71–80 of 128 posts
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proprietary OS products?
Their users are, de facto, locked into a few vendors who, because of this arrangement, can charge excessive rent. In part this is because of a tiny number of critical components that do not have libre licenses; in part it is because these vendors provide technical leadership to the larger community in forms that actively prevent organizing a truly libre OS.
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I like that distinction, but to be clear, the distinction isn't strictly an "either-or". It's pretty clear that "open source" is motivated by developer freedoms, but the fact that "free software" is motivated by user freedoms doesn't make it less about developer freedoms. In other words, if you subscribe to the four tenets of software freedom as they pertain to users, "free software" also provides as much freedom to…
Sorry but you cannot have both the cake and eat it. You either have to compromise on users or on developers. GPL license writers choose not to compromise on users by enforcing that modifications are contributed back. BSD license writers choose not to compromise on developers by allowing developers to use the code as they see fit, no strings attached. These are not compatible. There are either strings attached as in G…
Forward, not back. Sorry, but I think this is an important yet often missed distinction.
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Their users are, de facto, locked into a few vendors who, because of this arrangement, can charge excessive rent. In part this is because of a tiny number of critical components that do not have libre licenses; in part it is because these vendors provide technical leadership to the larger community in forms that actively prevent organizing a truly libre OS.
Do you think that Red Hat and Canonical are a net negative for the community?
I think it is certainly an arguable question for the Free software/GNU community although I expect most could agree that they are bet positive for Linux and open source in general.
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Their users are, de facto, locked into a few vendors who, because of this arrangement, can charge excessive rent. In part this is because of a tiny number of critical components that do not have libre licenses; in part it is because these vendors provide technical leadership to the larger community in forms that actively prevent organizing a truly libre OS.
Do you think that Red Hat and Canonical are a net negative for the community?
Copyright assignment is impractical, and a great way to eliminate outside contributions to a project.
Some projects owe part of their success to copyright assignment, like Ogre3D.
I'll be honest I could not understand what Mr Bonzini is trying to say anymore than I could understand Mr Stallman's antics in the recent YouTube clip. With all due respect, what are these people on about? What is the problem? Clearly and succinctly, please.
For a time I too was the maintainer for GNU sed. Part of that time I was paid by the FSF for that work (this was a long time ago, when the FSF had a small staff working directly on the Hurd and GNU). When I started, GNU sed was very incompatible with the relatively new Posix standard for sed. When I finished, it was less incompatible. It was during this same time that I started work on a new regexp engine for sed but…
And now we get to the real heart of the matter. Is it about giving companies, users, and communities the freedom to do what they want to do? Even if that thing is proprietary software, or open core models, or sharks with laser on their heads? Or is it about political, social, and technological control? The Apache foundation is about the former, and so is the Linux kernel. But the FSF has always been about the latter. It looks like they have poisoned your thinking too.
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> Open source can be described as a marketing campaign to convince people who don't care about free software to produce/accept it On the other hand, Free Software can be described as an attempt by certain fanatics to hijack the idea of open source code sharing, in order to advance their own ideals.
I think that my characterization is significantly less controversial. For instance Bruce Perens (original author of the open source definition) says that the open source definition was ...conceived as a program to market the free software concept to people who wore ties. On the other hand your characterization strikes at the heart of the BSD vs GPL argument as it is viewed by BSD proponents.
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I didn't make the comment, but I interpret it this way. In the past, if you were on a Unix-like system and wanted a nicer interface, you could install GNU tools. You got nifty things like ls and grep that color their output, a tar that works correctly, etc. Today, if you are on a Unix-like system and want a nicer interface, you install the Gnome shell. Never mind that it's not what everyone wants (bah Gnome 2 is bett…
Gnome might get you something roughly comparable to Apple/Microsoft/etc, but without the GNU tools there is really no technical reason to prefer Gnome to Apple/Microsoft/etc. Sure you could use NetBSD's userland instead of GNU, or BusyBox, or any other number of alternative userlands, but who actually does that? BusyBox is very popular, but only in all of the places that Gnome definitely is not.
Sure you could use Hurd instead of Linux, or Mach, or any other number of alternative kernels, but who actually does that? Mach is very popular, but only in all of the places that GNU definitely is not.
(Clarification: I was explaining how Gnome may be filling the same, er, cultural role that GNU filled in years past. They're both software projects that try to give us the Unix experience we want. Part of what has changed is which part of the OS we pay attention to -- GNU is not as relevant because it achieved so many of its goals, not like Gnome.)
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Gnome might get you something roughly comparable to Apple/Microsoft/etc, but without the GNU tools there is really no technical reason to prefer Gnome to Apple/Microsoft/etc. Sure you could use NetBSD's userland instead of GNU, or BusyBox, or any other number of alternative userlands, but who actually does that? BusyBox is very popular, but only in all of the places that Gnome definitely is not.
GNU might get you something roughly comparable to BSD/Solaris/etc, but without the Linux kernel there is really no technical reason to prefer GNU to BSD/Solaris/etc. Sure you could use Hurd instead of Linux, or Mach, or any other number of alternative kernels, but who actually does that? Mach is very popular, but only in all of the places that GNU definitely is not. (Clarification: I was explaining how Gnome may be f…
This might make sense... except that it is popular to use GNU userlands on non-Linux systems, and that has always been the case. Hell, what do you think people were doing before Linux existed? So really it makes zero sense whatsoever.
Gnome without a userland, GNU or otherwise, is completely and utterly pointless. Who would use such a thing? GNU without Linux is business as usual.