With the BSD license, the creator of a derivative work can only "hide" his or her changes. The original is still available. If someone makes improvements, they belong to that person; he or she should have a choice of sharing them or not. To try to force him or her to give up that work with no compensation is confiscation, pure and simple. This is what the GPL tries to do: confiscate programmers' work using the government's guns and courts.
Faced with the possibility that there just might be supporters of some environment other than Linux here (or at the show), the flamers and spammers are out in force.
Frankly, I'm very glad that BSD will have a presence at LinuxWorld. While Linux is a pretty good OS (or, rather, OS kernel), it is licensed under the GPL -- a license whose purpose and function is to destroy programmers' livelihoods and undermine commercial software businesses.
It's unfortunate that Linux, by adopting his license, has become part of Richard Stallman's destructive and unethical agenda. But it has, and since Stallman's stated goal is to stamp out all consumer choice (oddly, the same goal that Microsoft has embraced), it's a very good thing that the BSDs are there to prevent him from succeeding. BSD is the technically and ethically superior alternative, and we should all encourage its growth.
Even Cygnus, which has always promoted GPLed software, recognized that the GPL's anti-business nature and "viral" terms made it the wrong choice for an embedded OS. Hence the eCOS license, which is much different.
As an embedded system developer, you cannot afford to use anything GPLed. PicoBSD, QNX, and other OSes without "poison pill" licenses are better choices in this realm.
Interesting how RedHat makes quite a bit of money from GPLled software
Red Hat has never made a dime. In fact, it has been losing millions of dollars per employee.
What's more, it does not own its own products! Anyone can publish the same code as Red Hat. The company therefore has virtually no assets as well as no profits.
This does not seem like a good argument for using the GNU Public Virus. In fact, it's a great argument against it.
Look at the many companies who have attempted Windows shell replacements. Quarterdeck? Now bought and gone. Symantec? They dropped it for lack of interest. And so it goes. Replacement shells for Windows aren't a "cutthroat arena;" they're a Quixotic, ultimately wasted effort.
Historically, doing a replacement Windows shell has been a misguided last-ditch effort of utility companies whose products Microsoft has copied and given away for free. It's not a hot market at all. Companies find little interest from customers. (How many Windows machines do you see running replacement shells? Virtually none.) And Microsoft does very well at making sure that none of them are fully compatible.
In short, the "excuse" which these people are making for GPLing the code is bogus. It's a bad idea to GPL code to begin with, since the GPL is the embodiment of a spiteful anti-business agenda. But it's worse still to attempt to restrict an interface! Do the project under the MIT X license, and open both the code and the interface to the world -- open source, closed source, anyone. It works for X, and it's the only thing that makes sense for an open source GUI.
It's interesting to see that the same people who scream bloody murder when Microsoft fails to reveal its interfaces now want to restrict others' use of their interfaces.
This is hypocritical. Interfaces should be open -- to open source developers, to closed source developers, to everyone. If someone -- anyone -- wants to use them, he or she should be able to do so.
Fortunately, interfaces -- unlike code -- are not subject to copyright. The GPL cannot and will not protect them any more than the Microsoft EULA.
What's scarier, though, is the extremism and hypocrisy we see here. Followers of Stallman -- whose agenda already includes driving commercial software companies out of business via anti-competitive practices -- appear to want to adoptyet another leaf from Microsoft's playbook in their attempt to destroy commercial programmers' livelihoods and businesses. Why is it more ethical for the FSF to keep its interfaces proprietary or to run worthy programmers out of business than it is for Microsoft to do this? The answer: It's not. As a project leader, the author of the message which started this discussion should maintain high ethical standards and refuse to yield to such an agenda.
I understand the pressures of business and of trying to manage a difficult environment such as Slashdot.
However, my nominations were made during that two-week period, and several of the same people or projects were also made by others. Therefore, I cannot understand why they were omitted from the ballot. There was certainly room for more choices!
Among the people to whom I've spoken, there seems to be general disappointment with the selection on the ballot. Some have accused Slashdot of favoring "the usual suspects" -- Stallman, the FSF, etc. -- because the Slashdot crew may feel that it owes its new-found wealth to the hordes of "Linux faithful." I don't think that's so, but the ballot choices certainly would support that assertion! I'd still encourage you to open up the voting -- and perhaps to circulate ballots at the show. (When's your awards ceremony?)
It sounds like the reasons people give for anti-Semitism and other racist sentiment....
Irrelevant to the argument at hand. I prove my point above, and you respond ad hominem by calling me an anti-Semite or a racist!
You think that you should have a monopoly to make costly software,
Now another ad hominem attack: telling me what I "think" -- incorrectly -- and accusing me of being a monopolist.
and anyone who makes less costly or free software is unfairly destroying your livelyhood.
Another provably incorrect claim. As I've mentioned many times, it's the GPL that targets livelihoods. Other open source licenses, such as the MIT X license and BSD license, do not because they are not exclusionary.
That's competition, Brett.
No, it is anti-competitive. Just as Microsoft is, while all the time claiming that it is merely "competing aggressively."
If it happens that you lost, you weren't looking while we went by.
Another insult that does nothing to bolster any argument you might be trying to make. In fact, your entire message appears to be nothing but a series of attempts at personal attacks.
I know of three people who think more or less the way you do. One of them can actually program and seems to be a benefit to society sometimes. Two of them consider themselves hackers and bemoan that they are prevented from making a living by RMS and the GNU crowd, but try as I might I can't find any software that they've made. And this is at the same time that my own company is advertising a $100,000/year position for someone to do free software, and will advertise more.
All anecdotal and irrelevant to the point at hand. The fact is that the GPL is the instrument of a spiteful, malicious, and therefore unethical agenda -- a point which you cannot refute because there's ample proof. And you are actively supporting that agenda and thereby doing harm. If you are ethical, you should stop.
I call that making money. In fact, it's difficult to find good free software writers who aren't making something like that already, these days.
Actually, companies like your own -- and others, such as Red Hat -- are not making money. They're losing it. The money they spend on salaries was taken from stockholders, not earned.
Brett, how did we leave you behind?
You didn't. I've refused to participate in unethical activities. Writing GPLed software is unethical, because the GPL is designed to turn open source -- otherwise a good thing -- into a weapon against a specific group of people against whom Richard Stallman bears a grudge.
Don't you realize that these days, the way to make the most money is writing Linux and Free Software?
Maybe ethics matter more to me than to "make the most money."
The fact is, Bruce, that the companies to which you refer are not making money. They do not even own what they sell! This is not a good business proposition. I intend to make money off of sound and ethical activities. I will not contribute to any GPLed software -- ever. And I will use it only as a matter of necessity, until such time as I can avoid it altogether.
It sounds as if you're blaming us for your own failings.
Again, an ad hominem attack. I haven't "failed" at anything. What I am doing is sounding a warning which intelligent and ethical people should heed.
I'm surprised to see a message like yours from a person who is said to be a key evangelist for open source. Look what you're saying and doing! The way you're coming across, you seem to be so much in denial about the aims of the GPL that even after I've demonstrated irrefutably what they are, you feel the need to attack me personally instead of following the argument to its obvious and inescapable conclusion. We must face facts, Bruce: the GPL is an instrument of spite designed to hurt people. Honest people who want to make an honest living. It is therefore unethical to use or support it.
And, therefore, I won't attack others out of spite or malice, as Stallman did -- and continues to do via the GPL.
Is Stallman out to get me personally? No, he hasn't singled me out. His goal is to destroy the livelihoods of all commercial programmers. In a recent interview with Forbes magazine, he gloated over the fact that he had hurt a new business that was struggling to make money:
[Stallman] retaliated [against the computer scientists who left the MIT AI Lab to form Symbolics] by sabotaging his former colleagues' sophisticated commercial programs for powerful computers, singlehandedly hacking up his own versions and giving them away. "They accused me of costing them millions of dollars," he says. "I hope it's true."
In short, the GPL was created out of spite -- pure and simple. Of course, in order to encourage its spread, Stallman must deny this -- and so he does.
GNU is not Microsoft, part of the essence of freedom is that you don't even have to choose freedom when it's offered to you on a plate via GNU.
Ironically, the GPL -- and the FSF -- use the same methods as Microsoft to destroy legitimate and creative small businesses and to deprive users of choice. The GPL does not bring "freedom" at all -- in fact, it keeps open source from the very people who could use it most productively.
The only "freedom" the GPL offers developers, especially when compared to true open source licenses such as the MIT X license, is "freedom" from being able to be paid for their work.
Brett, if you say he's out to deny you a livelyhood fast enough, it might sound to you as if it makes sense, maybe.
Sorry, Bruce, but there's incontravertible evidence that this is so. In his essay The GNU Manifesto, he explicitly states that the purpose of his "GNU" project -- and the GPL -- is to make it impossible for programmers to make a better salary than they could as graduate students in academia.
Stallman writes:
For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could have had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: fame and appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a reward in itself.
Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same interesting work for a lot of money.
What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.
This is right from the horse's mouth -- written in one of his more candid moments and posted on his own Web site. Q.E.D.
If you don't like the GPL, all you need do is not use GPL code as part of your program. We are not forcing you to use it.
Funny: Microsoft makes this same argument about Windows.
Alas, due to misinformation about the GPL (which, alas, I fear that you and ESR are perpetuating by not speaking out about this outrage), it is spreading like a cancer. It is literally becoming as impossible to avoid GPLed software in the UNIX world as it once was to avoid buying Windows with an IBM-compatible PC. No, more difficult. Why? Because the GPL's predatory nature has done more to stamp out competition in the realms of UNIX development tools and utilities than even Microsoft.
You may license your own code any way you like.
This is not sufficient to stop the GPL's deleterious effects. It is important to encourage others not to stamp the GPL on their code, and to create non-GPLed open source products that can be used to replace GPLed ones.
I really take issue with your calling RMS unethical.
Do you think it's ethical to attempt to destroy others' businesses and livelihoods because of a 20-year-old petty grudge? I don't.
If we were to compare RMS' achievements with yours, I'm afraid you'd not measure up.
If you measure "achievement" by how much one has hurt others, you are right: I don't measure up. And am very glad not to. I won't sacrifice ethics for fame, fortune, or power, as Stallman has done.
RMS invested his MacArthur money so that it would support him for life as a free software advocate.
This is ironic, since his stated goal as a "free software advocate" is to deny others a livelihood!
This is sad. If Stallman were ethical, he would not accept the money but instead put himself in the place of those of us who do not get million dollar grants and are trying to make an honest living writing software. But the grant he was given puts him in the same class as Bill Gates: he doesn't care, because he no longer has to. Now that he has support for life, he feels even more free to prevent the rest of us for getting anywhere near that status.
Jordan Hubbard does a lot of good and hard work. But he's hardly unsung! He is treated with great reverence, especially on the BSD mailing lists, and is always being "drafted" as a spokesman for FreeBSD and BSD UNIX in general.
Jordan is worthy of an award, no question. But I'd prefer to see him get an award for being a good team leader and give the award for "unsung hero" to Brian. I'll vote for Jordan if the ballot isn't changed (one of the few categories from which I won't abstain). But if he wins this category it'll really be because people thing he deserves some kind of award and not because this is the best category for him.
Some of the best candidates for these awards are not on the ballot.
OpenBSD, for example, was left out of the "most improved" category, despite the security audit that made them the most secure OS in existence. Tim O'Reilly was left out of the advocacy category. Brian Behlendorf, whose Apache project has the distinction of achieving the largest market share of any open source project, was left out of the "unsung hero" category. And what's this about Richard Stallman for "Best dressed?" Unless the intent is to make a sarcastic joke at his expense, this is silly. The FreeBSD Daemon Girl (see http://www.gci-net.com/~u sers/f/fluke/comdex/bsdgirl1.jpg) got my nomination. But she wasn't included on the ballot, even though I both mentioned her in the discussion and entered her into the form.
When I e-mailed Rob Malda asking why none of these folks appeared on the ballot, he said that nominations had been closed and that it was "too late." However, I did mention these candidates in plenty of time in the nomination discussions, and entered all of them on the nomination Web form! Other people also recommended them in the discussions.
I certainly hope that these folks were not excluded from the ballot because the awards were actually intended to go to specific people or only people from certain organizations. (With only one or two exceptions, only people involved with Linux or FSF projects appear on the ballot.) Since Andover is spending enough to buy a house on these awards ($100,000 for the awards themselves and probably about $50,000 on space at the convention, advertising, etc.), they should include candidates such as these. Currently, my ballot mostly says "Abstain" -- and I bet I'm not the only one!
Since this is the Web, it's never too late to add candidates or allow write-ins. How about it, guys? It's sure better than winding up with people who aren't the readers' choices.
Please name a "big player" who hasn't got involved in Samba:-).
Ask Terry Lambert why IBM bought Whistle instead of a Linux company. Or how it treats the GPL even now.
The reason why IBM is holding Linux at arm's length -- and so many other companies give it lip service but are hesitant to integrate it into products -- is the GPL. It's a license motivated by spite, and its entire raison d'être is to put companies out of business and destroy programmers' livelihoods.
Folks from at least one of the companies you mention above have told me frankly that they tolerate the GPL because they perceive jumping on the Linux bandwagon as important to their short-term business opportunities. But at the same time, they believe it's necessary (and I think they're right!) to "firewall" their IP against the GPL.
By adopting the GPL, you're making yourself an enemy rather than a true ally. Some of these guys will sleep with the enemy if they must. (That's why they've gotten involved with Microsoft -- to their peril!) But if you really want their help, it is best not to do that. Don't adopt a license whose purpose is to stab them in the back, and you'll get their full support. And the support of folks like me, who won't touch GPLed code both as a matter of principle and as a practical matter. If there's any alternative, we won't run GPLed code.... And we certainly won't contribute to it. We believe, very strongly, that it would be unethical to do so.
When I think of this situation, an old saying comes to mind: "If you want to look like a leader, find a parade and jump in front of it."
This is what Richard Stallman is doing -- literally -- when he seeks to have people call Linux "GNU/Linux."
Linux did what Stallman could not: popularize the notion of a freely distributed open source operating system. The fact that it uses a license which is close to Stallman's is an accident of history. (Had Linus been aware of the history of the GPL and the FSF, he would likely not have chosen the GPL as the license for Linux. Alas, due to the GPL's "lock-in" effects, it's now too late. )
In any event, as you say, "GNU" isn't an operating system; it is Richard Stallman's attempt to start a political movement. The purpose of that movement, according to Stallman's own writings, was to so hurt commercial programmers that they couldn't earn a salary higher than that which a grad student makes in academia.
Version 4.0 is about to go into code freeze, and several people have been working on TCP/IP optimizations for 3.x-STABLE and 4.0.
I'd like to see Samba better integrated with FreeBSD. I also think that the Samba team should consider Apache-like licensing, as this would get some more of the big players interested in assisting the Samba development effort as they have Apache.
It's time-tested, heavily optimized, and built like an embedded operating system rather than a general-purpose operating system. It darn well ought to be better at file and print service, since -- to paraphrase the movie The Terminator -- "That's all it does." (While you can add NLMs to make it do a few other things, they rarely function as well as a separate server.)
One reason why Novell did so well is that general-purpose operating systems use preemptive multitasking, while Netware uses cooperative multitasking. The latter is several times more efficient, because processes are not interrupted at "inconvenient" times and context switches can be made inexpensive. But cooperative multitasking requires very careful tuning and debugging. Novell has taken the time to do this.
Linux's degradation under very heavy loads was reported by The Gartner Group more than a year ago in a carefully documented study.
I'm surprised and disappointed that IDG did not test FreeBSD, which was recommended by The Gartner Group after its evaluation. Gartner recommended it specifically because it handled high loads better than Linux.
I wonder if this bespeaks an anti-BSD bias on the part of IDG. The company does, after all, publish LinuxWorld and run LinuxWorld Expo. I certainly hope that they did not cut BSD out of the running for this reason.
The GPL is based on the notion of using existing copyright to provide legal teeth to the basic "play nice" notion of copyleft.
"Copyleft" is not a "play nice" notion at all. (As Richard Stallman himself puts it, "The GPL is not Mr. Nice Guy.") "Copyleft" is an attempt to destroy programmers' livelihoods and hurt commercial developers.
This was confusing, IMHO, and caused bad results. Most readers (including myself!) were given the impression that postings in the discussion were equivalent to nominations.
The result is a rather disappointing ballot. Some of the best candidates mentioned in the discussion are not on it.
Since Andover is likely spending about $150,000 on this project ($100,000 in awards plus around $50,000 on space at the conference, promotion, employee time, etc.), it is a shame to see that they're not getting their money's worth -- and neither are their readers. If you spend enough on awards to buy a decent house, you ought to have a big ballot with lots of good choices.
They can turn this around by allowing write-ins and/or expanding the ballot and encouraging readers to go back and consider the new choices. (This is the Internet, after all; nothing's immutable.)
Unless this changes, expect a lot of people to vote "Abstain.... Abstain.... Abstain...."Well, it's not my first choice, but at least I recognize this one...." Abstain.... "I don't know who this one is, but the name's cool...." Abstain...."
Followers of Richard Stallman often condemn software patents as universally bad. But the advent of "RSA Day" shows at least one way in which they may be beneficial. Due to the expiration of the patent, RSA is being tested as never before by the very best experts in the industry, who will be strongly motivated to break it. And if any chinks are found in the armor, they're certain to be publicized and not held as precious secrets, since the cryptographers only stand to gain by revealing their discoveries. This is very good news. If RSA holds up, we can be more sure than ever that it's a strong algorithm. See Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Prime at http://boardwatch.internet.com/mag/99/dec/bwm62.html.
Regardless of what license you choose for your code -- or even if you do not release it as open source -- there is always a risk of a competitor getting a bad patent. To claim that a license other than the GPL increases this risk is misleading.
Regardless of what license you choose for your code -- or even if you do not release it as open source -- there is always a risk of a competitor getting a bad patent. To claim that the GPL increases this risk is misleading.
The GPL has never been tested in court. In particular, the GPL's unusual "copyleft" provisions (as Stallman calls them) are most likely invalid. Other portions are suspect as well.
The X11 or BSD licenses, by contrast, says what they mean and that's that. Under these licenses, you know your rights. With the GPL, you can't be sure.
Slashdot Mirror
This is neither fair nor just.
--Brett Glass
Frankly, I'm very glad that BSD will have a presence at LinuxWorld. While Linux is a pretty good OS (or, rather, OS kernel), it is licensed under the GPL -- a license whose purpose and function is to destroy programmers' livelihoods and undermine commercial software businesses.
It's unfortunate that Linux, by adopting his license, has become part of Richard Stallman's destructive and unethical agenda. But it has, and since Stallman's stated goal is to stamp out all consumer choice (oddly, the same goal that Microsoft has embraced), it's a very good thing that the BSDs are there to prevent him from succeeding. BSD is the technically and ethically superior alternative, and we should all encourage its growth.
--Brett Glass
As an embedded system developer, you cannot afford to use anything GPLed. PicoBSD, QNX, and other OSes without "poison pill" licenses are better choices in this realm.
--Brett Glass
Red Hat has never made a dime. In fact, it has been losing millions of dollars per employee.
What's more, it does not own its own products! Anyone can publish the same code as Red Hat. The company therefore has virtually no assets as well as no profits.
This does not seem like a good argument for using the GNU Public Virus. In fact, it's a great argument against it.
--Brett
Historically, doing a replacement Windows shell has been a misguided last-ditch effort of utility companies whose products Microsoft has copied and given away for free. It's not a hot market at all. Companies find little interest from customers. (How many Windows machines do you see running replacement shells? Virtually none.) And Microsoft does very well at making sure that none of them are fully compatible.
In short, the "excuse" which these people are making for GPLing the code is bogus. It's a bad idea to GPL code to begin with, since the GPL is the embodiment of a spiteful anti-business agenda. But it's worse still to attempt to restrict an interface! Do the project under the MIT X license, and open both the code and the interface to the world -- open source, closed source, anyone. It works for X, and it's the only thing that makes sense for an open source GUI.
--Brett Glass
This is hypocritical. Interfaces should be open -- to open source developers, to closed source developers, to everyone. If someone -- anyone -- wants to use them, he or she should be able to do so.
Fortunately, interfaces -- unlike code -- are not subject to copyright. The GPL cannot and will not protect them any more than the Microsoft EULA.
What's scarier, though, is the extremism and hypocrisy we see here. Followers of Stallman -- whose agenda already includes driving commercial software companies out of business via anti-competitive practices -- appear to want to adoptyet another leaf from Microsoft's playbook in their attempt to destroy commercial programmers' livelihoods and businesses. Why is it more ethical for the FSF to keep its interfaces proprietary or to run worthy programmers out of business than it is for Microsoft to do this? The answer: It's not. As a project leader, the author of the message which started this discussion should maintain high ethical standards and refuse to yield to such an agenda.
--Brett
However, my nominations were made during that two-week period, and several of the same people or projects were also made by others. Therefore, I cannot understand why they were omitted from the ballot. There was certainly room for more choices!
Among the people to whom I've spoken, there seems to be general disappointment with the selection on the ballot. Some have accused Slashdot of favoring "the usual suspects" -- Stallman, the FSF, etc. -- because the Slashdot crew may feel that it owes its new-found wealth to the hordes of "Linux faithful." I don't think that's so, but the ballot choices certainly would support that assertion! I'd still encourage you to open up the voting -- and perhaps to circulate ballots at the show. (When's your awards ceremony?)
--Brett Glass
Irrelevant to the argument at hand. I prove my point above, and you respond ad hominem by calling me an anti-Semite or a racist!
You think that you should have a monopoly to make costly software,
Now another ad hominem attack: telling me what I "think" -- incorrectly -- and accusing me of being a monopolist.
and anyone who makes less costly or free software is unfairly destroying your livelyhood.
Another provably incorrect claim. As I've mentioned many times, it's the GPL that targets livelihoods. Other open source licenses, such as the MIT X license and BSD license, do not because they are not exclusionary.
That's competition, Brett.
No, it is anti-competitive. Just as Microsoft is, while all the time claiming that it is merely "competing aggressively."
If it happens that you lost, you weren't looking while we went by.
Another insult that does nothing to bolster any argument you might be trying to make. In fact, your entire message appears to be nothing but a series of attempts at personal attacks.
I know of three people who think more or less the way you do. One of them can actually program and seems to be a benefit to society sometimes. Two of them consider themselves hackers and bemoan that they are prevented from making a living by RMS and the GNU crowd, but try as I might I can't find any software that they've made. And this is at the same time that my own company is advertising a $100,000/year position for someone to do free software, and will advertise more.
All anecdotal and irrelevant to the point at hand. The fact is that the GPL is the instrument of a spiteful, malicious, and therefore unethical agenda -- a point which you cannot refute because there's ample proof. And you are actively supporting that agenda and thereby doing harm. If you are ethical, you should stop.
I call that making money. In fact, it's difficult to find good free software writers who aren't making something like that already, these days.
Actually, companies like your own -- and others, such as Red Hat -- are not making money. They're losing it. The money they spend on salaries was taken from stockholders, not earned.
Brett, how did we leave you behind?
You didn't. I've refused to participate in unethical activities. Writing GPLed software is unethical, because the GPL is designed to turn open source -- otherwise a good thing -- into a weapon against a specific group of people against whom Richard Stallman bears a grudge.
Don't you realize that these days, the way to make the most money is writing Linux and Free Software?
Maybe ethics matter more to me than to "make the most money."
The fact is, Bruce, that the companies to which you refer are not making money. They do not even own what they sell! This is not a good business proposition. I intend to make money off of sound and ethical activities. I will not contribute to any GPLed software -- ever. And I will use it only as a matter of necessity, until such time as I can avoid it altogether.
It sounds as if you're blaming us for your own failings.
Again, an ad hominem attack. I haven't "failed" at anything. What I am doing is sounding a warning which intelligent and ethical people should heed.
I'm surprised to see a message like yours from a person who is said to be a key evangelist for open source. Look what you're saying and doing! The way you're coming across, you seem to be so much in denial about the aims of the GPL that even after I've demonstrated irrefutably what they are, you feel the need to attack me personally instead of following the argument to its obvious and inescapable conclusion. We must face facts, Bruce: the GPL is an instrument of spite designed to hurt people. Honest people who want to make an honest living. It is therefore unethical to use or support it.
--Brett Glass
Is Stallman out to get me personally? No, he hasn't singled me out. His goal is to destroy the livelihoods of all commercial programmers. In a recent interview with Forbes magazine, he gloated over the fact that he had hurt a new business that was struggling to make money:
In short, the GPL was created out of spite -- pure and simple. Of course, in order to encourage its spread, Stallman must deny this -- and so he does.
GNU is not Microsoft, part of the essence of freedom is that you don't even have to choose freedom when it's offered to you on a plate via GNU.
Ironically, the GPL -- and the FSF -- use the same methods as Microsoft to destroy legitimate and creative small businesses and to deprive users of choice. The GPL does not bring "freedom" at all -- in fact, it keeps open source from the very people who could use it most productively.
The only "freedom" the GPL offers developers, especially when compared to true open source licenses such as the MIT X license, is "freedom" from being able to be paid for their work.
Stallman is likewise opposed to authors' rights.
--Brett Glass
I guess you didn't look at the picture.
--Brett
Sorry, Bruce, but there's incontravertible evidence that this is so. In his essay The GNU Manifesto , he explicitly states that the purpose of his "GNU" project -- and the GPL -- is to make it impossible for programmers to make a better salary than they could as graduate students in academia.
Stallman writes:
This is right from the horse's mouth -- written in one of his more candid moments and posted on his own Web site. Q.E.D.
If you don't like the GPL, all you need do is not use GPL code as part of your program. We are not forcing you to use it.
Funny: Microsoft makes this same argument about Windows.
Alas, due to misinformation about the GPL (which, alas, I fear that you and ESR are perpetuating by not speaking out about this outrage), it is spreading like a cancer. It is literally becoming as impossible to avoid GPLed software in the UNIX world as it once was to avoid buying Windows with an IBM-compatible PC. No, more difficult. Why? Because the GPL's predatory nature has done more to stamp out competition in the realms of UNIX development tools and utilities than even Microsoft.
You may license your own code any way you like.
This is not sufficient to stop the GPL's deleterious effects. It is important to encourage others not to stamp the GPL on their code, and to create non-GPLed open source products that can be used to replace GPLed ones.
I really take issue with your calling RMS unethical.
Do you think it's ethical to attempt to destroy others' businesses and livelihoods because of a 20-year-old petty grudge? I don't.
If we were to compare RMS' achievements with yours, I'm afraid you'd not measure up.
If you measure "achievement" by how much one has hurt others, you are right: I don't measure up. And am very glad not to. I won't sacrifice ethics for fame, fortune, or power, as Stallman has done.
--Brett Glass
This is ironic, since his stated goal as a "free software advocate" is to deny others a livelihood!
This is sad. If Stallman were ethical, he would not accept the money but instead put himself in the place of those of us who do not get million dollar grants and are trying to make an honest living writing software. But the grant he was given puts him in the same class as Bill Gates: he doesn't care, because he no longer has to. Now that he has support for life, he feels even more free to prevent the rest of us for getting anywhere near that status.
--Brett Glass
Jordan is worthy of an award, no question. But I'd prefer to see him get an award for being a good team leader and give the award for "unsung hero" to Brian. I'll vote for Jordan if the ballot isn't changed (one of the few categories from which I won't abstain). But if he wins this category it'll really be because people thing he deserves some kind of award and not because this is the best category for him.
--Brett
OpenBSD, for example, was left out of the "most improved" category, despite the security audit that made them the most secure OS in existence. Tim O'Reilly was left out of the advocacy category. Brian Behlendorf, whose Apache project has the distinction of achieving the largest market share of any open source project, was left out of the "unsung hero" category. And what's this about Richard Stallman for "Best dressed?" Unless the intent is to make a sarcastic joke at his expense, this is silly. The FreeBSD Daemon Girl (see http://www.gci-net.com/~u sers/f/fluke/comdex/bsdgirl1.jpg) got my nomination. But she wasn't included on the ballot, even though I both mentioned her in the discussion and entered her into the form.
When I e-mailed Rob Malda asking why none of these folks appeared on the ballot, he said that nominations had been closed and that it was "too late." However, I did mention these candidates in plenty of time in the nomination discussions, and entered all of them on the nomination Web form! Other people also recommended them in the discussions.
I certainly hope that these folks were not excluded from the ballot because the awards were actually intended to go to specific people or only people from certain organizations. (With only one or two exceptions, only people involved with Linux or FSF projects appear on the ballot.) Since Andover is spending enough to buy a house on these awards ($100,000 for the awards themselves and probably about $50,000 on space at the convention, advertising, etc.), they should include candidates such as these. Currently, my ballot mostly says "Abstain" -- and I bet I'm not the only one!
Since this is the Web, it's never too late to add candidates or allow write-ins. How about it, guys? It's sure better than winding up with people who aren't the readers' choices.
--Brett Glass
Ask Terry Lambert why IBM bought Whistle instead of a Linux company. Or how it treats the GPL even now.
The reason why IBM is holding Linux at arm's length -- and so many other companies give it lip service but are hesitant to integrate it into products -- is the GPL. It's a license motivated by spite, and its entire raison d'être is to put companies out of business and destroy programmers' livelihoods.
Folks from at least one of the companies you mention above have told me frankly that they tolerate the GPL because they perceive jumping on the Linux bandwagon as important to their short-term business opportunities. But at the same time, they believe it's necessary (and I think they're right!) to "firewall" their IP against the GPL.
By adopting the GPL, you're making yourself an enemy rather than a true ally. Some of these guys will sleep with the enemy if they must. (That's why they've gotten involved with Microsoft -- to their peril!) But if you really want their help, it is best not to do that. Don't adopt a license whose purpose is to stab them in the back, and you'll get their full support. And the support of folks like me, who won't touch GPLed code both as a matter of principle and as a practical matter. If there's any alternative, we won't run GPLed code.... And we certainly won't contribute to it. We believe, very strongly, that it would be unethical to do so.
--Brett Glass
This is what Richard Stallman is doing -- literally -- when he seeks to have people call Linux "GNU/Linux."
Linux did what Stallman could not: popularize the notion of a freely distributed open source operating system. The fact that it uses a license which is close to Stallman's is an accident of history. (Had Linus been aware of the history of the GPL and the FSF, he would likely not have chosen the GPL as the license for Linux. Alas, due to the GPL's "lock-in" effects, it's now too late. )
In any event, as you say, "GNU" isn't an operating system; it is Richard Stallman's attempt to start a political movement. The purpose of that movement, according to Stallman's own writings, was to so hurt commercial programmers that they couldn't earn a salary higher than that which a grad student makes in academia.
--Brett Glass
I'd like to see Samba better integrated with FreeBSD. I also think that the Samba team should consider Apache-like licensing, as this would get some more of the big players interested in assisting the Samba development effort as they have Apache.
--Brett Glass
One reason why Novell did so well is that general-purpose operating systems use preemptive multitasking, while Netware uses cooperative multitasking. The latter is several times more efficient, because processes are not interrupted at "inconvenient" times and context switches can be made inexpensive. But cooperative multitasking requires very careful tuning and debugging. Novell has taken the time to do this.
Linux's degradation under very heavy loads was reported by The Gartner Group more than a year ago in a carefully documented study.
I'm surprised and disappointed that IDG did not test FreeBSD, which was recommended by The Gartner Group after its evaluation. Gartner recommended it specifically because it handled high loads better than Linux.
I wonder if this bespeaks an anti-BSD bias on the part of IDG. The company does, after all, publish LinuxWorld and run LinuxWorld Expo. I certainly hope that they did not cut BSD out of the running for this reason.
--Brett Glass
"Copyleft" is not a "play nice" notion at all. (As Richard Stallman himself puts it, "The GPL is not Mr. Nice Guy.") "Copyleft" is an attempt to destroy programmers' livelihoods and hurt commercial developers.
--Brett Glass
The result is a rather disappointing ballot. Some of the best candidates mentioned in the discussion are not on it.
Since Andover is likely spending about $150,000 on this project ($100,000 in awards plus around $50,000 on space at the conference, promotion, employee time, etc.), it is a shame to see that they're not getting their money's worth -- and neither are their readers. If you spend enough on awards to buy a decent house, you ought to have a big ballot with lots of good choices.
They can turn this around by allowing write-ins and/or expanding the ballot and encouraging readers to go back and consider the new choices. (This is the Internet, after all; nothing's immutable.)
Unless this changes, expect a lot of people to vote "Abstain.... Abstain.... Abstain...."Well, it's not my first choice, but at least I recognize this one...." Abstain.... "I don't know who this one is, but the name's cool...." Abstain...."
--Brett Glass
Followers of Richard Stallman often condemn software patents as universally bad. But the advent of "RSA Day" shows at least one way in which they may be beneficial. Due to the expiration of the patent, RSA is being tested as never before by the very best experts in the industry, who will be strongly motivated to break it. And if any chinks are found in the armor, they're certain to be publicized and not held as precious secrets, since the cryptographers only stand to gain by revealing their discoveries. This is very good news. If RSA holds up, we can be more sure than ever that it's a strong algorithm. See Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Prime at http://boardwatch.internet.com /mag/99/dec/bwm62.html.
The other message with the same title should stay.
--Brett Glass
--Brett Glass
The X11 or BSD licenses, by contrast, says what they mean and that's that. Under these licenses, you know your rights. With the GPL, you can't be sure.
--Brett Glass