IE 4 was far and away the best browser when it was released. IE 5 and 6 were downgrades to IE 4.5 but still quite good. So what. A 1997 product that got downgraded and then held is stasis for over a decade sucked by the end. I'm not sure how that proves it wasn't good in 1997.
I think it had a lot more to do with the kernel. Sun was moving from the Motorolla 68000 series processors (BSD kernel) to Sparc. They wanted technologies from Xenix (yes it hard to believe but Sun wanted Microsoft technologies in their Unix) and AT&T. More or less symmetric multiprocessing and multithreading were what drove the changes all the other stuff was incidental.
What you are talking about is something more like "shared source" than open source. Under shared source a company buys a commercial product with all sorts of license restrictions. They can get a copy of the source code and rights to modify the source for their own needs. But they have no right to redistribute. They don't necessarily need to contribute back so they can use their own IP in their improvement fairly freely. Those licenses exist. Military contractors are famous for shared source agreements.
Ultimately though the core of the open source licenses is to have a very generous license that allows for redistribution. It is not the ability to modify source, but the ability to redistribute modifications. What you are basically saying is the GPL is a terrible shared source license, and you are right it is. It is an open source license. Two of the four freedoms are the are the freedom to redistribute and the freedom to improve and distribute improvements.
There is no question the GPL makes selling software without a dual license scheme or without another service more or less impossible. But lots of licenses are incompatible with some business models.
Kind of like appealing to the average USA voter. It only lowers the standard. Do we have a lot of Linux admins now? Yes, but how many write, use, and sonfiure insecure and buggy systems.
That's true. There are huge advantages in avoiding popularity. But that desire to not lower standards by educating or working with people with lower skills is what killed BSD not those missed months.
PHP is a poster-child of what is wrong with the "Linux Community". Horrible horrible language that people brag about.
I don't agree it is a horrible language. I think at the time of PHP there was a strong desire for a way for people who knew HTML to program variable web content with easy database access. PHP accomplished its objective.
Part of being a good language for the masses is being something the masses want to use.
Like I said above. That's fine. That's a standard code base. I would agree BSD allows for a standard codebase. But that's a different claim then saying the GPL apps don't allow for standards. That's a different claim.
____
Now addressing that much weaker claim, I also don't happen to agree with you that the BSD license does this. Because there is no sharing the proprietary vendors end up creating non standard extensions of the BSD codebase rendering the free one more or less worthless. The history of X being the most classic example. The GPL conversely requires the closed source vendor to keep the open stuff open. They can extend but they can only extend things far removed from the core and they need to share their core back with the community. GCC being a terrific example of this.
The net result is that GPL code ends up being far more standard.
I understand that in theory one can study code and avoid expression. In practice though it is complex and people far too easily end up copying expression without realizing it. Expression is a bit broader than line for line copying. See The Wind Done Gone case.
I think so. I think that the GPL provide a way for corporations to cooperate and avoid the tragedy of the commons. Under the GPL you as a company get to use this valuable codebase for your project but in exchange you have to help a bunch of companies you neither know about nor care about. That worked much better than a situation where people were free to take without having to share.
I'll give you an example Danger, who made the HipTop (T-Mobile's version was the sidekick) one of the earliest innovators for smart / feature phones was based on NetBSD server software. So there you go
You are wrong. Anyone that wants to is free to read any GPL code they want and then implement those ideas themselves, using that code as reference. The GPL very explicitly limits itself to copyright law here (which does not prohibit anyone from reading, adapting and applying ideas using a document as a reference.) That is not restricted in any way.
That's not true. Copyright extends to the expression of an idea. Studying code to apply the ideas, that is the expression is covered by copyright. That's why when companies want to reimplement around an idea they have to use the blackbox approaches. Anyone who has seen the original code is basically tainted for life.
If you'd bother to think a second before posting, what the OP meant was that you won't see the code of a GPL project being used as a general implementation reference standard.
That's a much more specific statement. I don't think it is my job to read his mind if he meant something that narrow he should have said it. Certainly that narrow statements is true.
(PS: Wordpress is a "blogging standard"? WTF does that even mean? That blogging software is by definition a mess of security holes?)
Wordpress is used pretty freely on 3rd party hosted websites to roll out blogs. It is how people add blogging functionality to the overwhelming majority of sites that have blogging. Because it is so heavily used as an API is allows thousands of people to create templates, functionality, plugins.... for WordPress blogs. It has become the Internet's standard blog. As far as security holes, I don't know if it is good or bad but that's irrelevant to the question of standard.
Develop a "standard" under the GPL and it won't become standard at all, as no commercial OS will be able to use a starting reference implementation as a base.
Absolutely. And you can see that by noting that:
gcc compatibility C++ source gnu make's -o extension Qt API's as a standard for mobility cross platform Linux kernel API as a standard for emulation (mainframe, supercomputing, mini...) Wordpress as a blogging standard Sword standard for bibles Guile as a standard Scheme Blender API for 3D modeling etc...
Honestly it was worse than that. Linux also had the "I wish I could buy a Sun workstation but can't afford one" crowd. BSDs were focused on Unix admin types they didn't want Unix user types with light admin knowledge.
Red Hat's IPO was in 1999. The Linux:: BSD ratio was already massive by then.
I don't agree with you about 1994. I don't think it was losing time. I think the BSD community was hostile to people like me (Windows Power Users and Unix users -- non admins) who became the people who pushed Linux into corporate America during the 1990s and early 2000s.
The BSD people keep telling themselves that but no. The BSDs never made an attempt to appeal to Windows Power users and Unix users who didn't do administration. They focused on providing a classic Unix admin experience. They were harder to install, harder to configure, less tolerant of various hardware.... BSD failed because it never made an attempt to appeal to the group of end users that became the Linux desktop users of the 1990s and the Linux admins of the 2000s.
They lost a few months due to the lawsuit no question but that's not why they failed. There have been multiple markets that have opened since then where Linux has failed to be able to enter and the BSD haven't entered successfully. Were it nothing more than those few crucial months the BSDs could have exploited those holes.
That's what SCO's investors wanted. IBM didn't want them to benefit from a buyout. That's why they spent for the defense. Accidentally it turned into great PR with the Linux community.
The GPL has been tested and it has been upheld. That's already happened. That was one of the reasons that SCO switched this from a copyright claim to a breach of contract claim.
Office drives the server rich applications: Dynamics, Sharepoint, Exchange Lync. That plus office is the big money. And those applications could be on Linux just as easily. Ironically I think office might be more dominant without the OS franchise to protect.
I have no idea about Canada and obvious SMS is not a separate system.. However, annual costs of maintenance and expansion of the network dwarf by 3 orders of magnitude the cost of automated billing systems.
I don't know what you mean by Monty being the only one and trying to conflate him with MySQL inc. MySQL was a corporation with at some points over 100 employees. And no I didn't say only one, I said much the opposite. But if you exclude MySQL and people who had narrow interests there really weren't many other developers. MySQL wasn't proprietary because of how it was marketed. For GPL developers it was free once people wanted to take their GPL app proprietary they had to pay. The open source community wasn't harmed by the Oracle purchase.
Your entire claim is based on people being harmed. Name them.
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IE 4 was far and away the best browser when it was released. IE 5 and 6 were downgrades to IE 4.5 but still quite good. So what. A 1997 product that got downgraded and then held is stasis for over a decade sucked by the end. I'm not sure how that proves it wasn't good in 1997.
I think it had a lot more to do with the kernel. Sun was moving from the Motorolla 68000 series processors (BSD kernel) to Sparc. They wanted technologies from Xenix (yes it hard to believe but Sun wanted Microsoft technologies in their Unix) and AT&T. More or less symmetric multiprocessing and multithreading were what drove the changes all the other stuff was incidental.
What you are talking about is something more like "shared source" than open source. Under shared source a company buys a commercial product with all sorts of license restrictions. They can get a copy of the source code and rights to modify the source for their own needs. But they have no right to redistribute. They don't necessarily need to contribute back so they can use their own IP in their improvement fairly freely. Those licenses exist. Military contractors are famous for shared source agreements.
Ultimately though the core of the open source licenses is to have a very generous license that allows for redistribution. It is not the ability to modify source, but the ability to redistribute modifications. What you are basically saying is the GPL is a terrible shared source license, and you are right it is. It is an open source license. Two of the four freedoms are the are the freedom to redistribute and the freedom to improve and distribute improvements.
There is no question the GPL makes selling software without a dual license scheme or without another service more or less impossible. But lots of licenses are incompatible with some business models.
That's true. There are huge advantages in avoiding popularity. But that desire to not lower standards by educating or working with people with lower skills is what killed BSD not those missed months.
I don't agree it is a horrible language. I think at the time of PHP there was a strong desire for a way for people who knew HTML to program variable web content with easy database access. PHP accomplished its objective.
Part of being a good language for the masses is being something the masses want to use.
Like I said above. That's fine. That's a standard code base. I would agree BSD allows for a standard codebase. But that's a different claim then saying the GPL apps don't allow for standards. That's a different claim.
____
Now addressing that much weaker claim, I also don't happen to agree with you that the BSD license does this. Because there is no sharing the proprietary vendors end up creating non standard extensions of the BSD codebase rendering the free one more or less worthless. The history of X being the most classic example. The GPL conversely requires the closed source vendor to keep the open stuff open. They can extend but they can only extend things far removed from the core and they need to share their core back with the community. GCC being a terrific example of this.
The net result is that GPL code ends up being far more standard.
Mac OSX comes with a compiler. For years it was gcc. Now it is gcc and LLVM, they are transitioning.
I understand that in theory one can study code and avoid expression. In practice though it is complex and people far too easily end up copying expression without realizing it. Expression is a bit broader than line for line copying. See The Wind Done Gone case.
Expression and ideas is right in Chapter 1 and goes through the entire copyright act: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf
Yes it is copyright law. You make not like copyright law but that doesn't change how broad the law is.
Most infrastructure runs Cisco IOS neither BSD nor Linux.
That sound like Gentoo. You take the Linux kernel and the BSD ports systems and engineer around that. What else are you looking for?
I think so. I think that the GPL provide a way for corporations to cooperate and avoid the tragedy of the commons. Under the GPL you as a company get to use this valuable codebase for your project but in exchange you have to help a bunch of companies you neither know about nor care about. That worked much better than a situation where people were free to take without having to share.
I'll give you an example Danger, who made the HipTop (T-Mobile's version was the sidekick) one of the earliest innovators for smart / feature phones was based on NetBSD server software. So there you go
That's not true. Copyright extends to the expression of an idea. Studying code to apply the ideas, that is the expression is covered by copyright. That's why when companies want to reimplement around an idea they have to use the blackbox approaches. Anyone who has seen the original code is basically tainted for life.
That's a much more specific statement. I don't think it is my job to read his mind if he meant something that narrow he should have said it. Certainly that narrow statements is true.
Wordpress is used pretty freely on 3rd party hosted websites to roll out blogs. It is how people add blogging functionality to the overwhelming majority of sites that have blogging. Because it is so heavily used as an API is allows thousands of people to create templates, functionality, plugins.... for WordPress blogs. It has become the Internet's standard blog. As far as security holes, I don't know if it is good or bad but that's irrelevant to the question of standard.
Absolutely. And you can see that by noting that:
gcc compatibility C++ source
gnu make's -o extension
Qt API's as a standard for mobility cross platform
Linux kernel API as a standard for emulation (mainframe, supercomputing, mini...)
Wordpress as a blogging standard
Sword standard for bibles
Guile as a standard Scheme
Blender API for 3D modeling
etc...
aren't standards. Oh wait.
Honestly it was worse than that. Linux also had the "I wish I could buy a Sun workstation but can't afford one" crowd. BSDs were focused on Unix admin types they didn't want Unix user types with light admin knowledge.
Red Hat's IPO was in 1999. The Linux :: BSD ratio was already massive by then.
I don't agree with you about 1994. I don't think it was losing time. I think the BSD community was hostile to people like me (Windows Power Users and Unix users -- non admins) who became the people who pushed Linux into corporate America during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Great example of what was different between the BSD and Linux culture of the mid 1990s.
The BSD people keep telling themselves that but no. The BSDs never made an attempt to appeal to Windows Power users and Unix users who didn't do administration. They focused on providing a classic Unix admin experience. They were harder to install, harder to configure, less tolerant of various hardware.... BSD failed because it never made an attempt to appeal to the group of end users that became the Linux desktop users of the 1990s and the Linux admins of the 2000s.
They lost a few months due to the lawsuit no question but that's not why they failed. There have been multiple markets that have opened since then where Linux has failed to be able to enter and the BSD haven't entered successfully. Were it nothing more than those few crucial months the BSDs could have exploited those holes.
Let's not forget OSX which got some of its code from FreeBSD as well.
That's what SCO's investors wanted. IBM didn't want them to benefit from a buyout. That's why they spent for the defense. Accidentally it turned into great PR with the Linux community.
The GPL has been tested and it has been upheld. That's already happened. That was one of the reasons that SCO switched this from a copyright claim to a breach of contract claim.
Office drives the server rich applications: Dynamics, Sharepoint, Exchange Lync. That plus office is the big money. And those applications could be on Linux just as easily. Ironically I think office might be more dominant without the OS franchise to protect.
I have no idea about Canada and obvious SMS is not a separate system.. However, annual costs of maintenance and expansion of the network dwarf by 3 orders of magnitude the cost of automated billing systems.
I don't know what you mean by Monty being the only one and trying to conflate him with MySQL inc. MySQL was a corporation with at some points over 100 employees. And no I didn't say only one, I said much the opposite. But if you exclude MySQL and people who had narrow interests there really weren't many other developers. MySQL wasn't proprietary because of how it was marketed. For GPL developers it was free once people wanted to take their GPL app proprietary they had to pay. The open source community wasn't harmed by the Oracle purchase.
Your entire claim is based on people being harmed. Name them.