Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 139 posts

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#61

Post by creshal »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49
pnt12 wrote: post #2

I agree: Canonical should make it easier for developers to strip the company's trademarks when forking their applications. Canonical's relationship with the rest of the FOSS community always seemed a bit screwed up to me. They try to make Ubuntu the best Linux distro while ignoring what all the other ones are doing. All other distros seem much more friendly towards integration between projects, to benefit from the sh…

I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. The FOSS obsession with "community" and "integration" is myopic and abhorrent. As if everyone must converge on one approach, one vanguard. There are scantly any problem domains where only one solution applies. Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial…

> They set their own agenda with limited cooperation.

Canonical depends on their community for everything from the very OS (Debian) to marketing to support.

Yet, they're crippling their community at the same time with their IP policy and their general refusal to integrate with software projects they depend on for survival.

This is, simply, unsustainable. Canonical cannot fork everything and do their own thing (not without quickly going bankrupt – unlike Apple, which has no problem with say, developing their own SMB stack if needed); and they cannot continue alienating potential (and current) users and upstream sources.

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#62

Post by madez »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49
pnt12 wrote: post #2

I agree: Canonical should make it easier for developers to strip the company's trademarks when forking their applications. Canonical's relationship with the rest of the FOSS community always seemed a bit screwed up to me. They try to make Ubuntu the best Linux distro while ignoring what all the other ones are doing. All other distros seem much more friendly towards integration between projects, to benefit from the sh…

I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. The FOSS obsession with "community" and "integration" is myopic and abhorrent. As if everyone must converge on one approach, one vanguard. There are scantly any problem domains where only one solution applies. Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial…

Not all agendas and interests are born equal. That someone else does the same thing does not make it any better.

It is insulting from you to call the demand for inclusion and giving back as "myopic" and "abhorrent".

Like with social interaction, we don't need everybody to be the same, but we very much demand some core principles to be followed. Would you call that myopic and abhorrent?

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#63

Post by spdionis »

raverbashing wrote: post #3

Ok the real question is, how does this compares to CentOS/"Prominent Linux Vendor" relationship And Linux Mint also recompiles and replaces the trademarks no?

I dont understand why people ignore Linux Mint when commenting as a consumer desktop OS. It works wonders and it's really easy to use.

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#64

Post by vezzy-fnord »

creshal wrote: post #61
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. The FOSS obsession with "community" and "integration" is myopic and abhorrent. As if everyone must converge on one approach, one vanguard. There are scantly any problem domains where only one solution applies. Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial…

> They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. Canonical depends on their community for everything from the very OS (Debian) to marketing to support. Yet, they're crippling their community at the same time with their IP policy and their general refusal to integrate with software projects they depend on for survival . This is, simply, unsustainable. Canonical cannot fork everything and do their own thing (not w…

Which is Canonical's problem, and no one else's. Again, this is a positive. Canonical get to experiment without tangling other parties in.

Why are you treating this as zero-sum?

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#65

Post by alexlajeunesse »

creshal wrote: post #61
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. The FOSS obsession with "community" and "integration" is myopic and abhorrent. As if everyone must converge on one approach, one vanguard. There are scantly any problem domains where only one solution applies. Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial…

> They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. Canonical depends on their community for everything from the very OS (Debian) to marketing to support. Yet, they're crippling their community at the same time with their IP policy and their general refusal to integrate with software projects they depend on for survival . This is, simply, unsustainable. Canonical cannot fork everything and do their own thing (not w…

> their general refusal to integrate with software projects they depend on for survival.

Would you be able to elaborate on this a little bit? It seems like a contradiction to me but it's more likely that I'm not understanding properly.

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#66

Post by creshal »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #64
creshal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. Canonical depends on their community for everything from the very OS (Debian) to marketing to support. Yet, they're crippling their community at the same time with their IP policy and their general refusal to integrate with software projects they depend on for survival . This is, simply, unsustainable. Canonical cannot fork everything and do their own thing (not w…

Which is Canonical's problem, and no one else's. Again, this is a positive. Canonical get to experiment without tangling other parties in. Why are you treating this as zero-sum?

> Which is Canonical's problem, and no one else's.

It then becomes the problem of its users, and rapidly the problem of userland developers, because users expect their software to just work in Ubuntu.

Developers can now go and waste effort just to comply to Canonical's de facto walled garden, or lose all Ubuntu users (furthering the "Linux is too complicated and fragmented!" narrative).

Everybody loses, nobody wins.

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#67

Post by vezzy-fnord »

madez wrote: post #62
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. The FOSS obsession with "community" and "integration" is myopic and abhorrent. As if everyone must converge on one approach, one vanguard. There are scantly any problem domains where only one solution applies. Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial…

Not all agendas and interests are born equal. That someone else does the same thing does not make it any better. It is insulting from you to call the demand for inclusion and giving back as "myopic" and "abhorrent". Like with social interaction, we don't need everybody to be the same, but we very much demand some core principles to be followed. Would you call that myopic and abhorrent?

I don't even know what "demanding inclusion" means here.

Most complaints about Canonical's exclusivity underpin a utopian fantasy that everyone in the Linux community must converge towards one holy solution. Any deviation is considered "fragmentation" and brutally discouraged.

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#68

Post by vezzy-fnord »

creshal wrote: post #66
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is Canonical's problem, and no one else's. Again, this is a positive. Canonical get to experiment without tangling other parties in. Why are you treating this as zero-sum?

> Which is Canonical's problem, and no one else's. It then becomes the problem of its users, and rapidly the problem of userland developers, because users expect their software to just work in Ubuntu. Developers can now go and waste effort just to comply to Canonical's de facto walled garden, or lose all Ubuntu users (furthering the "Linux is too complicated and fragmented!" narrative). Everybody loses, nobody wins.

Assuming binary-only distribution, you already have this problem for a multitude of distros. If you're employing such a proprietary model, you'll obviously have problems you'll need to overcome.

Assuming source distribution, I do not see any special effort required.

This is a protectionist, anti-choice argument.

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#69

Post by mkesper »

adekok wrote: post #52
purpled_haze wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source != free

The ISC DHCP server is "open source", in that the source is available. It's "free" in that anyone can download it and use it. But... try getting patches in. Unless you're a paying member of the ISC consortium, you can't. There are performance problems going back a decade which are firmly in the "won't fix" category. OpenSSL is similar.

This could be resolved by forking.

Re: If it's not practical to redistribute, it's not free software in practice

#70

Post by simias »

adekok wrote: post #52
purpled_haze wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source != free

The ISC DHCP server is "open source", in that the source is available. It's "free" in that anyone can download it and use it. But... try getting patches in. Unless you're a paying member of the ISC consortium, you can't. There are performance problems going back a decade which are firmly in the "won't fix" category. OpenSSL is similar.

That's not really the same issue, people are free to accept contributions or not, if you're not happy with the state of things you can fork the project. Like GCC/EGCS back in the days for example.

TFA is about ubuntu making forking difficult.

Post reply on HN