I got my license over 20 years when I started work at an RF engineering company (I was the accountant). I wanted to learn what we were building and the owner and most of the engineers were hams. I don't use my license much, but I learned a lot about technology. I learned to solder, built my own packet radio rig, and made the assemblers and techs laugh about my skills.
I still am able to carry on a decent conversation about radio and it's served me well in all areas of technology.
By releasing it as Freeware, you retain the right to return it to closed source, and sell it.
I'm no expert on the open source licenses (and I'm sure I'll be corrected), but once it's open source, it's quite difficult to put it back to closed source and sell it as a product
The DRP (Declaration of Religious Principle) states (from the leader application form):
"The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God and, therefore, recognizes the religious element in the training of the
member, but it is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training. Its policy is that
the home and organization or group with which the member is connected shall give definite attention
to religious life. Only persons willing to subscribe to these precepts from the Declaration of Religious
Principle and to the Bylaws of the Boy Scouts of America shall be entitled to certificates of leadership."
I can agree to let the parents of the scouts determine their own religious standards.
As an Eagle scout, a scout leader, and parent of a cub scout and a boy scout, I'd like to kick in my.02 cents.
Our group is sponsored by a church. I don't recall us every having a prayer, or any religious leader saying anything about god. Our group is very inclusive, and I would say that most of our group has little involvement in religion. We just use the church.
I think our scouts get a lot out of the program. They are out camping once a month. They take extended wilderness trips. They learn skills they can use in many areas of their life, including how to deal with adults, how to deal with other difficult kids, and how to lead kids. We do a lot of service projects, and our troop probably as a group does several thousand hours of service for the community - and very little of that is done for the church where we have our meetings.
Maybe there are troops out there that push the agenda, and are right wing homophobes. But it's not our group. Even my wife, who thought boy scouts was a truly evil group, has come around to think the program is very worthwhile.
It's the local people that make it work. Donate your time to THEM if you like, don't if you don't want to.
They actually do have products, even if we don't like to admit it. Their users are locked into them (updates or not), and can't convert to different platforms without significant costs.
When you look at the cost of system conversion, the actual costs of the operating systems (SCO Unix vs. Linux vs. Win200x) are trivial; it's the training and data conversion that become the cost drivers.
It seems to me that most of their users are running applications where they don't care what the operating system is -- it's that *one* application that makes it all worthwhile -- what other applications does a POS terminal care about?
However, over time, even that *one* application needs to be replaced, and the business reasons for change outweigh the costs. If SCO can no longer provide the best business case, then they will get replaced.
And the businesses will change to something other than SCO -- even if they have no idea what "GPL" stands for. They change to the operating systems their core business application runs on. And if it's Linux, then hey, even better, as the initial acquisiton costs are reduced.
I agree that in the scheme of things that $50M is not a lot of cash. They will burn through a significant amount of that defending themselves from IBM and Red Hat.
I'd love to know what they will actually spend improving their products. My guess is not much at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I got my license over 20 years when I started work at an RF engineering company (I was the accountant). I wanted to learn what we were building and the owner and most of the engineers were hams. I don't use my license much, but I learned a lot about technology. I learned to solder, built my own packet radio rig, and made the assemblers and techs laugh about my skills. I still am able to carry on a decent conversation about radio and it's served me well in all areas of technology.
Then please turn in your Slashdot ID number.
I'm no expert on the open source licenses (and I'm sure I'll be corrected), but once it's open source, it's quite difficult to put it back to closed source and sell it as a product
"The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God and, therefore, recognizes the religious element in the training of the member, but it is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training. Its policy is that the home and organization or group with which the member is connected shall give definite attention to religious life. Only persons willing to subscribe to these precepts from the Declaration of Religious Principle and to the Bylaws of the Boy Scouts of America shall be entitled to certificates of leadership."
I can agree to let the parents of the scouts determine their own religious standards.
We use a package called 'DerbyMaster'. It's not open source, but it's $50, and the guy who wrote it provides amazing support. Worth every penny.
It stopped all the crying over results due to how it runs the races fairly.
Our group is sponsored by a church. I don't recall us every having a prayer, or any religious leader saying anything about god. Our group is very inclusive, and I would say that most of our group has little involvement in religion. We just use the church.
I think our scouts get a lot out of the program. They are out camping once a month. They take extended wilderness trips. They learn skills they can use in many areas of their life, including how to deal with adults, how to deal with other difficult kids, and how to lead kids. We do a lot of service projects, and our troop probably as a group does several thousand hours of service for the community - and very little of that is done for the church where we have our meetings.
Maybe there are troops out there that push the agenda, and are right wing homophobes. But it's not our group. Even my wife, who thought boy scouts was a truly evil group, has come around to think the program is very worthwhile.
It's the local people that make it work. Donate your time to THEM if you like, don't if you don't want to.
Use KeePass http://keepass.info/. Open source, and better automation with websites and much more control than the internal password manager.
Pretty sure the version you're looking for is: Pink Martini -Sympathique http://www.pinkmartini.com/cd/pm_cd.html
They actually do have products, even if we don't like to admit it. Their users are locked into them (updates or not), and can't convert to different platforms without significant costs.
When you look at the cost of system conversion, the actual costs of the operating systems (SCO Unix vs. Linux vs. Win200x) are trivial; it's the training and data conversion that become the cost drivers.
It seems to me that most of their users are running applications where they don't care what the operating system is -- it's that *one* application that makes it all worthwhile -- what other applications does a POS terminal care about?
However, over time, even that *one* application needs to be replaced, and the business reasons for change outweigh the costs. If SCO can no longer provide the best business case, then they will get replaced.
And the businesses will change to something other than SCO -- even if they have no idea what "GPL" stands for. They change to the operating systems their core business application runs on. And if it's Linux, then hey, even better, as the initial acquisiton costs are reduced.
I agree that in the scheme of things that $50M is not a lot of cash. They will burn through a significant amount of that defending themselves from IBM and Red Hat. I'd love to know what they will actually spend improving their products. My guess is not much at all.