If the upgrades were mandatory, if the product wasn't available freely, if the source for all errata (supported or not) was not available, if errata support was the same thing as 'support', this would be as painful as you describe.
The policy is *at least* 12 months. Meaning if it's trivial to back port further, it could happen, but it would be irresponisble for us to let folks plan for anything but the worst case.
Normally I let paraphrasings, and out of context statements go, they exist and you live with them. And I know Rob wasn't being vulterantinentatioustic.
But, since this post took issue with specific phrasing that fell even out of the quotes, let me clarify:
Problem One: I never let Rob finish his question. He said "A reader wants to know..." I said "Why 'we broke KDE'?"... to which he replied "Yeah, have you seen the post?"...I said "No, but we've been accused of it enough times for me to guess..." and went into the same answer I have always given (which comes later.)
As such, I never dealt with the issue, which is a false assertion that we are "breaking KDE apps", false for one, b/c there is one known issue, with one qt library, affecting KDE, and no third party apps. And two b/c 'broke' in the context of being 'vulterant' implies we did it on purpose.
Sigh. Which I might as well mention was the attempted point of a follow up poster, that breaking something accidentally, implies incompetence. Many times this is called a bug. Trying to do what we did, is a complex task. The fact that there was one known library incompatibility is a pretty mean feat.
Now that I've answered the question readers actually asked, let me go ahead and clarify what is left to look like "Red Hat says, run Bluecurve and it breaks, run KDE and you're okay..."
Do I have to say how stupid I would look actually saying that? Or how career limiting the manuever might be?
Here's what I said, or much closer, and certainly in fuller context:
(Recall my seguay into the canned answer)
"Breaking software in our release only makes us look bad, any breakages
are incidental. The most complaints *I have heard* were from
those trying to switch out of Bluecurve and run the default KDE, and of those
left, most were configuration issues lost in an upgrade. Those running
KDE natively *or* the default, don't seem to be complaining."
Or words to that effect. Another reader brought in Gnome, which never really came up beyond the Bero part, but I might as well get to that too, as it's related to this post's focus on 'only in Red Hat's default hybrid...'
I would never call Bluecurve a hybrid, nor did I. This is most likely why this part was left out of quotes. Bluecurve is a theme, and default configuration. The behavior of gtk or qt apps that look the same, are a result of this, not an effort to hybridize or negate anything.
Bero barely came up. I wouldn't say there was any 'big problem' with Bero's departure, other than a quality engineer is no longer with the company. Yes he was our KDE package maintainer. But he's still fighting to good fight at his own company. Red Hat has had more Gnome developers than KDE for awhile now.
When talking about libraries, you could use the LGPL. Nothing in the article cries for turning the GPL into anything it isn't.
And Larry Rosen is not a MS FUDster.
>> serious legal scholars disagree with him.
Well, the folks that wrote the license don't seem to. Neither do the "serious lawyers" who actually took the time to read the terms or at least the associated FAQs
From: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibrary IsGPL
If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that any program which uses it has to be under the GPL?
Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library.
From http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
Stallman's essay on which to use. Even though he advocates toward GPL, the case is still made for LGPL usage in certain cases.
I can "sort of" see those who skimmed the article saying "Hey, this guy is anti-GPL", but in reality, he is attempting to lay out the debate in digestible chunks. Would we rather proprietery companies never ported to Linux b/c they didn't understand the issues well enough to make a clear decision?
- GPL doesn not mean it can't be charged for, for example, could you have gotten the software from a vendor? Could you have bought support?
- It still needs to be maintained. If you are being paid to maintain it, good for you.
- You saved them money, and that's still a good thing, so long as they are staffed to support it in their environment. You should ave presented it as part of your value as a contracter.
IMHO they don't need to understand it. You do. Mission accomplished.
I doubt most end users, or corporate purchasers understand anything in the licensing they bought. At least no one will be coming to audit them (or remotely sniffing) or force them to upgrade for the sake of money over merit, b/c they didn't understand the license.
1. Maybe gratis. Definitely libre.
2. People aren't just rejecting MS software, they are rejecting their licensing. So it's better to say "It offers an alternative to proprietary software."
3. It prevents people from profiting on other people's labor.
4. It ensures innovation based on pre-existing work is shared with the folks who did the pre-existing work.
5. Protects a developers work from being dispositioned in a fashion other than what (s)he wants.
6. 99.999% less likely to suck
7. Allows for friendly security analysis, can be certified as secure.
8. Users not beholden to magnanimy of vendor.
9. Users not stuck if vendor goes under.
10. Rapid innovation
11. Bug stomping
12. Allows for the rules of governing dynamics, where individuals AND the group (company) can gain.
You must have been at a different event than I was. Most of the feedback I got was extremely positive. The only time RHN came up was with the package resolution issue.
I suspect this is a post from one of the two guys who asked three times why we don't use apt-get. And took great pains to tell us repeatedly that was why they wouldn't use Red Hat. So of course RHN and the new package manager came up. They even asked twice in a row b/c they really didn't want to hear the answer, just take an easy dig at us. It happens, we'll live.
Yes it was marketing, but there was an awful lot more that was discussed. Including technical features, product road map, Q&A, heck Dave even spent over an hour trying to fix text on someone's laptop display.Hopefully someone else from the event can post their opinion as well. I doubt you can speak for a hundred people.
I think an important thing to note about this is their effort to equate Open Source with the GPL. As I'm sure many will be quick to point out the GPL is Free Software, for one thing, and the GPL is not the only open license available.
Folks here have mentioned the BSD license for example, and these targeted New Democrats need to hear that there's a time and place for each of theses licenses, and exluding one is a danger to the rest. Should all fed funded work be GPL'd? No. Should that option be available? Absolutely.
Not to mention that banning the GPL is counter to what Smith claims they are trying to accomplish.
What you will find (by running the OS rather than reading about it), is that the system, and services are mad easy to configure with the new configuration applets.
It will be awhile before we are able to insult the end users' intelligence enough to work (snicker) like Windows.
Many things, like Flash Player and Acrobat Reader are available on the Applications CD.
We don't put closed source, or binary only software into the distribution itself, that's what keeps our distro fully GPL'd.
As for the decision behind not shipping mp3 players, that has more to do with the nature of mp3 patent licensing and royalty scemes. There used to be very clear terms allowing us to ship such things, but that seems to be changing, at least enough to put it in the gray area.
That said, nothing is stopping an end user from getting any of the software they are used to having on Red Hat Linux, we chose to err on the side of caution and not become someone's test case for litigation down the road.
On the other hand, try using Ogg Vorbis instead of mp3. It's not so encumbered with gray area, it's open and patent/royalty free.
You seem smart enough to use a break tag, but then again...
Anyway, you and several others have missed the point(s):
1) Every day that goes by, there is less and less of a need for Windows
2) What does a M$ solution cost
3) Install Linux before ranting about how easy it is to install XP with all 8 reboots.
It's obvious from your post you have no Linux experience, and are regurgitating complaints and quotes from a year ago (at least).
>>>does not mean that she can handle an installation in Linux
She'd probably lose her mind in a Windows install then;-)
Most folks have never installed Windows. It came on the PC. This is a perception issue that we need to overcome, one phase is making the install more user friendly, another would be to lean on your favorite IHV to pre-load.
>>>* Red Hat believes they are the only real Linux distributor.
Don't tell me what we *think*. I'll tell you.
Is it better to have 100% of a 1 billion dollar market? Or 60% of 10 billion.
We do not think we are the only real distributor. We think we ar ethe market leader, and the numbers prove it.
>>>* In Linux, it's Red Hat's way, or no way (See what they're doing to KDE in their next version).
Nobody's *doing* anything to KDE. We are taking the best, in our own opinion, of both of the leading desktops.
Note, we are still shipping KDE in 8.0, so I don't know what your point is. Perhaps you'd like it if we favored KDE over Gnome, or a hybrid solution, but that's your choice, not ours.
If we purposely borked the distro to make KDE un-installable, then you'd have a poiunt. If we weren't shipping KDE in addition to the default desktop, you'd have another point.
Package maintance, at the end of the day, is KDE's responsibility. We cannot and will not shove un0QA'd rpms in our distro or RHN, we don't have the resources to shipe every revision of every package. Who does?
The way it's gone down between us and KDE is unfortunate, but is a product of mistakes on both sides, and timing of significant realeases in the 6 series, where we began to favor Gnome, and did not like closed source Qt libraries.
We owe it to our users to make the best integrated solution available, in your opinon, and many others KDE may be that solution. So install it, we certainly aren't going to stop you.
>>>* They're way too political. Hey, there's nothing wrong with a little lobbying, but Red Hat is the onlny company openly doing the heavy lobbying that Micro$oft does.
Uhhhh.... so you think it's okay to outlaw OSS/FS? You think it's okay to forbid people to play DVD's they own? Well, I don't And netiher should anyone else. As long as corporations are lobbying against freedom and against IP rights, and making long term decisions about my access to such freedoms and rights, I and Red Hat are lobbying against them.
>>>* Their distro blows.>>After all, that's my RIGHT TO CHOOSE. Right, Red Hat?
Yes. Thanks for proving my point for me.
>>>Should the government ground the entire F-16 fleet until some open source programmer releases a GPL F-16 fire control system?
Yeah, the second that system is carrying my social security number. This is not about federal systems. This isn't even about *every* peice of state owned equipment or software.
Instead of throwing out the whole bill, why not focus it on systems that contain information covered by the Freedom of Information act, and personal data of its constituancy.
Any reason at all code should be closed there? No.
Read before you post. No one said anything about industry. The government is not an individual that should be free to make decisions with wide berth nor is it a corporation.
As for the infrastructure apps you speak of, that's not public data in every case.
I certainly respect what Tim O'Reilly has done and will continue to do for OpenSource, but this is really a safe response for him to have taken.
O'Reilly sells books in both worlds of software. He has no reason to favor one or the other, and in fact would find it prohibitive to his business to do so. Understood.
It's also a bit trite to relegate Congressman Nunez' actions to great theater. It doesn't change the fact that he has no reason to trust what he can't see. Especially if it's shoved at him by a foreign entity. No one should trust code they can't see. Period. Public information systems, have a responisbility to the owners of the information to protect it as best they can. Closed licensing is prohibitive to doing that. It leaves the safety and integrity of our data to folks who have been, and continue to be proven in courts of law to be outright criminals. There's really no other way to see it.
Look at it this way. If I pay enough, or am considered important enough, I can get significant glimpses at most proprietary code on the planet. What vendors who reject this law at face value are essentially saying, is that the people aren't important enough. So that leaves the state the option of signing huge NDA's and paying huge amounts of money to ensure the integrity of our data. And still being unable to do anything more than request changes be made for the collective good.
The point I believe he is missing is that this is not about forcing someone to look beyond the merits of the software, but to consider open licensing one of those merits.
I think forcing the gov't to look at OSS first will create much more choice than we have today. A world where proprietary is the status quo.
I don't think my public data should be held at the whim of convicted monopolists. Given the deluge of malfeasance we're seeing reported in the press lately by officers of the world's foremost corporate entities, I have no reason to trust most anyone to not abuse or otherwise misuse my data.
Or let them arbitrarily decide when, if and how to fix security holes. Or purposeley code in back doors. Or limit what type of software I may connect/interact with such systems. Or force me into license schemes to pay for what I thought I already bought.
This bill is *not* proposing to outlaw proprietary software, just to keep it out of public trusts.
So, is the DSSA in it's current form too militant for most to take? Yes. Is it's heart in the right place? You bet. I hear the case for loopholes like "...in the absence of viable alternatives", but throw enough cash and incentives at any beureaucrat and suddenly OSS isn't viable.
By including such a loophole, you have to invest in an audit system to see what's being used where. And a system for proving/disproving the case for it's use and so on.
The day that closing the code, replete with hidden back doors and remote administration ports and protocols becomes a point of merit, then folks like O'Reilly and CompTIA will have a stronger point.
Enforcing open standards, and/or forcing "serious consideration" is a good start at a compromise. It doesn't make me trust M$, but it helps me trust the states buying decisions are based on something more than perpetuation of girth.
No bill was ever passed in its first form. The DSSA needs to be extremist to begin the conversation from this side of the equation for a change.
[snip from question #6]
Now you appear to be in competition with Red Hat (on server) and Mandrake (on desktop) who both give their software away. Red Hat makes it's money from service contracts and Mandrake from special software for paying customers. I guess my question is how can you compete against them, when they are just as good and give it away for free or cheaper?
[/snip]
[snip from response]
Ransom:
It should be noted, first off, that Red Hat has moved to a model on advanced server where they are not giving away the binaries and they are charging around $800+ for their advanced server product.
[/snip]
The wording here is very misleading. No fault of Mr. Love, he has not the insight to make statements about our positioning or products, so here's a bit of clarification of what Advanced Server is and isn't:
1) The charge is for the packaging, updates and support subscriptions, not for the software in and of itself.
2) The code is still available. Binaries, Red Hat Network, ISO's/CD's are available for those who pay for the whole package. The source will be available publically for all to build their own.
The intent is *not* a per boxed set price of $800+. The intent is *not* to keep any errata or other updates exclusive to paying AS users, but to keep the convenience and associated services exclusive to those that pay for them. Which is very fair.
There was also a question about patents and a comment as to whether we could/would be held to uphold "Our Promise".
Our patent policy is issued as an estoppel statement which binds us as well as subsequent "owners" of such patents to the spirit of our intent. That is, any party relying on Our Promise has an absolute defense to an assertion of patent infringement by Red Hat (and subsequent owners of any such patents), subject to the limited obligation that they not sue us for patent infringement with respect to software we have produced.
http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
I'm no lawyer, but in layman terms, the agreement is much more than a press release.
Slashdot Mirror
AND a Federal Marshall...
If the upgrades were mandatory, if the product wasn't available freely, if the source for all errata (supported or not) was not available, if errata support was the same thing as 'support', this would be as painful as you describe.
The policy is *at least* 12 months. Meaning if it's trivial to back port further, it could happen, but it would be irresponisble for us to let folks plan for anything but the worst case.
Normally I let paraphrasings, and out of context statements go, they exist and you live with them. And I know Rob wasn't being vulterantinentatioustic.
But, since this post took issue with specific phrasing that fell even out of the quotes, let me clarify:
Problem One: I never let Rob finish his question. He said "A reader wants to know..." I said "Why 'we broke KDE'?"... to which he replied "Yeah, have you seen the post?"...I said "No, but we've been accused of it enough times for me to guess..." and went into the same answer I have always given (which comes later.)
As such, I never dealt with the issue, which is a false assertion that we are "breaking KDE apps", false for one, b/c there is one known issue, with one qt library, affecting KDE, and no third party apps. And two b/c 'broke' in the context of being 'vulterant' implies we did it on purpose.
Sigh. Which I might as well mention was the attempted point of a follow up poster, that breaking something accidentally, implies incompetence. Many times this is called a bug. Trying to do what we did, is a complex task. The fact that there was one known library incompatibility is a pretty mean feat.
Now that I've answered the question readers actually asked, let me go ahead and clarify what is left to look like "Red Hat says, run Bluecurve and it breaks, run KDE and you're okay..."
Do I have to say how stupid I would look actually saying that? Or how career limiting the manuever might be?
Here's what I said, or much closer, and certainly in fuller context:
(Recall my seguay into the canned answer) "Breaking software in our release only makes us look bad, any breakages are incidental. The most complaints *I have heard* were from those trying to switch out of Bluecurve and run the default KDE, and of those left, most were configuration issues lost in an upgrade. Those running KDE natively *or* the default, don't seem to be complaining."
Or words to that effect. Another reader brought in Gnome, which never really came up beyond the Bero part, but I might as well get to that too, as it's related to this post's focus on 'only in Red Hat's default hybrid...'
I would never call Bluecurve a hybrid, nor did I. This is most likely why this part was left out of quotes. Bluecurve is a theme, and default configuration. The behavior of gtk or qt apps that look the same, are a result of this, not an effort to hybridize or negate anything.
Bero barely came up. I wouldn't say there was any 'big problem' with Bero's departure, other than a quality engineer is no longer with the company. Yes he was our KDE package maintainer. But he's still fighting to good fight at his own company. Red Hat has had more Gnome developers than KDE for awhile now.
--jeremy
When talking about libraries, you could use the LGPL. Nothing in the article cries for turning the GPL into anything it isn't.
y IsGPL
And Larry Rosen is not a MS FUDster.
>> serious legal scholars disagree with him.
Well, the folks that wrote the license don't seem to. Neither do the "serious lawyers" who actually took the time to read the terms or at least the associated FAQs
From: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibrar
If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that any program which uses it has to be under the GPL?
Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library.
From http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
Stallman's essay on which to use. Even though he advocates toward GPL, the case is still made for LGPL usage in certain cases.
I can "sort of" see those who skimmed the article saying "Hey, this guy is anti-GPL", but in reality, he is attempting to lay out the debate in digestible chunks. Would we rather proprietery companies never ported to Linux b/c they didn't understand the issues well enough to make a clear decision?
- GPL doesn not mean it can't be charged for, for example, could you have gotten the software from a vendor? Could you have bought support?
- It still needs to be maintained. If you are being paid to maintain it, good for you.
- You saved them money, and that's still a good thing, so long as they are staffed to support it in their environment. You should ave presented it as part of your value as a contracter.
IMHO they don't need to understand it. You do. Mission accomplished. I doubt most end users, or corporate purchasers understand anything in the licensing they bought. At least no one will be coming to audit them (or remotely sniffing) or force them to upgrade for the sake of money over merit, b/c they didn't understand the license.
Let me rephrase your first two and move on:
1. Maybe gratis. Definitely libre.
2. People aren't just rejecting MS software, they are rejecting their licensing. So it's better to say "It offers an alternative to proprietary software."
3. It prevents people from profiting on other people's labor.
4. It ensures innovation based on pre-existing work is shared with the folks who did the pre-existing work.
5. Protects a developers work from being dispositioned in a fashion other than what (s)he wants.
6. 99.999% less likely to suck
7. Allows for friendly security analysis, can be certified as secure.
8. Users not beholden to magnanimy of vendor.
9. Users not stuck if vendor goes under.
10. Rapid innovation
11. Bug stomping
12. Allows for the rules of governing dynamics, where individuals AND the group (company) can gain.
Among other things, that you can never pack enough fresh socks.
We prefer fabled. There's a moral to our story.
You must have been at a different event than I was. Most of the feedback I got was extremely positive. The only time RHN came up was with the package resolution issue.
I suspect this is a post from one of the two guys who asked three times why we don't use apt-get. And took great pains to tell us repeatedly that was why they wouldn't use Red Hat. So of course RHN and the new package manager came up. They even asked twice in a row b/c they really didn't want to hear the answer, just take an easy dig at us. It happens, we'll live.
Yes it was marketing, but there was an awful lot more that was discussed. Including technical features, product road map, Q&A, heck Dave even spent over an hour trying to fix text on someone's laptop display.Hopefully someone else from the event can post their opinion as well. I doubt you can speak for a hundred people.
I think an important thing to note about this is their effort to equate Open Source with the GPL. As I'm sure many will be quick to point out the GPL is Free Software, for one thing, and the GPL is not the only open license available.
Folks here have mentioned the BSD license for example, and these targeted New Democrats need to hear that there's a time and place for each of theses licenses, and exluding one is a danger to the rest. Should all fed funded work be GPL'd? No. Should that option be available? Absolutely.
Not to mention that banning the GPL is counter to what Smith claims they are trying to accomplish.
>>>looks and functions like windows xp
;-D
I hope that never happens.
What you will find (by running the OS rather than reading about it), is that the system, and services are mad easy to configure with the new configuration applets.
It will be awhile before we are able to insult the end users' intelligence enough to work (snicker) like Windows.
Many things, like Flash Player and Acrobat Reader are available on the Applications CD.
We don't put closed source, or binary only software into the distribution itself, that's what keeps our distro fully GPL'd.
As for the decision behind not shipping mp3 players, that has more to do with the nature of mp3 patent licensing and royalty scemes. There used to be very clear terms allowing us to ship such things, but that seems to be changing, at least enough to put it in the gray area.
That said, nothing is stopping an end user from getting any of the software they are used to having on Red Hat Linux, we chose to err on the side of caution and not become someone's test case for litigation down the road.
On the other hand, try using Ogg Vorbis instead of mp3. It's not so encumbered with gray area, it's open and patent/royalty free.
You seem smart enough to use a break tag, but then again...
Anyway, you and several others have missed the point(s):
1) Every day that goes by, there is less and less of a need for Windows
2) What does a M$ solution cost
3) Install Linux before ranting about how easy it is to install XP with all 8 reboots.
It's obvious from your post you have no Linux experience, and are regurgitating complaints and quotes from a year ago (at least).
>>>does not mean that she can handle an installation in Linux ;-)
She'd probably lose her mind in a Windows install then
Most folks have never installed Windows. It came on the PC. This is a perception issue that we need to overcome, one phase is making the install more user friendly, another would be to lean on your favorite IHV to pre-load.
Seems to be a bigger waste of your time. Do you think this will stop b/c you said so?
Secondly, for those who can read. This has nothing to do with Red Hat. Other than being Bob Young's newest company.
>>>* Red Hat believes they are the only real Linux distributor.
Don't tell me what we *think*. I'll tell you.
Is it better to have 100% of a 1 billion dollar market? Or 60% of 10 billion.
We do not think we are the only real distributor. We think we ar ethe market leader, and the numbers prove it.
>>>* In Linux, it's Red Hat's way, or no way (See what they're doing to KDE in their next version).
Nobody's *doing* anything to KDE. We are taking the best, in our own opinion, of both of the leading desktops.
Note, we are still shipping KDE in 8.0, so I don't know what your point is. Perhaps you'd like it if we favored KDE over Gnome, or a hybrid solution, but that's your choice, not ours.
If we purposely borked the distro to make KDE un-installable, then you'd have a poiunt. If we weren't shipping KDE in addition to the default desktop, you'd have another point.
Package maintance, at the end of the day, is KDE's responsibility. We cannot and will not shove un0QA'd rpms in our distro or RHN, we don't have the resources to shipe every revision of every package. Who does?
The way it's gone down between us and KDE is unfortunate, but is a product of mistakes on both sides, and timing of significant realeases in the 6 series, where we began to favor Gnome, and did not like closed source Qt libraries.
We owe it to our users to make the best integrated solution available, in your opinon, and many others KDE may be that solution. So install it, we certainly aren't going to stop you.
>>>* They're way too political. Hey, there's nothing wrong with a little lobbying, but Red Hat is the onlny company openly doing the heavy lobbying that Micro$oft does.
Uhhhh.... so you think it's okay to outlaw OSS/FS? You think it's okay to forbid people to play DVD's they own? Well, I don't And netiher should anyone else. As long as corporations are lobbying against freedom and against IP rights, and making long term decisions about my access to such freedoms and rights, I and Red Hat are lobbying against them.
>>>* Their distro blows.>>After all, that's my RIGHT TO CHOOSE. Right, Red Hat? Yes. Thanks for proving my point for me.
Spokesmodel? That sounds so sexy....
/. crowd, among others.
It's good point you raise, I consider it my job in community relations to engage the
Not in the way M$ pays shills to pretend they don't work there and/or feed canned responses to PR reps, but to express a real opinion in a real voice.
Darn few companies are willing to allow that sort of thing, let alone encourage it.
I think O'Reilly himself would laugh at the fact that you find him so infallable.
>>>Should the government ground the entire F-16 fleet until some open source programmer releases a GPL F-16 fire control system?
Yeah, the second that system is carrying my social security number. This is not about federal systems. This isn't even about *every* peice of state owned equipment or software.
Instead of throwing out the whole bill, why not focus it on systems that contain information covered by the Freedom of Information act, and personal data of its constituancy.
Any reason at all code should be closed there? No.
Read before you post. No one said anything about industry. The government is not an individual that should be free to make decisions with wide berth nor is it a corporation. As for the infrastructure apps you speak of, that's not public data in every case.
I certainly respect what Tim O'Reilly has done and will continue to do for OpenSource, but this is really a safe response for him to have taken.
O'Reilly sells books in both worlds of software. He has no reason to favor one or the other, and in fact would find it prohibitive to his business to do so. Understood.
It's also a bit trite to relegate Congressman Nunez' actions to great theater. It doesn't change the fact that he has no reason to trust what he can't see. Especially if it's shoved at him by a foreign entity. No one should trust code they can't see. Period. Public information systems, have a responisbility to the owners of the information to protect it as best they can. Closed licensing is prohibitive to doing that. It leaves the safety and integrity of our data to folks who have been, and continue to be proven in courts of law to be outright criminals. There's really no other way to see it.
Look at it this way. If I pay enough, or am considered important enough, I can get significant glimpses at most proprietary code on the planet. What vendors who reject this law at face value are essentially saying, is that the people aren't important enough. So that leaves the state the option of signing huge NDA's and paying huge amounts of money to ensure the integrity of our data. And still being unable to do anything more than request changes be made for the collective good.
The point I believe he is missing is that this is not about forcing someone to look beyond the merits of the software, but to consider open licensing one of those merits.
I think forcing the gov't to look at OSS first will create much more choice than we have today. A world where proprietary is the status quo.
I don't think my public data should be held at the whim of convicted monopolists. Given the deluge of malfeasance we're seeing reported in the press lately by officers of the world's foremost corporate entities, I have no reason to trust most anyone to not abuse or otherwise misuse my data.
Or let them arbitrarily decide when, if and how to fix security holes. Or purposeley code in back doors. Or limit what type of software I may connect/interact with such systems. Or force me into license schemes to pay for what I thought I already bought.
This bill is *not* proposing to outlaw proprietary software, just to keep it out of public trusts.
So, is the DSSA in it's current form too militant for most to take? Yes. Is it's heart in the right place? You bet. I hear the case for loopholes like "...in the absence of viable alternatives", but throw enough cash and incentives at any beureaucrat and suddenly OSS isn't viable.
By including such a loophole, you have to invest in an audit system to see what's being used where. And a system for proving/disproving the case for it's use and so on.
The day that closing the code, replete with hidden back doors and remote administration ports and protocols becomes a point of merit, then folks like O'Reilly and CompTIA will have a stronger point.
Enforcing open standards, and/or forcing "serious consideration" is a good start at a compromise. It doesn't make me trust M$, but it helps me trust the states buying decisions are based on something more than perpetuation of girth.
No bill was ever passed in its first form. The DSSA needs to be extremist to begin the conversation from this side of the equation for a change.
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
[snip from question #6]
Now you appear to be in competition with Red Hat (on server) and Mandrake (on desktop) who both give their software away. Red Hat makes it's money from service contracts and Mandrake from special software for paying customers. I guess my question is how can you compete against them, when they are just as good and give it away for free or cheaper?
[/snip]
[snip from response]
Ransom:
It should be noted, first off, that Red Hat has moved to a model on advanced server where they are not giving away the binaries and they are charging around $800+ for their advanced server product.
[/snip]
The wording here is very misleading. No fault of Mr. Love, he has not the insight to make statements about our positioning or products, so here's a bit of clarification of what Advanced Server is and isn't:
1) The charge is for the packaging, updates and support subscriptions, not for the software in and of itself.
2) The code is still available. Binaries, Red Hat Network, ISO's/CD's are available for those who pay for the whole package. The source will be available publically for all to build their own.
The intent is *not* a per boxed set price of $800+. The intent is *not* to keep any errata or other updates exclusive to paying AS users, but to keep the convenience and associated services exclusive to those that pay for them. Which is very fair.
There was also a question about patents and a comment as to whether we could/would be held to uphold "Our Promise".
Our patent policy is issued as an estoppel statement which binds us as well as subsequent "owners" of such patents to the spirit of our intent. That is, any party relying on Our Promise has an absolute defense to an assertion of patent infringement by Red Hat (and subsequent owners of any such patents), subject to the limited obligation that they not sue us for patent infringement with respect to software we have produced.
http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
I'm no lawyer, but in layman terms, the agreement is much more than a press release.
--jeremy