251–260 of 407 posts
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That said, the FOSS community has created bigger companies and made bigger money than some of your favourite commercial projects (proprietary compilers, etc).
Like LLVM, which everyone is using to replace GCC, so that they are able to profit without contribution thanks MIT?
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I wasn't aware that osxfuse is distributed by Google. If that is the case then I am sorry for spreading false information and indeed, the GPL would apply.
It's still not clear whether the GPL would apply in the way commenters here think it would. GPL clauses would only affect Google code upon linking. It's often possible to use fuse style software without linking - they could use it via the command-line and mount whatever they need at startup or even dynamically. Does osxfuse have a command line tool? Most fuse style software does. If it doesn't, Google could have writ…
This doesn't matter. If you distribute the isolated program you need to provide the sources anyway. Having to license other Google code as GPL is not the issue. It's making it required to provide back the changes you've made to fuse itself.
There may be some GPL proponents that really want it to "virally" infect other code. But what atq2119 was describing is just wanting to make sure you at least get back the changes to your own code. That's also why I think the trend towards BSD/MIT in open-source is dangerous. GPL/LGPL/AGPL should be perfectly fine for corporations when used appropriately. They are almost always just ways to make sure the best version of your project doesn't end up closed-source. I can't recall cases of those licenses being used to force other code to be open-sourced but maybe they exist.
That was a very good write-up. Quite fair, and Kool-Aid-free. It is a pretty good synopsis of the issues faced by open-source developers, these days. Much like The September That Never Ended was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Internet, but was really tough on the folks already there, the adoption of open-source systems by commercial entities is making open-source "sexy." Open-source developers (of…
I'm starting to feel that September is slowing and it might end at some point, that in the end it really is related to the technology adoption life cycle[1]. If you look at the bell curve on that page, its integral is the technology penetration, that is a sigmoid: start slowly (initial period), accelerate (eternal september) for a while, and start to decrease the penetration speed. At some point, enough people will l…
When's the last time you met anyone without a Facebook account? Tell them you don't have a Facebook account or a WhatsApp account and they will look at you as if you are from Mars, and trying to explain to them why you don't want such an item is like talking to a brick wall.
Try living without Google.
It's all getting very difficult to do because the alternative is so very very easy.
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Since you brought up the Linux Foundation as an example, the large pool of contributions are from Fortune 500 happy to use Linux instead of paying for UNIX licenses. Which in any case only a tiny part of kernel contributors can live from.
Most of the kernel is written by big companies?
The heart of the matter is that a fairly small number of people on a proprietary UNIX are mad that they have to pay money to continue to be free riders on the Free Software movement. Mr Fleischer has done a huge amount of unpaid work so a narrow segment of wealthy software workers can avoid the choice between paying for proprietary software and supporting Free Software, after spending thousands of dollars on a MacOS…
HN's obsession with Apple means you're getting down voted. But you're not wrong.
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That doesn't sound like much of a change from the last 30 years. FOSS has done fine so far. Really the only thing that might work is if there was broad community acceptance of not changing all the lower parts of the software stack all the time so the maintenance burden is lower. Honestly; if we were interested in what was good for FOSS all that needs to happen is that hardware stops improving all the time. Then every…
> That doesn't sound like much of a change from the last 30 years. FOSS has done fine so far. Compared to what knowledge of how good it could be if we had a more sustainable model than hoping someone has the charity or hobby to work on something we need for free? This reminds me of when gamers assert how game modding has done fine so far limited to just labors of love and weekend hobbyism. Though I'm sure gamers are…
That was a very good write-up. Quite fair, and Kool-Aid-free. It is a pretty good synopsis of the issues faced by open-source developers, these days. Much like The September That Never Ended was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Internet, but was really tough on the folks already there, the adoption of open-source systems by commercial entities is making open-source "sexy." Open-source developers (of…
I'm starting to feel that September is slowing and it might end at some point, that in the end it really is related to the technology adoption life cycle[1]. If you look at the bell curve on that page, its integral is the technology penetration, that is a sigmoid: start slowly (initial period), accelerate (eternal september) for a while, and start to decrease the penetration speed. At some point, enough people will l…
The article makes this out to be more complicated than it is. Apple makes it very difficult to use 3rd party kernel modules. That is the whole thing. The open source thing is a complete red herring for everyone except the current maintainer who just happened to use some code that might be open source in a different context. The source for the module that could end up in the Apple kernel was never open to begin with.…
I would argue that the Apple part is the red herring. It’s boring; it’s common knowledge that they don’t particularly like kernel extensions and it’s somewhat difficult to develop them.
> No one else could actually use the result of compiling the code. So the source was not ever open in a way that made any practical difference.
Sorry, how did you end up at this conclusion?
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Really fine, maybe next year we get the FOSS desktop.
So what? Maybe FOSS cannot get us a competitive modern desktop, but in many areas open source projects have virtually eliminated all proprietary competition. Linux is running everywhere these days and e.g. in databases it is among the open source options where the growth is. Does FOSS need to be able to solve all software problems in the world for you to count it as successful?
If you are going to mention ChromeOS or Android, ChromeOS is hardly a blip outside US school system, and what kernel is being used on Android is irrelevant to user space, there is Fuschia on the horizon and Google has been replacing everything, with the Linux kernel being the last piece of GPL code standing.
Then if you mean embedded, plenty of IoT OS are MIT based and even Linux Foundation now has Zephyr as alternative to Linux, all operating systems where OEM can profit without giving anything back.
If you mean compilers, plenty of embedded OEMs are now happy LLVM users free of contributions, while reducing their development costs.
I agree that any aggressive towards the maintainer is unwarranted, even if I personally disagree with his move. In particular this comment quoted in TFA amused me: >Then drop it and let someone else maintain it. I want to reply to this person: then fork the last open source version and maintain that. That's the whole point really. Besides he apparently made the change two years ago and people only start noticing now,…
Being able to have that plan, and not having to pay for software licences up front, is awesome.
But I totally understand TFA's point of view. Maintaining a FOSS library is hard work, and those benefiting from it should contribute. If he's not seeing that happen organically, then he's quite within his rights to make it happen.
And to be fair, he's not even saying "I'll charge you". He's just saying "contact me". I'd speculate that if I needed to use his code, I could cut a deal where we would pay him when we get cash-positive.