101–110 of 122 posts
With all due respect Mr Stallman, given those conditions I may not want to code at all.
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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.)
> "I prefer my software to remain open no matter who works on it or distributes it. So, I use GPL." There are other licenses which will insure that your software remains free and open. GPL requires that mine become free and open as well...and that's fine in so far as it goes. Structurally, however, the copyleft movement only works so long as there is a system of copyright protections, powerful institutions for enforc…
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.
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…
"Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be)." In an ideal world, the user and the developer are one in the same. I don't mean everyone who uses a piece of software should have to know the code intimately; merely that they should have the freedom to see it, modify it and learn from it, should the need or desire arise. The power of the Free Software movement is t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is fine. But not for RMS since it doesn't address the founding concern of the FSF! You sort of glossed over that. If you write BSD code, and it gets put into OS X, your ability to tinker with your own code in that context is gone. I don't think you can clearly claim one license here is more free than the other -- they're both securing different kinds of freedom.
If I give away my code I do not demand that others let me poke at what they make with it, and I don't demand that they let their users poke at it. I still have my own code. This is fine with me. Nothing, absolutely nothing that Apple does with my code diminishes what I or anyone else can do with my code. When I share my code, I really share it for whatever purpose and to anyone. This is giving the fullest amount of f…
Actually, it doesn't matter what license you use -- you'll always have your own code.
> Any possible restrictions I would place on them could only make it less free.
One person's restriction is another person's allowance. The GPL gives end users and developers a number of rights that they don't normally get with copyrighted works. BSD doesn't change the normal copyright rights of end users at all. So for some users in some situations, the GPL is more free than copyright, and by extension, the BSD license as well.
My problem with Free Software as opposed to Open Source is that Free Software people have a greater tendency to end up doing things like this: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.distributions.gnu-linux-... (The whole thread, not just the specific post linked to).
OK, my other problem with Free Software is when Free Software proponents try to tell me that GPL is more free than BSD because GPL stops the software from becoming part of non-free software. It's like saying people in the US are more free than those in the EU, because the US restricts travel to non-free Cuba.
When Stallman says "free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the users' freedom", is he saying that I don't have the freedom to create closed source software for my own benefit? Is he saying that I'm not respecting the end user's freedom by distributing closed source services? With all due respect Mr Stallman, given those conditions I may not want to code at all.
Given his apparent stance on non-Free software, I suspect he is not concerned if you choose not to write some. He certainly wouldn't have used it in the first place.
if the term free is ambiguous, why not just call it Freedom Software? I suppose may have the unfortunate side effect of being co-opted by patriotic zealots :)
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There's a wealth of books on open source development tools and languages. You can even find them at B&M bookstores.
The volume of books on open source tools is more a function of the number of such tools. For any given tool or language, there may be very few books in print. Amazon has 12 books for "LLVM". [ http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dst... ] There are over 1500 for "Visual Studio" [ http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dst... ] 343 books for "Django" [includes the musician] v. 154…
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You are correct: the original code (and ongoing work based on it) is still open, and Apple, et al, versions are not. This is fine. First and most importantly, because the desire to share code with BSD comes with no strings attached. It's just the desire to share. You don't have to have the same beliefs and priorities as I do in order to use my code. I believe in freedom enough to give you all the freedoms to do as yo…
> This is fine. But not for RMS since it doesn't address the founding concern of the FSF! You sort of glossed over that. If you write BSD code, and it gets put into OS X, your ability to tinker with your own code in that context is gone. I don't think you can clearly claim one license here is more free than the other -- they're both securing different kinds of freedom.
>But not for RMS since it doesn't address the founding concern of the FSF! You sort of glossed over that. If you write BSD code, and it gets put into OS X, your ability to tinker with your own code in that context is gone.
Well, yes, but no.
Secondly, if Apple were unable to use BSD code then what would happen? They would go completely proprietary, that's what.
The assumption is that we would end up with a completely closed-source printer driver that couldn't be hacked, rather than a mostly closed-source printer driver that couldn't be hacked. Improvement?