RE: LINUX is the "one" ? .... Comments??? -- MIDRANGE-L

It depends how You define "success", Alan.  MicroSoft attained a market
monopoly, illegally according to the courts, and knew how to make the most
of it.  (To my mind, they still have it and still know how to maximize their
advantage.  Personally, I don't define that as very "successful" product
development, regardless of the marketshare or stock value of M$.)

We're getting into real Holy Wars here, which is not my intent.  Besides
which, GPL is an Atheist Religion if it is any Religion.  Read the GNU
philosophy, with scrutiny, and the reason than ALL GPL code HAS TO BE
GPL'd...  (Iirc, pretty close to), "because the advantage goes to people
that sell software, this is necessary to even it up".  Now fast forward to
today:

Software innovators can't make a dime.  All software (and, RMS hopes,
anything that can be stored on a hard drive) belongs to everybody, and the
author gets no money for it.  That's how communism works (ineffectively, for
the most part).

There's nothing Christian about that.

And according to the post I linked to, tens of thousands of half-hearted
attempts at small piddly projects exist on SourceForge...  And the benefit
of those was...  ?

| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
| [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of alan
| Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 11:02 PM
| To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
| Subject: Re: LINUX is the "one" ? .... Comments???
|
|
| Microsoft is the ultimate successful model of
| pay-for-software. Innovation is anathema to them. GPL is the
| opposite of "monopoly" because it "monopoly" means control
| of a market. M$ wants to control the market.
|
| This is why I think the GPL is more of a "Christian" concept
| than a "Communist" concept. The Christian says hey, you need
| a jacket, take mine. The Communist says hey, you've got a
| jacket, give it up!
|
| Some software makers do not. But look at the code for the
| operating system GNU-Linux, it's free, see how to improve on
| it. I remember when copier makers offered free copiers just
| for signing up for two years' maintenance. Nothing to sneeze
| at.
|
| You got dead projects on SourceForge, how many commercial
| projects have disappeared completely?
|
|
|
|
|
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: "jt" <jt@xxxxxx>
| To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion"
| <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
| Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 8:52 PM
| Subject: RE: LINUX is the "one" ? .... Comments???
|
|
| | I guess it takes a *nix-gearbrain-genius-type, like
| Yourself James, to
| | explain whether MySQL is fully-compliant or not with the
| GPL.  No big deal
| | to me, just corn-fusing.
| |
| | I mean, if the CUSTOMER gets to decide that the code is
| non-GPL'd, then is
| | the code GPL-compliant or not...???
| |
| | I, just so happens, AM familiar with different licence
| terms, like the
| | Software Subscription and licensing same product under
| different terms.
| | (That's a poor analogy, btw, and perhaps a better one
| would be the
| | interactive tax paid for same hardware.)  The question was
| whether this
| | MySQL actually IS GPL-compliant, or not, which interested
| me...  And I'm not
| | the only one who's noticed You practically need to be a
| lawyer to try to
| | imagine there's any sense a-tall amongst ALL the
| HODGEPODGE of "Open" Source
| | licenses.  http://www.stromian.com/Public_Licenses.html
| (Dated, as there are
| | probably dozens of new variants since '98.)
| |
| | Btw, James, I was glad to see You add the wink after this
| statement: "Which
| | clearly ties directly into innovation for some reason...
| ;)"  It CLEARLY
| | ties directly into innovation INVERSELY, although I don't
| think that was the
| | point You were intending to make...;-)  And because "the
| licensing entity
| | can do it however they want" including, as a fundamental
| "right", take any
| | software (and ANYTHING that can be stored on a hard drive,
| if RMS had His
| | way about it) and give it away for free and the original
| owner/producer of
| | the software/article/music/whatever has NO economic
| rights...  Well that
| | disregards the reality that GOOD, USABLE, DOCUMENTED
| software projects,
| | (especially those that take more'n a weekend to complete),
| cost a LOTTA time
| | and money to develop..
| |
| | ..'Course, that doesn't ENTIRELY explain the preponderance
| of lame software
| | that comes outta MOST (not all) "Open" Source projects:
| |
| | "I know I'm not alone on this (I just may be the first one
| saying it out
| | loud). There are literally tens of thousands of dead
| projects out there on
| | Sourceforge. Made by geeks like me who had an itch to
| scratch and cranked
| | away for a weekend getting something cool working."
| |
| http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/20030210.html#005532
| |
| | Btw, James, does coding "Open" Source put food on Your
| table, and/or do You
| | have a real job...???
| |
| |
| |
| | | -----Original Message-----
| | | From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
| | | [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
| James Rich
| | | Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 7:18 PM
| | | To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
| | | Subject: RE: LINUX is the "one" ? .... Comments???
| | |
| | |
| | | On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, jt wrote:
| | |
| | | > Is the same identical code for MySQL being distributed
| as BOTH
| | | non-GPL and
| | | > GPL...??  How does THAT work???  Or what?
| | |
| | | Yes, the same identical code is licensed under different
| licenses to
| | | different users.  And honestly, this isn't so hard to
| understand.  Almost
| | | every software company, copyright holder, and patent
| holder does this all
| | | the time.  Ever heard of Software Subscription for the
| iSeries?  If you
| | | purchase it, you have one license.  If you don't, you
| get another.  Or how
| | | about Software Assurance?  Or how about licensing an
| invention to one
| | | company differently than to another?
| | |
| | | Mysql is no different.  They choose to license mysql to
| most people under
| | | the GPL.  If you so desire, you can get a different
| license by purchasing
| | | one.  IOW, they may choose to license the code however
| they want to
| | | whomever they want.  If the GPL doesn't work for your
| product Mysql will
| | | work with to use a license that does.
| | |
| | | This works because the GPL follows the same laws that
| govern all software
| | | licensing.  The licensing entity (whether an individual
| or group or
| | | company) can decide how to license their work and who to
| license to.  If
| | | you are not the licensing entity (which you aren't
| unless you actually
| | | authored the code) you cannot arbitrarily decide to
| license the code
| | | however you want.  This is true of all software.  Thus
| if you receive
| | | GPL'ed code you cannot violate it's terms and distribute
| it under a
| | | different license.  Likewise if you receive proprietary
| code.  But the
| | | licensing entity can do it however they want.
| | |
| | | Which clearly ties directly into innovation for some
| reason...   ;)
| | |
| | | James Rich
| | | _______________________________________________
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