...GPL states anyone is free to charge for the cost of distribution, or providing support or guarantees.
Yes, but the GPL also says you can't restrict the rights of your sublicensees. Caldera can't prevent anyone from copying the free parts of their product onto as many machines as they want. What they've done is bundle proprietary stuff on the same disks, and put a restrictive license on the package. If you want to use the free parts on more machines than you paid for, you have to separate them out manually.
What they've done is completely kosher per the GPL, at least in the legal sense. But it's suicidal, because it's so much easier to simply buy Red Hat or Debian or whatever, and deploy it on all your machines. I can't believe their proprietary stuff is so useful that people would rather buy Caldera.
Ballmer and company are FUDding pointy-haired bosses to slow down adoption of free software in the business market. They're implying there are legal impediments to using GPLed software. The outcry we're seeing here is not over legal issues. It's over moral ones.
Caldera is complying with the letter of the GPL, and completely violating its spirit. They can't be sued, as Microsoft would like you to believe, but they sure as hell lost a lot of standing in the community. They've completely vindicated RMS's opinion of them.
The open-source community typically shies away from any really serious, challenging discussion of turning a profit from products like Linux.
How many hackers do you know who have the slightest interest in business? Certainly Linus didn't. He didn't GPL Linux because he thought it would make a great commercial product. Nor did he do it out of philanthropy. He did it because he thought it was cool and wanted to share it with other people.
I think a lot of hackers would agree with me when I say that I don't give a rat's ass if anyone makes a cent from Linux. It's not a product, and I don't need anyone to sell it to me.
They do it because they want to make money.
How much money do you think Caldera will make this way? Offhand I'd guess it will put them in Chapter 11 within six months. They forgot a little, basic rule of marketing: do not piss off your customers unless you have a monopoly. Microsoft can get away with this kind of thing because only they can sell Windows. Caldera has lots of competitors, and it just did them a big favor.
...they have a bunch of major competitors, most notably Redhat, Mandrake, and SuSE, who would probably love to soak up Caldera's share of the Linux market...
At Red Hat HQ:
Salesman: Hey Bob! We did it! We got Caldera's entire market share!
...there are days when I'm tempted to design a license that is similar to the GPL but forbids bundling with licensing schemes like Caldera's...
Don't waste your time. It's completely unnecessary. It's practically inconceivable that anyone will add enough value with their proprietary additions to make up for the loss of goodwill. The only people who will use such monsters are those whose PHB's force them to.
asking people to pay for things is "anti-consumer"?
No. Asking people to give value for value is not anti-consumer. Bundling proprietary junk with free software so that you can charge for the package on a per-system basis is. The one bright spot is that only very stupid consumers will suffer.
In related news, Caldera CEO Ransom Love denied charges of being a greedy capitalist and parasite, as RMS described him. Personally I'd add "fool". They just pissed away whatever goodwill they still had with the free software community. This is not where we want to go today, or any day.
They are not "taking the easy way out". They're doing what they have to do. They can't just pay royalties; they need permission, which must be negotiated, which takes time. In the meantime, they remove it or face a contempt citation.
I wonder how much this new transistor technology will speed up the various kinds of RAM we use. Offhand I'd guess that SRAM, being largely logic-based, will keep up, but DRAM, relying as it does on capacitors, may not. If so, the CPU/memory speed imbalance that new technologies like DDR are trying to address (no pun intended) will get a lot worse.
No no no no. Those mice had their pleasure centers stimulated. This is a different part of the brain. It doesn't give them an orgasm, it just elevates their mood. Didn't you read the article?
Ooh yeah. Io's surface is basically one big volcanic vent. It's the closest large moon and the tidal forces are fierce. Don't know about the other moons, but nothing so dramatic I think.
I gave six counterexamples, off the top of my head, to the quoted assertions that there are no people with real talent contributing to free software, and that only "kiddies" contribute. I'm sure there are thousands of excellent programmers I've never heard of who belong in the same category.
Actually, I entirely agree with the statement the engineer made, to the effect that MS wouldn't stand a chance if professionals were working on free software. They are, and they don't. Just a matter of time. The essential fact is, MS can slow free software adoption in the business market, but there's nothing at all they can do to kill free software. And IMHO their latest scams are going to backfire, big time.
Slashdot Mirror
If you moderate this as a troll, you reveal your own troll nature.
Masochists. With lots of money. Who think open source is cool but don't understand it.
Yes, but the GPL also says you can't restrict the rights of your sublicensees. Caldera can't prevent anyone from copying the free parts of their product onto as many machines as they want. What they've done is bundle proprietary stuff on the same disks, and put a restrictive license on the package. If you want to use the free parts on more machines than you paid for, you have to separate them out manually.
What they've done is completely kosher per the GPL, at least in the legal sense. But it's suicidal, because it's so much easier to simply buy Red Hat or Debian or whatever, and deploy it on all your machines. I can't believe their proprietary stuff is so useful that people would rather buy Caldera.
Then Caldera will ask you to bend over.
Caldera is complying with the letter of the GPL, and completely violating its spirit. They can't be sued, as Microsoft would like you to believe, but they sure as hell lost a lot of standing in the community. They've completely vindicated RMS's opinion of them.
How many hackers do you know who have the slightest interest in business? Certainly Linus didn't. He didn't GPL Linux because he thought it would make a great commercial product. Nor did he do it out of philanthropy. He did it because he thought it was cool and wanted to share it with other people.
I think a lot of hackers would agree with me when I say that I don't give a rat's ass if anyone makes a cent from Linux. It's not a product, and I don't need anyone to sell it to me.
They do it because they want to make money.
How much money do you think Caldera will make this way? Offhand I'd guess it will put them in Chapter 11 within six months. They forgot a little, basic rule of marketing: do not piss off your customers unless you have a monopoly. Microsoft can get away with this kind of thing because only they can sell Windows. Caldera has lots of competitors, and it just did them a big favor.
At Red Hat HQ:
Salesman: Hey Bob! We did it! We got Caldera's entire market share!
Bob Young: We did? That's great!
Salesman: Yep! All five of them!
Don't waste your time. It's completely unnecessary. It's practically inconceivable that anyone will add enough value with their proprietary additions to make up for the loss of goodwill. The only people who will use such monsters are those whose PHB's force them to.
Aw damn, some other guy posted the same stuff two minutes before I did. Instant karma loss :(
No. Asking people to give value for value is not anti-consumer. Bundling proprietary junk with free software so that you can charge for the package on a per-system basis is. The one bright spot is that only very stupid consumers will suffer.
Good point! It's sickening, but it certainly gives the lie to Microsoft's FUD campaign.
In related news, Caldera CEO Ransom Love denied charges of being a greedy capitalist and parasite, as RMS described him. Personally I'd add "fool". They just pissed away whatever goodwill they still had with the free software community. This is not where we want to go today, or any day.
They are not "taking the easy way out". They're doing what they have to do. They can't just pay royalties; they need permission, which must be negotiated, which takes time. In the meantime, they remove it or face a contempt citation.
I wonder how much this new transistor technology will speed up the various kinds of RAM we use. Offhand I'd guess that SRAM, being largely logic-based, will keep up, but DRAM, relying as it does on capacitors, may not. If so, the CPU/memory speed imbalance that new technologies like DDR are trying to address (no pun intended) will get a lot worse.
No no no no. Those mice had their pleasure centers stimulated. This is a different part of the brain. It doesn't give them an orgasm, it just elevates their mood. Didn't you read the article?
Wow, an actual humor-impaired person. I thought they were just legends, like Bigfoot or Nessie or elegant Ada programs.
Ooh yeah. Io's surface is basically one big volcanic vent. It's the closest large moon and the tidal forces are fierce. Don't know about the other moons, but nothing so dramatic I think.
Haven't really been keeping up with things...is this anything like Pong?
Oh wait...the Countess of Lovelace already did that. Never mind...
It's called regenerative braking.
D00d, j00 r so 0wned...one DDOS coming right up...v33v,; fj224f
CARRIER LOST
I don't know why that sounds so sinister...
It's GPLed! Cancer! Infection! Death and destruction! Killer rabbits! SMOG!
So, these are some kind of Java machines?
Actually, I entirely agree with the statement the engineer made, to the effect that MS wouldn't stand a chance if professionals were working on free software. They are, and they don't. Just a matter of time. The essential fact is, MS can slow free software adoption in the business market, but there's nothing at all they can do to kill free software. And IMHO their latest scams are going to backfire, big time.