Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial
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What is Open Source?
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Buddy, if you're buying support for a software package you want the whole team at your disposal. After all, the money you're paying go towards ensuring that the development team as a whole is responsive to your needs, not just one guy.
In which case you'd need to deal with those people fairly directly. With a lot of proprietary software this is very difficult since the identity of the programmers can be just as secret as the source code.
Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial
on
What is Open Source?
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· Score: 1
You're saying that you can buy a support contract from any number of organizations? Forgive me for sounding less than enthusiastic about that prospect. If I buy support for product X from company Y, yeah they're my only option, but they make product X and the guys who coded it are intimately familiar with it. They have specialized knowledge of it.
How do you know company Y actually wrote product X? Maybe they actually bought it from company Z. Even if people at company Y did write it how do you know they are still working there?
Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial
on
What is Open Source?
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· Score: 1
See, you have the misconception that simply having access to the source means you can fix problems in an acceptable amount of time. If you've ever had to pore over a massive project you'll realize that you could spend a couple days trying to track down and fix a problem that is preventing you from finishing your real work or you could simply send a problem description off to the guys who originally wrote the code (and who you're already paying for), and they'll probably be able to fix the problem far quicker than you ever could. THAT is the reason closed-source software is so appealing.
Since you typically don't know who actually wrote the software with a proprietary program how do you know that they will be the people who will attempt to fix it.
If you have a problem with a piece of code you bought you can tell them "hey, I've got a problem, I'm paying you, get on this problem and fix it for me ASAP or we'll be re-evaluating our business relationship with you."
If you are paying someone to work on the code it really dosn't matter if the code itself is open source or proprietary. But if things do go wrong then with open source you can still go elsewhere, with proprietary software if the vendor won't fix it then you are out of luck.
With open source software, you might get lucky with helpful developers and you might not. You never know. What you do know is that you don't have the ability to really push open source developers to fix problems for you, and that's a major drawback.
If you want software to do something specific you pay someone to do it. Would you sit around hoping a proprietary software vendor will start selling something which does what you want it to do...
Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial
on
What is Open Source?
·
· Score: 1
A friend of mine who works at an unnamed Swedish company was very much for open source software, but when his managers were thinking of buying software they allways went for the medium-small sized companies reather than the large sized or open-source. The reason was that if they programs didn't work purfectly they could put pressure for the companies to fix it. If they refused they would bury them in legal threats and colapse the company and move on. Thus not many companies would refuse to fix bugs and solve problems. Interestingly the concept of the company fixing its own problems as they hold the source was just unthinkable. No manager would give themselves more work no matter how much money it would save.
Are lawyers (and legal firms) cheaper than programmers (and programming firms) in Sweden? This sounds like a variation on the "who do you sue" type FUD.
Although you may believe in the ``copyleft'' type restrictions put forth by the GPL, it doesn't fit into a lot of business plans.
Where do you get "many" from the conditions of the GPL are utterly irrelevent to any business which does not distribute software. Which is the vast majority. And of some relevence to companies which write software for contract. The only kind of busines Open Source dosn't fit is a business which licences proprietary software. Which is a small portion of a small portion of business plans.
She's not a power user by any means. And she's not very tech-saavy (once called me at work to ask how to shut off the fire alarm, which was blaring in the background. I told her "You don't. You call the Fire Department and they hose it down.")
Leaving the building, e.g. far enough away that you can no longer hear the alarm is also a good idea.
Licensing the use of Intellectual Property does not in any way weaken ownership of that IP. Perhaps it's time that this point is driven home by a court. If I don't own the IP (if I don't control the copyright, either by virtue of being the author or by having that right assigned to me by the author), then I usually can't transfer that IP to someone else legally unless I have specific permission of the real owner to do that. The GPL is both the permission for that transfer, and the obligation to do so.
The GPL dosn't oblige you to do anything. Copyright law says you need permission, from the copyright holder, in order to distribute copies of copyrighted work(s). The GPL gives you such permission, subject to a set of conditions.
The GPL is not a transfer of copyright or IP ownership. Just as is true for releases of code to selected parties under more "traditional" licensing terms (like, for money;-), the copyright still rests with the author of the code released under GPL.
e.g. it's perfectly possible for an author to licence a work to a publisher. Though with some kinds of works publishers want to hav copyright assigned to them...
If SCO has released some code/IP under GPL, then by the terms of the GPL anyone who receives that code is obligated to pass on that code to anyone else who asks for it.
Not quite, the obligation only applies to those people SCO has actually supplied the binaries to. Of course if they make the binaries available to anyone who wants them then they had better make the source just as easily available. If they only made the binaries available for sale then they'd be entitled to ask for a evidence that you were before supplying the sources.
People don't buy "software". People buy solutions to problems. This is way more money is made by contract programming than by selling boxes of software.
As well as way more software written and adapted for custom systems. If anything writing software to be sold as a boxed product is a far more difficult and risky enterprise. Since you need to guess what the software needs to do. (Then hope people will actually want to buy it.) Whereas for a system contracted to meet specific requirments you already know what it needs to do.
The GPL, by design, will make it unprofitable to sell software sight unseen.
In many cases selling software isn't profitable anyway. If someone attempted to start up a proprietary software company odds on they'd go bankrupt...
If the GPL became dominant, software would be limited to an add-on provided by OEMs, contractors, and philantrophic coders.
So instead you sell time and expertise. The vast majority of software is part of custom systems. Indeed the idea of an "off the shelf solution" is in many real world situations an utter nonsense. Whilst the components may come off some "shelf" or other they still need modifying and fitting together in order to make a system which addresses the needs of the customer. The open source "shelf" has a few advantages over the proprietary "shelf". e.g. anyone can take from it and no complex restrictions on what you can do with the bits. A good analogy, IMHO, is to think of putting a software system together as being like constructing a building.
The GPL is what gives them the right to redistribute Linux and create derivatives of it for distribution in the first place. If the court "winks" it away they face standard copyright which is far more restrictive.
SCO needs permision from the copyright holders to distribute GPL covered code. The GPL gives that permission conditionally. SCO have no alternative permission from the copyright holders, therefore they cannot distribute the code at all.
To my understanding (IANAL, #include "stdDisclaimer") that means every developper who has a code-snippet in their distribution can sue them for copyright-violation (at least one already did).
Copyright law gives the copyright holder a lot of powers. They can sue SCO for copyright infringement; take out court orders to stop SCO distributing; offer SCO alternative licences; etc.
Consider, if I, at work, want to program a robot or something, I can totally use GPL code until the cows come home, and nobody or nothing can do anything about it. The GPL gives me this freedom. As long as I don't try to distribute my derived code, I'm totally legit! And since my company doesn't sell robots, nobody gives a crap as long as it works flawlessly. It is an in-house thing never to be sold or given away, and it does what it is supposed to do perfectly.
If your company were to contract someone else to do the work all that contractor would have to do is give your company a copy of the source.
The GPL is a grant to distribute a work, under certain conditions - nothing more.
In many cases the conditions are not even especially difficult or costly. The only obvious group of people who are likely to find the conditions difficult are those wedded to the propriatary "software is a product" idea. The conditions could just as easily be "pay me X per copy"...
It's entirely possible that the concept of copyleft could be tossed out, as being an unfair infringement upon the innovation and artistic progress of others.
It's probably hard to do this without tossing a portion of current copyright law in the bargin. Effectivly you'd be impinging on the absolute rights of copyright holders to control distribution of their works.
I don't see any reason why the GPL would be invalidated, however. The GPL grants people rights that they do not have under normal copyright law, unlike most licenses that seek to remove rights.
The most important thing to remember is that the GPL is not an EULA it is a "Copyright Distribution Licence".
And the GPL doesn't prevent anyone from asserting IP rights. By agreeing to follow the terms of the GPL, they are agreeing to not assert additional IP rights over that code. The agreement is the important part. Nobody is forced to distribute GPL'd code, it is done by choice.
Effectivly the GPL says that you have permission, from the copyright holder, to distribute, a copyrighted work, subject to a set of conditions. Conceptually this isn't that different from the copyright holder saying "you may distribute if you pay me X amount of money."
But say for the sake of argument that the GPL were invalidated.
SCO getting the GPL invalidated would be a case of shooting themselves in the foot (with a cannon). Without the GPL they would have no right at all to distribute the code at all.
What would people who had GPL'd code do? They'd basically either (1) keep it to themselves or (2) release it under a BSD style license.
False dicotamy. The copyright holders of thc code could apply any licence they wanted to. Including one similar to the current GPL.
Except they can't include code covered by their IP/Copyright or whatever with GPLed software (the linux kernel) without also releasing their code as GPL software.
Actually they could, but in order to do so they would need to negotiate with the copyright holders of every relevent piece of GPL code. Following the GPL is the simplist option for anyone who wishes to distribute GPL (and derived) code. Since they have no need to identify, contact and negotiate with copyright holders. By placing their code under GPL these people have effectivly said "if you want to distribute my work, then you can do so according to these (and only these) conditions." If you want a different set of conditions then you must negotiate with the copyright holder.
they might not be liable for SCO IP, but what about all the GPL IP? SCO is ignoring the fact that the GPL does not apply if they ship royalty generating IP in their distro, so they cannot ship all that GPLed code. So their customers are now liable, instead, for GPL violations.
So long as SCO's customers don't violate the GPL they are in the clear. If SCO are distributing GPL code in violation of the GPL then they are guilty of copyright infringement.
And according to the terms of the GNU General Public License, if you can't satisfy patent laws AND the terms of the GPL simulataneously you have no right to use the code at all.
Rather you have no right to distribute (to third parties) the code under the GPL. Copyright law says that you need permission from the copyright holder to distribute at all. The GPL says that the copyright holder grants you conditional permission to distribute. Thus to distribute the code under the GPL you need simply follow the applicable conditions. If you can't (or don't want to) follow all the applicable conditions in the GPL then the only way you can distribute is by getting permission from the copyright holder(s).
The SCO letter claims that buying Linux from them means buying a license to use their intellectual property. If one of those who bought Linux from SCO modified it and distributed it according to the license would they be sued? Is SCO now allowing them to make modifications and do what they want with those modifications (according to the GPL). If so then they have Licensed they IP under the GPL. If not then they are violating the GPL because of all the other code that they distributed with it that does not belong to them.
Which is basically copyright infringment, known as "software piracy". An interesting side effect of the GPL is that anyone who happens to recieve a pirated copy is perfectly in the clear so long as they themselves comply with the GPL.
Then Microsoft would be in violation of the GPL. The GPL lets anybody on the face of the earth take something released under it and package it and sell it, but they are required to provide the source code for free to any and all who ask for it.
Actually no. The GPL obliges people to make available the source (of GPL covered code) only to third parties they have supplied it to. i.e. if you sell GPL code then the only people who can demand the source code from you are your customers. Also if GPL software is used entirely for "personal use", which a corporation can do just as easily as an individual, then it can also be modified in all sorts of ways.
If Microsoft passed it off as their own and didn't release source code, well then they would be criminals wouldn't they.
If Microsoft were to do this they would be enguaging in both fraud and copyright infringement.
But if SCO sold them Linux, I don't see how they could sue anyway. Isn't selling someone something which implements your IP an implicit grant of permission to use it?
With software apparently not...
If I buy the new Harry Potter book, for instance, can't I assume I have a license to read it?
A character introduced in HP&OoP would most likely claim that you don't:)
Could someone explain to me exactly HOW one can patent something as "natural" (for the lack of a better word) as aiming a laser at particles to create/accelerate chemical reactions?
Using a catalyst is certainly something which can be patented. However the fact that light can catalyse reactions has been known for a long time. Once it became known how and why light could do this the idea of using monochromatic light as a way to catalyse a wanted reaction efficently would have been obvious, even if it predated the ability to manufacture tuned monochromatic light was not yet available.
1.require that anyone filing a patent show a completly working example of whatever it is they are patenting. (and the patent should provide all details necessary to re-create that working example)
Just because someone might be able to invent a novel thing or a novel application of an existing thing does not mean they have the resources or even skill to actually build it. There is also a big problem of eliminating patents for things which are "obvious". Something obvious may well not be well documented.
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Buddy, if you're buying support for a software package you want the whole team at your disposal. After all, the money you're paying go towards ensuring that the development team as a whole is responsive to your needs, not just one guy.
In which case you'd need to deal with those people fairly directly. With a lot of proprietary software this is very difficult since the identity of the programmers can be just as secret as the source code.
You're saying that you can buy a support contract from any number of organizations? Forgive me for sounding less than enthusiastic about that prospect. If I buy support for product X from company Y, yeah they're my only option, but they make product X and the guys who coded it are intimately familiar with it. They have specialized knowledge of it.
How do you know company Y actually wrote product X? Maybe they actually bought it from company Z. Even if people at company Y did write it how do you know they are still working there?
See, you have the misconception that simply having access to the source means you can fix problems in an acceptable amount of time. If you've ever had to pore over a massive project you'll realize that you could spend a couple days trying to track down and fix a problem that is preventing you from finishing your real work or you could simply send a problem description off to the guys who originally wrote the code (and who you're already paying for), and they'll probably be able to fix the problem far quicker than you ever could. THAT is the reason closed-source software is so appealing.
Since you typically don't know who actually wrote the software with a proprietary program how do you know that they will be the people who will attempt to fix it.
If you have a problem with a piece of code you bought you can tell them "hey, I've got a problem, I'm paying you, get on this problem and fix it for me ASAP or we'll be re-evaluating our business relationship with you."
If you are paying someone to work on the code it really dosn't matter if the code itself is open source or proprietary. But if things do go wrong then with open source you can still go elsewhere, with proprietary software if the vendor won't fix it then you are out of luck.
With open source software, you might get lucky with helpful developers and you might not. You never know. What you do know is that you don't have the ability to really push open source developers to fix problems for you, and that's a major drawback.
If you want software to do something specific you pay someone to do it. Would you sit around hoping a proprietary software vendor will start selling something which does what you want it to do...
A friend of mine who works at an unnamed Swedish company was very much for open source software, but when his managers were thinking of buying software they allways went for the medium-small sized companies reather than the large sized or open-source. The reason was that if they programs didn't work purfectly they could put pressure for the companies to fix it. If they refused they would bury them in legal threats and colapse the company and move on. Thus not many companies would refuse to fix bugs and solve problems.
Interestingly the concept of the company fixing its own problems as they hold the source was just unthinkable. No manager would give themselves more work no matter how much money it would save.
Are lawyers (and legal firms) cheaper than programmers (and programming firms) in Sweden? This sounds like a variation on the "who do you sue" type FUD.
Although you may believe in the ``copyleft'' type restrictions put forth by the GPL, it doesn't fit into a lot of business plans.
Where do you get "many" from the conditions of the GPL are utterly irrelevent to any business which does not distribute software. Which is the vast majority. And of some relevence to companies which write software for contract.
The only kind of busines Open Source dosn't fit is a business which licences proprietary software. Which is a small portion of a small portion of business plans.
well, GPL, being the most prevalent license for OSS, has become nearly synonimous with Open Source for non-technical people.
In the same way that the original article uses "commercial" as a synonym for "proprietary"...
She's not a power user by any means. And she's not very tech-saavy (once called me at work to ask how to shut off the fire alarm, which was blaring in the background. I told her "You don't. You call the Fire Department and they hose it down.")
Leaving the building, e.g. far enough away that you can no longer hear the alarm is also a good idea.
I see IBM commercials that are mentioning Linux on the TV all the time, far more often than I see Microsoft commercials.
What's significent, IMHO, is that Microsoft are advertising.
Licensing the use of Intellectual Property does not in any way weaken ownership of that IP. Perhaps it's time that this point is driven home by a court. If I don't own the IP (if I don't control the copyright, either by virtue of being the author or by having that right assigned to me by the author), then I usually can't transfer that IP to someone else legally unless I have specific permission of the real owner to do that. The GPL is both the permission for that transfer, and the obligation to do so.
;-), the copyright still rests with the author of the code released under GPL.
The GPL dosn't oblige you to do anything. Copyright law says you need permission, from the copyright holder, in order to distribute copies of copyrighted work(s). The GPL gives you such permission, subject to a set of conditions.
The GPL is not a transfer of copyright or IP ownership. Just as is true for releases of code to selected parties under more "traditional" licensing terms (like, for money
e.g. it's perfectly possible for an author to licence a work to a publisher. Though with some kinds of works publishers want to hav copyright assigned to them...
If SCO has released some code/IP under GPL, then by the terms of the GPL anyone who receives that code is obligated to pass on that code to anyone else who asks for it.
Not quite, the obligation only applies to those people SCO has actually supplied the binaries to. Of course if they make the binaries available to anyone who wants them then they had better make the source just as easily available. If they only made the binaries available for sale then they'd be entitled to ask for a evidence that you were before supplying the sources.
People don't buy "software". People buy solutions to problems. This is way more money is made by contract programming than by selling boxes of software.
As well as way more software written and adapted for custom systems. If anything writing software to be sold as a boxed product is a far more difficult and risky enterprise. Since you need to guess what the software needs to do. (Then hope people will actually want to buy it.) Whereas for a system contracted to meet specific requirments you already know what it needs to do.
The GPL, by design, will make it unprofitable to sell software sight unseen.
In many cases selling software isn't profitable anyway. If someone attempted to start up a proprietary software company odds on they'd go bankrupt...
If the GPL became dominant, software would be limited to an add-on provided by OEMs, contractors, and philantrophic coders.
So instead you sell time and expertise. The vast majority of software is part of custom systems. Indeed the idea of an "off the shelf solution" is in many real world situations an utter nonsense. Whilst the components may come off some "shelf" or other they still need modifying and fitting together in order to make a system which addresses the needs of the customer. The open source "shelf" has a few advantages over the proprietary "shelf". e.g. anyone can take from it and no complex restrictions on what you can do with the bits.
A good analogy, IMHO, is to think of putting a software system together as being like constructing a building.
The GPL is what gives them the right to redistribute Linux and create derivatives of it for distribution in the first place. If the court "winks" it away they face standard copyright which is far more restrictive.
SCO needs permision from the copyright holders to distribute GPL covered code. The GPL gives that permission conditionally. SCO have no alternative permission from the copyright holders, therefore they cannot distribute the code at all.
To my understanding (IANAL, #include "stdDisclaimer") that means every developper who has a code-snippet in their distribution can sue them for copyright-violation (at least one already did).
Copyright law gives the copyright holder a lot of powers. They can sue SCO for copyright infringement; take out court orders to stop SCO distributing; offer SCO alternative licences; etc.
Consider, if I, at work, want to program a robot or something, I can totally use GPL code until the cows come home, and nobody or nothing can do anything about it. The GPL gives me this freedom. As long as I don't try to distribute my derived code, I'm totally legit! And since my company doesn't sell robots, nobody gives a crap as long as it works flawlessly. It is an in-house thing never to be sold or given away, and it does what it is supposed to do perfectly.
If your company were to contract someone else to do the work all that contractor would have to do is give your company a copy of the source.
The GPL is a grant to distribute a work, under certain conditions - nothing more.
In many cases the conditions are not even especially difficult or costly. The only obvious group of people who are likely to find the conditions difficult are those wedded to the propriatary "software is a product" idea.
The conditions could just as easily be "pay me X per copy"...
It's entirely possible that the concept of copyleft could be tossed out, as being an unfair infringement upon the innovation and artistic progress of others.
It's probably hard to do this without tossing a portion of current copyright law in the bargin. Effectivly you'd be impinging on the absolute rights of copyright holders to control distribution of their works.
I don't see any reason why the GPL would be invalidated, however. The GPL grants people rights that they do not have under normal copyright law, unlike most licenses that seek to remove rights.
The most important thing to remember is that the GPL is not an EULA it is a "Copyright Distribution Licence".
And the GPL doesn't prevent anyone from asserting IP rights. By agreeing to follow the terms of the GPL, they are agreeing to not assert additional IP rights over that code. The agreement is the important part. Nobody is forced to distribute GPL'd code, it is done by choice.
Effectivly the GPL says that you have permission, from the copyright holder, to distribute, a copyrighted work, subject to a set of conditions. Conceptually this isn't that different from the copyright holder saying "you may distribute if you pay me X amount of money."
But say for the sake of argument that the GPL were invalidated.
SCO getting the GPL invalidated would be a case of shooting themselves in the foot (with a cannon). Without the GPL they would have no right at all to distribute the code at all.
What would people who had GPL'd code do? They'd basically either (1) keep it to themselves or (2) release it under a BSD style license.
False dicotamy. The copyright holders of thc code could apply any licence they wanted to. Including one similar to the current GPL.
Except they can't include code covered by their IP/Copyright or whatever with GPLed software (the linux kernel) without also releasing their code as GPL software.
Actually they could, but in order to do so they would need to negotiate with the copyright holders of every relevent piece of GPL code. Following the GPL is the simplist option for anyone who wishes to distribute GPL (and derived) code. Since they have no need to identify, contact and negotiate with copyright holders.
By placing their code under GPL these people have effectivly said "if you want to distribute my work, then you can do so according to these (and only these) conditions." If you want a different set of conditions then you must negotiate with the copyright holder.
they might not be liable for SCO IP, but what about all the GPL IP? SCO is ignoring the fact that the GPL does not apply if they ship royalty generating IP in their distro, so they cannot ship all that GPLed code. So their customers are now liable, instead, for GPL violations.
So long as SCO's customers don't violate the GPL they are in the clear. If SCO are distributing GPL code in violation of the GPL then they are guilty of copyright infringement.
And according to the terms of the GNU General Public License, if you can't satisfy patent laws AND the terms of the GPL simulataneously you have no right to use the code at all.
Rather you have no right to distribute (to third parties) the code under the GPL. Copyright law says that you need permission from the copyright holder to distribute at all. The GPL says that the copyright holder grants you conditional permission to distribute. Thus to distribute the code under the GPL you need simply follow the applicable conditions. If you can't (or don't want to) follow all the applicable conditions in the GPL then the only way you can distribute is by getting permission from the copyright holder(s).
The SCO letter claims that buying Linux from them means buying a license to use their intellectual property. If one of those who bought Linux from SCO modified it and distributed it according to the license would they be sued? Is SCO now allowing them to make modifications and do what they want with those modifications (according to the GPL). If so then they have Licensed they IP under the GPL. If not then they are violating the GPL because of all the other code that they distributed with it that does not belong to them.
Which is basically copyright infringment, known as "software piracy". An interesting side effect of the GPL is that anyone who happens to recieve a pirated copy is perfectly in the clear so long as they themselves comply with the GPL.
Then Microsoft would be in violation of the GPL. The GPL lets anybody on the face of the earth take something released under it and package it and sell it, but they are required to provide the source code for free to any and all who ask for it.
Actually no. The GPL obliges people to make available the source (of GPL covered code) only to third parties they have supplied it to. i.e. if you sell GPL code then the only people who can demand the source code from you are your customers. Also if GPL software is used entirely for "personal use", which a corporation can do just as easily as an individual, then it can also be modified in all sorts of ways.
If Microsoft passed it off as their own and didn't release source code, well then they would be criminals wouldn't they.
If Microsoft were to do this they would be enguaging in both fraud and copyright infringement.
But if SCO sold them Linux, I don't see how they could sue anyway. Isn't selling someone something which implements your IP an implicit grant of permission to use it?
:)
With software apparently not...
If I buy the new Harry Potter book, for instance, can't I assume I have a license to read it?
A character introduced in HP&OoP would most likely claim that you don't
Could someone explain to me exactly HOW one can patent something as "natural" (for the lack of a better word) as aiming a laser at particles to create/accelerate chemical reactions?
Using a catalyst is certainly something which can be patented.
However the fact that light can catalyse reactions has been known for a long time. Once it became known how and why light could do this the idea of using monochromatic light as a way to catalyse a wanted reaction efficently would have been obvious, even if it predated the ability to manufacture tuned monochromatic light was not yet available.
1.require that anyone filing a patent show a completly working example of whatever it is they are patenting. (and the patent should provide all details necessary to re-create that working example)
Just because someone might be able to invent a novel thing or a novel application of an existing thing does not mean they have the resources or even skill to actually build it.
There is also a big problem of eliminating patents for things which are "obvious". Something obvious may well not be well documented.