Hell if you spend 3 years sweating and spending tons of money writing something that will get shared by other people with no way to enforce that you get your share back, you are very much being screwed.
"GPL would not mean quick and swift death to the company's business, it would mean it needed to be re-thought."
Nice catchall phrase.
Why is that I should trust or even consider "new model" proposed by bunch of guys at FSF whose major way of income are donations and who never were responsible for anything more than couple of personal credit card accounts?
Why should I trust Stallman or ERS or other open source people who never engaged in any sort of business and speak not out of "extensive experience" but, frankly out of their asses?
You see, we are talking here about my livelihood and something I worked for years to get going and you just tell me I should "re-think" my priorities because somebody's utopian social agenda?
Nope, it is not stealing.
It is more like saying: here, there is original source code we build our stuff upon.
What we added is our secret but since original stuff is still available just as it was the day it was released all of you are free to do exactly the same thing as we did.
"Ah, but this is exactly what they would do. And our clients, in their naivete, would cheerfully give it to them. (as they have no idea about computers/software/etc, they just use it because they have to.)"
Frankly, they could do thousand other things like take that code to someone even cheaper then you guys and have them supply missing or additional functionality.
I mean with GPLed stuff they can do whatever they want ( including selling your software to other companies and making profit on it.)
Possibilities to screw your over are endless.
Make no mistake, going GPL would mean quick and swift death to your business.
The problem here is LGPL (according to FSF) is a stepping stone intended to smooth things out until everything is released under GPL or similar licenses.
One can hardly build valid business based on this sort of "prognosis".
Hell, how much fun MS will have dragging out in the open that old dirt between FSF and KDE folks.
If they want to scare people off, all they have to show is how much shit other FREE software developers had to go through for choosing GPL and point out it would be much worse if the showdown like that happened between FSF and commercial entity trying to use GPL software.
"He claims that running binary kernel modules without source is acceptable (with some possible unclear exceptions). However, nearly every time someone mentions this, Alan Cox rings in saying that he has copyright on much of Linux and doesn't think binary modules are legal."
Whoa , interesting how creator of free operating system can be limited and threatened with copyright laws by others - all of them claiming to be writing free software.
Not all that much different from what's going on in commercial world (exception being that people there are more truthful and don't pretend that they are dealing with free software.)
"The BSD license is free enough to allow someone to take it and use it to remove someone else's freedom. "
Sorry but this is load of BS.
The original product which is what we are talking about still stays free !!! What BSD license acknowledges is while they can enforce freedom on their software they cannot and should enforce anything on stuff that people build on top of their code. This is real freedom.
If I wrote a web server and published it under BSD no matter how many derivatives will be made proprietary and what have you, my original code will always be free.
Who gives me a right to enforce my choice of license on people who decide to extend and modify my code?
"wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of a free code bank. "
Wasn't that the idea in to share code and NOT reinvent the wheel every time ?
"Who wan't to pay people X to write code from scratch when you can rip off someone else's code for free?"
Same goes for GPL with exception that since they cannot build on top of that, they wouldn't even bother to improve on original code. Just sell it, as it is (the way RH does, which btw incredibly cheapens programming profession as a whole since software is not a valuable merchandise anymore.)
Yes, but this is pretty much standard practice all over place.
Ever heard about incredibly buggy games released with a note that patches will be forthcoming?
Yes, but this is pretty much standard practice all over place.
Ever heard about incredibly buggy games released with a note that patches will be forthcoming?
They still have http://www.valinux.com/about/jobs/
out there with bunch of different positions available.
Re:Question for the Corporate Linux-types
on
VA Layoff Rumors
·
· Score: 1
"Geeks don't need formal support. "
Sure they do. If my company paid 80K for a piece of software that is supposed to do something, it better do it, and if I have any problems getting it to work I will not hesitate to call support.
"Now the waiting times in emergency rooms in Ontario, that's a different matter, and it's the Conservatives who are causing it, damn money grubbing cheap-ass lazzie-fair "tax-cuts-all-the-way" bastards."
Sure, they do.
Please, fork over your money on your own if you think your taxes are too low.
I am sure people at ER will appreciate your check every now and then.
BTW. People die of cancer all the time in middle of Africa as well. Does that mean the medical system there is just as good as we have here ?
What a beautiful country. It is fucking illegal to make business rules there; it is all nicely made for you by your lovely government officials.
Good luck on your way to total dependency on your local friendly party commissar.
Still, Apple can be considered failure simply because they failed to keep their market share ( in fact, it decreased very dramatically in the last 15 years.)
Total number of users has nothing to do with it.
"to tread water with flashy new hardware until OS X is ready for widespread use "
Got to agree here. Recently I had a chance to play around with top of the line Mac running OS X on their wide display flat monitor ( I have no idea what is official name for this thing. )
It was way cool .
There is simply one problem: my heart bleeds when I realize how much computing power I could get for this amount of money on the Intel side.
Apple stuff is simply too expensive ( even considering better quality hardware etc...)
I do not make choices between having food or medicine on my table.
The only digging I have to do in my wallet is to find my insurance card (for which I pay about $50 per month.)
"Call me when the US stops spending twice as much per capita on health care than Canada and yet still having a lower life expectancy. "
Ha, please, when your country will become destination of roughly 300 000 poor emigrants from Mexico each year then we will talk about financial solvency of your system.
BTW. I was not stereotyping. Just happened to met couple of Canadians while waiting for my MRI scan
.
True Microsoft has its share of bugs but considering sheer number of installation running their software ( not to mention incredible amounts of extremely varied input their software is subjected too) I think your comment about their alleged lack of testing is a bit too harsh.
Not to question your choice but Nepal?
I mean it would hard to find more isolated, cold and unforgiving place than that - unless you are into these things...
"? As a Mac user who vividly remembers the "Apple is dying!" era, the contrast to how the Mac addicts responded is really striking. "
Well, is it over now? Seriously, with market share being less than 5%, down from very sizable number in 80s one could easily conclude Apple is still on their deathbed.
We had many commercial monopolies with top problems being increased prices etc..
On the other hand we had quite a few governmental monopolies where millions of people lost their lives.
McDonald has no power to coerce me into buying their shitty sandwich. The government can do almost anything and get away with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell if you spend 3 years sweating and spending tons of money writing something that will get shared by other people with no way to enforce that you get your share back, you are very much being screwed.
"GPL would not mean quick and swift death to the company's business, it would mean it needed to be re-thought."
Nice catchall phrase.
Why is that I should trust or even consider "new model" proposed by bunch of guys at FSF whose major way of income are donations and who never were responsible for anything more than couple of personal credit card accounts?
Why should I trust Stallman or ERS or other open source people who never engaged in any sort of business and speak not out of "extensive experience" but, frankly out of their asses?
You see, we are talking here about my livelihood and something I worked for years to get going and you just tell me I should "re-think" my priorities because somebody's utopian social agenda?
Dukakis lost because he had nothing to offer.
Simple as that.
You don't have to go GPL when writing free Qt app.
You can always go QPL which is often much better solution than using GPL.
But this is definition of freedom. Everyone has a fair start and can counterattack with releasing their version of original code.
Nope, it is not stealing.
It is more like saying: here, there is original source code we build our stuff upon.
What we added is our secret but since original stuff is still available just as it was the day it was released all of you are free to do exactly the same thing as we did.
"Ah, but this is exactly what they would do. And our clients, in their naivete, would cheerfully give it to them. (as they have no idea about computers/software/etc, they just use it because they have to.)"
Frankly, they could do thousand other things like take that code to someone even cheaper then you guys and have them supply missing or additional functionality.
I mean with GPLed stuff they can do whatever they want ( including selling your software to other companies and making profit on it.)
Possibilities to screw your over are endless.
Make no mistake, going GPL would mean quick and swift death to your business.
The problem here is LGPL (according to FSF) is a stepping stone intended to smooth things out until everything is released under GPL or similar licenses.
One can hardly build valid business based on this sort of "prognosis".
Hell, how much fun MS will have dragging out in the open that old dirt between FSF and KDE folks.
If they want to scare people off, all they have to show is how much shit other FREE software developers had to go through for choosing GPL and point out it would be much worse if the showdown like that happened between FSF and commercial entity trying to use GPL software.
"He claims that running binary kernel modules without source is acceptable (with some possible unclear exceptions). However, nearly every time someone mentions this, Alan Cox rings in saying that he has copyright on much of Linux and doesn't think binary modules are legal."
Whoa , interesting how creator of free operating system can be limited and threatened with copyright laws by others - all of them claiming to be writing free software.
Not all that much different from what's going on in commercial world (exception being that people there are more truthful and don't pretend that they are dealing with free software.)
"If I wrote this really neat program and gave the source away under a BSD lisence, "
You just gave it away as a free software so how in the world can you claim of being ripped off ?
"The BSD license is free enough to allow someone to take it and use it to remove someone else's freedom. "
Sorry but this is load of BS.
The original product which is what we are talking about still stays free !!! What BSD license acknowledges is while they can enforce freedom on their software they cannot and should enforce anything on stuff that people build on top of their code. This is real freedom.
If I wrote a web server and published it under BSD no matter how many derivatives will be made proprietary and what have you, my original code will always be free.
Who gives me a right to enforce my choice of license on people who decide to extend and modify my code?
"wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of a free code bank. "
Wasn't that the idea in to share code and NOT reinvent the wheel every time ?
"Who wan't to pay people X to write code from scratch when you can rip off someone else's code for free?"
Same goes for GPL with exception that since they cannot build on top of that, they wouldn't even bother to improve on original code. Just sell it, as it is (the way RH does, which btw incredibly cheapens programming profession as a whole since software is not a valuable merchandise anymore.)
Yes, but this is pretty much standard practice all over place.
Ever heard about incredibly buggy games released with a note that patches will be forthcoming?
Yes, but this is pretty much standard practice all over place.
Ever heard about incredibly buggy games released with a note that patches will be forthcoming?
They still have http://www.valinux.com/about/jobs/
out there with bunch of different positions available.
"Geeks don't need formal support. "
Sure they do. If my company paid 80K for a piece of software that is supposed to do something, it better do it, and if I have any problems getting it to work I will not hesitate to call support.
"Now the waiting times in emergency rooms in Ontario, that's a different matter, and it's the Conservatives who are causing it, damn money grubbing cheap-ass lazzie-fair "tax-cuts-all-the-way" bastards."
Sure, they do.
Please, fork over your money on your own if you think your taxes are too low.
I am sure people at ER will appreciate your check every now and then.
BTW. People die of cancer all the time in middle of Africa as well. Does that mean the medical system there is just as good as we have here ?
What a beautiful country. It is fucking illegal to make business rules there; it is all nicely made for you by your lovely government officials.
Good luck on your way to total dependency on your local friendly party commissar.
"but that's 5% of a far larger total"
...)
Still, Apple can be considered failure simply because they failed to keep their market share ( in fact, it decreased very dramatically in the last 15 years.)
Total number of users has nothing to do with it.
"to tread water with flashy new hardware until OS X is ready for widespread use "
Got to agree here. Recently I had a chance to play around with top of the line Mac running OS X on their wide display flat monitor ( I have no idea what is official name for this thing. )
It was way cool .
There is simply one problem: my heart bleeds when I realize how much computing power I could get for this amount of money on the Intel side.
Apple stuff is simply too expensive ( even considering better quality hardware etc
I do not make choices between having food or medicine on my table.
The only digging I have to do in my wallet is to find my insurance card (for which I pay about $50 per month.)
"Call me when the US stops spending twice as much per capita on health care than Canada and yet still having a lower life expectancy. "
Ha, please, when your country will become destination of roughly 300 000 poor emigrants from Mexico each year then we will talk about financial solvency of your system.
BTW. I was not stereotyping. Just happened to met couple of Canadians while waiting for my MRI scan
.
www.telocity.com
They have nation wide presence... I can only speak for quality of their service in Chicago area.
True Microsoft has its share of bugs but considering sheer number of installation running their software ( not to mention incredible amounts of extremely varied input their software is subjected too) I think your comment about their alleged lack of testing is a bit too harsh.
Not to question your choice but Nepal? ...
I mean it would hard to find more isolated, cold and unforgiving place than that - unless you are into these things
"? As a Mac user who vividly remembers the "Apple is dying!" era, the contrast to how the Mac addicts responded is really striking. "
Well, is it over now? Seriously, with market share being less than 5%, down from very sizable number in 80s one could easily conclude Apple is still on their deathbed.
Here is another example:
..
We had many commercial monopolies with top problems being increased prices etc
On the other hand we had quite a few governmental monopolies where millions of people lost their lives.
McDonald has no power to coerce me into buying their shitty sandwich. The government can do almost anything and get away with it.