Posted on 07/26/2004 8:35:06 AM PDT by GeorgiaFreeper
Yes. It also gives me most of the Unix-like goodness of Linux with the terminal window and X-Windows along with the ability to run MS Office, Canvas, and some other commercial software not available in a Linux port. Right now, the Mac is really the best of both worlds.
Who's complaining? If I could legally get good tools for free, are you trying to say it would be immoral to do so?
Don't give me any BS about there not being any extra costs associated with your "virtual copy" of the software.
It's not BS. The marginal cost of software is effectively zero. That's the fundamental nature of intellectual property and why analogies to physical property often fail.
How would the "charge for support model" work with gaming?
Possibly not well, although there's the Everquest model. That's irrelevant though, as nobody aside from a few zealots is saying all software *must* be free.
Yes, that's a lousy law. (What do you expect from CA?)
:) We agree on something!
That is my biggest fear with all of the OSS stuff. I am afraid the government will enact more laws like the "Digital Software Security Act" and eventually ruin the software business.
Only you can tell whether your time is worth the cost of writing the code, yourself. Fair or not, most people just can't code. And for those that can, only a subset of those are really any good at modifying other peoples' code. But if you can, more power to you. I tend to look at my time in terms of my hourly rate. If I can write the code within a reasonable amount of time, I'll do it; otherwise, I'd prefer to spend the time hanging out with my family or riding my bike. It's just a question of priorities.
Unless you license your code to them under different terms. The GPL is not an exclusive license.
Funny, that's almost the same argument AdTI is using against Linux. Because he made it on MINIX, it must be a derivitive of MINIX. No one with any sense claims that.
But otherwise the analogy falls apart because the tools are tangible items, non-reproducible without substantial cost. A closer analogy would be if I put out a design for a revolutionary tool and give everybody free license to reproduce it without royalties, but I say that any improvements to the tool design must also be freely licensed back to me (derivitive work). Basically, we're just cross-licensing, and that's what the GPL does -- if you want to get into the game you have to agree up front to cross licensing.
Sometimes zealotry overcomes practicality. Is the state going to run a complicated, multi-terabyte database with MySQL or Postgre, or run a graphics department with Gimp and Scribus? How about a document workflow and management system with, well, I don't know any OSS software that can do what Acrobat does. That's just plain stupid.
Now a law requiring departments to justify exclusion of OSS before buying proprietary software might save quite a bit of money. Such justification would be easy if it were true, for example it would take me one short list to justify Photoshop over Gimp for a print publishing organization, or InDesign over Scribus.
Actually, Gimp has a good plugin architecture now too, as well as pretty good scripting through it's language, Python or Perl. What Gimp lacks is high-end color, separations, PANTONE/HKS, a decent UI and workflow, and various other small things. Plus it doesn't have a unified color engine with other apps and good color management.
Now if you want to talk plugin architecture, check out InDesign. There is a small core framework and then everything, including the text compositing engine, is a plugin.
Well, ya know, people start these wars and then they act all surprised when the other guys shoot back. Personally, I am against using law and the court system as a toy with which to screw with people. But it's kind of like a First Use of nukes — once somebody does it, nukes are gonna fly from everywhere.
Perhaps you are unacquainted with the efforts of one Darl McBride — another one of these sociopathic thugs who has managed to become CEO of a company — to persuade the U.S. Congress that open source software needs to go away.
This was one of many ham-fisted moves that these idiots from SCO have pulled in their court-powered mud-and-FUD war on linux. Well, now they have a whole bunch of bright and energetic guys pissed off at them, and those guys turn out to be more resourceful than anticipated. That happens when you start a war. Ask Mullah Omar. Complaining about it now is kind of silly.
If the author was going to release it under a less restrictive license, then why wouldn't they do that in the first place? And if they are going to release it for commercial use for a fee, then it's not really "free", is it? You are trying to avoid the intent behind the GPL and FSF, which is to try to force authors to accept the GPL under their own work. I'm not arguing that doing so is illegal or wrong but that such a license is sticky and is intended to be, no matter how much you want to pretend it isn't.
And again, for the peanut gallery who thinks this issue only has two sides (Microsoft "kneepadders" and FSF shills), my objection is not to Open Source software. I use plenty of it and have promoted it at work. My objection is specifically to intended anti-commercial nature of the GPL and FSF. As much as I love my Macs, I won't deny that Steve Jobs is a liberal and has many traits that I don't like at all. GNU isn't the sum total of Open Source software. In fact, much of the Open Source software that I use is licensed under the BSD model. Whatever you or I think about Open Source software, I'm not about to deny that Richard Stallman and his GNU license are hostile to commercial software. If you can read the latest versions of the GPL and what Richard Stallman has written and honestly think otherwise, that's your business.
MySQL is a perfect example. The database is GPL licensed and is freely used on probably millions of servers around the world. This engenders good will, and the fact that it's free lets it spread fast, getting name recognition.
However, if someone wants to use MySQL but does not want to comply with the GPL, that person can get MySQL under a commercial license. Best of both worlds.
My point is that, contrary to Stallman's and Microsoft's beliefs, commercial and GPL software can easily coexist, even in those cases when it's the same software. BUT, contrary to the beliefs of MS shills, the GPL is not evil when approached pragmatically. The decision to consume or produce GPL software benefits all parties.
Yes, but I think PostgreSQL is a better example. It uses a BSD-like license and has been attracting funded development from the likes of Fujitsu. Given a choice between the MySQL license scheme (GPL or commercial license) or the PostgreSQL license scheme (BSD-based either way), I prefer the PostgreSQL model and think it is more commercial user friendly.
My point is that, contrary to Stallman's and Microsoft's beliefs, commercial and GPL software can easily coexist, even in those cases when it's the same software.
Yes, but to do so requires exceptions and licenses other than the GPL to make it work. Again, my original point remains. Had Linux been licensed under Stallman's version of the GPL and only Stallman's version of the GPL (rather than the version that Linus chose along with components using the LGPL), it would have been crippled commercially. I do think the LGPL is a reasonable middle-ground in many cases.
BUT, contrary to the beliefs of MS shills, the GPL is not evil when approached pragmatically.
I never claimed the GPL was evil. But it is not Stallman's intent for the GPL to be pragmatic (in the sense I think we both mean), which simply complicates matters. It leaves Linux having to specify a particular version of the GPL and explain how it is interpeted and leaves software like MySQL with two seperate licensing schemes. Yes, it's doable but it's done by fighting the intent of Stallman and the GPL, not by embracing his full vision. I can fully understand why commercial software vendors are wary of the GPL, though I think Microsoft certainly overstates the problem by trying to equate the GPL with all Open Source software. There is plenty of BSD-based stuff out there that don't have the GPL problems.
The decision to consume or produce GPL software benefits all parties.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. I doubt Oracle, Checkpoint One, or TiVo would consider it "beneficial" if competitors could simply take their software as a condition of porting it to Linux. I again assert that if Linux were licensed under the latest version of the GPL interpreted as Richard Stallman would prefer, much of the commercial software that has been ported to Linux (e.g., Oracle, Checkpoint One, TiVo, etc.) would not have been produced for Linux. The GPL works for Linux because (A) Linux is licensed under an older version and Linus explicitly specifies a pragmatic interpretation of it and (B) most of the major libraries needed to compile and run software under Linux are LGPL (which I'm not complaining about) rather than the latest version of the GPL (which I am complaining about). The LGPL is pragmatic, as is Linus' interpretation of v2 of the GPL. The latest version of the GPL, along with Richard Stallman's interpetation of it, are not pragmatic and unless you are willing to manage a second different licensing track (ala MySQL) can turn off commercial software vendors. Do you honestly believe that Oracle would have ported their software to Linux if it were licensed under the latest version of the GPL?
That's another thing I like. Stallman gets to interpret only with Stallman's software. Anyone else who puts a GPL license on their code gets to interpret it their way. Linus already did that with Linux and linking.
It pisses off Stallman, but who cares?
On the issue of the BSD license, it's too much like public domain for me.
Which is fair enough, but Stallman controls the reins of the definitive version of the GPL and someone who gets less advice and isn't as savvy as Linus Torvalds could slap the latest GPL on their code without really understanding what it means. Note that I'm not saying that the GPL shouldn't be an option. I just don't like it being the default vision for the Open Source movement and the default license that people jump on if they want to open their code to the public.
It pisses off Stallman, but who cares?
It matters because Stallman gets to define the definitive version of the GPL. And by being the self-proclaimed poster boy for Free Software, his radical opinions make for a very good target for the likes of Microsoft, who want to discredit Open Source software via the GPL and Stallman's utopian opinions. The answer to Microsoft's complaints about the GPL, in my opinion, is not to dance through hoops claiming that the GPL isn't "viral" (or "sticky" or whatever you want to call it -- it clearly is intended to be) but to point out that the GPL is not the only Open Source model out there and that the marketplace will select whatever works best. Linux works because the license is pragmatic. If the Linux license weren't pragmatic, then more people would be embracing FreeBSD (like Apple did).
On the issue of the BSD license, it's too much like public domain for me.
Frankly, if you are willing to give your software away, I don't see where the problem is. It's not like you'd be making any money off of it if it's GPLed aso who cares if someone else makes money off of it? And under the BSD license you will at least get attribution for your work. This is what I don't get about the GNU advocates. They want their code to be "free" but they don't really want it to be "free" -- they want strings. I'd rather use Open Source software without strings, though it is certainly your right to put them on your code if you want.
I am reminded of the difficulties people who escaped from the Soviet Empire to the West had in adjusting to the average supermarket.
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