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My Talk at Microsoft

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Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#41

Post by ndespres »

dwighttk wrote: post #35
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…

Making money rather than crucifying a savior?

A reference to the Good Friday Agreement, a pivotal development in the UK/Republic of Ireland peace talks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#42

Post by wyldfire »

meddlepal wrote: post #10
Crinus wrote: post #2

> And one other suggestion, which I made to a vice president but perhaps not in my talk. > > Release the source code of Windows under the GNU GPL. > > I know that is a stretch, but from what I heard there. it isn't totally impossible. I do not remember who or where exactly it was, but i remember someone influential from Microsoft that was asked about open sourcing Windows (not necessarily under GPL) and they also sai…

I don't know why anyone would think it is impossible, but it would take significant money and time to do it and it is unclear what benefit there would be except some small good will gained from developers that care about the FSF mission.

I think the benefit is unclear but it's almost certainly not limited to good will.

There's lots of developers who are working on products targeting Windows today (for momentum, their customer's requirements, etc). Those devs encounter Windows bugs and generally workaround them. But if instead they could patch them and/or provide patches upstream, it would be a huge benefit to them and likely some benefit to Microsoft as well.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#43

Post by TheDong »

xiaodai wrote: post #25

Free software is difficult. I have a family and young kids to feed. I can't work for FREE. I have open-source packages that are "free", but that's my hobby or a living. If you get a professorship at a university then you can flog free software, but it doesn't work for the other 99.99999% of the population. Sigh. I wish open-soure software is funded like universities. European Union funds some software, but more shoul…

Many people get paid to write free software. Some people write free software and sell it (for example, some paid android and iphone apps have their code available under the GPL, but still make money).

There are many companies, including facebook/google/etc, that employ kernel developers who primarily write free software. There are companies that follow the opencore model, and many of their developers only work on the open portion (e.g. elasticsearch, mongodb, nginx, etc). There are some people who offer consulting for their free software and make good money by that. There are some companies where almost all development is free software, and money is gotten through other means (e.g. mozilla, redhat).

Free software does not have to mean working for free. It doesn't even mean you can't charge money for it (free as in libre, not free as in beer).

That being said, I agree that funding free software development is a large problem. Right now, the most sustainable model is a company to be interested in a project and to pay developers to work on it (e.g. linux), or for a company to own the project (e.g. firefox, mongodb).

There's no great funding story I know of for open source projects that are important, but maintained by people on the side (e.g. most of gnu coreutils, random libraries big projects depend on, etc).

However, your comment sounds more grim than reality is, and also conflates free as in libre with free as in beer.

Yeah, sure, you can't work for free, but that doesn't mean you can't make free software and charge people for it.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#44

Post by simion314 »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #27
incompatible wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman doesn't want to run proprietary software on his computer, and that includes proprietary Javascript.

This is a perfect example of how Stallman ultimately is an authoritarian. He wants all the freedom to do what he wants, but has no problem with his "free software" vision limiting the rights of others. As someone else pointed out, "what about proprietary HTML and CSS?" Stallman has no ability to recognize the need for others to protect their own work, he only wants his free access to the fruits of others' labor. Don'…

He is not forcing his views on you, don't like him don't read what he writes.

If you want to have a discussion about freedom then let's do it in a rigorous way, go read the GNU page, read about the 4 freedoms then get back and explain your point more clearly.

His point is that proprietary software is bad and you should now write it and not use it, I agree with him and I still run some proprietary blobs, I do not feel forced to do anything or feel shamed.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#45

Post by [deleted] »

ryukafalz wrote: post #11
Operyl wrote: post #3

> Direct GitHub to promote correct and clear use of licenses and the best use of copyleft (GPL version 3-or-later). Ehhhh... I very much like that my source code repository host isn't consistently nudging me to a specific license, thanks :).

Sure, but it should at least differentiate between GPLv3 and GPLv3 or later. The SPDX license list does this: "GPL-3.0-only" vs "GPL-3.0-or-later". GitHub does not. (Also, GitHub already does recommend licenses to some extent; there's a short list of highlighted ones in the license selection dropdown.)

[deleted]

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#47

Post by bobwaycott »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #30

Some clunky writing here: > it isn't totally impossible. > so we can run them without any nonfree software Edit: removed my suggestions

I agree with your second suggestion (although you added an unnecessary that in there), but your first changes the meaning significantly. To my reading, “it isn’t totally impossible” signifies a thing being very to extremely difficult—perhaps close enough to impossible that the difficulty is worth recognizing as potentially insurmountable—though not entirely outside the realm of possibility. “It’s totally possible”, on the other hand, seems to indicate a thing of such negligible difficulty the obstacles are not worth mentioning.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#48

Post by simion314 »

Smithalicious wrote: post #23
nirui wrote: post #15

I somehow want to quote this too: > Direct GitHub to promote correct and clear use of licenses and the best use of copyleft (GPL version 3-or-later). I remember when I was very green, that list of licenses on the GitHub repository creation page is very very confusing to me. I don't know which is which and which one I should use, and most importantly, what's the effect of my choice. It could be great if GitHub can imp…

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)

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#49

Post by 5trokerac3 »

simion314 wrote: post #44
5trokerac3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a perfect example of how Stallman ultimately is an authoritarian. He wants all the freedom to do what he wants, but has no problem with his "free software" vision limiting the rights of others. As someone else pointed out, "what about proprietary HTML and CSS?" Stallman has no ability to recognize the need for others to protect their own work, he only wants his free access to the fruits of others' labor. Don'…

He is not forcing his views on you, don't like him don't read what he writes. If you want to have a discussion about freedom then let's do it in a rigorous way, go read the GNU page, read about the 4 freedoms then get back and explain your point more clearly. His point is that proprietary software is bad and you should now write it and not use it, I agree with him and I still run some proprietary blobs, I do not feel…

> He is not forcing his views on you, don't like him don't read what he writes.

Until just last week, when he was fired for using a technology forum to defend a 74 year old man having sex with a 17 year old prostitute on pedo island, he was the face of an organization that he used specifically to force views like "every website should work without JavaScript".

It's ok to want websites to work without JS. The proper way to go about that is to help build bridges, not to interact with the CEOs of the world's largest tech companies like a whiny teenager that isn't getting what he wants.

Edit: you can flag the truth all you want, but RMS defended the worst behaviors possible of mankind. If you're the one that flagged this comment, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Re: My Talk at Microsoft

#50

Post by cameronbrown »

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.

I can understand their perspective, especially if they're non technical. Much of the time they see open source as some ragtag community project that has no real support so they believe in terms of risk, it can seem lower to build or buy.
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