No, my blog is technocrat.net . The link is to perens.com, a site with no ads.
Yes, BSD had the source code and licensing, but no campaign to drive others to create such things. Stallman started that. I canonized the definition of what was, and what was not, Open Source. Raymond and I evangelized to business. Everybody in this picture is standing on other folks shoulders. I'd be the last to deny that.
The whole ESR Cathedral blather is an embarrassment, in most professional circles it is an hysterical joke.
It's obsolete. ESR wrote it before IBM stepped into the picture, etc. I invite you to read The Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open Source. At least one now-professional has based his thesis on this paper.
I think the major difference in objectives between Open Source and Free Software evangelists is that the Free Software folks say that proprietary software does not have a right to exist. Unfortunately, I can't say that and win the argument where it's important to win. You have to sound fair to everybody to win with politicians, if you ask to disenfranchise someone else you generally won't get very far.
Sorry if you don't buy that, and we'll have to agree to disagree.
Technocrat.net is still mine, although I actually lost the domain once and some nice folks rescued it for me. Wow. Anyway, I take the adsense revenue and pay Zogger with it. I can't always be there to run articles, and he's there much more frequently.
We just have to figure out which anniversary of the three stated below to celebrate:-)
In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU project after becoming frustrated with the effects of the change in culture of the computer industry and users. Software development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in October 1985. He introduced a free software definition and "copyleft", designed to ensure software freedom for all.
This is sort of moot, because IMO the Open Source Definition was the big deal, and the fact that we had a campaign rather than just a term was a big deal too. Stallman had not bothered to set a Free Software Definition in writing at that time, he actually wrote and told me that what I had written was a good definiton of Free Software.
The references you point out refer to the presence of source code, not the presence of licensing that assures the right to redistribute, modify, and use. BSD did provide that sort of licensing, but it was just called BSD licensing. The only campaign for developers to provide those things at the time was called Free Software.
Actually, there was a regular use of the term open source at that time, to refer to a form of military intelligence.
But I really did invent the term "nojomofo" Bwahh haha ha!:-)
Here's Richard Stallman's statement on the issue, which he made during a joint speech we did in Italy:
Free software and Open Source seem quite similar, if you look only at their software development practices. At the philosophical level, the difference is extreme. The Free Software Movement is a social movement for computer users' freedom. The Open Source philosophy cites practical, economic benefits. A deeper difference cannot be imagined.
The origin of Open Source lies in a practice that could have come from Dale Carnegie: if you seek to persuade someone, present the case in terms of his values and desires. For persuading business executives, citing practical, economic advantages can be effective. By all means do so, if it feels right to you, when speaking privately to executives.
Talking to the public is something else entirely. When we talk to the public, we promote whatever values we cite. If we cite only practical, economic advantages, and not freedom, we encourage people to value practical advantages and not value freedom.
Those values make our community weak. People who prefer a state of freedom only for the secondary practical and economic advantages it brings do not appreciate freedom itself, and they will not fight to defend it.
This is the reason I stated, in my joint speech with Bruce Perens, for not supporting the practice of presenting Free Software in public in the limited economic terms of Open Source.
Now, obviously, I think that Open Source evangelists like me have a role in talking with business people that Richard can't fill. His brain wiring isn't built for it. The a priori arguments he makes are not the way to start selling these concepts to business people, but hopefully they will eventually come to appreciate Richard's arguments after they enter through Open Source. Obviously, I don't want to erode the goals of the Free Software campaign at all. I'm out to help people understand Free Software with a gentle introduction. I tried to make that clear in the article.
How can you look at Zimbra and MySQL and think the boom mentality was then?
Technocrat.net has been back for a while. If you did know that and don't like its current editorial content, I could really use some better article submissions. I've got to take most anything people submit right now because it's slim pickings. But not over here at Slashdot, darn it.
New projects in the wings: a start-up company called Kiloboot. Product not announced yet. An American version of FFII.
Agreed. Stallman sees deeper than any of us and he should get much more credit than he does. Of course, he'd do without the credit and be happy if you'd just think about the importance of your freedom.
That said, I remember just how little buy-in we had with business people then, because Richard was the wrong guy to promote to them. He doesn't have any empathy with them, this rapidly becomes clear if you discuss it with him. Yes, if we didn't do it, someone else would have. The world really was ready for it, that was clear in how fast it caught on.
I know. I made a point, really early in the article, of going over Free Software, Richard Stallman, and the fact that he started in the early 80's. FYI, my first Free Software program, Electric Fence was published from Pixar in 1987.
We certainly had Free Software before then, and whatever BSD made. But as far as I'm aware, the coining of the term Open Source as another name for Free Software was by Christine Petersen (then-wife of nanotechnology guru Eric Drexler) on one of the first days of February 1998. I think it might have been February 1, and Eric called me the day after the meeting where that happened.
Of course, the words "Open Source" could have been used that way before then, but we can't find any record. Since Open Source Definition only got done (as the Debian Free Software Guidelines) in July 1997, whatever was referred to before then wasn't quite what we know as Open Source today.
Surprised by Wealth was Eric Raymond, not me. I wouldn't ever have written that, and Eric claims he lost all the money because he never sold the stock. Holy toledo. My biggest IPO was Pixar. I made a little money on various friends-and-family things from Linux companies. Wasn't involved in LinuxCare.:-)
With today's engineering tech - CFD software, advanced materials science,...
Well, if you exercise, has all that technology made you able to lift heavier weights than you might have in 1960? Generally not. Indeed, we are going back to the sort of design used in 1969 instead of the more sophisticated shuttle design. They had great technology for this particular problem back then. But they also had William Proxmire, architect of what is arguably the most stupid decision in the history of mankind: the turn back from pioneering space.
You mean I have to take all of the problems that come with being a blogger and have a union too! Ugh! The pain and legal load of protecting myself from my own union would be much greater than any "intellectual property issues" that they percieve.
Lots of people forget that we built Free Software / Open Source without much participation of companies at all. We started in the 80's, the operating system kernels started to mature in the early 90's, we didn't see much of large companies until the very late 90's. By then things like Linux, BSD, Samba, GCC, much of the GNU system, were hardly new.
What was the best thing that happened for Open Source on Wall Street? 9/11.
Of course nobody wanted it that way. But when some Wall Street firms lost data centers and desktops, Sun, IBM, and HP couldn't make hardware fast enough. So, beige boxes all over the east ended up in ad-hoc data centers, running Linux or BSD. And surprise, they ran as well, often better than their predecessors.
Open Source is going to do well whenever IT can't pay a lot for software and has to stretch its budget. Good times might be worse for Open Source, but I don't see them being terrible for it.
The issue is that the copyright holders have the right to make their own license designation, potentially on each and every copyrightable fragment, and have it stand. Linus has previously made unilateral changes to those designations, with notice. It doesn't matter whether he removes a designation to use "any later" as he has already done, or adds it back. It's the same kind of change. So, either he did not have the right to make the change he has already made, or he has the right to make a further change by putting back the text he removed.
Do you work on speex or just like it? I may need to contract some work on speex in order to develop something that works as well as the 1.6 K bit MELP and is open.
Do you use Firefox? In 2003, the Mozilla project applied the GPL as an additional license on top of the MPL/NPL. They were not able to get to all of the contributors, and settled for a majority, using a similar process to the one I've outlined. So, this has already happened, with a project that is arguably bigger than Linux and that some companies want to knock down enough that they would fund litigation if that would do it.
No, you can't be sued successfully for copyright infringement if you are in compliance with any of the licenses allowed. But none of those licenses gives you permission to remove my copyright statement, or the particular language that allows you to use one or more licenses. And even if you do remove it, the permission still exists.
You may mingle my work with additional works that do not permit use of some of those licenses, as long as there is one license that they all allow in common. But as long as a copyrighted element of mine persists in the software, you must make it available with all of the terms I specified.
I went through this with both SFLC and RMS. RMS wants it to work the way you say. SFLC said it doesn't quite work that way.
The thing to consider is: what gives you the right to apply the GPL to that particular software? It is actually the text you are quoting that gives you that right. The rest of the GPL is included into that text by reference.
Actually, this particular issue is one that I pursued with an attorney because it's happened to my own software. That "and any later version" material has the same status as the license. Actually the license, whichever you choose, is included into that statement by reference.
Well, one place to look is the Mozilla Foundation security announcements. Both security companies and individuals participate. Where the report comes from a security company, they are attributed.
It would not prohibit a ROM, there is specific language about that. Write-protected FLASH, maybe.
"Installation Information" for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.
If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information. But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM).
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Yes, BSD had the source code and licensing, but no campaign to drive others to create such things. Stallman started that. I canonized the definition of what was, and what was not, Open Source. Raymond and I evangelized to business. Everybody in this picture is standing on other folks shoulders. I'd be the last to deny that.
Bruce
It's obsolete. ESR wrote it before IBM stepped into the picture, etc. I invite you to read The Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open Source. At least one now-professional has based his thesis on this paper.
I think the major difference in objectives between Open Source and Free Software evangelists is that the Free Software folks say that proprietary software does not have a right to exist. Unfortunately, I can't say that and win the argument where it's important to win. You have to sound fair to everybody to win with politicians, if you ask to disenfranchise someone else you generally won't get very far.
Sorry if you don't buy that, and we'll have to agree to disagree.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
The references you point out refer to the presence of source code, not the presence of licensing that assures the right to redistribute, modify, and use. BSD did provide that sort of licensing, but it was just called BSD licensing. The only campaign for developers to provide those things at the time was called Free Software.
Actually, there was a regular use of the term open source at that time, to refer to a form of military intelligence.
But I really did invent the term "nojomofo" Bwahh haha ha! :-)
Now, obviously, I think that Open Source evangelists like me have a role in talking with business people that Richard can't fill. His brain wiring isn't built for it. The a priori arguments he makes are not the way to start selling these concepts to business people, but hopefully they will eventually come to appreciate Richard's arguments after they enter through Open Source. Obviously, I don't want to erode the goals of the Free Software campaign at all. I'm out to help people understand Free Software with a gentle introduction. I tried to make that clear in the article.
Thanks
Bruce
Technocrat.net has been back for a while. If you did know that and don't like its current editorial content, I could really use some better article submissions. I've got to take most anything people submit right now because it's slim pickings. But not over here at Slashdot, darn it.
New projects in the wings: a start-up company called Kiloboot. Product not announced yet. An American version of FFII.
Thanks
Bruce
That said, I remember just how little buy-in we had with business people then, because Richard was the wrong guy to promote to them. He doesn't have any empathy with them, this rapidly becomes clear if you discuss it with him. Yes, if we didn't do it, someone else would have. The world really was ready for it, that was clear in how fast it caught on.
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Of course, the words "Open Source" could have been used that way before then, but we can't find any record. Since Open Source Definition only got done (as the Debian Free Software Guidelines) in July 1997, whatever was referred to before then wasn't quite what we know as Open Source today.
Thanks
Bruce
Surprised by Wealth was Eric Raymond, not me. I wouldn't ever have written that, and Eric claims he lost all the money because he never sold the stock. Holy toledo. My biggest IPO was Pixar. I made a little money on various friends-and-family things from Linux companies. Wasn't involved in LinuxCare. :-)
Well, if you exercise, has all that technology made you able to lift heavier weights than you might have in 1960? Generally not. Indeed, we are going back to the sort of design used in 1969 instead of the more sophisticated shuttle design. They had great technology for this particular problem back then. But they also had William Proxmire, architect of what is arguably the most stupid decision in the history of mankind: the turn back from pioneering space.
Bruce
Solid Rocket Boosters are sort of like strapping yourself to a firecracker. We can't have liquid ones?
Bruce
Bruce
Of course nobody wanted it that way. But when some Wall Street firms lost data centers and desktops, Sun, IBM, and HP couldn't make hardware fast enough. So, beige boxes all over the east ended up in ad-hoc data centers, running Linux or BSD. And surprise, they ran as well, often better than their predecessors.
Open Source is going to do well whenever IT can't pay a lot for software and has to stretch its budget. Good times might be worse for Open Source, but I don't see them being terrible for it.
Bruce
Actually, the "any later version" text was there for at least the first 7 years of kernel development. Linus removed it.
Do you work on speex or just like it? I may need to contract some work on speex in order to develop something that works as well as the 1.6 K bit MELP and is open.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
You may mingle my work with additional works that do not permit use of some of those licenses, as long as there is one license that they all allow in common. But as long as a copyrighted element of mine persists in the software, you must make it available with all of the terms I specified.
Bruce
The thing to consider is: what gives you the right to apply the GPL to that particular software? It is actually the text you are quoting that gives you that right. The rest of the GPL is included into that text by reference.
Bruce
Bruce
It's likely you're right. Fortunately, Linux won't last forever.
Well, one place to look is the Mozilla Foundation security announcements. Both security companies and individuals participate. Where the report comes from a security company, they are attributed.