Open source comprises both a technical and an ideological component, of course.
But, at least in my opinion, the number of people who get into flame wars over the technological advantages or disadvantages of open source are relatively minimal... because it quite depends on, more than anything else, what your goals are. Without defining specific goals, it is impossible to establish 'best'.
Value requires a metric for valuation, after all.
Proprietary software is part of an era that came about after the Enlightenment. It had been, back in the day, that wealthy patrons would 'sponsor' artists, who would create works for them. Often, those works could not be copied, or in any case, copying of them would not substantially devalue the owner (as the owner rarely attempted to gain, financially, through them).
Proprietary software, and in fact, copyright in general, evolved because that system was no longer viable. Copyright is designed to provide an incentive to innovate, and proprietary software is simply this understanding of copyright taken in the logical direction.
And I think it does encourage innovation. It does encourage financial sponsorship to be poured into creation, not only of software but of businesses and ideas.
Open Source has always been an admirable technical goal, but the business case has rarely been there.
People talk about lock-in with regard to proprietary software (in fact, so do you) but this is not conceptually different with Open Source software. In fact, the interpretation of proprietary software as a business method and Open Source as a technical method do not even make the two mutually exclusive.
Your complaints are not relevant to proprietary software in general. There is no requirement that such software be built in any way contrary to Open Source development principles. You are objecting to certain business methods, which is entirely a different thing.
Now, as to free software, I will simply put it this way: freedom does not mean 'freedom as defined by Richard Stallman'.
Richard Stallman, and most ideological proponents of Free Software, do not really want freedom. They want freedom on their own terms, and the two are not even remotely comparable.
Why? Does having a gun somehow make someone else with a gun less capable of killing you?
Your argument (as far as I can establish from one line, admittedly) appears to be that information is only a weapon if one party has it, which seems quite obviously false.
Having twice as many guns does not make them less dangerous.
It's also a case of preferring defined revenue (although I argue there certainly are economies of scale involved in software licensing- Microsoft can sell you ten million software licenses at absolutely no cost to itself, but there is a definite cost to putting ten million boxes of Windows Vista on the shelf) over undefined revenue.
Microsoft knows that Dell will buy 50 million licenses a year- that's a much better deal for Microsoft than hoping that the 60 million boxed copies of Vista they put on the shelf might or might not sell.
It's not just about the Microsoft tax but the fact that Microsoft conspires against you in order to make it nearly impossible to use anything else. It doesn't matter what your requirements. It doesn't matter how poorly Microsoft's product meeds those requirements. If they get their way, you will be forced to use their crap whether you want to or not.
Firstly, it's linguistically incorrect to call it a tax. A tax, by definition, is a charge imposed by a government.
However, that point aside, your argument is not new. All organized economic systems will gravitate toward monopoly and all systems, period, will gravitate toward homogeneity without an external guiding force. The advantages, in both cases, are simply too large to ignore.
This is especially true in software. It's not even that Microsft has to conspire against you. Compatibility is simply so important, and the easiest way to be compatible is for everyone to have the same thing. There is enormous impetus for everyone to adopt the market leader in software in order to maintain that same compatibility.
Now, whether or not Microsoft is purposefully stopping their opponents from being compatible, they probably are, although I think it's nowhere near as bad as some people claim. Microsoft is a large, almost monolithic entity, and it is very slow to adapt. Given the speed at which other organizations can, and have in the past adapted, I think there are many other forces in play preventing ultimate compatibility with Microsoft systems, some of which are more significant, than Microsoft's obstinate 'conspiracy'.
The only thing that's keeping them at bay is Free Software.
It even helps keep the world safe for the one remaining real competitor to Microsoft left: namely Apple.
Can we please keep the nutcase conspiracy wanking down to a dull roar?
It's more than just the cost of Windows. It's also the cost of all of the overhead of dealing with Windows crap and remaining "compatible" with whatever sort of app Microsoft might have dominance in today.
This argument applies to anything... for example, healthcare service provisioning. And yet the argument is ultimately uncompelling. If you compare universal healthcare to market-based health care, in almost every metric universal health care in the western world comes out better overall, despite being, almost by nature, a monopoly at one level or another.
There are, indeed, overhead costs that arise. But these costs, in many cases, are not sufficient to outweigh the simple gains of homogeneity that arises through monopoly.
Yes, but the linux option will benefit the kids more...
Perhaps, but you certainly haven't proven such a claim.
Linux gives them a system which is open, allowing those kids who are technically minded to learn about it in depth and provide support to their peers. When they grow up, those kids will be able to sell such services to others, while the non technical kids will be able to buy support services from the others. So you end up with an IT industry that's locally based, rather than having to pay for expensive foreign services and additional software (what seems like pocket change to people in the first world, is a months wages for people in these third world countries).
This is entirely supposition, but more importantly, it's based on a chain of events that's never been shown to actually occur in a lot of the developing world. Places like India, with developed computer-sience industries don't start making their money by selling to theselves. They make their money by doing work for foreign organizations cheaper. The problem is, Linux doesn't pay very well.
And if you train people in the third world sufficiently well, they will be able to provide services to people in the first world, and because the cost of living is so much lower they can live like kings while still undercutting the competition.
Possibly. Providing services like that, however, requires significant infrastructure investment, and in fact, the OLPC people are not, to my knowledge, training anyone at all to do anything. They are merely providing laptops. Suggesting that poor villagers will get into software development and support to support their families is ridiculous, in my opinion.
However, you really ignored my primary point. Linux adds nothing of value. Open Source is not valuable to people in the developing world. Microsoft, however, goes in and throws around buckets of money- both Microsoft's and the Gates Foundation's- and that is valuable.
That's why those places choose Microsoft. Because it's 'better'. There's more value.
Why, as a consumer, can I not buy Windows for a similiar low price, or a low multiple? Why is it in the hundreds of $$$? Why are there over 6 versions of Vista now? Why not just 2?
For much the same reason as large organizations get deep, deep discounts on anything else and individuals don't. Economies of scale.
As for the versioning, it's worth nothing that while there are... six? versions of Windows, Microsoft has not attempted, nor expects, that all of those versions of windows can be bought by all people. For 99% of home users, there are two versions- Home Premium and Ultimate.
For 99% of Business uses, there are three versions- Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Enterprise is available solely through Software Assurance, and provides a variety of licensing and support benefits not otherwise available... but again, if you're licensing from Microsoft via SA, you've got people who know which version is best for you.
There are a lot of versions out there, no doubt about it. It's not a good thing. But it's not like Microsoft just dumped six different versions on store shelves and said "Go buy!"
Don't use wikipedia then. I use it about 50 times a day. I just contributed $100 toward it because it's that usefull to me. No static, "closed-soure" encyclopedia comes close for me for 'esoteric' topics.
That was not exactly what I was referring to when I said 'free and open access to information'... information, like any tool, can be used as a weapon. I'm not in favor of wandering down the street handing out fully loaded assault rifles to passers-by, so why should I be in favor of handing out copies of "The Prepatory Manual of Explosives"?
Possibly. I'm not necessarily convinced that free and open access to information is necessary... or even useful.
However, IMNSHO, that's not what Open Source is about anyway. Open Source has really never been terribly important for your average person; all of its important freedoms relate to developers. The freedom to sprout wings and fly away is irrelevant to people who have no ability to sprout wings and fly away, and in the same manner, the vast majority of computer users (and this percentage is growing, not shrinking) are not developers. Open Source, arguably, does not strive to protect them or provide open and free access to them.
Microsoft's tactics are primarily profit-driven, of course. But Microsoft is no longer a booming growth organization like it once was; it must shift its goals toward long-term sustainability and medium growth, and this it has tried to do. You'll notice this in the fact that Microsoft's licensing fees are not terribly high. The vast majority of users, in fact, do not pay these fees on anything but an irregular basis, and the fees they do pay, which are rolled into OEM machines, are so low when spread across the time involved that Microsoft's 'raping license fees' work out for your average user somewhere between $20-$30 per year, I would imagine.
Is free cheaper? Certainly! But it's patently obvious that Microsoft hardly rapes their customer base with license fees. This is especially true in developing countries where copyright infringement runs entirely rampant. Huge numbers of people would rather pirate Windows in the developing world than run Linux, and I think that says something about Microsoft's sustainability strategy.
Ultimately, I think Microsoft's attempts here, and in various other places across the globe is merely an attempt by the organization to replace its pirated software with licensed software, by making it clear what benefit partnership with Microsoft brings, including huge rebates and funding sponsorships. The problem is that Linux doesn't bring huge wads of cash with it. The value of open source software is intangible and arguably non-existent to a lot of these people.
By being the kind of person who already contributes sufficiently to the community that they do not need to take on additional community service work in order to get their hours.
It demonstrates that you have fulfilled the objectives of the requirement, much like demonstrating on a test that you can do calculus demonstrates you have met the objectives of Calculus 101.
Mandatory community service is, like any other high school degree requirement, just as much bullshit as you want it to be. Do you get paid for taking math classes? Or civics classes? Of course not. It's just a requirement for graduation.
Where I went to school, it was necessary to do 10 hours per year of community service... I did 150. Not through any particularly large expenditure of effort on my part. I think it was 2.5 hours a week one evening a week plus a weekend. There were people out there who put in triple or quadruple that without much trouble- per year.
Moreover, it was one of the rare things at the time that had a chance to put a kid in a position of authority. And that was a really good thing.
Eh? I divided 20,000 by 24 and got 833 days of 24 hour continuous use. Which is really closer to six-plus years of life, even if you assume 8-hour days, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
Then you have no right to live, and whoever can kill you should do so.
That's one of the most irresponsible positions in existence. Health care is a social good, and what's good for society is good for everyone in society.
(By the way, it's also part of the bread and circuses. Makes the people less likely to get uppity.)
The reality of privatization is Enron, the housing bubble, the stock market... need I go on?
The reality of privatization is that private companies are only out to make a buck, not provide you health care services. They'll try and cheat you every single way they can.
VeriSign, by the way, is absolutely no exception to this. They've pulled tons of dirty tricks in their time.
Chartered corporations have existed for more than 300 years. I believe the earliest dates to the mid 1300s. Certainly, the British East India Company had legal rights as an entity, as did the Hudson's Bay Company. The laws (and rights) of corporations dates from the late 18th century in the English legal texts.
What particular rights are you referring to, and can you narrow it down to a specific time frame?
I have no problem with anonymity so long as accountability exists. I do have a problem with speech without accountability. It creates a situation where people feel that, given there are no repercussions to their speech, they can say anything they like- regardless of how defamatory, inciteful, or otherwise dangerous it may be.
Um, lolwut? Corporations did not exist? Or large corporations did not exist?
Like, say, the Hudson's Bay Company, who at the time the Constitution was written, as with the British East India Company, probably had a greater ability to project force than most countries, and at various times in the past had actually exercised governmental functions?
Does Microsoft operate a fleet of warships and control its own country now?
It is neither desirable nor easily practical to conceal the identity of the accused; in fact, it is desirable and practical for the opposite to happen.
What do you have against people being able to publicly confront their accusers and be confronted in turn?
Slashdot Mirror
Open source comprises both a technical and an ideological component, of course.
But, at least in my opinion, the number of people who get into flame wars over the technological advantages or disadvantages of open source are relatively minimal... because it quite depends on, more than anything else, what your goals are. Without defining specific goals, it is impossible to establish 'best'.
Value requires a metric for valuation, after all.
Proprietary software is part of an era that came about after the Enlightenment. It had been, back in the day, that wealthy patrons would 'sponsor' artists, who would create works for them. Often, those works could not be copied, or in any case, copying of them would not substantially devalue the owner (as the owner rarely attempted to gain, financially, through them).
Proprietary software, and in fact, copyright in general, evolved because that system was no longer viable. Copyright is designed to provide an incentive to innovate, and proprietary software is simply this understanding of copyright taken in the logical direction.
And I think it does encourage innovation. It does encourage financial sponsorship to be poured into creation, not only of software but of businesses and ideas.
Open Source has always been an admirable technical goal, but the business case has rarely been there.
People talk about lock-in with regard to proprietary software (in fact, so do you) but this is not conceptually different with Open Source software. In fact, the interpretation of proprietary software as a business method and Open Source as a technical method do not even make the two mutually exclusive.
Your complaints are not relevant to proprietary software in general. There is no requirement that such software be built in any way contrary to Open Source development principles. You are objecting to certain business methods, which is entirely a different thing.
Now, as to free software, I will simply put it this way: freedom does not mean 'freedom as defined by Richard Stallman'.
Richard Stallman, and most ideological proponents of Free Software, do not really want freedom. They want freedom on their own terms, and the two are not even remotely comparable.
I explained in a sibling comment... information is a weapon.
I don't go around handing out M-16s to people on the street, why should I go around handing out copies of "The prepatory manual of explosives"?
Why? Does having a gun somehow make someone else with a gun less capable of killing you?
Your argument (as far as I can establish from one line, admittedly) appears to be that information is only a weapon if one party has it, which seems quite obviously false.
Having twice as many guns does not make them less dangerous.
Your comment on my personality, both entirely accurate and entirely well deserved, is appreciated, good sir!
It's also a case of preferring defined revenue (although I argue there certainly are economies of scale involved in software licensing- Microsoft can sell you ten million software licenses at absolutely no cost to itself, but there is a definite cost to putting ten million boxes of Windows Vista on the shelf) over undefined revenue.
Microsoft knows that Dell will buy 50 million licenses a year- that's a much better deal for Microsoft than hoping that the 60 million boxed copies of Vista they put on the shelf might or might not sell.
Firstly, it's linguistically incorrect to call it a tax. A tax, by definition, is a charge imposed by a government.
However, that point aside, your argument is not new. All organized economic systems will gravitate toward monopoly and all systems, period, will gravitate toward homogeneity without an external guiding force. The advantages, in both cases, are simply too large to ignore.
This is especially true in software. It's not even that Microsft has to conspire against you. Compatibility is simply so important, and the easiest way to be compatible is for everyone to have the same thing. There is enormous impetus for everyone to adopt the market leader in software in order to maintain that same compatibility.
Now, whether or not Microsoft is purposefully stopping their opponents from being compatible, they probably are, although I think it's nowhere near as bad as some people claim. Microsoft is a large, almost monolithic entity, and it is very slow to adapt. Given the speed at which other organizations can, and have in the past adapted, I think there are many other forces in play preventing ultimate compatibility with Microsoft systems, some of which are more significant, than Microsoft's obstinate 'conspiracy'.
Can we please keep the nutcase conspiracy wanking down to a dull roar?
This argument applies to anything... for example, healthcare service provisioning. And yet the argument is ultimately uncompelling. If you compare universal healthcare to market-based health care, in almost every metric universal health care in the western world comes out better overall, despite being, almost by nature, a monopoly at one level or another.
There are, indeed, overhead costs that arise. But these costs, in many cases, are not sufficient to outweigh the simple gains of homogeneity that arises through monopoly.
Perhaps, but you certainly haven't proven such a claim.
This is entirely supposition, but more importantly, it's based on a chain of events that's never been shown to actually occur in a lot of the developing world. Places like India, with developed computer-sience industries don't start making their money by selling to theselves. They make their money by doing work for foreign organizations cheaper. The problem is, Linux doesn't pay very well.
Possibly. Providing services like that, however, requires significant infrastructure investment, and in fact, the OLPC people are not, to my knowledge, training anyone at all to do anything. They are merely providing laptops. Suggesting that poor villagers will get into software development and support to support their families is ridiculous, in my opinion.
However, you really ignored my primary point. Linux adds nothing of value. Open Source is not valuable to people in the developing world. Microsoft, however, goes in and throws around buckets of money- both Microsoft's and the Gates Foundation's- and that is valuable.
That's why those places choose Microsoft. Because it's 'better'. There's more value.
For much the same reason as large organizations get deep, deep discounts on anything else and individuals don't. Economies of scale.
As for the versioning, it's worth nothing that while there are... six? versions of Windows, Microsoft has not attempted, nor expects, that all of those versions of windows can be bought by all people. For 99% of home users, there are two versions- Home Premium and Ultimate.
For 99% of Business uses, there are three versions- Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Enterprise is available solely through Software Assurance, and provides a variety of licensing and support benefits not otherwise available... but again, if you're licensing from Microsoft via SA, you've got people who know which version is best for you.
There are a lot of versions out there, no doubt about it. It's not a good thing. But it's not like Microsoft just dumped six different versions on store shelves and said "Go buy!"
That was not exactly what I was referring to when I said 'free and open access to information'... information, like any tool, can be used as a weapon. I'm not in favor of wandering down the street handing out fully loaded assault rifles to passers-by, so why should I be in favor of handing out copies of "The Prepatory Manual of Explosives"?
Possibly. I'm not necessarily convinced that free and open access to information is necessary... or even useful.
However, IMNSHO, that's not what Open Source is about anyway. Open Source has really never been terribly important for your average person; all of its important freedoms relate to developers. The freedom to sprout wings and fly away is irrelevant to people who have no ability to sprout wings and fly away, and in the same manner, the vast majority of computer users (and this percentage is growing, not shrinking) are not developers. Open Source, arguably, does not strive to protect them or provide open and free access to them.
Microsoft's tactics are primarily profit-driven, of course. But Microsoft is no longer a booming growth organization like it once was; it must shift its goals toward long-term sustainability and medium growth, and this it has tried to do. You'll notice this in the fact that Microsoft's licensing fees are not terribly high. The vast majority of users, in fact, do not pay these fees on anything but an irregular basis, and the fees they do pay, which are rolled into OEM machines, are so low when spread across the time involved that Microsoft's 'raping license fees' work out for your average user somewhere between $20-$30 per year, I would imagine.
Is free cheaper? Certainly! But it's patently obvious that Microsoft hardly rapes their customer base with license fees. This is especially true in developing countries where copyright infringement runs entirely rampant. Huge numbers of people would rather pirate Windows in the developing world than run Linux, and I think that says something about Microsoft's sustainability strategy.
Ultimately, I think Microsoft's attempts here, and in various other places across the globe is merely an attempt by the organization to replace its pirated software with licensed software, by making it clear what benefit partnership with Microsoft brings, including huge rebates and funding sponsorships. The problem is that Linux doesn't bring huge wads of cash with it. The value of open source software is intangible and arguably non-existent to a lot of these people.
As opposed to the equally blatantly stated "Spread the use of Linux and the open source philosophy"?
They're both attempting to do the same thing... but apparently, Microsoft has more money to throw at the problem.
But...but... but.. What about my freedom to tell people lies and break my word?!
I didn't say math and civics were bullshit. I said they were as much bullshit as you want them to be, which is a totally different thing.
By being the kind of person who already contributes sufficiently to the community that they do not need to take on additional community service work in order to get their hours.
It demonstrates that you have fulfilled the objectives of the requirement, much like demonstrating on a test that you can do calculus demonstrates you have met the objectives of Calculus 101.
Not go to school.
What happens if one wishes to exercise the freedom to abstain from paying taxes?
Shouldn't such a freedom exist in a 'free' society?
What happens... is the IRS comes and locks you up.
There is no necessity that such a freedom should exist in a free society.
Mandatory community service is, like any other high school degree requirement, just as much bullshit as you want it to be. Do you get paid for taking math classes? Or civics classes? Of course not. It's just a requirement for graduation.
Where I went to school, it was necessary to do 10 hours per year of community service... I did 150. Not through any particularly large expenditure of effort on my part. I think it was 2.5 hours a week one evening a week plus a weekend. There were people out there who put in triple or quadruple that without much trouble- per year.
Moreover, it was one of the rare things at the time that had a chance to put a kid in a position of authority. And that was a really good thing.
Eh? I divided 20,000 by 24 and got 833 days of 24 hour continuous use. Which is really closer to six-plus years of life, even if you assume 8-hour days, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
Then you have no right to live, and whoever can kill you should do so.
That's one of the most irresponsible positions in existence. Health care is a social good, and what's good for society is good for everyone in society.
(By the way, it's also part of the bread and circuses. Makes the people less likely to get uppity.)
The reality of privatization is Enron, the housing bubble, the stock market... need I go on?
The reality of privatization is that private companies are only out to make a buck, not provide you health care services. They'll try and cheat you every single way they can.
VeriSign, by the way, is absolutely no exception to this. They've pulled tons of dirty tricks in their time.
Their loss.
Chartered corporations have existed for more than 300 years. I believe the earliest dates to the mid 1300s. Certainly, the British East India Company had legal rights as an entity, as did the Hudson's Bay Company. The laws (and rights) of corporations dates from the late 18th century in the English legal texts.
What particular rights are you referring to, and can you narrow it down to a specific time frame?
Nothing, so long as the speakers can be held accountable.
I have no problem with anonymity so long as accountability exists. I do have a problem with speech without accountability. It creates a situation where people feel that, given there are no repercussions to their speech, they can say anything they like- regardless of how defamatory, inciteful, or otherwise dangerous it may be.
That, I cannot abide.
Um, lolwut? Corporations did not exist? Or large corporations did not exist?
Like, say, the Hudson's Bay Company, who at the time the Constitution was written, as with the British East India Company, probably had a greater ability to project force than most countries, and at various times in the past had actually exercised governmental functions?
Does Microsoft operate a fleet of warships and control its own country now?
It is neither desirable nor easily practical to conceal the identity of the accused; in fact, it is desirable and practical for the opposite to happen.
What do you have against people being able to publicly confront their accusers and be confronted in turn?