Linux Godfather urges revolt against Microsoft

[iMav]

Doesn't Open Source mean you give the source code openly and allow full tinkering with it?

 

[goobimama]

Somebody seriously needs to do a really good article in simple english on what Open Source is all about. All that you can do with Open Source. And all that you can't do with Open source. And everything that comes in between…

 

[MetalheadGautham]

Somebody seriously needs to do a really good article in simple english on what Open Source is all about. All that you can do with Open Source. And all that you can't do with Open source. And everything that comes in between…

Thanks for suggesting my next blog article. Keep looking. Expect it by monday since I am not free often.

 

[chandru.in]

That is exactly what I'm saying... open and closed software are complimentary to each other. I did not generalize, but gave an example where going "all open" would be detrimental to the society.

I still don't understand how everything being open will be detrimental, when most major technological advancements which have revolutionized the world are open (TCP/IP, HTTP, several major programming languages, etc, etc.)

 

[unni]

Really nice thread. Learned a lot of new things from your arguments. Keep arguing.

 

[sakumar79]

@chandru, Should the developer not have any freedom if he wants to keep the source code to himself? If every software is forced to be open source, are you not taking away that freedom from the developer? Whether he is wrong or right in his notion to keep source code to himself, the decision should be available IMHO...

Arun


PS: Just want to add +1 to Anirudh's posts on this topic...

 

[kumarmohit]

Seriously what is this thread doing in the news section?
What is the point of making this thread in the first place. For the entire length of the article, nothing has been discussed except repeating the age old rhetoric of Stallman.

News is something which is new, which people do not know. The only thing which can be considered news in this article is last sentence.

Last week Stallman urged young people in France to take to the streets to protest against a new copyright law that affects the ability of citizens to watch DVDs using free software.

Everything else in the article is age old, beaten track flame baiting!

 

[desiibond]

I still don't understand how everything being open will be detrimental, when most major technological advancements which have revolutionized the world are open (TCP/IP, HTTP, several major programming languages, etc, etc.)

Why are you comparing programming languages and protocols to applications?

ROFLMAO

BTW, If MS releases full source code of Windows OS, hackers will be the first one to take full advantage of it and create havoc.

 

[Pat]

People living in Bangalore and interested to learn about OSS movement might be interested in this
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92572
Open Source Conference on 19th July in Bangalore

 

[iMav]

Dude.. there seems to be some misconceptions about earning and open source.

Lemme tell you something... someone I know earns 4 times more working on Linux than what MS pays' its employee at a similar level. Charan will confirm this statement!

1. Damn 7:30 AM classes.

2. How is that relevant to my post?

3. I know of 3 free lance writers who earn more than some well experienced TOI & HT writers. Should all HT & TOI writers become free lance writers?

4. Please let me know where does he have this full time job where the company pays him 4 times more than an MS employee.

5. Please specify which MS employee bracket you are referring to. Steve Ballmer & Ray Ozzie too are MS employees.

 

[infra_red_dude]

I still don't understand how everything being open will be detrimental, when most major technological advancements which have revolutionized the world are open (TCP/IP, HTTP, several major programming languages, etc, etc.)

As I said.. and say it again open and closed software are stimulants for each other.

@chandru, Should the developer not have any freedom if he wants to keep the source code to himself? If every software is forced to be open source, are you not taking away that freedom from the developer?

+1. I create something, I haf every right to release it under the license I want. The main point to understand here is that Software is IP.

Why are you comparing programming languages and protocols to applications?

Open source is open source.. whether hardware or software.

I work in a small company and we sell couple of products. How can a small company survive by making the product free? This is how it used to work before.. small companies selling software and then becoming Software Giants.

I wonder if we make our product free.. who will pay atleast for my petrol charges?

Yes, true very true. You are however confused between open-source and giving software for free.

If I am not wrong, even Free software does not *necessarily* mean giving it away free of cost! Its more to do with Free as in Freedom and less with Free as in Free Beer!

Yes, thats correct.

Doesn't Open Source mean you give the source code openly and allow full tinkering with it?

No. When you 'tinker' you talk about free and open source and OSS with the 'tinker' license. With OSS you can "look into" the source and make copies. With closed source, you pay for the the license to use whereas in OSS you pay to get the entity with its source.

1. Damn 7:30 AM classes.

2. How is that relevant to my post?

3. I know of 3 free lance writers who earn more than some well experienced TOI & HT writers. Should all HT & TOI writers become free lance writers?

4. Please let me know where does he have this full time job where the company pays him 4 times more than an MS employee.

5. Please specify which MS employee bracket you are referring to. Steve Ballmer & Ray Ozzie too are MS employees.

1. Sorry, not in my hands

2. Its relevant coz you are confused between OSS and "giving away software for free".

3. Totally irrelevant with this topic.

4. Yes, full time job. Check out the development/UI team in RedHat/Novell and many other companies. The pay an MS employee gets at a similar level is much less.

5.

...... MS pays' its employee at a similar level.

Except of corz the top level employees; I needn't point this out.. its foolish to compare the assests of Ballmer or of the like with RedHat CEO..

It's a Microsoft world kid, I am just living in it.

Yes, plz come out of this world. There are other things which exist too..

Milind

If you haf 10mins to spare then read this: *www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html The second part effectively answers what OSS and FOSS are.

To sum it up: OSS allows you to "see" the source code. Its upto the owner/developer to decide whether he/she'll allow the users to modify the code or not. If yes, then OSS will be accompanied by the relevant license.

FOSS is basically a sub-domain of OSS. FOSS = OSS + license to modify the software. Its not mandatory for both OSS and FOSS to be free of cost. In fact the cost factor doesn't come into picture at all.

I hope that clears a lot of things.

I think for the betterment of us both open and closed software should exist. I still haf a lot of respect for Stallman but I do not agree to his view even one bit that all software should be open. If that happens then OSS will become FOSS permanently...

 

[iMav]

No. When you 'tinker' you talk about free and open source and OSS with the 'tinker' license. With OSS you can "look into" the source and make copies. With closed source, you pay for the the license to use whereas in OSS you pay to get the entity with its source.

Once I get the source i can modify it to as I want and then give or sell it. Now, let's say you make something, I buy it (including the source) for 10$ I change a few things keeping most of ur stuff as is and then re-brand and sell it for $1000. What do you do?

2. Its relevant coz you are confused between OSS and "giving away software for free".

Unfortunately I am not. If you were to read my post, it talks about big IT firms and small companies, you called Charan into the dscussion and he for one has ruled out the possibility for small firms to go OS for obvious reasons. As far as my misconception is concerned, I don't find OSS to be a business model. The moment you give away the core of your product out in the world for a look, bid goodbye to your dreams of making it into the Fortune 500. Xerox made the mistake, Apple made it. But, they made it after they were firmly positioned in the market. For a new start-up it is simply not a viable option to make something exemplary and then give it away with the source.

Adobe is a such a huge software company, there are softwares for which they have given the source code out, then there are the cash milking softwares that are still proprietary. A company that goes all OSS with no firm grounding is like a low cost aviation company. Sooner, or later they shall perish into the oblivion.

BTW, the Linux Ecosystem aims at a worth of $40B by 2010, Infosys plans $4B by next year. I hope you see the point. I think it was Metal who was trumpeting the I don't know, 30 years of development that is expecting to be just worth $40B after all this while.

As far as the sig goes, weren't you like a couple of weeks back saying that as your siggy says, it is a MS world

 

[infra_red_dude]

Once I get the source i can modify it to as I want and then give or sell it. Now, let's say you make something, I buy it (including the source) for 10$ I change a few things keeping most of ur stuff as is and then re-brand and sell it for $1000. What do you do?

Dude.. then why do you think I'm all for both closed and open software? Its for the same reason I do not want all software to be open! Thats exactly what I've been saying all teh while. Read my posts first.. and then comment.

Unfortunately I am not. If you were to read my post, it talks about big IT firms and small companies, you called Charan into the dscussion and he for one has ruled out the possibility for small firms to go OS for obvious reasons. As far as my misconception is concerned, I don't find OSS to be a business model. The moment you give away the core of your product out in the world for a look, bid goodbye to your dreams of making it into the Fortune 500. Xerox made the mistake, Apple made it. But, they made it after they were firmly positioned in the market. For a new start-up it is simply not a viable option to make something exemplary and then give it away with the source.

Adobe is a such a huge software company, there are softwares for which they have given the source code out, then there are the cash milking softwares that are still proprietary. A company that goes all OSS with no firm grounding is like a low cost aviation company. Sooner, or later they shall perish into the oblivion.

BTW, the Linux Ecosystem aims at a worth of $40B by 2010, Infosys plans $4B by next year. I hope you see the point. I think it was Metal who was trumpeting the I don't know, 30 years of development that is expecting to be just worth $40B after all this while.

I really don't understand with whom you are arguing.. as I am saying the same thing as you are!

As far as comparing the "Linux Ecosystem" and "infosys" is concerned.. both are non-comparable entities. One is a product while the other is a services company.

As far as the sig goes, weren't you like a couple of weeks back saying that as your siggy says, it is a MS world

Yep, look into the context and try to understand the relevance of when and why I quoted your siggy both the times.

 

[iMav]

I am not arguing with u man!

 

[infra_red_dude]

^^^ Ok.. confusion

 

[chandru.in]

@chandru, Should the developer not have any freedom if he wants to keep the source code to himself? If every software is forced to be open source, are you not taking away that freedom from the developer? Whether he is wrong or right in his notion to keep source code to himself, the decision should be available IMHO...

Yes the programmer has every right to choose his license. It is his code and thus his choice. I just don't agree that openness will prohibit innovation as infra_red_dude said. Innovation can happen faster when it happens in the open.

Once I get the source i can modify it to as I want and then give or sell it. Now, let's say you make something, I buy it (including the source) for 10$ I change a few things keeping most of ur stuff as is and then re-brand and sell it for $1000. What do you do?

I take back your changes (and possibly innovate on top of it) and sell it for $800. GPL allows it.

Why are you comparing programming languages and protocols to applications?

I meant innovation can happen in the open. In fact the first example by infra_red_dude was of Intel's hardware. I also quoted RHEL's record. For great open-source software you can look no further than Apache (#1 web server) and Linux (huge share of super computing and embedded OS market). They are innovations which happened as open-source "software" too.

BTW, If MS releases full source code of Windows OS, hackers will be the first one to take full advantage of it and create havoc.

If MS wrote bad code, who can help it?

 

[kumarmohit]

Originally Posted by iMav View Post
Once I get the source i can modify it to as I want and then give or sell it. Now, let's say you make something, I buy it (including the source) for 10$ I change a few things keeping most of ur stuff as is and then re-brand and sell it for $1000. What do you do?

I take back your changes (and possibly innovate on top of it) and sell it for $800. GPL allows it.

So much for open source being consumer friendly! From 10 Rs to 1000 Rs and then again 800 Rs!

 

[Pat]

Lol! That was a typo, dude

 

[praka123]

most of those commenting dont have any idea about Open Source except that it allows code to be open.

 

[infra_red_dude]

Yes the programmer has every right to choose his license. It is his code and thus his choice. I just don't agree that openness will prohibit innovation as infra_red_dude said. Innovation can happen faster when it happens in the open.

I'm not saying open software will prohibit innovation. What I'm saying is that there are more chances of "fake innovation" by simply copying over and flooding the market with alternatives that will only lead to confusion. That was just an example and you are after me for that

Btw..

Linux Godfather urges revolt against Microsoft

I give it a Thumbs Down! Not that I support MS but this is just plain bad to downplay someone esp. by someone who's RMS himself!!!