCs, laptops, smart watches, etc... Because nobody cares about that but sometimes it's useful/convenient to use open source and/or freeware and often that also happens to be free software.
That's why RMS is getting all uppity about Clang/LLVM (in this instance and in others), that programs that are not the embodiment of free software ideals are gaining popularity because people care about open source, freeware and technical merit but not free software.
XP had more demanding specs which was adopted pushed the netbooks out of their value point (they failed to be competitive with low-end laptops).
No it didn't, even the first Asus eeePC was later released with Windows XP. Even at that $200 price point there are still netbooks available, even new ones with Windows.
BSD-style license does not guarantee these freedoms, and Stallman sees wider adoption of projects using those licenses as a threat to free software.
But why is that the case? I know there is the contrived case of a codebase being improved and re-packaged under a proprietary license but that just doesn't happen, part of the reason is the original codebase is still there and other people can still use and improve upon it. The most popular web server in the world is licensed under this model and it hasn't happened there.
It's a fear of the corporate value-add, a fear of competition. A fear that a BSD codebase could be augmented with new functionality and the source not released, as you rightly say the original codebase is still free and people are free to add to that. But also a process running a binary built from GPL code can communicate with a process running proprietary binary so it's not much more difficult to extend GPL programs with proprietary functionality either if that's what they actually wanted to do.
I find it funny that considering all of the hate directed at RMS and the GPL that it took so f*cking long to replace gcc.
Why? RMS's views have often been unpopular but ultimately people are more concerned about the technology itself than the ideology that bore it, especially when that ideology doesn't affect their use of it.
GNU even managed to get it's own kernel built faster than the anti-GPL whiners managed to replace gcc.
But nobody uses it because from a technological standpoint there is no reason to, again nobody cares about the ideology.
The seems to be worrying about a bait and switch scenario, or a embrace, extend, extinguish play.
So you're suggesting that a company will add some functionality and release a proprietary version. Well you can do that with the GPL too, just add your proprietary functionality into a different process and have the GPL program communicate with that process. In both cases you could take the open source code and implement the new functionality yourself.
Sure: the GPL strictly states that nobody is allowed to put handcuffs on you.
Nope, for example if people run GPL software as a service it isn't running on their machine and they also don't have the code for it.
BSD is more along the lines of "anybody can stick handcuffs on you".
How? If you have BSD-licensed software you are no less free than with GPL software. You're thinking of proprietary software, which is not the same thing.
But the point is moot because the vast majority of end users (probably almost all of them) don't know - nor have any need or interest in knowing - whether the software they use is free software or just proprietary freeware. Ultimately it's just a binary, whether the source code used to compile it is licensed under a free software license has absolutely no consequence in terms of control for almost all end users.
So he's basically afraid of competition from a better product, and instead of upping his game he's playing unfair with regard to access to "his" products?
Most people could see this coming. Open source is great for developers, freeware is great for end users and free software just happens to be compatible with both of those and thus provided a vehicle for them. Now it's being done in a way that is also compatible with proprietary software and therefore RMS doesn't like it. So, as you say, he needs to up his game and create a better product that just so happens to be free software because nobody cares about free software in and of itself.
His complaints center around the fact that restrictive free software licenses are incompatible with proprietary licensing. It's a "my way or the highway" approach not to software development or technology but to ideology. That is the problem, most people - including developers - are interested in open source, not necessarily free software and most end users are more interested in freeware than they are free software.
Now his fear is that where free software rode the coattails of open source and freeware it is now in danger of becoming obsolete because it is the proprietary-compatible open source software that is really providing the innovation here. GCC, GDB, emacs, etc... haven't provided much in recent times despite the drastic shifts in technology so other projects have come to replace them.
Free software needs to be more than just an ideological advantage because most people don't care about the ideology thus there is no advantage. It has to be better software.
How? They used Windows XP, people wanted that and bought netbooks but when tablets came out people preferred those, that is all that happened. Anybody could buy a netbook over a tablet but virtually nobody wants that.
This is why I don't like developing for Microsoft's stack. They seem to want to throw everything out every few years and start over.
Like what? COM is still supported now and was introduced over 2 decades ago, MFC is still supported and it has been around even longer than COM! They still support their C/C++ compiler and runtime, the .Net environment is all still there despite being over a decade old. Even with things they removed support for like F# or IronPython they have released as open source.
Silverlight is an example of something that most definitely should have gone, just like Flash should, as it is primarily a proprietary plugin for web content and has been replaced by open source javascript and the standard HTML5, how can anybody but a rabid MS fanboy ever conclude that that was a bad thing? But they released the toolkit as open source anyway.
There's nothing stopping you from doing that and if it's viable then people will do it, if it isn't viable then they won't. Stop worrying about it and let the market decide.
Someone might think that those companies wouldn't want to share the software because they would lose a competetive advantage but that's usually not the case.
Of course it is! If a company has developed software that has allowed them to improve their processes and increase their profits you are clearly deluded if you actually believe a company would just willingly give that to their competitors.
Too bad "entire toolchain" doesn't include nice things like their C/C++ compiler and runtimes :(
We already have plenty of C++ compilers and runtimes. What is so much better about Microsoft's C/C++ compiler than say gcc or clang+llvm?
Every single manufacturer of Android phones has been threatened enough to pay up.
What's that got to do with the community promise for the .Net runtime?
If it had been GPL i might have cared.
So create a fork and license it as GPL.
I find it hard to imagine windows 7 running well in 400MB of ram
All I said was there is significant a reduction in the amount of base memory used by the operating system.
In practice taskmanager has shown booting to the desktop taking around 1GB A Windows 7 desktop is pretty much unusable with 1GB of ram 1.5GB at least lets you boot up and run office or a web browser.
A lot of it depends on the device drivers you have loaded. Once you're loading high performance graphics drivers, shell extensions, accelerated DWM, etc... of course it adds up. There are various tools that help you to strip out the unnecessary things of a Windows install too. Anyway that's beside the point, from Vista, to 7 to 8 there has been a marked reduction in memory usage.
The issue is when manufacturers change the product you bought without your consent, after you've bought it.
No that isn't the issue here at all. In fact you need to connect the drone to a computer and explicitly apply an update that by definition changes the product.
I wonder how they came up with it...
I suppose they saw what Google was doing with Google Wallet in the US and wanted a global solution.
I liked writing blog posts and student worksheets on the train. I wanted to code lightweight programs in Python and Javascript. I didn't need a heavy, full-sized laptop for that, but I certainly needed a keyboard. It happily played back the audio and video files I needed in class, and connected perfectly happily to any standard projector.
Now all of that is done on tablets and if you need a keyboard then just attach a bluetooth keyboard cover.
That the market for netbooks is smaller than the market for tablets, I understand; however, the niche I was in was well-served by the eeePC, and in trying to embrace and extend customer appeal, they extinguished the netbook.
Nobody extinguished the netbook. In fact netbooks still exist and are still being sold, it's just that nobody wants them, instead they opt for a much more capable ultrabook or their needs are better served by a tablet.
Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources recently. Five years ago, when netbooks were the "next big thing", Windows XP's life was extended because they couldn't get Windows 7 squeezed into the specs of the netbooks at the time.
Yes which is why netbooks of the time ran Windows XP - an operating system from 2001 that ran on much less powerful hardware than netbooks - and they ran it fine. Many of those netbooks also ran Linux except relatively nobody in the target market really wanted to run Linux.
Im afraid there is really no merit to your argument that Windows 7 killed the netbook, in fact the netbook isn't even dead, there are plenty of netbooks still on the market and even quite a lot of them that run Android.
They were not useless
They were cheap, underpowered with low resolution screens and poor quality trackpads making them a race to the bottom competing only on price. They were only useful for the sorts of things that are easier on a tablet, everything else is better on an ultrabook which is why the market has expelled them.
The problem was bloatware -- MS apps had expanded to fill the vacuum of a much bigger computer... but why? I would love to see computing becoming more efficient, rather than algorithms abhoring a vacuum.
Citation? Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources and on Linux you can use reduced-functionality shells on and less graphically intense window managers to remove the need to load the high-capability graphics drivers that take up a lot of memory.
I'm not sure what "MS apps" you're referring to that have "expanded" or what you mean by that. For example say you open a built-in application like Wordpad, on Windows 7 it uses about 20mb of RAM, open Wordpad on Windows 8.1 and it uses just over 9MB of RAM. Then there's the base install of Windows 8 which brings the memory footprint from 7's ~400MB down to ~280MB of RAM.