51–60 of 122 posts
With GPL you are giving your project away only to those willing to work with you on improving it.
The arguments back and forth are so tiresome when they don't recognize that sometimes one license makes a lot of sense and sometimes the other license makes a lot of sense. There will never be one license to rule them all.
I'm not a big fan on GPL anymore. When I create some software I prefer the user of my software to have all freedoms including the freedom to embed it in closed source software.
And I prefer my software to remain open no matter who works on it or distributes it. So, I use GPL. Amazing how people can have different priorities and different beliefs. (And, amazing how one can abuse the word "free" or "open" in either case to mean two very different things.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but not this time. If that sentence were dropped, the remaining text would be more clear and accurate. That sentence is not true. Why should a user be a developer in an ideal world? Why should one be required to be a developer to utilize software? It's not even a world that anyone really wants to move toward. The whole idea is very developer-centric, and doesn't represent an enlightened user perspective.
The point of my comment was that I believe everyone should have the freedom to be a developer. Not that they must be a developer. No one, especially me, has suggested that anyone must do anything. We're talking about freedom here; and I'd like it if users had the same freedoms I've enjoyed over the past couple of decades. That includes having source available for a large percentage of the software I used, so I that I…
But maybe you want kind of free, free in some narrow ways that preserve things important to you by putting restrictions on those who get your code so that they also have to preserve the same things you like. If so then that's fine! I totally support your right as the author to choose an appropriate license. But that's not about freedom. It's about propagating your view of how things should be. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but it's not about freedom.
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"On the other hand, MSDN is far more informative than source code comments, a half-hearted Wiki and a snide support forum for the non-professional programmer which populates your ideal world." This is directly at odds with my own experience. Whenever I've had to work on Microsoft platforms, I've been constantly bumping into walls where I simply couldn't get the information I needed to solve my problems. MSDN, or no,…
> "How about GCC or LLVM?" I assume that unlike the inhabitants of your ideal world and myself, you are a professional programmer. Why would I run LLVM or GCC instead of Visual Studio Express Edition or program in C rather than utilize a .NET language given that neither really supports Windows in the first place? For me, free OS's aren't an option. They don't offer the tools I use to practice my profession. To the de…
Or, why Free Software misses the point of Open Source :) Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be). In reality, Free Software ends up being useful only for programmers, hackers, technical people, and well, institutions which require programmers, hackers and technical people to run and grow their infrastructure (such as Universities and Governments). Free Softw…
That is like saying that freedom of speech is only useful for journalists.
You don't have to exercise a freedom to benefit from it. You benefit from others exercising it too. Whether a journalist exposes government corruption, or a security experts independently audits OpenSSL, everyone benefits of the relevant freedom being exercised.
You don't have to be a programmer for benefiting from DeCSS. You don't have to be a hacker to benefit from Apache. You don't have to be a technical person to benefit from WordPress.
The same applies to the reversed, you don't have to be a programmer to suffer from DRM, vendor lock-in, or nag-ware.
Or, why Free Software misses the point of Open Source :) Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be). In reality, Free Software ends up being useful only for programmers, hackers, technical people, and well, institutions which require programmers, hackers and technical people to run and grow their infrastructure (such as Universities and Governments). Free Softw…
In the Free Software model, there's no such thing as an end-user. Everyone gets to be a developer (for themselves or their friends). That's why it's so developer-friendly.
Or, why Free Software misses the point of Open Source :) Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be). In reality, Free Software ends up being useful only for programmers, hackers, technical people, and well, institutions which require programmers, hackers and technical people to run and grow their infrastructure (such as Universities and Governments). Free Softw…
Yes, this.
This might be an unpopular view but "free software" (in the sense talked about here) is unencumbered for the users only. For developers it is encumbered (via the GPL). Open Source makes a different trade-off for the same gain.
This is the thing Stallman consistently misses; that Open Source and Free Software are simply two different solutions to a similar issue. Free Software sacrifices the freedom of developers when reusing the code. Open Source sacrifices a developers future porential ability to keep all uses of the code freely available.
He throws out the word ethical, I think, because it makes FS sound better. But the bottom line is that both ideals have underlying issues and problems; the brilliant thing is that there is a choice between the two, and we are free to pick the one that makes the trade-off we prefer.
The really great thing is that the real world is not as black and white as FS & OS; we can mix and match various aspects for our own preference :)
That is the point of freedom.
I suppose I can't fault Stallman for promoting his personal choice as best he is able.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And I prefer my software to remain open no matter who works on it or distributes it. So, I use GPL. Amazing how people can have different priorities and different beliefs. (And, amazing how one can abuse the word "free" or "open" in either case to mean two very different things.)
> And I prefer my software to remain open no matter who works on it or distributes it. So, I use GPL. BSD license accomplishes that just fine. BSD licensed code has been taken, extended, modified and used in proprietary products for decades, and yet the original contribution remains open. I think that what you object to is that someone can take your code and make money using it in a closed source project, perhaps mod…
All that BSD code that's been taken, extended, modified and used in proprietary products is no longer open. You can't get into OS X and fix bugs or port it to another platform. So even if the original code is still open, other distributions of that same code are not.
Unfortunately, "Open Source" is easier to market than "Free Software". The real benefits of true free software evidence themselves in the end and that's what counts, not what you call it. Edit: It is however important to distinguish between free software and thinly veiled proprietary software marketed as Open Source.