Gosling isn't being sincere. Linux got itself in a bit of a pickle??? He's got to be kidding. We let distributions have a few differences between them, the cardinal sin!
It doesn't seem to have kept X from running, or Netscape, or anything else. Does he want Linus to rule with an iron fist? Sure, Linux would be real successful if we did that. Thanks
Gosling isn't being sincere. Linux got itself in a bit of a pickle??? He's got to be kidding. We let distributions have a few differences between them, the cardinal sin!It doesn't seem to have kept X from running, or Netscape, or anything else. Does he want Linus to rule with an iron fist? Sure, Linux would be real successful if we did that. Thanks Bruce
People keep saying the trademark fell through. That's not what happened. The Open Source Initiative decided they would not register the trademark. This doesn't change the fact that it's SPI's trademark, and legally it remains a trademark even though it's not currently federally registered. Now that OSI has publicly abandoned it, there's no ownership dispute, either.
Just think of what would happen if someone wrote hard-coded timing dependencies into a PC game rather than a Mac game. Given that no two PCs are the same, they must be doing the timing dynamicaly.
Digital Equipment Corporation used to handicap its own products in order to protect other products it also sold - for example, any new, lower-cost system in the VAX line was deliberately made to be lower in performance than the 780, even though the technology was improving rapidly. They also introduced gratuitous incompatibility - remember the DEC PC floppy drives that were incompatible with the IBM PC floppy format?
What happened? Sun Microsystems wasn't interested in protecting DEC's products and took over their market. DEC should have known better, they'd pulled a similar trick on IBM years before.
Here's Apple boosting PC sales by alienating its own customers. Mac customers have seen how easy it is to get a new motherboard and CPU for your PC. Their faith has made Apple a success again, and this is how they are paid back? If I were an Apple customer, I'd be losing faith about now.
I didn't have much to do with the RM-9673 issue, as I was out of town while it was being discussed. If you think NCI's position was strange, look at Bill Tynan's reply comment. He spews abuse at everyone who commented rather than making logical argument. This is not what I expected from the former president of AMSAT North America. I think the Phase 3D debacle must have stressed him heavily - I can find no other explanation.
I'm tempted to think that their intentions are more Machievelian, rather than less. I'd be tempted to think this of Microsoft as well. We in the Linux world may just be Cargo Cultists, siphon ing a few canned goods from the war material of two combatants we are far from understanding.
BTW is there chance that a rogue programmer injects some code say... from StarOffice into a GPL Office suite? Is there any protection from this kind of stuff?
Once it was found out, the code would be removed, and perhaps the rogue would be charged with one or more crimes. The best defense is being able to trace where your contributions are coming from. Save mail archives and CVS logs forever.
That was never an Open Source license. "Toreador" strategies are pretty common for non-Open-Source.
Sun can stop the free distribution from its own site. They can't stop researchers from distributing to other researchers, for all that matters. So yes, there's a good potential for "yank" strategies in the futrue.
Miguel says the Gnumeric spreadsheet is going really well and has pretty good Excel importing. I think we're a bit behind regarding word processing, but there are at least three efforts in progress. If we want to rely on something, we just have to make sure there's a version compliant with the OSD.
Surely Sun thinks it is going to make money off of it in some way, or they would not have paid that much for it. It may be indirect, but Sun is not a charity foundation.
Yes, they're going to make indirect revenues, but they're not going to make royalties. So a license strategy that protects their royalties doesn't make sense.
In the article he seems to draw the conclusion that the SCSL restricts freedom, compared to the GPL
Go back and look. I never mentioned the GPL. I mentioned Open Source licensing.
The SCSL means that if a company wishes to profit from distributing StarOffice, they must pay royalties to Sun.
Actually, it doesn't mean that. The SCSL doesn't permit commercial distribution at all. It's some other license that you'd have to get regarding royalties and commercial distribution. And Sun has no obligation to give you that license.
However, if Sun chose to cease to support a particular platform, or took the product in a direction that the user base did not like, then the source is available. The community could continue to develop and support the product itself.
However, Sun is not obligated to allow those people to distribute their modifications and it's not obligated to offer them a commercial license. Thus, the software could die anyway.
They cannot take StarOffice away from you, or hamper it by failing to support new technologies, requiring you to move on to a new product.
They definitely can't take it away. Their license can prohibit the distribution of modifications, though, unless you're a research user. So, you're stuck with fixing it yourself, without the community's help.
So instead they [redhat] turn to tightening their trademarks.
Note that they did that without damaging the Open Source status of their distribtuion. I'd discussed using trademarks for product differentiation while keeping your product Open Source before, in fact I wrote the policy that Debian uses to restrict its trademark to protect their "Official CD". In my opinion RH was not out of line and should be commended for using that strategy rather than incorporating non-Open-Source components.
Regarding premature, I am attempting to influence future events, obviously. I'd also like the press to have registered my comments before the next article they write on this topic. I did wait a whole week after their announcement, and I didn't call them rabid dogs or burn any bridges.
I just don't buy the half-billion dollar figure. I'd like to see proof of that one.
People who say don't look a gift-horse in the mouth haven't ever met a trojan horse.
Again, I said it was good for Linux. I'd just like to see Sun play the game, and make their money off of support and books, etc.
but they're pretty much always received with a "who the hell are you?" kind of attitude, so I've given up trying to contribute that way.
This is a symptom of the bootstrapping process. If people like what you write, it eventually stops. But you'll never be loved by everyone. The brickbats are still painful.
Remember that, with a slight nudge, IBM and Apple went to Open Source licenses. IBM was especially nice about it. They were around before Sun, you know:-)
Either I missed some news or you are mistaken about WordPerfect's licensing status.
Firstly: the quote... "Sun isn't going to make big revenues off of StarOffice while it's also giving it away for free from its own web site" fits the more traditional view of programming I think. Isn't the whole point of the free software push that you can have a very profitable (more so?) business based on "giving your product away". You can after all download RedHat and they seem to be making their money *shrug*
Good point. I just changed "revenues" to "royalties" in the article to address this. The point is that they might make big money from service and manuals but not from royalties paid by Linux CD manufacturers. Does that make more sense?
Your point regarding diversity is well taken and that's one reason that this article is more balanced - not slamming Sun nearly as hard as some other companies have been criticized by yours truly. Also, the office software is a leaf node in the software tree, not really infrastructure. I'd be a lot more bothered if this was the Qt library (under the old, unlamented license) that every application would have to license, for example.
I just don't want to see KOffice or whatever GNOME calls their office tools slow down because of this.
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I don't mind honest non-Open-Source nearly as much as I mind says-it's-open-source-but-isn't-really.
Bruce
It doesn't seem to have kept X from running, or Netscape, or anything else. Does he want Linus to rule with an iron fist? Sure, Linux would be real successful if we did that. Thanks
Bruce
Gosling isn't being sincere. Linux got itself in a bit of a pickle??? He's got to be kidding. We let distributions have a few differences between them, the cardinal sin!It doesn't seem to have kept X from running, or Netscape, or anything else. Does he want Linus to rule with an iron fist? Sure, Linux would be real successful if we did that. Thanks Bruce
Bruce Perens
Thanks
Bruce
What happened? Sun Microsystems wasn't interested in protecting DEC's products and took over their market. DEC should have known better, they'd pulled a similar trick on IBM years before.
Here's Apple boosting PC sales by alienating its own customers. Mac customers have seen how easy it is to get a new motherboard and CPU for your PC. Their faith has made Apple a success again, and this is how they are paid back? If I were an Apple customer, I'd be losing faith about now.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Once it was found out, the code would be removed, and perhaps the rogue would be charged with one or more crimes. The best defense is being able to trace where your contributions are coming from. Save mail archives and CVS logs forever.
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
You have a choice of their NPL clone or the GPL.
Sun can stop the free distribution from its own site. They can't stop researchers from distributing to other researchers, for all that matters. So yes, there's a good potential for "yank" strategies in the futrue.
Miguel says the Gnumeric spreadsheet is going really well and has pretty good Excel importing. I think we're a bit behind regarding word processing, but there are at least three efforts in progress. If we want to rely on something, we just have to make sure there's a version compliant with the OSD.
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Yes, they're going to make indirect revenues, but they're not going to make royalties. So a license strategy that protects their royalties doesn't make sense.
Thanks
Bruce
Go back and look. I never mentioned the GPL. I mentioned Open Source licensing.
The SCSL means that if a company wishes to profit from distributing StarOffice, they must pay royalties to Sun.
Actually, it doesn't mean that. The SCSL doesn't permit commercial distribution at all. It's some other license that you'd have to get regarding royalties and commercial distribution. And Sun has no obligation to give you that license.
However, if Sun chose to cease to support a particular platform, or took the product in a direction that the user base did not like, then the source is available. The community could continue to develop and support the product itself.
However, Sun is not obligated to allow those people to distribute their modifications and it's not obligated to offer them a commercial license. Thus, the software could die anyway.
They cannot take StarOffice away from you, or hamper it by failing to support new technologies, requiring you to move on to a new product.
They definitely can't take it away. Their license can prohibit the distribution of modifications, though, unless you're a research user. So, you're stuck with fixing it yourself, without the community's help.
So instead they [redhat] turn to tightening their trademarks.
Note that they did that without damaging the Open Source status of their distribtuion. I'd discussed using trademarks for product differentiation while keeping your product Open Source before, in fact I wrote the policy that Debian uses to restrict its trademark to protect their "Official CD". In my opinion RH was not out of line and should be commended for using that strategy rather than incorporating non-Open-Source components.
Thanks
Bruce
I just don't buy the half-billion dollar figure. I'd like to see proof of that one.
People who say don't look a gift-horse in the mouth haven't ever met a trojan horse.
Again, I said it was good for Linux. I'd just like to see Sun play the game, and make their money off of support and books, etc.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
I don't buy that figure either.
OK, I've made your day!
This is a symptom of the bootstrapping process. If people like what you write, it eventually stops. But you'll never be loved by everyone. The brickbats are still painful.
Bruce
Either I missed some news or you are mistaken about WordPerfect's licensing status.
Thanks
Bruce
Of course, the italicization should be turned off after the first paragraph. That'll teach me to preview.
"Sun isn't going to make big revenues off of StarOffice while it's also giving it away for free from its own web site" fits the more traditional view of programming I think. Isn't the whole point of the free software push that you can have a very profitable (more so?) business based on "giving your product away". You can after all download RedHat and they seem to be making their money *shrug*
Good point. I just changed "revenues" to "royalties" in the article to address this. The point is that they might make big money from service and manuals but not from royalties paid by Linux CD manufacturers. Does that make more sense?
Your point regarding diversity is well taken and that's one reason that this article is more balanced - not slamming Sun nearly as hard as some other companies have been criticized by yours truly. Also, the office software is a leaf node in the software tree, not really infrastructure. I'd be a lot more bothered if this was the Qt library (under the old, unlamented license) that every application would have to license, for example.
I just don't want to see KOffice or whatever GNOME calls their office tools slow down because of this.
Thanks
Bruce