A check of the wayback machine indicates this was first posted back in October 2010. Mods might want to tag it as such since some of the information is dated.
BSD vs. Linux (2005)
241–250 of 371 posts
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's the GPL doing its job. It also makes it really hard to earn a living with actual software (not services) that depends on GPL.
Yes, you're absolutely correct. The GPL, and resulting GPL'd software, does not exist for the benefit of commercial software vendors. While some business models are viable under it, that's a side-effect rather than an objective of it.
i.e. it's condemned to be a hobby for almost everyone involved, besides some key players who can live off of donations or those who sell services based on mostly other people's software.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, you're absolutely correct. The GPL, and resulting GPL'd software, does not exist for the benefit of commercial software vendors. While some business models are viable under it, that's a side-effect rather than an objective of it.
i.e. it's condemned to be a hobby for almost everyone involved, besides some key players who can live off of donations or those who sell services based on mostly other people's software.
Selling services 'based on mostly other people's software' is not some crime or bad thing. Servicing cars or houses made by other people is an honorable profession. So are software services. If the thing needs servicing, then I salute those who stand ready to do the dirty work.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you solve the following use-case: You want users to be able to try your software for non commercial use, but you want them to pay for commercial. I don't see how GPL licenses can do that for you. In fact, I don't know any common OSS license that has non-commercial limitations with the option of purchasing a commercial license.
You can always dual-license the software. The GPL version of your software can always be a basic version, customers could pay for features they want to have.
Yes, but we're at the start again: Only when you don't depend on other GPL software at compile time (and even runtime bindings can be tricky AFAIK). So it only works if all people do is write a bunch of siloes and don't work as a community at all.
So, looking at Linux system software as an example, it only works as long as you stay far away from the kernel.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
i.e. it's condemned to be a hobby for almost everyone involved, besides some key players who can live off of donations or those who sell services based on mostly other people's software.
Selling services 'based on mostly other people's software' is not some crime or bad thing. Servicing cars or houses made by other people is an honorable profession. So are software services. If the thing needs servicing, then I salute those who stand ready to do the dirty work.
And I didn't say it is. Only that it's usually the only way of building a business around GPL software. This is fine for serving some people, but it has a huge blind spot for those who mainly want to write Software and try to live off of it. IMO this is the main reason why Desktop linux never took off - you just don't have enough userland software that's ready for production use in a professional environment - see desktop publishing, audio, video etc. This sort of software is not going to be written as a hobby, it needs full time professional developers and investors who can see the ROI starting at around 1M$.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is wrong with beastie? Unlike backwards religious fundamentalists, the cute little devil hasn't harmed a single person.
> Unlike backwards religious fundamentalists, the cute little devil hasn't harmed a single person. Even if one doesn't believe in the Devil, surely it seems in poor taste to use as a mascot a mythological creature who is reputed to be the source of every single evil, cruel, horrible thing in all of history. It's almost as bad as naming a piece of encryption software 'felony.'
He's not the Devil, he's a Daemon. Which has been used as a mascot of many schools (in the US) as well. But let's suppose we stop using imaginary creatures as mascots, then we should also stop using real ones. GA Tech and other schools use the yellow jacket, a real creature (a wasp) that has killed people.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is wrong with beastie? Unlike backwards religious fundamentalists, the cute little devil hasn't harmed a single person.
> Unlike backwards religious fundamentalists, the cute little devil hasn't harmed a single person. Even if one doesn't believe in the Devil, surely it seems in poor taste to use as a mascot a mythological creature who is reputed to be the source of every single evil, cruel, horrible thing in all of history. It's almost as bad as naming a piece of encryption software 'felony.'
> poor taste to use as a mascot a mythological creature who is reputed to be the source of every single evil, cruel, horrible thing in all of history
Well ... what about Pan and Dionysus ? What about all other cultures in which there is no Devil representation that has a tail and horns ? History is long and the world is more diverse than you seem to realize.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you solve the following use-case: You want users to be able to try your software for non commercial use, but you want them to pay for commercial. I don't see how GPL licenses can do that for you. In fact, I don't know any common OSS license that has non-commercial limitations with the option of purchasing a commercial license.
Creative Commons works that way. So its possible.
People keep saying CC, but that license has never been intended for software. Did it ever stand up to a trial in court for this usecase? See also [1]. Why isn't there something like CC NC geared for software?
[1] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_...
> We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#249Note that most BSDs (with the notable exception of OpenBSD, of course) lack modern anti-exploitation features like ASLR.
FreeBSD is working on it, but it took surprisingly long.
Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been using a Linux machine (Ubuntu+X11+nvidia+Kodi) as my HTPC for years. What's so sucky about it that I didn't notice during that time? No tearing, no artifacts, no crashes.
If you're using the nouveau drivers, everything's fine, but you don't get hardware acceleration. That means no games, but mostly tearing-free rendering, and no artifacts. The nvidia proprietary drivers is probably what's causing problems.
I'm using the proprietary drivers, 340.96-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 to be exact. The machine is 2009 vintage Atom 330 with Nvidia ION graphics, so I need VDPAU support for Full HD video decoding.