It's amusing to see how credulous the/. crowd are. God forbid that anyone load up Xerces and try playing with a WordML file to determine that the guy from OpenOffice was lying.
The fact that the person who created these rather handy legally "well formed" licenses that meet my goals also happens to be walking the line between advocate and nut job is of little concern to me really.
I suppose you're right. I think that religion sometimes clouds ability to see alternatives and make judgements, but there is no reason to exlude alternatives because of positions of some advocates.
On the other hand, I believe strongly in ethical use of language (as my/. sig implies), and I do think that the FSF is being less than honest with their constant appeals to "free as in freedom".
Well, when the people who make extremely negative comments about copyleft licenses
Yeah, that's basically my point -- there is no love for GPL, but that shouldn't be extrapolated to mean that people are "anti" all of the other open licenses like BSD, MIT, etc. GPL is but a fringe of the entire "open source" ecosystem, so it is rather sad that one cannot voice disagreement with GPL without being vociferously branded "anti open source".
Free software, note, doesn't have to be copyleft, the BSD license is also classed as "free" software.
Again, I don't particularly have a problem with BSD, and my complaints about FSF/GPL are not directed at other licenses/groups. The issue of whether or not FSF has magnanimously declared a particular license to be "free" is not relevant to my perception of the license. I object to the way that the FSF so jealously attempts to control use of the word "free" (as in freedom) and associates freedom with GPL -- this is something I have discussed with Stallman; and I think it just comes down to a basic political difference.
You may not believe in such an end goal. In particular the comparison between the FSF and East Germany seems to indicate that.
The example was meant to show that Stallman's definition of "freedom" is not the only one out there -- I am certain that GDR leadership would have argued mightily that they were *truly* democratic, while West Germany was oligarchy of the elites. That is why I found it so funny to hear West German men saying "sogennante", as if it was so important to make sure that they did not accidentally use the wrong words to refer to their neigbor. I use it in the same sense -- as a way to highlight that the word "freedom" as used by FSF is but one perspective, and reasonable people might have different ideas of what "freedom" means when applied to software. In other words - there is a fundamental political disagreement about the term "free" when used in context of FSF and GPL:
Note that I am a huge fan of collaborative development, sharing code, etc. Corporations are collective enterprises, after all, and collective activity in no way needs to be confined to be within or between corporations.
However, I don't believe in systems which attempt to enforce, or which depend on, human altruism -- not even in software. Orthodox Stallmanism is disturbingly close to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", and GPL is a political tool for enforcing that. I think it would be dishonest to pass off GPL as "just another way to encourage people to share and work together" -- it has a very serious political component which cannot be denied or dismissed, especially when its advocates also insist that it represents the purest form of the word "freedom".
on the face of it they might appear to be mutually exclusive, but I don't think they actually are.
I would be a hypocrite to disagree on this one. What some would characterize as "patterning lives on absolutist ideaology", others could characterize as "living according to your values". I do think it is best to focus on the goals (increased competition, more sharing) than to get blinded by a particular dogma. There are many thoughtful voices out there contributing to society's current debate on intellectual property, and I personally don't think we are anywhere close to being able to declare one dogma as "the true way".
I don't think that MSFT has ever been "anti-open-source". Certainly MSFT is not altruistic/idealistic about giving away intellectual property, but has released source under various licenses when deemed appropriate or strategic. Some within the company have made negative comments about GPL specifically, but I don't think the facts in general bear out an "anti-open-source" mentality.
FSF has a nefarious hidden agenda that somehow
I never claimed that the agenda is particularly hidden. FSF "agenda" is about abolishing intellectual property and, to a large extent, collectivism. Maybe you disagree, but that's how I see it.
Obviously you can't simply airbrush all MS employees together. Some of them are really into Linux.
Glad you admit that stereotypes are sometimes inaccurate. I, for example, don't fit the stereotype. I was one of the original Linux advocates -- deploying some of the first (as far as I know) Linux boxes at U.S. Department of Defense in 1993-1994 timeframe, back when simtel was still the main file archive and before Netscape appeared on the scene. I spent many years coding on SGI, HP/UX, Solaris, and Linux -- and although I run FreeBSD on my laptop's second partition now (for Rotor), I still know Linux better than most of the "zealots".
And I'm certainly not unique among my co-workers. It never ceases to amaze me that people assume that great programmers from thought-leading projects and groups -- bell labs, Parc, Multics, etc. *don't* join Microsoft -- it seems absurd to think that the people in the industry are segregated between "OSS" and "Microsoft". It's a small industry and great talent is scarce; and most people realize that this Zoroastrian "good vs. evil" picture of the industry is just dramatization for the sake of storytelling. Most people in the industry are driven by practical concerns and tailor their decisions to the situation rather than pattern their lives based on absolutist ideaologies. (Of course, I am more biased than most, but you already guessed that).
Great job getting people excited. Funny I haven't heard anyone mention DB2 or Teradata. It would be really surreal to see someone claiming that MySQL was of the same calibre as DB2, SQL Server, Teradata, or even Oracle. But it is quite possible that MySQL is "good enough" for what this fellow wants, and therefore not a terrible business decision. This guy clearly wasn't the sharpest or most experienced DBA on the block, so if he is "good enough" for what that company needs, maybe MySQL is, too. We already have a huge shortage of resources in the IT industry; if everyone demands to have only the best (and ignore other satisfactory alternatives) we'll just make the shortage worse.
Slashdot Mirror
It's amusing to see how credulous the /. crowd are. God forbid that anyone load up Xerces and try playing with a WordML file to determine that the guy from OpenOffice was lying.
I suppose you're right. I think that religion sometimes clouds ability to see alternatives and make judgements, but there is no reason to exlude alternatives because of positions of some advocates.
On the other hand, I believe strongly in ethical use of language (as my /. sig implies), and I do think that the FSF is being less than honest with their constant appeals to "free as in freedom".
Yeah, that's basically my point -- there is no love for GPL, but that shouldn't be extrapolated to mean that people are "anti" all of the other open licenses like BSD, MIT, etc. GPL is but a fringe of the entire "open source" ecosystem, so it is rather sad that one cannot voice disagreement with GPL without being vociferously branded "anti open source".
Free software, note, doesn't have to be copyleft, the BSD license is also classed as "free" software.
Again, I don't particularly have a problem with BSD, and my complaints about FSF/GPL are not directed at other licenses/groups. The issue of whether or not FSF has magnanimously declared a particular license to be "free" is not relevant to my perception of the license. I object to the way that the FSF so jealously attempts to control use of the word "free" (as in freedom) and associates freedom with GPL -- this is something I have discussed with Stallman; and I think it just comes down to a basic political difference.
You may not believe in such an end goal. In particular the comparison between the FSF and East Germany seems to indicate that.
The example was meant to show that Stallman's definition of "freedom" is not the only one out there -- I am certain that GDR leadership would have argued mightily that they were *truly* democratic, while West Germany was oligarchy of the elites. That is why I found it so funny to hear West German men saying "sogennante", as if it was so important to make sure that they did not accidentally use the wrong words to refer to their neigbor. I use it in the same sense -- as a way to highlight that the word "freedom" as used by FSF is but one perspective, and reasonable people might have different ideas of what "freedom" means when applied to software. In other words - there is a fundamental political disagreement about the term "free" when used in context of FSF and GPL:
Note that I am a huge fan of collaborative development, sharing code, etc. Corporations are collective enterprises, after all, and collective activity in no way needs to be confined to be within or between corporations.
However, I don't believe in systems which attempt to enforce, or which depend on, human altruism -- not even in software. Orthodox Stallmanism is disturbingly close to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", and GPL is a political tool for enforcing that. I think it would be dishonest to pass off GPL as "just another way to encourage people to share and work together" -- it has a very serious political component which cannot be denied or dismissed, especially when its advocates also insist that it represents the purest form of the word "freedom".
on the face of it they might appear to be mutually exclusive, but I don't think they actually are.
I would be a hypocrite to disagree on this one. What some would characterize as "patterning lives on absolutist ideaology", others could characterize as "living according to your values". I do think it is best to focus on the goals (increased competition, more sharing) than to get blinded by a particular dogma. There are many thoughtful voices out there contributing to society's current debate on intellectual property, and I personally don't think we are anywhere close to being able to declare one dogma as "the true way".
I don't think that MSFT has ever been "anti-open-source". Certainly MSFT is not altruistic/idealistic about giving away intellectual property, but has released source under various licenses when deemed appropriate or strategic. Some within the company have made negative comments about GPL specifically, but I don't think the facts in general bear out an "anti-open-source" mentality.
FSF has a nefarious hidden agenda that somehow
I never claimed that the agenda is particularly hidden. FSF "agenda" is about abolishing intellectual property and, to a large extent, collectivism. Maybe you disagree, but that's how I see it.
Obviously you can't simply airbrush all MS employees together. Some of them are really into Linux.
Glad you admit that stereotypes are sometimes inaccurate. I, for example, don't fit the stereotype. I was one of the original Linux advocates -- deploying some of the first (as far as I know) Linux boxes at U.S. Department of Defense in 1993-1994 timeframe, back when simtel was still the main file archive and before Netscape appeared on the scene. I spent many years coding on SGI, HP/UX, Solaris, and Linux -- and although I run FreeBSD on my laptop's second partition now (for Rotor), I still know Linux better than most of the "zealots". And I'm certainly not unique among my co-workers. It never ceases to amaze me that people assume that great programmers from thought-leading projects and groups -- bell labs, Parc, Multics, etc. *don't* join Microsoft -- it seems absurd to think that the people in the industry are segregated between "OSS" and "Microsoft". It's a small industry and great talent is scarce; and most people realize that this Zoroastrian "good vs. evil" picture of the industry is just dramatization for the sake of storytelling. Most people in the industry are driven by practical concerns and tailor their decisions to the situation rather than pattern their lives based on absolutist ideaologies. (Of course, I am more biased than most, but you already guessed that).
Great job getting people excited. Funny I haven't heard anyone mention DB2 or Teradata. It would be really surreal to see someone claiming that MySQL was of the same calibre as DB2, SQL Server, Teradata, or even Oracle. But it is quite possible that MySQL is "good enough" for what this fellow wants, and therefore not a terrible business decision. This guy clearly wasn't the sharpest or most experienced DBA on the block, so if he is "good enough" for what that company needs, maybe MySQL is, too. We already have a huge shortage of resources in the IT industry; if everyone demands to have only the best (and ignore other satisfactory alternatives) we'll just make the shortage worse.