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Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

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Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#111

Post by vog »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #105
vog wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, the article doesn't say anything negative about Microsoft. Did you intend to reply to some specific comment?

I'm replying to the general tone of the HN discussion, which is (or was at the time of comment) largely negative in most of the threads.

I'm aware that this behaviour is somewhat "popular" on HN, to make their comment kind-of "stand above all other's", but I'm not sure if that is actually a good idea.

The authors of those comments almost certainly won't notice your reply if it is in a new thread. And the others (like myself) are confused as soon as your fuzzy reference becomes more and more ambiguous.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#113

Post by Karunamon »

alexvoda wrote: post #76
danielbarla wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yepp, it's a trade off between the rights of the developer and the rights of the consumer / user, you fundamentally can't have both (simplification). RMS goes all on the latter side, essentially.

Like with most of RMSs terminology, I disagree with the dichotomy of developer vs user. Freedom 1 and 3 apply specifically to users who are or will become developers. I believe what we actually want to talk about is publisher vs user/consumer instead of developer vs user. The FSF people really like their ambiguous terminology, unfortunately.

It's an important distinction IMO. Roughly 99% of the GPL is irrelevant to the end user if they don't have all of the knowledge, desire, and time to crack open the code and modify it.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#114

Post by nulagrithom »

notalaser wrote: post #18
csmattryder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: You're supporting `n` billion devices around the world running your product, and the users are typically non-technical (from "I know how to open Word" to "Where's the 'Any' key?") You need to battle against your competitor's product that "just work" because they can target one specific hardware profile and you can't, so you put in telemetry to improve compatibility. Makes sense. It enrages us, the t…

So put a big red scary "PRESS THIS BUTTON AND YOU'LL GET HACKED IN TEN MINUTES UNLESS YOUR COMPUTER DOES NOT CRASH BEFORE THAT" that turns telemetry off and let me press it.

Ever worked the help desk? My users would push that button twice then call me in 5 minutes to tell me their computer has been hacked (just after it crashed of course).

I hate the telematics and the "anti-user" stubbornness of Windows in general, but at the same time, I know all too well who they're targeting and why. More and more of my less technical users are requesting Macs, which are a PITA to admin but at the same time generate fewer tickets because they're really hard to fuck up. I don't like seeing Windows move this direction, but I get it.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#115

Post by fish_fan »

hannob wrote: post #22
ekianjo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All money and support to free software is most likely good. Open source is not the same thing as Free Software. From the website itself, in the history section: > The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by partici…

> Open-source is used broadly to define a way of developing software, but it says nothing about the rights it gives users. That is totally wrong and a myth spread by people who like to call their products "Open Source" while they aren't. The Open Source Definition is very clear: https://opensource.org/osd Practically there is no difference between Open Source licenses and Free Software licenses. The difference is mer…

Err, this is the myth that keeps spreading mysteriously. There are absolutely massive differences between open source and free software. Why would you want to be open but not free unless you wanted to restrict the use of the code you “opened”.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#116

Post by morganvachon »

hannob wrote: post #51
morganvachon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are different, and that's fine. Personally I lean more towards the BSD/MIT style of licensing than GPL; I feel the former is "more free" from the developer's side because it doesn't tell her what she can't do with her code. The GPL forces the developer's hand (though in a way that benefits society as a whole), whereas BSD says "it's your code, do what you will". All of that said, the GPL is perhaps one of the mo…

The BSD/GPL question is independent of the free software / open source term. Both the OSI and the FSF accept GPL and BSD-style licenses. So both GPL and BSD code is free software and open source software.

Are you sure about that? gnu.org has a huge beef with BSD, they are actively campaigning for any developer considering BSD to use GPL instead[1]. Basically, anything that is not 100% copyleft is considered non-Free by GNU and FSF.

Again, that doesn't bother me; to each their own. I'm not a developer so you might say I have no skin in this issue. However, I stand by my assertion that BSD gives the lone developer more freedom at the expense of social needs, whereas the GPL takes freedom away from the lone developer but puts necessary power in the hands of society as a whole (the so-called "viral" aspect of GPL).

Neither is "right" or "wrong", and I'm happy we have a choice at all.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/bsd.en.html

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#117

Post by bad_user »

pksadiq wrote: post #107
bad_user wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free software extends that further to have freedom to run modified code on the same device[0] That is not true. You're talking of GPL version 3, but that does not extend to all Free Software licenses and is not included in the Free Software definition. For example GPLv2 does NOT require devices to allow you to run modified code, having no anti-tivoization clause. Are you saying that GPLv2, which was created by the…

> Are you saying that GPLv2, which was created by the FSF and is used by such prominent projects as the Linux kernel, is not Free Software? No. I have quoted that in a comment below. That is, a software can be both open source and free software or open source only based on where the code is run. GNU GPLv3 simply enforces this freedom irrespective of where the code is run. That doesn't mean some other license is non-f…

Well, if we are going to talk of mistakes, we can argue that GPL v3 and AGPL in general are in violation of Freedom 0 and that AGPL is definitely discriminating against fields of endeavour (OSI's rule 6).

For libraries in particular, or for the Linux kernel, it's the software developers themselves that are the users. Compare this:

- What GPL v2 says is simply "you can use this source code, but you have to give your changes back when distributing them".

- What GPL v3 says is "if you use this source code, you can't use it on your device unless you follow my rules" and Linus Tolvards thinks the same [1]

- With AGPL this is much worse, because AGPL is effectively an EULA and not just a copyright license, as AGPL redefines what redistribution means and severely restricts usage on people's own servers

In my opinion AGPL should have never been approved as either a Free Software or an Open Source license, being effectively a modern freeware, non-commercial license that escaped the scrutiny of Free Software advocates simply because it appeals to emotions whenever "freedom" gets mentioned, being like when the church asks for funding from the local government, requests which can't be easily refused, since it would position government officials to be against God.

To measure the truthiness of this claim, you only need to witness that AGPL gets used in dual licensing schemes, where the AGPL option is simply offered because it's useless for anything else than for demo purposes and good marketing.

But for the sake of argument, if you think there should be a distinction between users and developers, consider that modifying the software for your needs is simply usage and that this artificial distinction is what got Richard Stallman pissed enough to create the GPL and start the GNU alternatives in the first place.

> a code written in GNU GPLv2 may become non-free

By FSF's own admission, that is not true. Code released under GPLv2 can never be non-free.

In terms of copyright, that code will always be redistributable under GPLv2 (i.e. once released, you can't take it back). In terms of patents, it comes with an implicit grant. Oh you're speaking of binaries installed on devices? But then we are not talking about source code or the project itself, but about actual usage.

And going back to Free Software vs Open Source, you simply can't redefine what Free Software means depending on whims or speculation. And if this is the trend, then the Free Software community is positioning themselves to be against the spirit of Free Software.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#118

Post by fish_fan »

fdchn2016 wrote: post #110
czechdeveloper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder for past few years about backup language/stack/job for me, because my technical life has been MS only. And quite often discontinued tech (Silverlight, WebForms). I should get that going I guess. I just can't decide what to learn and it's difficult to find time (nodejs? Go? Python?).

Rust or Erlang/Elixir

Wow that’s out of left field.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#119

Post by cjbillington »

dozzie wrote: post #81
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #59

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

As much as I hate Microsoft along with its products, I wouldn't call current Microsoft's actions the infamous EEE strategy. That strategy was meant for protocols and standards that had potential to threaten Microsoft's position, not for specific software.

Could not recent trends (not this one specifically) be construed that way?

For example, you can now run bash on Windows. What if Microsoft introduces extensions to bash that bash script writers would be tempted to use if they were targeting Windows? And if they implement it in such a way that they are not obliged to publish the source (or, they publish the source, but it calls into new Windows syscalls and so is useless on other platforms)? Now you've got windows bash and standard bash. The new features are genuinely useful, and windows bash flourishes. Then, five years later, they start breaking backward compatibility. People have to choose a side, and maybe they decide not to be compatible with standard bash anymore.

We might be at the point where Microsoft doesn't have the clout to do this, and for the moment I'm happy that you can run bash on Windows - but the millisecond that I see them introduce a single non-standard feature to bash that they don't contribute back under GPL or whatever, I will resume yelling loudly to anyone nearby about EEE.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

#120

Post by plandis »

ekianjo wrote: post #11
tyfon wrote: post #2

This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and support to free software is most likely good. However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source. It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here that is not beneficial to free software. How much has Microsoft really changed? I…

> All money and support to free software is most likely good. Open source is not the same thing as Free Software. From the website itself, in the history section: > The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by partici…

Perhaps the person you're responding to is referring to Microsofts old business practices that involved trying to segment open source projects with the intent of making them inferior to Microsoft products?

Open source, free software, call it what you want. In either case I don't think it's a good thing if Microsofts (or any other company) is trying to hurt the quality of software that is already available to everyone (with or without permissive licenses).

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