Then when patches are released I can apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and have all of these applications updated - i'm sorry but Windows will probably never reach this ease of use.
But it already did...about 10 years ago. I can also just as easily download and install all the apps you mentioned above.
So, bundling is only a problem in case you are left without a choice, which is not the case with OSS distros, but is a problem for Microsoft as long as they only bundle their applications with their distro, especially when making it difficult to unbundle it (ie. IE)
you are left without a choice? Im writing this post from firefix, which is installed on my windows 2003 machine.
I really don't mind if M$ has a hard time competing against open source...bundled or otherwise. Their long history of dirty tactics has robbed me of any sympathy I may have had for them. In the case of other for-profit software applications...if they want to compete against open source, they should do so by making a product that is so superior, it is worth the money...not by restricting the legality of OS or using brute-force tactics to all but force you to buy their software
I agree with you. I also think that if software isn't worth the money, people shouldn't take it upon themselves to download it for free.
You certainly can't just continue handing jobs out to countries with such regimes and expect that will somehow solve the problem. It usually serves to make the problem worse, by giving those repressive leaders more money and power to continue.
well, the problem is that there is really no way to change an entire government of a country without revolution, which usually means war.
Since this probably isn't the best course of action, the people of that ocuntry are going to suffer either way.
I don't see a problem with a company from the U.S. outsourcing some of its jobs to another country. It's a win-win situation that is not hurting anyone. A person gets a job and a company gets labor at a reduced rate.
I do think, however, that for certain jobs, it will hurt the image of a company in the long run. As an example: Nextel is my cellphone service provider. From time to time, I call them for support and get a representative that is clearly from India. This usually results in a lack of communication which leaves me extremly frustrated. I have even been signed up for a completly different service than the one that I wanted.
Johhny refuses to manufacture products for minimum wage, so they outsource the job to China, where adults and children in a sweatshop will work day and night for a tiny ammout of money. They can't form labor unions to fight this, because their government would be only too happy to have them killed
The U.S companies that outsource jobs to foreign countries give jobs to people that would otherwise have no jobs. You can blame the shitty communist governments for creating such a fucked up standard of living.
The GPL is viable , legal and enforceable worlwide , its also something everyone who use it agree to.
The recording industry license no one agree to or even most people know it exist , and they certainly disagree with it once they know what it is , making it an illegal license.
Sharing music on P2P is not illegal in a Real American country.
nice one, but igorance of the license does not make it invalid.
what about people that use GPL code without knowing about it? are they any less of an offender than people that do? (the FSF will still go after them)
using open source in a closed source application is not illegal in a real american country.
He stole code from one open sourced GPL'd project and put it into his closed project
I call him a thief
sorry, the original sourcecode was never stolen. (if it was, you wouldn't be able to download it at the pearPC website).
The GNU shouldn't be used in the same sentence as the word free. The free software foundation is just as bad as the BSA. Instead, however, they make their money off of GNU violations than companies that have installed commerical software illegally.
software freedom is the freedom to use software in any way that I so choose.
cherryOS might have been using OSS, but it didn't hurt anyone. The source to pearPC is still readily available and free.
Information needs to be free. If pearPC didn't want their sourcecode to be used, they shouldn't have released it to the public in the first place.
W. Europe and in Australia, they do that for their citizens. See the difference between a country run for the benefit of investors and countries run for the benefit of citizens?
also look at the taxes in those countries. People that are working regular jobs pay for those OSS progrmamers to continue coding.
Microsoft generates a lot of money all right. They make a HUGE profit on software, costing American businesses BILLIONS of dollars every year for software that costs nothing to reproduce. They also keep alive a HUGE industry of anti-virus, firewall, cleanup programs, popup blockers, etc. American corporations spend BILLIONS more on those accessories to Microsoft's products. So yeah, microsoft generates a LOT of money all right. Money that is being concentrated in their bank accounts to sponsor SCO lawsuits rather than being spent by American companies (both large and small) to expand their operations and/or hire more people
money doesn't cost anything to reproduce either, but it still has a value, doesn't it. Large companies spend billions of dollars on support, research and development, and the fact that there isn't anything better to suit their needs.
No, the GPL is more free because it does not permit anyone to take away anyone else's freedom. Say I write some GPL code. You are free to use it, modify it, sell it if you want, but you may not tell any later user or developer that they can't enjoy the same freedoms you have enjoyed.
Yes they can. The original sourcecode is still free (which are the same freedoms everyone else has).
Actually downloading music is different to what Maui X-Stream is doing.
The equivilant would be if I downloaded the latest Britney Spears album, printed new covers and labels and then attempted to sell it as my own works.
Nobody who downloads songs on P2P is claiming they now own the copyright to the piece of music and are attempting to sell it as their own work.
Maui X-Stream have downloaded PearPC, printed new covers and labels and were attempting to sell it as their own work. Exactly what they are doing now.
it's the same, because they are both violations of their respected licenses.
maui X-stream is violating the GNU license because they are using licensed code without releasing the source. (I suspect that if Microsoft released a new tool, which was free,closed-source, and used GPLd code, the EFF would be going after them just like maui-X).
P2p users are violating the license of the person or company that released the song or album they are sharing with the world.
The analogy holds, as it's referring to the nature of the crook, not the violation itself. I think we're all aware that it's not stealing, though it *is* a copyright violation. Different laws, different issues, but in the end, a crook following a pattern, be it in violation of criminal or civil law, is going to raise a flag when the pattern reasserts itself.
that same analogy would also hold with music and software being shared on a P2P network as well.
All software would be free (both as in beer and as in speech) to copy, modify, and distribute. And it would be proprietary vendors who would disappear first.
no it wouldn't. The proprietary vendors would still be the most profitable. They would just convert their software into a service, so there was no chance of it being copied (source or binary).
I only mentioned it because of the hypocritical nature of the slashdot community. Violating GPL = bad and violating violating software/music copyright = good (software and music need to be free, corporations need to get their money taken away, and the RIAA needs to release better music (so by taking all their original music for free, a point is definitely made that it sucks)
The GPL isn't a price-fixing scheme...it basically exposed the current artifically inflated price-fixing scheme that is proprietary software.
Adapt and evolve, baby. Or cry about it all the way to extinction.
the future is services, not software. As GPLd software gets more popular with users, services will become more popular with businesses (since there is no source to copy, there will no longer be issues with IP/pirating)
google is a good example of this already happening.
People who release code under the GPL are perfectly entitled to 'have a problem' with people breaching their software licence of choice. Anyone who thinks it's OK for others to take their programs, close the source and release modified versions shouldn't be using the GPL - try the BSD licence [opensource.org] instead.
my above post wasn't meant to be funny, but what the hell, I'll take the karma points.
another point to consider: if people want to get proprietary software (or music for that matter) without paying for it (if it's against the license). They should consider using something else.
Your argument has a serious problem. In most states, a drunk driver has a right to a provisional license that gives him/her the right to drive to/from work.
right. A user's computer isn't taken away, just their Network Connection.
Whether or not there's anything illegal or actionable about the GPL, the fact is -- Richard Stallman's explicitly-stated, long-term vision for the GPL and Free Software was to eliminate the software industry as we know it and replace it with a commons of Free Software created by academics, government-sponsored developers and volunteers.
I enjoy using some open-source programs (open office,firefox,mysql). But as a software developer, I would never release my own products under the GPL. As a small company, it makes it nearly impossible to even make a reasonable profit. This is mostly due to the fact that anyone can take your sourcecode and release it as a binary for free (if it becomes popular enough, it will happen).
There could be profit in support, but that requires many man hours (to make enough for a living) and more employees. It also makes a company want to create terrible software (perfect software = no support money)
Another problem is that the general public pretty much thinks free means no cost. Another barrier to selling Open Source Software.
If you look at the most successful open source products, they are backed by large companies (which sell proprietry software or something else).
But you're not under any obligation to use that brand of sugar. You can continue buying "proprietary" sugar and selling the result, and nobody's going to stop you.
Dang, someone better tell RedHat, SuSE, Lindows, etc., etc., on and on and on!!!!!
those companies never created the code. They earned their profits on the backs of other programmers (the ones not making a profit). Plus, they make their money on support, not the software itself.
I can sell compiled binaries of grep for a billion dollars each if I can find someone willing to pay that for them. The GPL allows it. AFAIK, I just can't relabel it as FrepSearchIncredible, withhold the source code, and pretend it's my own unique product.
which will make it very easy for someone to release a binary only version of your source, for free. Which makes it very difficult, if not impossible to make a profit (by selling GPLd code).
I don't think it's the community getting better, at least not in this case. If you have a crook who is known to steal televisions and then put them in his front yard, disguised as birdbaths, you're going to get suspicious every time a new birdbath appears in his yard.
well, GPL violations are not equal to stealing. The original sourcecode is still there. Maybe a copyright violation of some kind, so your analogy doesn't hold.
I don't understand why the community has a problem with this in the first place. The original source code is still under the GNU license.
Slashdot Mirror
no, but html is not compiled, it's interpreted.
HTML
so does notepad.
Then when patches are released I can apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and have all of these applications updated - i'm sorry but Windows will probably never reach this ease of use.
But it already did...about 10 years ago. I can also just as easily download and install all the apps you mentioned above.
So, bundling is only a problem in case you are left without a choice, which is not the case with OSS distros, but is a problem for Microsoft as long as they only bundle their applications with their distro, especially when making it difficult to unbundle it (ie. IE)
you are left without a choice? Im writing this post from firefix, which is installed on my windows 2003 machine.
I really don't mind if M$ has a hard time competing against open source...bundled or otherwise. Their long history of dirty tactics has robbed me of any sympathy I may have had for them. In the case of other for-profit software applications...if they want to compete against open source, they should do so by making a product that is so superior, it is worth the money...not by restricting the legality of OS or using brute-force tactics to all but force you to buy their software
I agree with you. I also think that if software isn't worth the money, people shouldn't take it upon themselves to download it for free.
You certainly can't just continue handing jobs out to countries with such regimes and expect that will somehow solve the problem. It usually serves to make the problem worse, by giving those repressive leaders more money and power to continue.
well, the problem is that there is really no way to change an entire government of a country without revolution, which usually means war.
Since this probably isn't the best course of action, the people of that ocuntry are going to suffer either way.
I don't see a problem with a company from the U.S. outsourcing some of its jobs to another country. It's a win-win situation that is not hurting anyone. A person gets a job and a company gets labor at a reduced rate.
I do think, however, that for certain jobs, it will hurt the image of a company in the long run. As an example: Nextel is my cellphone service provider. From time to time, I call them for support and get a representative that is clearly from India. This usually results in a lack of communication which leaves me extremly frustrated. I have even been signed up for a completly different service than the one that I wanted.
Johhny refuses to manufacture products for minimum wage, so they outsource the job to China, where adults and children in a sweatshop will work day and night for a tiny ammout of money. They can't form labor unions to fight this, because their government would be only too happy to have them killed
The U.S companies that outsource jobs to foreign countries give jobs to people that would otherwise have no jobs. You can blame the shitty communist governments for creating such a fucked up standard of living.
The GPL is viable , legal and enforceable worlwide , its also something everyone who use it agree to.
The recording industry license no one agree to or even most people know it exist , and they certainly disagree with it once they know what it is , making it an illegal license.
Sharing music on P2P is not illegal in a Real American country.
nice one, but igorance of the license does not make it invalid.
what about people that use GPL code without knowing about it? are they any less of an offender than people that do? (the FSF will still go after them)
using open source in a closed source application is not illegal in a real american country.
Oh yeah?
He stole code from one open sourced GPL'd project and put it into his closed project
I call him a thief
sorry, the original sourcecode was never stolen. (if it was, you wouldn't be able to download it at the pearPC website).
The GNU shouldn't be used in the same sentence as the word free. The free software foundation is just as bad as the BSA. Instead, however, they make their money off of GNU violations than companies that have installed commerical software illegally.
software freedom is the freedom to use software in any way that I so choose.
cherryOS might have been using OSS, but it didn't hurt anyone. The source to pearPC is still readily available and free.
Information needs to be free. If pearPC didn't want their sourcecode to be used, they shouldn't have released it to the public in the first place.
The GPL is not a communist scheme. It's a licensing agreement enterred into voluntarily. If you don't want to enter into it then don't
easier said than done. Look at the number of people violating the recording industries licenses by sharing music on P2P.
People would rather just bitch about it.
W. Europe and in Australia, they do that for their citizens. See the difference between a country run for the benefit of investors and countries run for the benefit of citizens?
also look at the taxes in those countries. People that are working regular jobs pay for those OSS progrmamers to continue coding.
Microsoft generates a lot of money all right. They make a HUGE profit on software, costing American businesses BILLIONS of dollars every year for software that costs nothing to reproduce. They also keep alive a HUGE industry of anti-virus, firewall, cleanup programs, popup blockers, etc. American corporations spend BILLIONS more on those accessories to Microsoft's products. So yeah, microsoft generates a LOT of money all right. Money that is being concentrated in their bank accounts to sponsor SCO lawsuits rather than being spent by American companies (both large and small) to expand their operations and/or hire more people
money doesn't cost anything to reproduce either, but it still has a value, doesn't it. Large companies spend billions of dollars on support, research and development, and the fact that there isn't anything better to suit their needs.
No, the GPL is more free because it does not permit anyone to take away anyone else's freedom. Say I write some GPL code. You are free to use it, modify it, sell it if you want, but you may not tell any later user or developer that they can't enjoy the same freedoms you have enjoyed.
Yes they can. The original sourcecode is still free (which are the same freedoms everyone else has).
Actually downloading music is different to what Maui X-Stream is doing.
The equivilant would be if I downloaded the latest Britney Spears album, printed new covers and labels and then attempted to sell it as my own works.
Nobody who downloads songs on P2P is claiming they now own the copyright to the piece of music and are attempting to sell it as their own work.
Maui X-Stream have downloaded PearPC, printed new covers and labels and were attempting to sell it as their own work. Exactly what they are doing now.
it's the same, because they are both violations of their respected licenses.
maui X-stream is violating the GNU license because they are using licensed code without releasing the source. (I suspect that if Microsoft released a new tool, which was free,closed-source, and used GPLd code, the EFF would be going after them just like maui-X).
P2p users are violating the license of the person or company that released the song or album they are sharing with the world.
The analogy holds, as it's referring to the nature of the crook, not the violation itself. I think we're all aware that it's not stealing, though it *is* a copyright violation. Different laws, different issues, but in the end, a crook following a pattern, be it in violation of criminal or civil law, is going to raise a flag when the pattern reasserts itself.
that same analogy would also hold with music and software being shared on a P2P network as well.
All software would be free (both as in beer and as in speech) to copy, modify, and distribute. And it would be proprietary vendors who would disappear first.
no it wouldn't. The proprietary vendors would still be the most profitable. They would just convert their software into a service, so there was no chance of it being copied (source or binary).
Wow.. Someone always brings up MP3s..
I only mentioned it because of the hypocritical nature of the slashdot community. Violating GPL = bad and violating violating software/music copyright = good (software and music need to be free, corporations need to get their money taken away, and the RIAA needs to release better music (so by taking all their original music for free, a point is definitely made that it sucks)
The GPL isn't a price-fixing scheme...it basically exposed the current artifically inflated price-fixing scheme that is proprietary software.
Adapt and evolve, baby. Or cry about it all the way to extinction.
the future is services, not software. As GPLd software gets more popular with users, services will become more popular with businesses (since there is no source to copy, there will no longer be issues with IP/pirating)
google is a good example of this already happening.
People who release code under the GPL are perfectly entitled to 'have a problem' with people breaching their software licence of choice.
Anyone who thinks it's OK for others to take their programs, close the source and release modified versions shouldn't be using the GPL - try the BSD licence [opensource.org] instead.
my above post wasn't meant to be funny, but what the hell, I'll take the karma points.
another point to consider: if people want to get proprietary software (or music for that matter) without paying for it (if it's against the license). They should consider using something else.
Your argument has a serious problem. In most states, a drunk driver has a right to a provisional license that gives him/her the right to drive to/from work.
right. A user's computer isn't taken away, just their Network Connection.
Whether or not there's anything illegal or actionable about the GPL, the fact is -- Richard Stallman's explicitly-stated, long-term vision for the GPL and Free Software was to eliminate the software industry as we know it and replace it with a commons of Free Software created by academics, government-sponsored developers and volunteers.
I enjoy using some open-source programs (open office,firefox,mysql). But as a software developer, I would never release my own products under the GPL. As a small company, it makes it nearly impossible to even make a reasonable profit. This is mostly due to the fact that anyone can take your sourcecode and release it as a binary for free (if it becomes popular enough, it will happen).
There could be profit in support, but that requires many man hours (to make enough for a living) and more employees. It also makes a company want to create terrible software (perfect software = no support money)
Another problem is that the general public pretty much thinks free means no cost. Another barrier to selling Open Source Software.
If you look at the most successful open source products, they are backed by large companies (which sell proprietry software or something else).
But you're not under any obligation to use that brand of sugar. You can continue buying "proprietary" sugar and selling the result, and nobody's going to stop you.
we could also say this about microsoft products.
Dang, someone better tell RedHat, SuSE, Lindows, etc., etc., on and on and on!!!!!
those companies never created the code. They earned their profits on the backs of other programmers (the ones not making a profit). Plus, they make their money on support, not the software itself.
I can sell compiled binaries of grep for a billion dollars each if I can find someone willing to pay that for them. The GPL allows it. AFAIK, I just can't relabel it as FrepSearchIncredible, withhold the source code, and pretend it's my own unique product.
which will make it very easy for someone to release a binary only version of your source, for free. Which makes it very difficult, if not impossible to make a profit (by selling GPLd code).
I don't think it's the community getting better, at least not in this case. If you have a crook who is known to steal televisions and then put them in his front yard, disguised as birdbaths, you're going to get suspicious every time a new birdbath appears in his yard.
well, GPL violations are not equal to stealing. The original sourcecode is still there. Maybe a copyright violation of some kind, so your analogy doesn't hold.
I don't understand why the community has a problem with this in the first place. The original source code is still under the GNU license.
Perhaps you will drop the tone when some nasty fuck persuades an eleven-year-old to accuse you falsly of molestation?
Personally, I rather like the idea of due process. You know, that little thing that secures our liberties.
even accusing someone of child molestation pretty much destroys their life anyway, so what's the difference?