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My Talk at Microsoft

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Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#161

Post by jki275 »

dhruvmittal wrote: post #19
Zhyl wrote: post #5

>Publicly take back Microsoft's attacks on copyleft made in the 2000s. Ballmer called the GPL a "cancer". Allchin called it "un-American". (from the "Suggestions I gave to Microsoft" section) This is something I agree with. I don't think that Microsoft are likely to apologise for EEE [1] as that is likely just considered 'business' and part of the zeitgeist; neither do I think that Microsoft necessarily needs to endo…

> They should, however, be a bit more repentant about starting a McCarthy-esque red scare against all things open source. Especially since we're still suffering from it. There are enough project & program managers who see the words "open source" on an engineering document & send us back to build or buy some alternative.

It's not open source so much as it is GPL. In industry, GPL software is essentially anathema. MIT/BSD and other licenses are far easier to get approval to use.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#162

Post by fortran77 »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #153
jacquesm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ballmer is an opportunist, pure and simple. When it suited him Linux was a cancer, and when it no longer suited him he 'loved Linux'. If the wind should ever change Linux will for sure be a cancer again.

> Ballmer is an opportunist, pure and simple. You say that as if it were a condemnation. Everybody who runs a business is an opportunist, pure and simple.

That would be fine if he didn't pretend to be a man of "principles" built on a foundation that can not be shaken.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#163

Post by fortran77 »

srbby wrote: post #152
rerx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted for its WTF-factor: > Perhaps his new-found peace with Linux is linked to yoga, a practice he said he has taken up after leaving Microsoft in 2014.

Ballmer practising yoga is not something I would've wanted to picture in my head

It's a new type of yoga where you jump up and down while repeating your mantra. (His is "Developers".)

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#165

Post by close04 »

UserIsUnused wrote: post #133
close04 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then the small interactive interactions you can make them in JS With JS enabled any site could potentially run non-free code so this has no benefits. As far as I can tell the proposed solution wasn't to develop some tech that ensures (somehow) that all functionality JS provides is transferred to something "free-only" but rather to give up that functionality entirely. That's not a solution, that's just running away…

Sometimes there is no practical solution, and running away is the pragmatist approach

I'm not seeing any reasonable evidence of a consensus that this even is a problem. Let alone that there is no other solution than to run from it.

There's no fix for criminal activity on the internet (objectively worse than non-free code) and yet I don't think anyone (RMS included) is proposing to sever the connections just to make sure they don't accidentally encounter such activity. The more radical comparison would be "bad stuff" in society and completely isolating yourself from it.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#166

Post by CJefferson »

simion314 wrote: post #48
Smithalicious wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take issue with the "promote ... the best use of copyleft (GPL version 3-or-later)" here. The GPL is a controversial license by itself, though it's the de facto copyleft license and reasonable to promote it, but the GPLv3-vs-GPLv2 debate is alive and well and I don't want GitHub to "promote" either of them as "the best".

Were you ever affected by the GPL3 vs GPL2 license? I am just wondering who is affected(not everybody makes kernels and drivers)

Readline is distributed only under GPLv3 nowadays. I worked on some software licensed only under GPLv2, where some authors are no longer available. GPLv2 and GPLv3 aren't compatible.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#167

Post by jraph »

srbby wrote: post #62

Linked from tfa: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/microsoft.html >we do recognize [Microsoft] as the company that has separated more users from their freedom than any other Is this still true in the age of the iPhone?

It's probably too vague a claim to prove or disprove. They could amend this sentence. Different companies have different impacts on software freedom that I'd be hard-pressed to compare.

However, consider Microsoft Office, which is widely used, and has some network effects. If a friend uses an iPhone, that does not really impact me (where I live). In contrast, Microsoft even has impact on people who would consider not to use their products. I'd also bet that there are far more Microsoft Office users than iPhone users. Windows also has huge network effects.

I agree with you though. The iPhone is a big offender in that it does not really allows you to run any code you could otherwise run on it, the only supported way of installing apps is incompatible with the GPL and Apple controls what you run on your Apple device (which some people find it's a feature).

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#168

Post by zeveb »

mikepurvis wrote: post #121
simion314 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you ever affected by the GPL3 vs GPL2 license? I am just wondering who is affected(not everybody makes kernels and drivers)

Any MacOS user who has to put up with having bash-from-2006 as the default shell has been affected by GPL2 vs GPL3.

Correction: any MacOS user is affected by Apple's decision not to update bash.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#169

Post by TeMPOraL »

mav3rick wrote: post #139
TeMPOraL wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: Just a reminder that, only a week ago, this man was fired for using a technology forum to defend a 74 year old man having sex with a 17 year old prostitute on pedophile island. You're spreading lies, whether or not you're aware of it. The man has resigned (most likely being forced out) for being pedantic about an accusation about a 74 year old man, that allegedly - and in fact not at all, if the actual witnes…

Wow, you are completely wrong on that. RMS was so blatantly wrong that even he had to back track on his views.

It's not about views, it's about reading the source material and applying basic reading comprehension.
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