“We’re now more than a decade later than the moment when I judged the open source to have gained a decisive momentum – 1996-1997, when Slackware was the reference, Red Hat was ‘the other choice’, KDE and GNOME were just emerging, Walnut Creek was selling CD-ROMs, and SunSITE mirrors were the home of most of the relevant software. The worst thing that happened was that Yggdrasil Linux died. But the Earth kept spinning…” Read the rest of the editorial at TheJemReport.
The Sorry State of Open Source Software
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
are claimed to be…
this article is very LONG, here’s a snippet from the last page for those of you who like to FF>>
better sorry than dead ?
Edited 2007-04-15 20:27
I think he should have just published this in book form…
His editorial is a mix of good and bad. For example, in part 5, he state that Novell has managed to gain a ‘competitive advantage’ in the Linux field — and in the next sentence, he asserts that all competitive advantages are necessarially monopolistic. Then, in part 6, he succinctly points out the largest flaw in the GPL, but then tacks on an attack on software patents (the protection of which is essential to keep small companies and individuals competitive with large companies, and from keeping ideas in computer science from being kept in perpetually-renewable copyrights).
I think the most true thing in his article is his prediction that he will be accused of spreading ‘FUD’. I’m guessing it’ll take about 40 posts here for someone to accuse him of working for Microsoft.
Edited 2007-04-15 20:51
Patents favor *large* companies, who can mount massive patent portfolios in a never-ending “arms race.” Patent registration can rarely be afforded/defended by small companies and invididuals. They are a threat to software innovation, as correctly designated by the author (though I don’t expect a member of the MS Defense Brigade to agree…)
Also, copyrights protect implementations, not ideas, so your second point is moot (nor are copyiright perpetually-renewable, though it sometimes feel that way when the content industry manages to have extensions voted by the US Congress once every couple of years…)
I completely agree with you!
The Software Patent GAME (TM) is played like this:
A startup company has a nice, innovative piece of software and wants to sell it. After some time a software megacorp wants to enter the same business, but can’t because the startup has patented the invention. But that does not disturb the software megacorp, they themselves start selling their infringing product.
If the small startup cries “foul” then the big megacorp simply launches a volley of patent infringement lawsuits against the small startup. Because at SOME point every software infringes on somebody else’s patents, the likelyhood of the small startup infringing on megacorp’s patents is high.
Even if the startup were cleard of any infringement by the court, they would not be able to pay their lawyers as long as they need, to get their product out of the front door.
That’s where licensing comes in. Large corps regularly license out patented software from small companies (look at how many companies Microsoft licenses code from), because damages for patent infringement are always higher than the cost of properly licensing, and there will always be lawyers willing to work pro bono in order to get a share of the damages. (In the case of Microsoft infringing anyone’s patents, the chance to get a share of those damages would attract some very good lawyers…)
Well, I for one disagree with his analysis on a few points, but I would *not* accuse him of spreading FUD. In fact, I think some of his criticism is quite valid, while some other (such as the GPL criticism) isn’t.
“””
Well, I for one disagree with his analysis on a few points, but I would *not* accuse him of spreading FUD. In fact, I think some of his criticism is quite valid, while some other (such as the GPL criticism) isn’t.
“””
Objective acceptance of criticisms is going to become more and more important as OSS moves forward.
It used to be so obvious where we excelled and where we sucked that it was hard to ignore either.
Now, overconfidence is a very real enemy. Overconfidence is dangerous. Premature overconfidence is worse. And I’m seeing more and more of it these days.
Keep these critical articles coming! The OSNews crowd has enough perspective to appreciate them and to judge them in an informed manner… even if we don’t all end up agreeing.
I’d hate for our OSS story to end up in the same vein as “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.
Keep these critical articles coming!
Keep ’em coming, but keep ’em short. For an old fogie like me, at least, a couple of A4 pages-worth of blog is the absolute limit; anything larger still requires a dead tree.
This might change on the day when electronic paper becomes commonplace, but that day is not this day.
Yeah. I pretty much stuck this one in the TL:DR bucket. It could be fantastic, but my on-screen WPM rate is about 1/2 to 2/3 of my on-paper rate, and that was one longass article.
The author hardly criticizes Pardus Linux for its security model. Then at the end of the article he states:
“To contradict myself, I have written parts of this report on a Pardus system, and some final edits were done under Kubuntu 7.04, both distributions I said I will not use (and I had a few KWin crashes with both of them). Like I said in the opening, we’re all humans after all.”
And this is the big moral of the long story. We’re all humans and we all have highly subjective views of reality. The article might have some insights and things you might agree or disagree with, but in the end it’s mostly the portrait of a man who’s been in touch with Open Source for a long time.
Interesting read, nonetheless.
I agree partially with the blog/book.
I am also using Linux since 1995. I still remember when Slackware was the distributions of the day.
When the binary format was the a.out with all the quirks to support shared objects. And the transition to ELF format during the year after.
Nowadays I work daily with Linux servers, but my personal laptop has only XP on it, although most of the running software is open source.
Why? Because I as the author got a bit feed up with all the constant changes of Linux development. And my current need to use my desktop as a multimeedia one is not helped by the lack of support from Linux.
We really have to appreciate that Linux is open source, as history has already shown, all close source systems have lost against Windows. Its only the GPL that keeps Linux alive.
Seems a little on the biased side (but I use FreeBSD myself, so no complaints here), but a lot of info and a good sense of perspective.
It seems like the main failure of F/OSS recently has been the failure to play to its strengths. Try to turn it into Windows or OSX all you want, but play their game by their rules and you will lose.
Ah, a classic logical fallacy. Linux could be so much more successful if it stopped trying to be like Windows and tried to be innovative for once.
BS. The world doesn’t want an innovative OS that turns the whole Windows/OSX desktop (or server) metaphor on its head. The world wants an OS that’s basically a clone of Windows that’s more in tune with the realities of our network-connected society. And that is what the Linux community is working to provide.
Because of how dependent we all are on our operating systems for our lifestyles and businesses, the OS market has become locked its product/feature matrix. It doesn’t matter if product B has ten compelling features that your current product A is missing if product B doesn’t offer just one of the features you use in product A. Replacements have to be at feature-parity with the current product. Anything above and beyond that is gravy.
I agree that it’s unfortunate. Most of the work needed to reach parity with Windows is not the sort of work at which the OSS model excels. Making Linux a viable alternative to Windows is the hardest part, but it has to be phase one of the overall goal of pushing proprietary software out of the mass market.
And we’re not playing by their rules. We’ve used the GPL to create our own intellectual property bubble that can be embraced by anyone but only extended by cooperative partners. We’ve consciously decided that our software should never fall under the exclusive control of any distributor. Microsoft operates by acquiring and controlling technologies. Our technology is not for sale.
This is what gets MS hot under the collar more than anything. Every time a product is GPLed, that’s one more product that Microsoft can’t absorb into its bubble. Surviving in today’s software industry is about protecting and growing your bubble. We are not a bunch of projects hoping to get bought-out by Microsoft someday. We have decided to share a single, well-protected bubble that will succeed or fail on its own.
Every time somebody claims that the GPL is holding back the success of Linux, I just have to shake my head and wonder how we can do better at making the world understand that the GPL is the magnetic field protecting our atmosphere from the solar winds of the software industry. Without it, our IP would just blow away and the Linux platform would become a barren, lifeless world.
+5 Insightful.
…doesn’t really have a point.
This is simply a story about a young man growing old and remembering the old times where everything was much better than today.
He does come up with some FUDdish statements but that’s to be expected when an old grouch is looking back on his life.
His article is more about himself than open source – that leads to the question. Who is in a sorry state: The author or Open Source Software?
Edited 2007-04-15 21:56
There’s a telling comparison to be made if you turn to the next article in the Jem Report after this one, which is about Microsoft’s thuggish and coercive attempts to control the way their Zune player is reviewed.
To its credit the Jem Report has told Microsoft to bog off. Even so, thank God there’s an open source at all, for all its alleged failings. The alternative is being taken to the cleaners by greedy bullies in the manner described.
Yes, it’s a long article. But it doesn’t have to be read sequentially and can stand being dipped into. In any case, it’s a welcome change of pace and a chance to watch ideas being developed at length.
One thing does come out of this for me. And that’s the near certainty that as the commercial world takes open source more to heart, so the commercial world’s less attractive practices – lies, lawyers, thugs, etc. – will seep into the whole fabric of F/OSS. I think it’s something that will be almost impossible to prevent because it’s an attitude of mind: “ask not what you can do for other people, but what other people can do for you”.
One thing the author could have looked at, but didn’t, is the likelihood and desirability or not of a straight split-fork-chasm in the F/OSS world between seriously free (Debian, say) and non-free commercial (Novel, perhaps).
I really wish this guy would have only spoken about true and important things, then perhaps it could have been kept to one page.
This article is full of inaccuracies and poor evaluations.
For example, the in section 25 it states:
This statement can be viewed as either inaccurate or a poor evaluation. Especially since Vista does not include a full development and application suite.
For example, the Developer Express edition includes: Sun Studio 11 for OpenSolaris, NetBeans IDE 5.5 with Enterprise Pack 5.5, Apache2, MySQL5, special perl 5 build, PHP5, tds, ncurses, phplibs, memcached (distributed object cache system), ruby, squid, tomcat, PostgreSQL, Python, and more.
It also includes a full version of StarOffice 8.
The 14GB requirement is to install everything. The 80GB is what is recommended for *using* the system for development and application testing.
In addition, Solaris Express Developer Edition is *free*, Vista is not.
When Vista includes all of that plus thousands of other programs let me know. In the meantime, his little snipe at the size of the install is pathetic.
So I missed it: are those, or are those not the system requirements for the install of Solaris Express? The fact that Solaris includes a bunch of extras (and about 70% of what you mentioned were open source apps included with just about any Unix-like OS, most of which do not need 768MB of RAM to work) doesn’t mean the HW requirements aren’t on the beefy side (especially with the older hardware a lot of people throw Linux or *BSD on).
Yes and no. If you perform a graphical installation, yes. If you perform a text-based install, no (512mb I believe for that one). Calling it Vista because of the requirements is an unfair comparison because Vista does not include even half of what Solaris Express Developer Edition does. Solaris Express is more like Vista + Office + Visual Studio + Windows Server all rolled into one.
Finally, I think anyone in their right mind realises that an OS distribution aimed at developers is going to have higher memory recommendations given that server software by its very nature uses a lot of memory.
The ram requirement has nothing to do with the actual system. The 768mb is actually only required by the grahpical installer. The installer requires it because of current design limitations which are already being overcome in the redesign of the installer.
In addition, Solaris Express Developer Edition is a *testing* release of the Solaris operating system. It is *not* a production release. So it also unfair to compare it to a production product.
Finally, Solaris Express Developer Edition is not aimed at “older hardware.” Solaris itself is not either, generally speaking.
Edited 2007-04-15 23:16
You can however download SQL Server Express, and express editions of C#, VB.NET and Web Developer. It may not ship with Development tools, but they are available, and for free.
Yes, I’m quite aware of that having used those tools myself. However, I was pointing out that they were already included, whereas they are not with Vista which was the source of an unfair comparison in the context of installation size.
quality article (read sarcasm here lol)
im never coming back to osnews
eweee
bye bye then
dont let the door hit you on the way out
Honestly the author brought up a bunch of points that I also agree with.
Things have changed a lot since I first started using GNU/Linux (slackware), some good and some bad. I think the majority of it has been good.
I now use FreeBSD as my server and desktop OS of choice. I found it to be the most consistent and overall best behaving OS I have ever used. From the init system, to the documentation, to the uptime to the tools available in the ports system, it’s just been a joy to use. There are some issues though, but overall as I said, it’s been great.
I still use and love GNU/Linux however, but many of the points brought up in this article have basically summarized much of why I am now using FreeBSD.
I am all for making the desktop easier to use and would indeed love to see more standards adhered to. What I don’t want to see happen, which is happening, are more layers piled on top of each other with the means to simplify using the OS, but in turn, actually add a lot more complexity to the underlying configs. Making things simpler, doesn’t have to add complexity.
Honestly, FreeBSD is VERY simple, it may not look it to the newest user at first as it is different. Different, not difficult. It takes time to learn new things, but once you learn it’s rather a breeze to maintain.
Done rambling.
There are only two or three reasons I don’t use FreeBSD. The first is/are that it doesn’t have support for lots of off the shelf hardware that Linux does, or for things like (an easily configurable) fdisk or LVM-type proggy. The last I’m not going to mention to avoid another one of THOSE.
I’ve wondered why BSD doesn’t have a user-friendly version similar to Ubuntu. Although it has its flaws, FreeBSD’s probably in the top two or three OSs out there — but unfortunately, only from a technical standpoint, not an usability or support standpoint.
Ever try PC-BSD or DesktopBSD? Me neither, but supposedly they’re pretty cool for people who are into that whole “user-friendly” thing. Not saying FreeBSD itself isn’t user-friendly, it’s just selective about who its friends are.
If you want couture maybe, but some people do know what real usability and reliability is. The term “desktop” and “user-friendly” is marketing crap.
>I’ve wondered why BSD doesn’t have a user-friendly version similar to Ubuntu.
Because there is lot of knowledge within *BSD community. PCBSD and DesktopBSD are easy versions of FreeBSD for the beginner. But nobody at these systems is found of Ubuntu – you’ll never see this at *BSD.
Maybe sometime *BSD will get a noisy millionaire too, who is found of building his very own fork to bypass the spirit of open-source or community at all. But I do think this will never happen, the force is strong within *BSD people :o)
I think Linux is in great shape considering all that happened. First we had MS calling it communism. Then SCO starts in first telling Congress it should be illegal and then trying to state that they own it. It survived the dot com blowout. It is taking over in the server room and lots of companies are implementing it in the workplace.
Technically, it is holding its ground against Vista and OS X. Compared to Vista, it works on more hardware, has a more robust and open ended 3D desktop, and didnt take 6 billion dollars to develop. About the only thing that is lacking is a better unified sound architecture, but that will happen too. Hell we even have flash support now. Linux is getting better everyday. The problem with Windows is that there wont be any real improvements now for another 5 years.
Hear, hear. I remember Linux circa 97 and Redhat 5.2 and it sucked compared to todays offerings. Linux has come a lot further since 97 than Microsoft Windows has, and equally as well as OS 9/X imho.
For those that lament the old days, go and grab those old disks of Redhat 5.2, Slackware (whatever version it was back then), etc and install them. Have fun (and a lack of productivity to boot I might add).
Gee.
Dave
PS No – I haven’t read the article yet, at lunch, don’t have time for a long winded gas bag by an old guy reminiscing on old times long since gone.
PS No – I haven’t read the article yet, at lunch, don’t have time for a long winded gas bag by an old guy reminiscing on old times long since gone.
Do not dis the good old days..
I remember I could get a taxi to the cinema, buy 24 beers, a packet of cigars, fish and chips on the way out, 24 more beers and another taxi home and still have change from a pound.
Yeah, it might be so.
But it is the current state of the desktop Linux that has put off many of the now old guys as you say.
We were there in the beginning and tried a lot to advocate Linux and even use it on comercial projects.
But nowadays things still seem to be more or less the same and life and has taken us elsewhere.
I still develop software that targets Linux, but many of my old friends are now developing .Net IT systems. Just worring to get their job done, the time for OS advocacy has passed way.
And I do feel sometimes like so. Even though I develop software for Linux, my private laptop only has XP on it. Because so far I haven’t found a distribution that supports it properly.
And on my life I have better things to do than to mess around with configuration files. Somehow I grow old of doing that with every installation that I did install.
And this is the sad state of affairs for many of us that were there on the beginning. Not these youngsters trolls that now pop up in every forum.
Better unified sound architecture? what do you call ALSA a log useless appendage hiding within Linux?
Nothings wrong with it. Its just not the only sound architecture in use. There’s still a lot of OSS, Arts, ESD… (I might be wrong with some of the names, I think they are close though) Plus there is still some problems with sound recording due to kernel issues I believe. Plus, I dont think alsa supports software mixing in the kernel. You need hardware mixing or you have to run some other app to get it. But I am not an expert and some of this I could be wrong on.
Nothings wrong with it. Its just not the only sound architecture in use. There’s still a lot of OSS, Arts, ESD…
Nonsense ! If you use ALSA, you don’t use OSS, and at worst, you use a OSS compatible ALSA module.
ALSA is the default since years, and as for ARTS, ESD, and other sound daemons, you won’t have a problem with them unless you have several simultaneous desktops like I have. This means it’s not a current setup.
Anyway, gstreamer is there to put all this together : it is used natively in Gnome, and will have a plugin for KDE’s next sound system.
Plus there is still some problems with sound recording due to kernel issues I believe
No there’s not. Perhaps with high end sound apps, which require some realtime kernel feature, but apart from that, it works for most people out there.
Plus, I dont think alsa supports software mixing in the kernel. You need hardware mixing or you have to run some other app to get it. But I am not an expert and some of this I could be wrong on
It’s worse than not being an expert, you don’t have any clue at all, as ALSA does software mixing since years. It’s become automatic since years too (thanks to Ubuntu help). Only problem nowadays, is that while still using ESD and ARTS, the two can’t work together everytime.
And with that being said, like you said, its being replaced with gstreamer on GNOME, and in the case of KDE, Phonon, which will be able to have multiple back ends.
Oh, and as for abstraction, there is always OpenAL – which is available on Windows, *BSD, *NIX and MacOS X; so if you’re a audiophile based application writer, use OpenAL, and everything is sweet for multi-platform goodness.
I read the editorial up to the GPL vs BSD part, in which the author suggests that the GPL follows Bolshevik-like philosophy. This was too loaded for my tastes.
This makes me wonder, why do some people oppose the GPL with such zeal? I always thought it was pretty clear: both BSD and GPL are Free Software licenses. The GPL is better for the public (because all changes to distributed programs are available), while the BSD license is better for private entities (because they don’t have to release the source after modifying programs). So is there really much room for discussion?
Many comments and some articles like this lead me to believe that possibly there is some unneccessary confusion among people regarding these licenses. It makes me a bit sad, because I would prefer to see a less torn Free Software community.
Personally I wouldn’t like to see a BSD-licensed Linux that companies could take away and make their version proprietary, but that’s always the developers’ decision.
I don’t fully understand the BSD developers — they tolerate the fact that companies just take their code and incorporate it into their software without releasing the source, like Microsoft with the BSD network code and utilites (ftp.exe for example). I respect their decision though and don’t see any grounds for a flame war.
I’d like to point one thing out before going on a complete tangent: Microsoft used BSD code in much the same way OpenBSD was using the BCM4xx code from linux: it was a template to fill in a part of the system that hadn’t been completely written yet. NT needed a TCP/IP implementation and they interfaced to the BSD code through a wrapper in version 3.1 to get it (3.1 was not really used outside of Microsoft itself). By version 3.5 of NT, which was still rarely used, the network code had been replaced by the native TCP stack and all that remains is some of the control utilities… probably just for backwards compatibility with command line scripts that were written back in the day.
Now for the tangent:
I think it’s just great for the world for there to be a body of code which corporations can use to fill in parts of their system and make better products. As people want to hack on and get free alternatives for potentially expensive software, the body of open source code will increase. There is a place in the world for both development models and absolutist open sourcers are doing the entire world a disfavor. No one believes in the opposite: absolute proprietariness of code. After all, no one would learn how to write software if there were nothing to build upon.
I agree that BSD code could get taken advantage of. I heard that the reason RMS created the GPL was because some companies in the AI Lisp community were taking the work of universities and other groups and not contributing anything back. This is clearly bad for everyone because no one wants to contribute to a company’s bottom line without getting paid to do so.
What I don’t like about the GPL, though, is that it is used by some to force companies to open up their code in order to get benefits for it. I wouldn’t mind if it were a requirement that a software vendor release any modification to the code itself rather than to also the code that links to it. In essence, what I like is the LGPL… a license that allows linking and reuse around designed interfaces, but does not require linked code to be open source (source for the LGPL piece still needs to be obtainable). A nice additional clause would be that a company using the licensed code can not claim patent rights for any features of their software depending on that code. This way, competitors can use the GPL code in the same way to do the exact same thing. Hackers can also develop identical software if they so desire.
The result is that companies will have incentives to create cutting edge products based on open code and that the most important and mature ideas that ensue would get rolled back into the “open” base.
Edited 2007-04-16 01:40
Sorry, but I have to disagree with your basic premise. The whole idea behind the GPL license is to ensure that everyone has an equal footing – everyone can copy the software, everyone can view the src code, everyone can contribute to it and improve it, all public redistributions of code with improvements are fed back to the original source.
Business has a problem with this, and so does it seem, most people because it’s against basic human nature to share equally, and it’s against modern social programming to share. Take, take, take, don’t give back, that’s what todays youth are being taught. Not what I call a very mature species behavioural trait is it?
Again, for those that dislike the license, don’t use the software. It’s such a simple concept, but people find it so incredibly hard to digest. People seem to just want to insist on taking without giving back, well sorry, but the GPL doesn’t work that way. Deal with it. If you don’t like that, then go use some BSD code instead, since that style of license clearly allows you to be greedy and unsharing with the community to appease your own greedy corporate benefits.
Dave
Again, for those that dislike the license, don’t use the software.
Which people seem to be doing more and more every day.
Here we go again with one of your lame attempts at FUD….
BACK UP your statememts with some firgures, or examples, or at least a link..
Otherwise, people will continue to treat you as a troll.
Here we go again with one of your lame attempts at FUD
Why do many users here automatically dismiss all criticisms of the GPL/copyleft as “FUD”, often with a few personal attacks thrown in, without even any sign that they had considered or even read the arguments presented them?
As to your question, the fact that people are not using GPL software is enormously evident. Windows costs much more than Linux, yet the former is still a multi-billion dollar product and the latter can’t even approach the marketshare of Mac OSX. Microsoft Office costs hundreds (maybe thousands) of dollars more than Koffice or OpenOffice, and yet the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats are still standard. Photoshop costs hundreds of dollars more than GIMP, yet employers never look for experience in the latter on resumes. The only thing all these products that have not been adopted have in common is the fact that they are licensed under copyleft licenses.
People who see the GPL for what is don’t use software licensed under it. Even in those instances when said software can do everything that the proprietary or free program can do, but at the price of $0, people are paying the hundreds or thousands of dollars it takes to be free of GPL code, and they’re doing it by the millions. This isn’t ignorance — this is knowing the license.
Well heres a question for you then. Why is there more GPL code written than BSD if you are right? I mean , BSD was started long before Linux. And yet Linux has a much larger community than BSD. Why is that? You like BSD and I prefer GPL, thats fine. But saying that only people who dont understand the license use GPL is a load of crap. I’m SURE IBM and Sun understand the license. I’m SURE Linus understands the license. And I’m SURE I understand the license. Seems like an awful lot of people using GPL software.
As for Windows being a billion dollar OS. You are absolutely right. Billions have been spent on it. With all that money, I think MS owes a better OS to the world.
First off, I did not mean for the personal attack, I had a short temper this morning through lack of sleep. I apologise for that.
Now, people are not using GPL software, not because of the license, but because they do not know any different.
Employers will not look for Gimp experience because they think Photoshop is the onlt tool.
Most people think the only word processor is MSWord and Excel is the only spreadsheet.
Recently, I advertised a computer tech support job, I asked people to send in their CV’s, (resumes), only in an open format, anyone using a proprietary format would immediately be disqualified. I had over 80 replies to the advert, and around 60 had to be dumped straight away, as they had responded in .DOC
Do these people not know what an open format is ? or do they think there only is one type of word processor ?
I might have disregarded a genius, but if they cannot carry out a simple request, they have no place on our staff, and they would also be useless to our customers as they are not MS users either.
Back to the license….
I have read a few posts about it being communist, anti-god, etc etc… why ?
There is also more crap about when you use GPL, you also have to release your code as GPL…. yes and no.
If I made a video player, and you decided to change it, then fair enough, the GPL says that you can, as long as you do not claim it as YOUR OWN WORK, and that you put somewhere in the docs that it was actually taken from MY WORK. You also have to release the code to anyone who ASKS
This is a point most anti-GPL people seem to smudge, you do not HAVE to provide your code, unless someone asks for it.
Here is an example;
I can sell my videoplayer for £100, but you can give yours away for free.
I can give mine away for free, and you can sell yours for £100.
There is no limitations, apart from the fact that you cannot sell your £100 videoplayer and tell everyone that it was your program from the outset.
I can get a copy of your videoplayer, and ask for a copy of the source to have a look at how you improved it, then I would see how I can improve upon yours.
What is evil about that ?
Joe Public does not care about the license, he does not go into PC World, pick up a game, then put it back on the shelf because it is proprietary, he will not buy a DVD burning app, then try to return it because it has a BSD license.
No, Joe Public, and most others use whatever they are told, by magazines, TV, friends. It might not be the best solution, but it is what they know.
You can state on the resume you have experience on Adobe Photoshop because the skills from Gimp can be transferred to that software with some small differences.
I think the mistake you made is not providing an information about open document format and the office applications that support it. On that example, it was obvious the only software most tech support knows are from Microsoft. This comment also applies on the following qute:
Edited 2007-04-17 07:23
I think the mistake you made is not providing an information about open document format and the office applications that support it.
I don’t think it was a mistake, rather a test on purpose.
If you want a good tech support person, you’d expect them to be able to read carefully, since people they are working with will not have the same level of expertise.
You’d also expect them to be able to do some autonomous research in order to solve a problem.
A candidate who fails to manage such a simple request as in the example given in the parent’s posting might not be worth the time of an interview.
Exactly it was indeed a test.
Most people who apply for our tech jobs are straight out of a mcse course and can only think Microsoft.
They are no good to us, as we work with mainframes and Unix based servers. These people cannot find the start button.
So you’re saying that the reason a majority of users use Mac and Windows software is because of the GPL? I doubt the majority of them even know what the GPL is, let alone what it (or even the ELUA they click through when installing a commercial program) entails.
I think the bigger problem is the lack of vision and imagination by corporations who assume that the only way to make a buck is to box up a product and sell it through retail and OEM channels.
The reality is, the concept of ‘bounties’ is a prime example of the freemarket at work, the freemarket where by for example, if I can’t be bothered writing the feature I want, I can pay someone to do that.
Same goes for GNOME, if I want a said feature within a GNOME based application, I can either add it myself, or pay for it – and the great thing about the GPL, not only do I benefit from that but everyone else does.
There is this stupid idea, however, that if someone pays for something, and allows others access to it, they some how lose out; how does one lose out by allowing others to reap rewards from it? I mean, I can still use that feature, I can still yield benefits from it – it just so happened to be a bonus that everyone else can too.
While avoiding any comments on what I believe to be a lack of imagination in the open source space, I’ll point out that that corporate lack of vision you speak of seems to be working quite well for those companies commercially.
Have you ever taken a bounty or posted one? I can tell you from experience that the concept works far better on paper than in practice. And you cannot always write the features you need, let alone find a non-programmer who has a realistic idea of what the machine is (in)capable of.
You know, this model actually works in some cases, such as when you can withhold the service UNTIL you are paid, or where service is required on a continual basis as opposed to once per program written. In others, it has been used to destroy small companies by providing the same services they do for free.
For example, all Microsoft had to do to destroy Netscape was make IE slightly more free, which it was because it came with Windows and you didn’t have to ‘spend’ time to DL/install Netscape. And Netscape was a free product to begin with.
If my intent is to write a program for it’s own sake, then it makes sense to make it available to everyone. However, if my intent is to make a profit by providing a service (which I need to do to afford the things needed to survive), then it does not, because once I provide the service there is little incentive for anyone to pay me.
GPL aka “freedom” for software
BSD aka freedom for the user
>If you don’t like that, then go use some BSD code instead, since that style of license clearly allows you to be greedy and unsharing with the community to appease your own greedy corporate benefits.
The smell of FUD again? Everybody uses GPL code too without giving something back. Get serious. There isn’t usually a hint to see stolen GPL code in closed-source applications. Just by accident.
BSD license is about real freedom, freedom for the user. And for this precious freedom you do need courage, courage to give something away … and someone respects you and gives something back. *BSD is alive an kicking since the 70s … now it’s your turn 🙂
“GPL aka “freedom” for software
BSD aka freedom for the user”
I’m certain I disagree with both of those sweeping statements.
Could you inform exactly how as a “user” I benefit from BSD code in a binary application.
Please do not talk about FUD. What you have said is a lie.
There are benefits to both licenses, put please focus on those rather than invent stuff.
Edited 2007-04-16 13:22
Could you inform exactly how as a “user” I benefit from BSD code in a binary application.
You will be running well tested, peer reviewed code rather than half-baked code, developed in house by some guys straight out of college.
So your implying big companies do not test or review code?
So your implying big companies do not test or review code?
MICROSOFT!!!!!@#$!@#%$!%!#%!@#%!#
“Let’s patch the cursor patch so it works again!”
MS has an insanely huge amount of QA testers, and regularily does code reviews (wayyyy too regularily, it is one of the reasons they move so slow), and I don’t know of any company who doesnt have QA and code reviews as part of their process.
Now, one of the strengths of OSS is that there are huge amount of testers. The weakness is that bugs which are boring don’t get fixed, because there is no incentive to do it, and can remain unfixed for years.
And as for OSS code reviews, that only ever happens in high profile projects, if then. When was the last time you sat down to an afternoon of reading through the kernel code? I know I never have.
When was the last time you sat down to an afternoon of reading through the kernel code?
*cough*
Erm, I did that earlier this morning…
So your implying big companies do not test or review code?
There are several studies of code quality (you can google for them yourself) that show that open source code tends to be of better quality than commercial code.
You completely missed the point however. The point is, if the problem has already been solved, then dropping a well tested, BSD licensed solution is often far better than re-inventing the wheel and taking several revisions to get it ‘right’.
How does BSD guarantee freedom for the user?
So, you are now admitting that corporations are greedy, and do illegal things like take code and not adhere to the license. Why does that make BSD code more morally right to use then? That’s encouraging these corporate bastards to keep on taking. No, I prefer the GPL, when these corporate bastards do get found out, then they’re in serious shit for not adhering to the license. That’s when they get punished. I like that. A lot.
Sure, BSD might have been around in the 70s, and your point is? It’s still not even a semi mainstream operating system. Is it? Go on, walk out in a plaza and ask people if they’ve heard of BSD or Linux. I bet I know which one will return more hits 😉 Linux has come further in 16 odd years than BSD has in 30 odd years. I hear a lot of talk about BSD guys using Linux drivers, well, golly me, why didn’t they develop them themselves, using the BSD licence if BSD is do good?
I’m not saying BSD is bad, it isn’t, but I’m just using some irony to draw points to where your post has really went AWOL.
Dave
I only have one thing against LGPL. The same thing as against GPL. It is too long. But apart from that I consider LGPL much better for low level code than GPL. The Linux kernel for an instance. I’d also prefer to see QT under LGPL rather than GPL. As it is today only people with money can develop proprietary solutions with QT. IMHO rather unfair.
When that is said I also consider LGPL better for X.org than MIT or BSD – except that the MIT license is so wonderfully short – me likes that
The problem with a short license is that you can only give up nearly all of the your rights or reserve nearly all of your rights. If you want fine-grained control, and you want your license to be relatively boiler-plate, that takes significantly more text. Just compare the BSD with the Apache version 2. They both have the same basic intention, but the Apache was designed to address significant shortcomings in the BSD text. The Apache is much longer than the BSD. It’s also IBM’s preferred non-copyleft, non-share-alike OSS license because the BSD is way too vulnerable.
I should note that if the Linux kernel was licensed under the LGPL, then proprietary hardware vendors would be able to distribute Linux kernels with embedded binary blobs that support their hardware. They wouldn’t be obligated to release a binary blob that can be loaded into your preferred kernel, and their kernel could not be used with blob-infected kernels from other hardware vendors. For example, if you have a Broadcom wireless chip and a NVIDIA graphics card, then you could either get Broadcom’s or NVIDIA’s kernel, but there might be no way to support both devices. Binary modules are enough of a support nightmare for Linux as it is. We don’t need them to come packaged in their own special kernels!
Trolltech’s business model is one of the most successful of any OSS vendor. They charge a few thousand US dollars (depending on version) per developer for perpetual use (transferable when developers come and go) when using Qt to develop proprietary software. I don’t see how this is unreasonable, since Qt is one of the best and most comprehensive development toolkits available. The value it adds to a proprietary product easily pays for the licensing fees.
As that company that was trying to sell support for PostgreSQL found out, it’s hard to make money supporting BSD software. It would be hard to do this with LGPL software as well. The business of selling GPL exceptions for software you develop in-house (and can therefore dual-license) is one of the attractive business models unique to the GPL. It also encourages commercial vendors to release their code under the GPL, since they can still drive revenues from sales to proprietary software vendors. I’m sure we can all appreciate the value that Trolltech has brought to the KDE project, and the GPL is what made this possible.
Indeed, this is already a huge problem with proprietary BSD kernels…
…oh wait, no it’s not
What is a problem is all the new hardware that is sold under a license that forbids you from running any software you wish on it. And while the PC is currently still open, there’s nothing stopping peripherals from coming with the same restrictions you might find on an XBox.
And let’s not forget the patents associated with some real-time Linux distributions, but that’s another story.
What I don’t like about the GPL, though, is that it is used by some to force companies to open up their code in order to get benefits for it. I wouldn’t mind if it were a requirement that a software vendor release any modification to the code itself rather than to also the code that links to it. In essence, what I like is the LGPL… a license that allows linking and reuse around designed interfaces, but does not require linked code to be open source (source for the LGPL piece still needs to be obtainable). A nice additional clause would be that a company using the licensed code can not claim patent rights for any features of their software depending on that code. This way, competitors can use the GPL code in the same way to do the exact same thing. Hackers can also develop identical software if they so desire.
I believe you are looking for this:
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html
or its close cousin:
http://www.sun.com/cddl/cddl.html
They are weak copyleft, based on source file (effectively function or class) granularity for license propagation and the associated corresponding source requirements for modifications. Sun’s version actually isn’t any more onerous than Mozilla’s version. It allows distribution of binaries under a different license than that for the corresponding source code, which makes no difference to the community, and its language is more boiler-plate.
Geez.. I know now what I’m an engineering student and not one of the Law. Those things are hard to read. As far as I can tell, though, they’re missing the most important piece for me: that while any code you build off of the “Covered Work” may be closed-source and proprietary, there can be no patent claims against open-source implementations of the same kind of software. “If you use my bricks to build your castle, I’m allowed to take your best designs and build one myself.” Does this seem fair?
Actually, the GPL is only an open-source license; copyleft and the upcoming restrictions on what you can do with it keep it from being free software. It has as much to do with actual free software as does Microsoft’s shared source initiative; the only thing the three have in common is you get to see the source code.
Incorrect. The GPL only has one restriction, and that is in regard to distribution. You can use it as you want to. Only when distributing does the GPL kick in.
BSD does not grant access to the source code. It does give you the right to modify it and redistribute it, but it grants virtually nothing unless the distributor decides to do so. The GPL grants you a lot that BSD doesn’t but it also puts one restriction. It must stay free. This however does not in any way limit what you can do with the source code. You can create proprietary solutions with GPL. You just cannot distribute them under another license. But usage is completely free.
BSD-like licenses are good for sponsored projects. Sponsor can take the code, add proprietary part and sell the product. Because of that one project may have multiple sponsors that even compete among themselves. In case of GPL sponsor can only hope to charge for support and education.
I don’t think that BSD and GPL communities shuold be percieved as being under same umbrella (OS, FOSS, FLOSS). There are many differences, and as GPL evolves, the differences are getting deeper. There are no more similiarities between BSD and GPL than between proprietary and GPL. BSD can cooperate with proprietary vendors, while GPL is anti-proprietary. ‘Proprietary’ is not an evil word in BSD dictionary.
So, no more ‘open’ and ‘proprietary’, but BSD (and alike), GPL and proprietary.
Considering sponsored projects, I’d like to add that sponsor can usualy request a feature. Party who is not a sponsor can benefit from a code without contributing anything, but can’t request a feature.
This is my opinion, of course.
The BSD license is really good for low-level stuff like protocol stacks, architecture stuff, libraries, and such. It allows everyone (including companies) to use the same (hopefully RFC/standards-compliant) base. Anytime two systems need to communicate, it’d be wonderful if they used the same {protocol|library|whatever} implementation instead of everyone rolling their own. These are the kinds of things where it doesn’t really matter if someone takes it proprietary. The goal is really to get as many people as possible using the same code.
The GPL license is really good for applications, and other high-level stuff. Office suites, games, drawing programs, etc. Things that can be packaged up and delivered to end-users. Things where you really don’t want others to take your code without giving back. But it’s not really good for low-level library-type stuff as it forces others who don’t want to use the GPL to re-implement/re-invent/re-code their own version.
Unfortunately, too many projects out there don’t see things this way, and we’re stuck with a tonne of GPL’d libraries and dozens of re-implementations of the same things.
Hear hear! This is the code I was really thinking about when I was pushing for a different non-gpl license.
But I also think specific components of applications should be LGPLed or BSDed. If a company wants to take the stuff and close it off to sell it, you can see what features they implement that are successful and bring the back into the free source base. If it’s really complicated, clean-room reverse engineer it. As long as they can’t assert IP rights on the code, you’re totally fine.
I think innovation occurs best when there’s enough incentive to develop a feature. Most people use the software that’s out there. Few people think, “Oh, I need software that does X, Y, Z, etc and I’ll pay you $20,000 per feature.” Far more likely is: “Oh, your stuff can do that? I could use that… let me buy it.” This is how MSFT does it, and Apple for a long time too. As Alex St. John put it, “We went out and asked them what kind of crack they wanted to get addicted to, and then we produced it.”
If you don’t have proprietary distribution methods, the free-rider problem makes it not worthwhile to make anything new. If you make your money by selling support, what’s the incentive to make easy to use software? If someone’s going to slap a cheesy GUI on your app to make it easy, then what’s the point of making the software in the first place?
The proprietary model is great for making solid, ultimately sellable products which largely support themselves through ease of use. Otherwise the vendors would be out of business. Open source is great for making standardized, secure, infrastructure-level software. Or making software that everyone uses free… especially in the area of development tools. You just simply can’t efficiently distribute the costs of writing niche software in an Open Source model, whereas the costs and benefits are quite clearly laid out in the proprietary one.
I seem like a pretty big booster of Microsoft in this forum (maybe I am). I mostly do this because I’m a contrarian by nature and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about some details of how Windows and other Microsoft products work: it bothers me to see people saying things that are simply untrue, illogical, or morally bankrupt to please people in their various anti-Microsoft web-cliques.
That being said, I think Linux is the only thing that can stand up to Microsoft in the OS space. OS X might have a shiny graphical layer, but it has a pretty “asthmatic” kernel. BSDs were not going head-to-head with MSFT until Linux came around. Microsoft is not so good when there’s no one to beat. Linux, on the other hand, is a competitor that they can never fully vanquish (i.e. Linux has no investors who will throw in the towel when they get defeated).
I personally do NOT think the GPL is important to Linux’s current position, and I think that fanaticism doesn’t help anyone either. On the other hand, reimplementing all the core experiences necessary for someone to use a computer on the web is a good goal.. especially when people can see and build on the code behind it. Worrying about patents and legalistic nonsense is pointless. Corporations sue each other… no one is going to sue linux because there is no money or benefits to doing so. Linux using Microsoft IP?? So what? Microsoft hasn’t sued anyone for violating software patents and copyright doesn’t come into it with proprietary code. Even if they sue, it just means Linux has hit the big time and by that point there won’t be any political or social will to stop it. No one will be able to bottle up the source code, even through legal means. Because of this, no one should be playing chicken little games right now with respect to IP rights. IP rights are effective against companies, not for social movements, which is what Free Software is.
You have many good points. I am not sure about OSX kernel, it is some kind of UNIX kernel, after all, but I admitt that I don’t know.
You are right that Linux can’t be sued, but Linux vendors and user can. Remember SCO ? They have done both.
The GPL and BSD have different intentions. The intention of the GPL is that free software will stay free for the user (free as defined by the Free software foundation). The intent of the BSD licence is that everybody should have access to the code.
The GPL was designed by RMS because he felt ethically challenged if he allowed recipients of his works to subjugate other recipients. The BSD developers do not mind that their software be used to subjugate other people – all they care about is letting people have access to the code.
tl;dr
GPL is for code to be used in “free software”
BSD is free code to be used in software.
GPL believes people are dishonest and there is a need of a license to legally force people to accept GPL terms.
Commercial license believes people are dishonest and there is a need of a license to legally force people to accpet their terms.
hmm which one is better..none…ignore the license and select the better product.
Which one is best? The one that promotes survival of the fittest i.e. BSD.
The motto of BSD is:
We love programming and it is our passion. We write code and we make it public domain. If you can do better then feel free to take it and do what you want to do with it. In the end better will survive.
Ahh BSD world is so much more pure and honest.
PS: I wish GPL never existed. It is really a cancer to the spirit of open source.
Don’t say that. I think both licenses have their purpose and place in open source.
Eeehh.. Microsoft anyone? IBM? Most other large corporations? Politicians? Dishonest people are about a lot, as well as honest people. The GPL is protective because of life experiences. The BSD is unprotective despite life experiences. Two related yet different philosophies. And there is room for both of them.
The BSD isn’t different in that regard. All licenses must be followed, including the BSD license
– so that argument is void of any meaning.
Besides that. The GPL IS a commercial license. What you meant was properly “proprietary” or “vlosed” license.
BSD is not public domain. Treating BSD as public domain would result in an outcry from the BSD-camp. That has happened before.
BSD is: Take this and do what you want. Just give us some credit.
GPL is: Take this and do what you want. But remember that this goes for everybody. Fair and square.
Leechers don’t like GPL. Some leechers don’t even like BSD (think SCO).
GPL is not a cancer. It is a license based on the principles of freedom. We are all free to do what we want as long as we don’t restrict the freedom of others. The only restriction in GPL is that you cannot restrict other persons. It is a basic element in (individualistic) anarchism, democracy and other freedom oriented movements. The GPL is exactly about that. Freedom.
You may consider freedom to be a cancer. Feel free to do so
/*The motto of BSD is:
We love programming and it is our passion. We write code and we make it public domain. If you can do better then feel free to take it and do what you want to do with it. In the end better will survive. */
The Motto of BSD really is:
We love programming and it is our passion. We write code and we make it public domain,so, the corporations can make billions off our code even though we never get
anything in return from them.
The Motto of BSD really is:
We love programming and it is our passion. We write code and we make it public domain,so, the corporations can make billions off our code even though we never get
anything in return from them.
I love how trolls like this get modded up. Way to go slashdot refugees!
The reality of the situation is that nobody has made ‘billions’ off of BSD code. You might feel the urge to point at Apple, but they make money selling hardware. If BSD code wasn’t available to them, they would have written it themselves, which would have resulted in a buggier base for OS X. The way a BSD guy views it is that some software (OS, standard network services, etc) have been *solved*, so why should companies have to re-invent the wheel (poorly) making the users suffer?
Also, this idea that the developer suffers because of this is bullshit, unless they were ‘in it for the money’ to begin with. In BSD land most (all?) of the main developers view their dev activities as a hobby. So if Apple (or whomever) uses stuff they wrote as a hobby, and it gets shipped to millions of users, that’s a big feather in their cap. Hell, maybe that leads to contracts from the corp. that used the code, since the is no better expert than the developer of the code. It’s also a pretty nice thing to say in an interview for a job that Apple or MS shipped code that you developed *in your spare time* to millions of people. If I ever met such a person he’d be hired in an instant.
Heres an article its well-worth reading:
http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2006/09/01/#gpl-bsd
GPL, BSD, and NetBSD – why the GPL rocketed Linux to success.
Heres are snippets that basically provide the gist of the article:
In contrast, the GPL has enforced a consortia-like arrangement on any major commercial companies that want to use it. Red Hat, Novell, IBM, and many others are all contributing as a result, and they feel safe in doing so because the others are legally required to do the same. Just look at the domain names on the Linux kernel mailing list – big companies, actively paying for people to contribute. In July 2004, Andrew Morton addressed a forum held by U.S. Senators, and reported that most Linux kernel code was generated by corporate programmers (37,000 of the last 38,000 changes were contributed by those paid by companies to do so; see my report on OSS/FS numbers for more information). BSD license advocates claim that the BSD is more “business friendly”, but if you look at actual practice, that argument doesn’t wash. The GPL has created a “safe” zone of cooperation among companies, without anyone having to sign complicated legal documents. A company can’t feel safe contributing code to the BSDs, because its competitors might simply copy the code without reciprocating. There’s much more corporate cooperation in the GPL’ed kernel code than with the BSD’d kernel code. Which means that in practice, it’s actually been the GPL that’s most “business-friendly”.
Yes, companies could voluntarily cooperate without a license forcing them to. The *BSDs try to depend on this. But in today’s cutthroat market, that’s more like the “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. In the dilemma, it’s better to cooperate; but since the other guy might choose to not cooperate, and exploit your naivete, you may choose to not cooperate. A way out of this dilemma is to create a situation where you must cooperate, and the GPL does that.
Edited 2007-04-17 02:15
The summary, of course, omits the real reasons for Linux’s success over *BSD:
-Legal uncertainty surrounding the BSDs (this wasn’t resolved until 1994, at which point Red Hat and Caldera were selling commercial products, and Slackware and Debian were moving CD’s with the help of Walnut Creek and the FSF, repectively).
-Linus’s leveraging of the then-existing Minix community
(To paraphrase Theo de Raadt, *BSD was a bunch of Unix guys doing PCs, and Linux was a bunch of PC guys doing Unix.)
Nicely put 🙂
Dave
we hoped it would be. That statement could be made in every facet of life.
I don’t know how open source is in a sorry state or if it really is, but then again I can’t see how anybody can tell due to the vast amount of misinformation. My only conclusion is that until the world is free of patents, copyrights, money and a lot of other stuff I can’t think of software will always be in a sorry state.
Granted I would have liked for us to move ahead faster then we have but really we have around 6% market share, We will soon have Linux Pre-installs with Dell. More people are leaving MS everyday because of Vista (granted not all come to Linux). I think things are going rather well.
Now as for BSD and GPL the Idea’s are not polar opposites they can be used together as can closed source with open. What we often forget is that F/OSS was about having the right to chose without it being stripped from us and regardless of what happens Linux will still be here will keep growing but every person that buy’s a mac or Installs BSD or Solaris helps toward the real goal of given people options.
The tone of the article reminds me of the Four Yorkshiremen more than anything; the author seems to spend quite a bit of time bitterly ranting about how things are not how they were in the Good Old Days.
He takes a whole page moaning about Compiz and Beryl, for no discernable reason other than he doesn’t like them and thinks everyone should use Fluxbox. Well that’s fine, and I think it’s a brilliant strength of Linux that such things are available, but having a 3D window manager too isn’t going to make them less stable. If they’re superior, they will prove themselves so. If everyone thought Compiz was as horrible as he does, it wouldn’t exist.
Does anyone else got a page with the website layout, but no article text at all?
The problem with OSS is that people involved in this seem to be living in an world of their own, but expect their users to judge them and use their software according to real world standards.
For example:
– use OGG instead of MP3, it’s better in every way (while it may be true, people still have tens of GB of MP3s and probably have no desire to convert them). Why force this on them by not providing out of the box (and if not possible an easy way of installing proprietary format support).
– use our desktop OS, it’s so much better – it’s true that we have buggy 3D support, and no industry standard applications like Photoshop, but you can use our awkwardly named image editor that does 10% of the stuff – and probably you don’t even need the rest, because we know you only crop vacation pictures
– use our package management system because you don’t have to search google for your software, but instead a database with tens of thousands of entries with cryptic names
There is a lack of direction in the OSS world – there are too many distros, too many applications, too much diversity and too less stability for anything not open source to survive in this world. While OSS adepts may find this a good thing, the lack of commercial software is hurting Linux adoption big-time.
For the regular user, the only thing to do now is to use a platform that offers you real choice – like Windows and Mac OS (isn’t it ironic?) – the choice of running open source and commercial software side by side.
The problem with OSS is that people involved in this seem to be living in an world of their own, but expect their users to judge them and use their software according to real world standards
The problem that OSS has, is that trolls and shills involved seem to be living in a clueless world of their own, but expect OSS users to judge them and their nonsense according to real world standards.
– use OGG instead of MP3, it’s better in every way (while it may be true, people still have tens of GB of MP3s and probably have no desire to convert them). Why force this on them by not providing out of the box
Good example : the troll/shill has never heard of patents and lawsuits.
– use our desktop OS, it’s so much better – it’s true that we have buggy 3D support, and no industry standard applications like Photoshop, but you can use our awkwardly named image editor that does 10% of the stuff – and probably you don’t even need the rest, because we know you only crop vacation pictures
Another good example : fallacies, straw men, red herring.
– use our package management system because you don’t have to search google for your software, but instead a database with tens of thousands of entries with cryptic names
I wonder what’s wrong with what you described, except the ‘cryptic’ part.
Of course, when searching for a photo editing program on Windows, I’ll enter “photo shop” in Google (typical stupid troll/shill argument). Oh wait, Photoshop is not downloadable for free.
There is a lack of direction in the OSS world – there are too many distros, too many applications, too much diversity and too less stability for anything not open source to survive in this world
If only I could understand what that means. You have too little a clue to understand if OSS lacks direction anyway.
The fact is that the OSS world is not a company, and doesn’t lack direction any more than the Physics or Maths worlds lack direction.
While OSS adepts may find this a good thing, the lack of commercial software is hurting Linux adoption big-time
Wow, one thing I agree with. And it took you all this time to understand sth we Linux users understood 10 years ago ?
For the regular user, the only thing to do now is to use a platform that offers you real choice – like Windows and Mac OS (isn’t it ironic?) – the choice of running open source and commercial software side by side
Self contradicting nonsense ..
BTW, people don’t run software for the sake of running software.
Once you understand that, you will have a base to try to understand what FOSS is about.
I am of exactly the same opinion and although I myself has no real issues with this, my customers certainly have expressed similar reservations. That is, until I downloaded Kubuntu 7.04 as an upgrade for one of these customers. What I and my customer where faced with was a very simple interface when dealing with installing software that is very similar to the Windows add/remove software app in control panel.
You have a category menu on the left and a list of apps in the middle related to that category with very simple to understand descriptions. Clicking on an app will give you a more detailed description on the right. You select the tick box and click apply, software/codec installed.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m neither an Ubuntu evangelist nor trying to point out any supposed errors on the part of your post, just stating that with things like CNR we are finally get there.
All I need now is for Adobe to get off it’s rear end and port CS to Linux. 😉
I was there.
In 1996-1997:
* We didn’t have a decent open source web browser. That was the biggest problem. You could download binaries of Netscape, but it was crashy. There were several projects that aimed to clone it, but they had no momentum (since people could download Netscape, and that was good enough for them)
* KDE and Gnome hadn’t come into existence yet. Up until that point, we only had crude window managers like fvwm2.
* SMP support in the kernel was a new thing. Things like USB were not yet supported. Sound card support sucked, unless you went for the closed source OSS drivers.
* There was no “open source”. Heck, there wasn’t even a “DFSG” yet (which became the basis of open source).
* Setting up X11 was a complete chore. There was only limited 3D support if you had a card that supported Glide. (of course, trying to get good 3D support these days is still a chore, but blame NVidia and ATI for that)
* No Open Office, no Gimp, etc, etc…
* No SourceForge, no Slashdot, no kernel.org.
* No cypto (eg. 128-bit SSL), due to restrictive US export regulations.
* Very limited support for i18n and Asian languages.
* Very little embedded support. Features for “enterprise” computing to compete the the commercial Unixes were still on the drawing board.
* All the main developers had 10 years less experience than they do today.
Frankly, I’m amazed at what we’ve done. Over the past 10 years, things have grown exponentially. It’s simply incredible. Sure, I wish some things were further along than they are now, but give it a few more years…
What follows now is politicaly incorrect:
To the wailings about being it too long, go work on your attention deficit disorder.
Details matter, quality matters.
Spinning cubes in virtual worlds and wobbly windows rather not.
To them who think these are just the ramblings of someone who is getting older and doesn’t cut it anymore, go back to your “eigenschwanzlutschende Spackenzuckerei” (oral masturbation by trashing, shizoid autists).
To the rest: this is just one aspect of daily life.
Go deal with reality or it deals with you.
Just get laid some more 😉
Edited 2007-04-16 17:37
I don’t believe open-source is in a “sorry state.” Again, another article I don’t intend to read.
I think people should be a bit more careful how they title their articles, because it may be that this one could have some insights.
Remember, some of us are very busy workers, and have to pick and choose what we read. Nobody is going to hook an advocate of Open Source/Free software into reading their articles this way.