In all honesty though, writing proprietary software is a great business. A lot of make plenty of money at it, and hippies in their mom's basement just don't scare us. Now, I wouldn't try to start a business writing an operating system or a browser. But the software industry has always been a land of a million niches, and hippies in the basement aren't so good at finding new niches and filling them quickly. They'll get there eventually maybe, but we'll have moved on to find new ones.
Microsoft might feel threatened by the open source movement. But most of the proprietary world is small shops that never needed to dominate the world to get by, and survived successfully in competition with M$, not to mention all the other little guys... I don't see proprietary software going away anytime soon.
I write very good code that, in addition to having less bugs than most, is very flexible, requiring less customization, and very intuitive, requiring less training and support.
Or at least, I strive to do those things, and will not seriously consider a business model that gives me incentive to do otherwise.
"Your whole initial premise starts with a failed business model."
The same "failed" business model that supports the entire shrink-wrap software industry.
"If you as a developer spend several years working on something knowing that you will lose control over what you produce the moment you sell it,"
But I won't. I'll just sell binary only, proprietary software.
"Clearly you should find enough buyers of your software, and sell it to them all at once. Ie, sign up 10,000 customers, collect their $50, ($500,000) and release the software to them simultaneously."
Oh, yeah that will work great! It will be no hassle to find 10,000 customers willing to simultaneously pay $50 for unseen software, and to keep track of them, and get them to pay knowing they won't get anything until everyone else pays too. Sounds like my idea of fun.
"Or... Or... Or..."
Or sell proprietary software. Open source is great for a lot of things. But if you have a package that costs $500,000 to make, and 10,000 people will pay $50 for it, it's very hard to make that work with open source, and the proprietary model is cake.
You seem to understand well why one should choose to use a proprietary license in the situation described. RMS argues choosing a proprietary license is unethical. Some conclude from this that RMS is an idiot. Nobody is "whining" about the fact that the GPL exists. They are disagreeing with RMS's assertion that they should use it.
"But what if somebody takes your BSD licensed code"
Impossible. I've still got it, right here on my drive, and it's still BSD licensed.
"... puts it under the GPL (they CAN do that your license allows it)?"
They can put their own copy out under whatever license they want; doesn't effect me, so why should I care?
"Still want to go with the BSD license?"
Of course. What possible reasons could I have for wanting BSD that would be undermined in that situation?
As far as my actual reasons for liking BSD: I've found there are a lot of programmers like me. We appreciate the advantages of sharing, and will happily contribute our improvements to projects we use. But because we need the freedom to integrate with proprietary code and not worry about licensing, we don't use GPL code. So in practice, GPL code doesn't get contibutions from us, and BSD code does, by virtue of not requiring it.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the source code for the F-22 avionics is not public domain."
It absolutely is public domain; and top secret. If you get a copy and redistribute it, you won't be liable for copyright violation. That is not the same thing as saying you won't be in trouble.
F22 avionics software is an extreme, but good example: Quite a lot of code is developed because a single client is willing to pay the entire development costs up front. Free software is an excellent fit here; whether the end code is only technically Free (like the F22 code) or Free in a more traditional sense because that one client doesn't care what happens after they get their solution.
What is harder to do with free software is the minority of projects, but still an enormous amount of activity: All those projects where a developer decides there are enough people willing to pay a small amount for their code that it's worth the up-front investment to create the thing. Getting paid for software in that category is maybe not impossible with free software, but it's a heck of a lot easier with the standard proprietary model.
Most software (by developer hours put into it) is developed for a single client (in house or by contractors) and never distributed to anyone. There is one customer who is willing to pay full development costs for one working copy of the software. This code is often technically "Free" by RMS rules (the one and only user owns the source), and there may be little impediment to making it really free: the client doesn't care what anyone else does with the code, they just want their solution. A lot of people make software that easily could be free, even if it isn't currently.
So it's probably reasonable to point out that developers can still get jobs if they only work on free software.
Of course, there is still a heck of a lot of software development funded via the traditional proprietary model, spending the money up front so you can sell enough cheap copies to make it up later. The fact "most" software could be made via Free methods is irrelevant to the objection that quite a lot could not. (At least in an obvious manner)
Then "principles" that aren't simply preferences are psychotic. Think of a principle you would never violate. Now think up a contrived situation where not violating it will destroy the earth...
In judging the success rate of the Spirit & Opportunity teams, it is perhaps a slight bit unreasonable to count against them a dozen Soviet rocket explosions that happened before their graduation from kindergarden.
On the other hand, all 38 missions on that list put together cost what fraction of a single Shuttle launch to low-earth orbit? Assuming the average is somewhere near the cost of the rovers (and it's not nearly that high), well less than half. An imporatant part of why unmanned is so superior: those failures are totally acceptable. Nobody dies, you try again, and it's still cheaper, faster and better.
"Sending robot probes into space is like staring at an atlas or looking up photos of exotic vacation spots with the knowledge that neither you nor anyone you know will ever actually go there. So what even if we discover life on Europa, for instance, if we don't plan to go there?"
There is some outside chance some child I know now will grow up to be an astronaut. Otherwise, neither I, nor anyone I know will ever go anywhere in space. Certainly not Europa. I'm still interested in exploring space.
Sending robot probes into space is like conversing with people on the internet with the knowledge you will never meet them....
If society decides it's good to encourage education, rather than taking the money and having the Department of Education decide how to spend it, I would rather they give me a tax break for spending money on my kids education, and let me make the decisions from there.
As far as the people who get more back than they put in ( whatever name you use for it ), the classic example is the earned income tax credit. The general justification there is that poor people who work a low paying job should be better of than those who don't and go on welfare.
"Would you still think it was pointless if Iran gets nuclear weapons?"
Yes. Even if the threat gets bigger, a defense system that doesn't protect you from it is pointless. A defense systym that doesn't protect you, deployed in entirely the wrong place? Pointless.
If the system worked, it would still be stupid to talk about it in relation to Iran. Look at a map. Find Iran and Israel, then find Poland. If you're worried about protecting vs. Iran, Poland is ideally sited to protect... Well, really just Poland. Maybe Scandinavia.
Since the system doesn't, in fact, work, deploying it only almost makes sense as a purely symbolic statement about the position of the US toward anyone (Russia) potentially threatening Poland.
I mean, I know the Bush administration has thrown out this Iranian threat to justify this, depending on Americans ridiculous ignorance of geography, but you don't have to buy it.
"What is the point of sending robots if we are never going to go ourselves."
What's the point of using the internet to communicate with people you'll never meet in person?
I don't expect to personally go into space, ever. Exploring space using remote sensing via mechanical devices is simple faster and better than exploring space using remote sensing via humans.
"It's hard to imagine for me that there are people out there who are not inspired by NASA's endeavors."
I'm incredibly inspired by NASA's current Mars exploration, discoveries coming out of the Hubble, etc. Can you imagine putting together a system that can fly to Mars, land on the surface, and drive around for years collecting data without ever getting to touch the thing after launch? Anything that works that brilliantly first try is awesome. Definitely inspiring.
The guys sucking up most of the budget while struggling to keep their toilet running in low Earth orbit? Not so much.
Industrial espionage is exactly what trade secret law protects you from. It doesn't protect you from the other guy hiring some smart researchers and figuring stuff out for themselves; for that you need patents. You can't have both, so eventually competition will be able to match quality if they choose to.
Lego did have patents that have now expired. They have trade secrets that Megabloks may or may not have figured out indepently. For whatever reasons Megabloks quality have improved substantially and in my opinion, are currently of similar quality to Lego. I'd expect Lego to be more expensive for a while though. There are so many older, lousier Megabloks out in the world brinign down perceptions.
"Personally, I hated megablocks, because the bricks are not made with the same quality as Legos. "
Their blocks *were* not made with the same quality as Legos. Then Legos patents expired. Their blocks weren't made in quite the same colors as Lego either; now this trademark decision.
There is no longer any legal reason MegaBloks can't make blocks that are entirely intercangeable with Lego (short of the name). At that point, it's a low-margin price race, which, compared to the past, sucks for Lego.
This is (arguably) the cause of the over-specialized pieces you despise: The profit margin isn't there on basic bricks anymore.
I notice in your other post, you mention Duplo: one of Lego's oversize, toddler-frienly lines. MegaBloks also makes some over-size toddler blocks, but I don't know if they have a specific name for them. My experience with those is that Duplo blocks hold together better, but are harder for little, poorly coordinated hands to stick together. So I take that to be an intentionally different design decision.
In any case, the trademark decision at hand, and my post, is not about the toddler blocks. It's about the little blocks, which Lego calls "Lego" and MegaBloks confusingly just calls "MegaBloks" too. For those, MegaBloks are just a direct knockoff of Legos. In my judgment, a mechanically indistinguishable one in recent years.
"There have been Lego knockoffs for years. But they're just not as high quality."
Because Lego patented their production process, and trademarked the color scheme; people couldn't make good knockoffs if they wanted to. These legal protections have now expired: the patents a while ago, the trademarks with this decision.
"Lego blocks are expensive because they are made to exacting tolerances, and last for a long time."
I believe you're judging the knockoffs by the ones you had years ago (or which were made years ago). Modern, post-patent expiration MegaBlocks are as good as Lego. Of course, there's a lot of old, crappy Megablocks out in the world, so I expect Lego can keep charging a premium for the perceived superiority of their brand.
But if you're buying new blocks today, you can potentially save yourself a lot of money by comparing the products as they are today.
We picked up a huge bin at a garage sale last summer. "
Older Mega blocks are crap. Mega Blocks produced in recent years are just as mechanically good as Lego, and after this decision might start looking as good too.
Lego has had various varieties of legal protections on their blocks in various countries. They had some patents on elements of their production process that prevented others from making good blocks cheap; hence the crappy Mega Blocks. Those patents expired a while ago, so MegaBlocks became good.
Lego still had a trademarks in various countries on the look of the iconic red brick. Hence the different colour scheme you don't like. That trademark is now gone, so expect Mega Blocks to start looking nice.
Lego still has, and presumably always will have, a trademark on the name "Lego". So they'll continue to benefit from their (well deserved) reputation for quality, and charge more for their bricks. But MegaBlocks might, now, be just as good.
"Radio Shack stopped carrying most things due to liability. They even got sued for a kid coming in, getting a reed switch, and using it to kill his parents (true story)."
A) [citation needed]
B) Radio Shack carries reed switches. I bought one last week.
They don't carry the variety of basic components they used to, because consumer gadgets are more profitable; but they carry some. So I think your liability story is BS.
Well, actually, it's my MP3 player that forces me into dealing with music library management. If you know how to create playlists on a Sansa clip without Rhapsody, I'd be pleased to know. So it's not iTunes I particularly object to, since I don't use that. I don't even entirely object to software that wants to help manage my files, the essential thing I want is for software to expect that I might manage stuff independently. If I drag an mp3 file icon into their software and drop it on the name of a playlist on my mp3 player, my desire should not be a mystery.
I'm about to go to the gym, and I have all the songs I want to play while I'm there in known locations on my disk. The task there should be trivial; just stupidly easy; and it's not.
Slashdot Mirror
In all honesty though, writing proprietary software is a great business. A lot of make plenty of money at it, and hippies in their mom's basement just don't scare us. Now, I wouldn't try to start a business writing an operating system or a browser. But the software industry has always been a land of a million niches, and hippies in the basement aren't so good at finding new niches and filling them quickly. They'll get there eventually maybe, but we'll have moved on to find new ones.
Microsoft might feel threatened by the open source movement. But most of the proprietary world is small shops that never needed to dominate the world to get by, and survived successfully in competition with M$, not to mention all the other little guys... I don't see proprietary software going away anytime soon.
I write very good code that, in addition to having less bugs than most, is very flexible, requiring less customization, and very intuitive, requiring less training and support.
Or at least, I strive to do those things, and will not seriously consider a business model that gives me incentive to do otherwise.
"Your whole initial premise starts with a failed business model."
The same "failed" business model that supports the entire shrink-wrap software industry.
"If you as a developer spend several years working on something knowing that you will lose control over what you produce the moment you sell it,"
But I won't. I'll just sell binary only, proprietary software.
"Clearly you should find enough buyers of your software, and sell it to them all at once. Ie, sign up 10,000 customers, collect their $50, ($500,000) and release the software to them simultaneously."
Oh, yeah that will work great! It will be no hassle to find 10,000 customers willing to simultaneously pay $50 for unseen software, and to keep track of them, and get them to pay knowing they won't get anything until everyone else pays too. Sounds like my idea of fun.
"Or... Or... Or..."
Or sell proprietary software. Open source is great for a lot of things. But if you have a package that costs $500,000 to make, and 10,000 people will pay $50 for it, it's very hard to make that work with open source, and the proprietary model is cake.
You seem to understand well why one should choose to use a proprietary license in the situation described. RMS argues choosing a proprietary license is unethical. Some conclude from this that RMS is an idiot. Nobody is "whining" about the fact that the GPL exists. They are disagreeing with RMS's assertion that they should use it.
"But what if somebody takes your BSD licensed code"
Impossible. I've still got it, right here on my drive, and it's still BSD licensed.
"... puts it under the GPL (they CAN do that your license allows it)?"
They can put their own copy out under whatever license they want; doesn't effect me, so why should I care?
"Still want to go with the BSD license?"
Of course. What possible reasons could I have for wanting BSD that would be undermined in that situation?
As far as my actual reasons for liking BSD: I've found there are a lot of programmers like me. We appreciate the advantages of sharing, and will happily contribute our improvements to projects we use. But because we need the freedom to integrate with proprietary code and not worry about licensing, we don't use GPL code. So in practice, GPL code doesn't get contibutions from us, and BSD code does, by virtue of not requiring it.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the source code for the F-22 avionics is not public domain."
It absolutely is public domain; and top secret. If you get a copy and redistribute it, you won't be liable for copyright violation. That is not the same thing as saying you won't be in trouble.
F22 avionics software is an extreme, but good example: Quite a lot of code is developed because a single client is willing to pay the entire development costs up front. Free software is an excellent fit here; whether the end code is only technically Free (like the F22 code) or Free in a more traditional sense because that one client doesn't care what happens after they get their solution.
What is harder to do with free software is the minority of projects, but still an enormous amount of activity: All those projects where a developer decides there are enough people willing to pay a small amount for their code that it's worth the up-front investment to create the thing. Getting paid for software in that category is maybe not impossible with free software, but it's a heck of a lot easier with the standard proprietary model.
Most software (by developer hours put into it) is developed for a single client (in house or by contractors) and never distributed to anyone. There is one customer who is willing to pay full development costs for one working copy of the software. This code is often technically "Free" by RMS rules (the one and only user owns the source), and there may be little impediment to making it really free: the client doesn't care what anyone else does with the code, they just want their solution. A lot of people make software that easily could be free, even if it isn't currently.
So it's probably reasonable to point out that developers can still get jobs if they only work on free software.
Of course, there is still a heck of a lot of software development funded via the traditional proprietary model, spending the money up front so you can sell enough cheap copies to make it up later. The fact "most" software could be made via Free methods is irrelevant to the objection that quite a lot could not. (At least in an obvious manner)
Then "principles" that aren't simply preferences are psychotic. Think of a principle you would never violate. Now think up a contrived situation where not violating it will destroy the earth...
Can I make up my own distro and call it Debian?
I guess that's not Free either.
First try for the system in question.
In judging the success rate of the Spirit & Opportunity teams, it is perhaps a slight bit unreasonable to count against them a dozen Soviet rocket explosions that happened before their graduation from kindergarden.
On the other hand, all 38 missions on that list put together cost what fraction of a single Shuttle launch to low-earth orbit? Assuming the average is somewhere near the cost of the rovers (and it's not nearly that high), well less than half. An imporatant part of why unmanned is so superior: those failures are totally acceptable. Nobody dies, you try again, and it's still cheaper, faster and better.
"Sending robot probes into space is like staring at an atlas or looking up photos of exotic vacation spots with the knowledge that neither you nor anyone you know will ever actually go there. So what even if we discover life on Europa, for instance, if we don't plan to go there?"
There is some outside chance some child I know now will grow up to be an astronaut. Otherwise, neither I, nor anyone I know will ever go anywhere in space. Certainly not Europa. I'm still interested in exploring space.
Sending robot probes into space is like conversing with people on the internet with the knowledge you will never meet them....
Mostly to play devils advocate:
If society decides it's good to encourage education, rather than taking the money and having the Department of Education decide how to spend it, I would rather they give me a tax break for spending money on my kids education, and let me make the decisions from there.
As far as the people who get more back than they put in ( whatever name you use for it ), the classic example is the earned income tax credit. The general justification there is that poor people who work a low paying job should be better of than those who don't and go on welfare.
"the NASA space shuttle program is one of the most successful long term space programs ever."
How do you measure success?
Shuttle-supported manned space flight is skimming the atmosphere trying to keep the toilet functional, spending vast sums of money and risking lives.
NASA's unmanned programs are exploring the surface of Mars, for a tiny fraction of the cost.
"Would you still think it was pointless if Iran gets nuclear weapons?"
Yes. Even if the threat gets bigger, a defense system that doesn't protect you from it is pointless. A defense systym that doesn't protect you, deployed in entirely the wrong place? Pointless.
If the system worked, it would still be stupid to talk about it in relation to Iran. Look at a map. Find Iran and Israel, then find Poland. If you're worried about protecting vs. Iran, Poland is ideally sited to protect... Well, really just Poland. Maybe Scandinavia.
Since the system doesn't, in fact, work, deploying it only almost makes sense as a purely symbolic statement about the position of the US toward anyone (Russia) potentially threatening Poland.
I mean, I know the Bush administration has thrown out this Iranian threat to justify this, depending on Americans ridiculous ignorance of geography, but you don't have to buy it.
"What is the point of sending robots if we are never going to go ourselves."
What's the point of using the internet to communicate with people you'll never meet in person?
I don't expect to personally go into space, ever. Exploring space using remote sensing via mechanical devices is simple faster and better than exploring space using remote sensing via humans.
"we're going back to 'better, faster, cheaper', with all small probes, all the time."
Hooray!!! At least something good is coming out of this financial crisis then.
"It's hard to imagine for me that there are people out there who are not inspired by NASA's endeavors."
I'm incredibly inspired by NASA's current Mars exploration, discoveries coming out of the Hubble, etc. Can you imagine putting together a system that can fly to Mars, land on the surface, and drive around for years collecting data without ever getting to touch the thing after launch? Anything that works that brilliantly first try is awesome. Definitely inspiring.
The guys sucking up most of the budget while struggling to keep their toilet running in low Earth orbit? Not so much.
Don't know about him, but my job can definitely be done on Earth, which means there is not much need to automate it.
Do the astronauts do anything that can't be done better and cheaper by staying on Earth operating a remote device? No.
Industrial espionage is exactly what trade secret law protects you from. It doesn't protect you from the other guy hiring some smart researchers and figuring stuff out for themselves; for that you need patents. You can't have both, so eventually competition will be able to match quality if they choose to.
Lego did have patents that have now expired. They have trade secrets that Megabloks may or may not have figured out indepently. For whatever reasons Megabloks quality have improved substantially and in my opinion, are currently of similar quality to Lego. I'd expect Lego to be more expensive for a while though. There are so many older, lousier Megabloks out in the world brinign down perceptions.
"Personally, I hated megablocks, because the bricks are not made with the same quality as Legos. "
Their blocks *were* not made with the same quality as Legos. Then Legos patents expired. Their blocks weren't made in quite the same colors as Lego either; now this trademark decision.
There is no longer any legal reason MegaBloks can't make blocks that are entirely intercangeable with Lego (short of the name). At that point, it's a low-margin price race, which, compared to the past, sucks for Lego.
This is (arguably) the cause of the over-specialized pieces you despise: The profit margin isn't there on basic bricks anymore.
I notice in your other post, you mention Duplo: one of Lego's oversize, toddler-frienly lines. MegaBloks also makes some over-size toddler blocks, but I don't know if they have a specific name for them. My experience with those is that Duplo blocks hold together better, but are harder for little, poorly coordinated hands to stick together. So I take that to be an intentionally different design decision.
In any case, the trademark decision at hand, and my post, is not about the toddler blocks. It's about the little blocks, which Lego calls "Lego" and MegaBloks confusingly just calls "MegaBloks" too. For those, MegaBloks are just a direct knockoff of Legos. In my judgment, a mechanically indistinguishable one in recent years.
"There have been Lego knockoffs for years. But they're just not as high quality."
Because Lego patented their production process, and trademarked the color scheme; people couldn't make good knockoffs if they wanted to. These legal protections have now expired: the patents a while ago, the trademarks with this decision.
"Lego blocks are expensive because they are made to exacting tolerances, and last for a long time."
I believe you're judging the knockoffs by the ones you had years ago (or which were made years ago). Modern, post-patent expiration MegaBlocks are as good as Lego. Of course, there's a lot of old, crappy Megablocks out in the world, so I expect Lego can keep charging a premium for the perceived superiority of their brand.
But if you're buying new blocks today, you can potentially save yourself a lot of money by comparing the products as they are today.
"I agree. Mega blocks are crap.
We picked up a huge bin at a garage sale last summer. "
Older Mega blocks are crap. Mega Blocks produced in recent years are just as mechanically good as Lego, and after this decision might start looking as good too.
Lego has had various varieties of legal protections on their blocks in various countries. They had some patents on elements of their production process that prevented others from making good blocks cheap; hence the crappy Mega Blocks. Those patents expired a while ago, so MegaBlocks became good.
Lego still had a trademarks in various countries on the look of the iconic red brick. Hence the different colour scheme you don't like. That trademark is now gone, so expect Mega Blocks to start looking nice.
Lego still has, and presumably always will have, a trademark on the name "Lego". So they'll continue to benefit from their (well deserved) reputation for quality, and charge more for their bricks. But MegaBlocks might, now, be just as good.
"Radio Shack stopped carrying most things due to liability. They even got sued for a kid coming in, getting a reed switch, and using it to kill his parents (true story)."
A) [citation needed]
B) Radio Shack carries reed switches. I bought one last week.
They don't carry the variety of basic components they used to, because consumer gadgets are more profitable; but they carry some. So I think your liability story is BS.
Well, actually, it's my MP3 player that forces me into dealing with music library management. If you know how to create playlists on a Sansa clip without Rhapsody, I'd be pleased to know. So it's not iTunes I particularly object to, since I don't use that. I don't even entirely object to software that wants to help manage my files, the essential thing I want is for software to expect that I might manage stuff independently. If I drag an mp3 file icon into their software and drop it on the name of a playlist on my mp3 player, my desire should not be a mystery.
I'm about to go to the gym, and I have all the songs I want to play while I'm there in known locations on my disk. The task there should be trivial; just stupidly easy; and it's not.