"The sense in which software is "free" or not is in the sense of preserving the freedom of its users."
A very nice try, but it won't wash.
First of all if "Free" software advocates want to claim it's about freedom for users, they should just say it. "Software wants to be free" says nothing about users no matter how much backstory you want to retrofit on it.
Clearly, the GPL is not about users' rights, it's about the rights of the author. It's the perfect license for people who want to release their source code and still control an aspect of its destiny.
I have no problem with that, but let's not drape this self-interest with sanctimonious crap about benefiting humanity.
"The problem with Sun and Novell is that they are both approach the problem: how to be Microsoft."
Given that they are both for-profit public companies and Microsoft is the most financially successful software company in the world, is it really hard to understand why they would like to emulate it? Now actually getting away with it is another matter.
You're right about legacy COM components and ASP, but for new web applications, ASP.NET usually eliminates the need for using COM on the backend.
Since all ASP.NET pages are compiled into a class that can call anything in the FCL, there's no performance advantage in using COM components (except for any overhead related to the CLR, although COM can add overhead too).
As you suggest, however, if you want to take advantage of existing COM components, it's easier to do that from outside.NET.
"Damned, if any of my programmers came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately."
That should be "Damned IF I had any programmers working for me and one of them came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately."
Seriously, if you really do have programmers working for you and you're not the president of your company, you'd probably face firing yourself for getting rid of your staff without any real justification.
In most companies that have made it beyond the startup phase, managers don't have the power to fire people without following a process. Your attitude is exactly why companies have such a policy.
"This is a problem with some developers they get too comfortable and don't want to learn anything new"
Given that many Unix types won't use any other type of OS, insist on using only their favorite editor (such as VI or emacs) or favorite language (usually "C") and still love the command line, this inclination is not limited to VB programmers.
On the other hand, if these VB programmers had used the "free" GNU "C" or "C++" compiler instead, it would have taken them much longer to develop their Windows applications and they would have made a lot less money.
Windows desktop development has never been a high priority for free/open source tool developers, so they just aren't competitive compared to the closed source alternatives from MS and others.
I don't buy it. Han firing first wasn't a technical problem and wasn't demanded by a public who had never seen the movie before. It was a decision made by the director at the time he was making the movie. Do you really think that 20 years later old, rich Lucas is better qualified to make this decision then lean and hungry young director?
Well, I think that ambiguity RMS created over the word "free" is probably his cleverest idea. Get people interested in "free" software at little or no cost and then claim a idealogical victory when its widely adopted.
It reminds me of the "Gay blue jeans day" they had at my college in the early 80s. The idea was that anybody who supported gays were supposed to wear blue jeans on that day. Of course, a lot people wore jeans on that day for other reasons.
No matter how one feels about gays or "free" software, the logic is flawed.
"Instead, what happened was demand went up because the product could be delivered more cheaply."
Given world-wide piracy the effective cost of the most popular software is $0. So on the shrink-wrap front, there is little OSS can do to lower the price unless they pay people to use it.
As far as internal projects are concerned, I doubt that the lower cost will increase demand, but I think it's too early to tell.
I'm not sure about the other categories; I guess time will tell.
"Automation of factories happened a long time before the invention of the robot. You can only have limited automation with cams and gears, but you can still automate large portions of the process. In fact the automated production line was conceived by Marc Brunel in the early 19th century."
Yes, I was being sarcastic, but mass production was really about optimized performance by humans, not machines.
Here's an excerpt from John Dos Passos's USA that describes what it was like:
"At Ford's production was improving all the time; less waste, more spotters, strawbosses, stoolpigeons (fifteen minutes for lunch, three minutes to go to the toilet, the Taylorized speedup everywhere, reach under, adjust washer, screw down bolt, shove in cotter pin, reachunder adjustwasher, screwdown bolt, reachunderadjustscrewdownreachunderadjust until every ounce of life was sucked off into production and at night the workmen went home gray shaking husks)."
"I don't think anyone ever claimed that "software wants to be free", just that some people want the freedom to tinker with it. "
You don't know much about the Free software movement apparently. Here's a quote from Wikipedia in the entry for Richard Stallman (have you heard of him?):
"Stallman's philosophy was that "software wants to be free""
I have no problem with any business model, but its disingenuous to claim (as some have) that proprietary software is evil and then endorse a business plan for OSS than includes closed source in the mix.
Embedded software and custom software written by a 3rd party.
"Competition and price reduction always seems to increase demand rather than reduce profits."
I don't understand how this statement relates to mine.
"A historical example is the rapid increase in manufacturing labour after mass production was developed, even though this was highly automated. "
Highly automated? Using what, Steam-based robots? The introduction of mass production was obviously about manufactoring a lot stuff, so naturally it required a lot of labor because there was NO automation at that time. What all this has to do with OSS is beyond me, however.
"IBM makes sackloads of money selling tools based on Eclipse, which it developed."
Yes, they are making some money on their closed source software. So you're suggesting that creating an OSS IDE and then charging customers for your proprietary software that's tied to it is a good business model for an OSS company? What happened to the "software wants to be free" idea. Is this the animal farm approach: "Some software wants to be freer than others"
IBM was making a lot of money of Websphere long before Eclipse came along.
IBM's "great open source business models" consist of bundling OSS with proprietary software and hardware. I don't see why OSS advocates would find this inspiring.
If IBM released all their IP, the company would sink like a stone.
I don't know where you get your 80% but you should keep in mind that the software world is not made up of just internal projects and shrink-wrap products.
"This software can cost less to develop if open source, because the chances are someone has already written part of it."
If that's true, (and I'm not completely convinced it is), then that reduction in cost comes in the form of fewer programmer hours. Thus, if you are correct OSS is reducing the demand for developers.
First of all, where do I get my Armani suit for free? If you're going to make an analogy, it should be based on reality.
Second, nobody cares about "personal service" with respect to technology products (well, maybe some Apple zealots would pay $10,000 to have Steve Jobs personally adjust their iPod earbuds, but they're a special group).
I agree. The experience of distributors doesn't give any insight into the question of whether writing Open Source code can be profitable.
Beyond that, I wonder if companies like Red Hat have actually made a profit over their lifetime despite having 95% of their product developed by people they didn't have to pay. (Yes, I could research the answer, but I'm too lazy).
"Actually, I didn't say anything. I was quoting an article written by someone else."
Well, either you agree with it or you don't. If you agree with it, take some responsibility for your opinion.
"As for the missile defense not working, it hasn't been perfected yet."
Perhaps the defense contractors should send us the bill AFTER they get it working (if ever). It would certainly save us a lot of money and we'd find out very quickly whether these companies really believe it will work.
"And if you have read any US SC decisions I believe you will see "congress' intent" used a lot when it comes to deciding whether or not an agency's actions are legal or not."
Citing "congress' intent" is really just another way of interpreting the text of the law or trying to justify a position that has no basis in the law.
You can see how impractical it would be to actually prove the intent of Congress. McCain and Finegold might have made speeches or wrote papers laying out their interpretation of the campaign finance law they wrote, but at the end of the day, they are only 2 Senators out of 100. You can't judge intent from such a small sample.
The real argument is that if the intent of a law was different than what the law stated prior to passage, then Congress would have revised it to reflect their actual intent and then passed it. Intent is pure hearsay.
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"The sense in which software is "free" or not is in the sense of preserving the freedom of its users."
A very nice try, but it won't wash.
First of all if "Free" software advocates want to claim it's about freedom for users, they should just say it. "Software wants to be free" says nothing about users no matter how much backstory you want to retrofit on it.
Clearly, the GPL is not about users' rights, it's about the rights of the author. It's the perfect license for people who want to release their source code and still control an aspect of its destiny.
I have no problem with that, but let's not drape this self-interest with sanctimonious crap about benefiting humanity.
And many OSS companies aren't the authors of the software they sell and aren't doing anything to benefit the real authors.
All of this is irrelevant, however. The question is whether you believe in IP or you don't. If you don't you shouldn't embrace the GPL or the RIAA.
"Most don't have the skill to write the MFC wrappers that wrap the Win32 calls that make VBxRUN.DLL run."
Which is good since MFC has nothing to do with VBxRUN.DLL.
"The problem with Sun and Novell is that they are both approach the problem: how to be Microsoft."
Given that they are both for-profit public companies and Microsoft is the most financially successful software company in the world, is it really hard to understand why they would like to emulate it? Now actually getting away with it is another matter.
You're right about legacy COM components and ASP, but for new web applications, ASP.NET usually eliminates the need for using COM on the backend.
.NET.
Since all ASP.NET pages are compiled into a class that can call anything in the FCL, there's no performance advantage in using COM components (except for any overhead related to the CLR, although COM can add overhead too).
As you suggest, however, if you want to take advantage of existing COM components, it's easier to do that from outside
"Damned, if any of my programmers came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately."
That should be "Damned IF I had any programmers working for me and one of them came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately."
Seriously, if you really do have programmers working for you and you're not the president of your company, you'd probably face firing yourself for getting rid of your staff without any real justification.
In most companies that have made it beyond the startup phase, managers don't have the power to fire people without following a process. Your attitude is exactly why companies have such a policy.
"This is a problem with some developers they get too comfortable and don't want to learn anything new"
Given that many Unix types won't use any other type of OS, insist on using only their favorite editor (such as VI or emacs) or favorite language (usually "C") and still love the command line, this inclination is not limited to VB programmers.
On the other hand, if these VB programmers had used the "free" GNU "C" or "C++" compiler instead, it would have taken them much longer to develop their Windows applications and they would have made a lot less money.
Windows desktop development has never been a high priority for free/open source tool developers, so they just aren't competitive compared to the closed source alternatives from MS and others.
"If you design something that is useable by idiots (or grandmas), only idiots (or grandmas) will want to use it."
So, you don't use toilet paper. Or are you an idiot? Or is it just your arguments that are idiotic?
"Because the program is licensed free of charge .."
In other words, free as in beer!
I don't buy it. Han firing first wasn't a technical problem and wasn't demanded by a public who had never seen the movie before. It was a decision made by the director at the time he was making the movie. Do you really think that 20 years later old, rich Lucas is better qualified to make this decision then lean and hungry young director?
Well, I think that ambiguity RMS created over the word "free" is probably his cleverest idea. Get people interested in "free" software at little or no cost and then claim a idealogical victory when its widely adopted.
It reminds me of the "Gay blue jeans day" they had at my college in the early 80s. The idea was that anybody who supported gays were supposed to wear blue jeans on that day. Of course, a lot people wore jeans on that day for other reasons.
No matter how one feels about gays or "free" software, the logic is flawed.
"Instead, what happened was demand went up because the product could be delivered more cheaply."
Given world-wide piracy the effective cost of the most popular software is $0. So on the shrink-wrap front, there is little OSS can do to lower the price unless they pay people to use it.
As far as internal projects are concerned, I doubt that the lower cost will increase demand, but I think it's too early to tell.
I'm not sure about the other categories; I guess time will tell.
"Automation of factories happened a long time before the invention of the robot. You can only have limited automation with cams and gears, but you can still automate large portions of the process. In fact the automated production line was conceived by Marc Brunel in the early 19th century."
Yes, I was being sarcastic, but mass production was really about optimized performance by humans, not machines.
Here's an excerpt from John Dos Passos's USA that describes what it was like:
"At Ford's production was improving all the time; less waste, more spotters, strawbosses, stoolpigeons (fifteen minutes for lunch, three minutes to go to the toilet, the Taylorized speedup everywhere, reach under, adjust washer, screw down bolt, shove in cotter pin, reachunder adjustwasher, screwdown bolt, reachunderadjustscrewdownreachunderadjust until every ounce of life was sucked off into production and at night the workmen went home gray shaking husks)."
"They aren't needed."
Since when was need a requirement for an OSS project?
"I don't think anyone ever claimed that "software wants to be free", just that some people want the freedom to tinker with it. "
You don't know much about the Free software movement apparently. Here's a quote from Wikipedia in the entry for Richard Stallman (have you heard of him?):
"Stallman's philosophy was that "software wants to be free""
I have no problem with any business model, but its disingenuous to claim (as some have) that proprietary software is evil and then endorse a business plan for OSS than includes closed source in the mix.
"What other software is there?"
Embedded software and custom software written by a 3rd party.
"Competition and price reduction always seems to increase demand rather than reduce profits."
I don't understand how this statement relates to mine.
"A historical example is the rapid increase in manufacturing labour after mass production was developed, even though this was highly automated. "
Highly automated? Using what, Steam-based robots? The introduction of mass production was obviously about manufactoring a lot stuff, so naturally it required a lot of labor because there was NO automation at that time. What all this has to do with OSS is beyond me, however.
"IBM makes sackloads of money selling tools based on Eclipse, which it developed."
Yes, they are making some money on their closed source software. So you're suggesting that creating an OSS IDE and then charging customers for your proprietary software that's tied to it is a good business model for an OSS company? What happened to the "software wants to be free" idea. Is this the animal farm approach: "Some software wants to be freer than others"
IBM was making a lot of money of Websphere long before Eclipse came along.
IBM's "great open source business models" consist of bundling OSS with proprietary software and hardware. I don't see why OSS advocates would find this inspiring.
If IBM released all their IP, the company would sink like a stone.
I don't know where you get your 80% but you should keep in mind that the software world is not made up of just internal projects and shrink-wrap products.
"This software can cost less to develop if open source, because the chances are someone has already written part of it."
If that's true, (and I'm not completely convinced it is), then that reduction in cost comes in the form of fewer programmer hours. Thus, if you are correct OSS is reducing the demand for developers.
"Business is competitive."
Yes, that's exactly why you don't give your competition any advantages.
Those that make money from answering phones should just be thankful that RMS took CS classes instead of business classes.
First of all, where do I get my Armani suit for free? If you're going to make an analogy, it should be based on reality.
Second, nobody cares about "personal service" with respect to technology products (well, maybe some Apple zealots would pay $10,000 to have Steve Jobs personally adjust their iPod earbuds, but they're a special group).
I agree. The experience of distributors doesn't give any insight into the question of whether writing Open Source code can be profitable.
Beyond that, I wonder if companies like Red Hat have actually made a profit over their lifetime despite having 95% of their product developed by people they didn't have to pay. (Yes, I could research the answer, but I'm too lazy).
"Actually, I didn't say anything. I was quoting an article written by someone else."
Well, either you agree with it or you don't. If you agree with it, take some responsibility for your opinion.
"As for the missile defense not working, it hasn't been perfected yet."
Perhaps the defense contractors should send us the bill AFTER they get it working (if ever). It would certainly save us a lot of money and we'd find out very quickly whether these companies really believe it will work.
"And if you have read any US SC decisions I believe you will see "congress' intent" used a lot when it comes to deciding whether or not an agency's actions are legal or not."
Citing "congress' intent" is really just another way of interpreting the text of the law or trying to justify a position that has no basis in the law.
You can see how impractical it would be to actually prove the intent of Congress. McCain and Finegold might have made speeches or wrote papers laying out their interpretation of the campaign finance law they wrote, but at the end of the day, they are only 2 Senators out of 100. You can't judge intent from such a small sample.
The real argument is that if the intent of a law was different than what the law stated prior to passage, then Congress would have revised it to reflect their actual intent and then passed it. Intent is pure hearsay.