51–60 of 62 posts
I wonder what the response would be like if there was a party dedicated to breaking the GPL. Piracy seems to be fine, but anybody that violates an open source license like the GPL gets demonized like they are a criminal.
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"And YES I could just use Linux, before you ask, but I'm getting quite used to TextMate." So because you can't be bothered with using something that's free, you are going to disrespect apple's license. There are plenty of free text editors for Windows and Linux that supports most of not all of textmate's features. Many companies decide to use GNU code in their apps. They don't get the same luxury as you. Many are sue…
" So because you can't be bothered with using something that's free.... " You are making presumptions again here. I've tried Linux, I prefer OS X is all. As I've said already, OS X seems to be the best environment for Rails development. If I sell my startup for millions, Apple wins big through additional sales. I'm going to bow gracefully out of this thread now, as I've said my piece. I'll leave you with a few words…
How will they get additional sales if you "sell your startup for millions"?
"I'm going to bow gracefully out of this thread now, as I've said my piece. I'll leave you with a few words of wisdom from a guy a little bit richer and more successful than either of us:"
Are you from China? If not, you don't really have a point beyond that you like to use commercial software, not pay for it, and make excuses that one day when you make it big (which statistically speaking won't happen), you will decide to pay for them.
I wish I could use the same excuses about my credit card bills and business loans.
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"The whole point of the GPL is to stop companies from profiting off of other's programs without also giving something back to the community. Noone in the "pirate movement" supports for-profit piracy or copyright infringement." Really? so the touchy-feely reasons that most people in the free software movement is a lie? It's all to stop profits? This sure doesn't sound like "freedom" to me. Freedom means you can do wha…
Really? so the touchy-feely reasons that most people in the free software movement is a lie? I think you forgot a verb there? It's all to stop profits? This sure doesn't sound like "freedom" to me. I'm not really sure what you're ranting against, but the whole point of the GPL is to force "give some, get some", and to stop people from profiting off of other people's work. Freedom means you can do whatever the hell yo…
My point was that Richard Stallman for years claimed that this wasn't the reason. I also don't really think there was a problem with people "profiting off of other people's work" before the GPL became popular.
When you release something for free, it shouldn't matter if someone makes a profit from it. If you do care, then don't call it "free".
"Which community are you talking about now? The "pirate" community or the "free software" community?"
This community, for starters. Check out the lasted post about the guy from Thesis VS Wordpress. The majority of the people here on HN support Wordpress.
"Also, the FSF is of the position that copyrights suck, but that doesn't stop them from making the GPL using existing copyright law. The GPL is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Copyright law is as it is, and therefore we have the GPL as it is. If copyright law was different, for example if software couldn't be copyrighted, we wouldn't have the GPL at all."
The whole point of the GPL is so people have the freedom to tinker with the source code (this has been said by Stallman many times). If we had no copyright laws, there would be nothing stopping people from releasing binaries only. The difference would be that you could share the copyrighted works with anybody.
Would this really benefit the community?
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> How many people here on HN have used pirated software to help build a web app? I would expect this number to be close to 0. What does this even mean?
A way of saving money. Thinking about this again, its probably extremely presumptuous of me to guess that a lot HN users use pirated software, just as it is presumptuous of you to say that the number is close to 0. There's no way of knowing. I doubt people would come out and admit it....time for a poll maybe? I recall seeing a TechStars video a few moths back where one of the guys in the program all but admitted he w…
My modus operati when I need an expensive piece of software is to pirate half a dozen different packages that claim to do what I want, evaluate them, then purchase the one that best does the job.
Wrong? Maybe. But there is a whole lot of hype when it comes to that sort of thing and I can't afford to weed it out at full price right now. Better (less crippled) evaluations (or evals at all) would help.
Sometimes I even find that what I thought I was trying to do was not what I wanted to do after all, but I usually end up buying something.
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Yes, but it works as a standalone installation, you don't need to have 10.5 installed.
How is better to spend 29$ to break a license? Because I suposse the upgrade license needs a "base" license.
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"How many people here on HN have used pirated software to help build a web app? Quite a few I'd bet. If your fledging web app is a success, whose software are you gonna buy when you are successful? The one you 'test-drove' as a pirate of course. " Possibly. But there aren't really any real stats to back this up. "Why do you think the tech industry and the web grew out of America and not some other wealthy country? It…
The problem with clamping down on piracy is where do you draw the line? On one end of the continuum is the 'totally-open' model that has been there since the advent of the web, and the other end of the continuum is China, which employs an army of workers ( http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2010/03/... ) to censor content that the government deems 'inappropriate'. Starting to apply measures to clamp…
I wonder what the response would be like if there was a party dedicated to breaking the GPL. Piracy seems to be fine, but anybody that violates an open source license like the GPL gets demonized like they are a criminal.
I think it's a lot like Robin Hood. Piracy is viewed in some ways as "rob from the rich and give to the poor" which people in general can get on board with. However, breaking the GPL would be more like the opposite. Instead, someone is seeking personal gain/fame (aka the "rich") vs the people who volunteered their time ("poor") and that's just not right.
Robin Hood taxed the tax men ("Robin Hood," Disney, 1973). It was less a matter of rich vs. poor than of beneficiaries vs. victims of oppressive taxation (similar mechanics, opposite direction). The GPL attempts to use the weight of copyrights in general as leverage against abusive copyrights.