Linux Godfather urges revolt against Microsoft

[praka123]

07 July 2008
Linux Godfather urges revolt against Microsoft

By John E. Dunn, Techworld

Open source stalwart Richard Stallman has declared himself unfooled by Bill Gate’s retirement. The founder might have gone, but the malevolent influence of his company is still with us, he has said in an article for the BBC.
In a biting attack on Microsoft, Bill Gates, and a number of other partners in software crime, including Apple and Adobe, the creator of GNU Linux repeats arguments he has set out many times before, though not to such a wide audience or at such a public moment in Microsoft’s history.

Put succinctly, Microsoft is the worst exponent of a business model that has sought to tie computer users to a restrictive, morally unjust and expensive philosophy of computer use.

In his view, Microsoft enshrines anti-competitive behaviour, has invested in technologies that restrict the behaviour of PC users for no good reason, and has deliberately hampered compatibility with non-Microsoft software.
He even takes a swipe at the acceptance of the Office Open XML document standard earlier this year by the ISO, accusing Microsoft of packing the standards committee that approved it.

Anything else? He’s not a big fan either of the high-profile Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, praised by many for its charitable giving in the developing world.
“These actions are intolerable, of course, but they are not isolated events. They are systematic symptoms of a deeper wrong which most people don't recognise: proprietary software,” he writes.

The fact that Bill Gates has retired is beside the point, declares Stallman. What matters is the fact that the business model of the company he founded still holds sway over many users.

“But Gates didn't invent proprietary software, and thousands of other companies do the same thing. It's wrong, no matter who does it,” says Stallman.
“Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and the rest, offer you software that gives them power over you. A change in executives or companies is not important. What we need to change is this system,” said an angry Stallman.

Once upon a time, Stallman’s pitch for open source software would have sounded like a rant from software’s Leninist margins, but this time, perhaps, he senses a moment of weakness for the world’s largest software company.

Windows Vista has turned sour, interest in Linux is at an all-time high, and suddenly desktop operating systems don’t look as all-defining of the future as they once did. Microsoft has invested in new technologies such as virtualisation, but it’s by no means certain that Microsoft will automatically be its dominant force.

“Gates may be gone, but the walls and bars of proprietary software he helped create remain, for now. Dismantling them is up to us,” he concludes.
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.

*www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=102091&pagtype=all

 

[infra_red_dude]

I respect Stallman as an architect... grateful to him for so many things on which I enjoy my computing experience

I however, do not agree with his statement that all software should go open and proprietary software should cease to exist. IMHO, doing what you think correct is fine but saying that everything else is bad is not correct. I feel for a better tomorrow both open and proprietary software are essential. They act as stimulants for one other.

 

[techtronic]

well said buddy. I completely concur with your opinion.

 

[CadCrazy]

Abe Stallman ne Praka ka jhutha kahana to nahin kha liya ya phir usne digit forum visit kar liya hoga

Fully agree with Infra. Doesn't matter to me whether a software is open or close.

 

[The Conqueror]

I however, do not agree with his statement that all software should go open and proprietary software should cease to exist. IMHO, doing what you think correct is fine but saying that everything else is bad is not correct. I feel for a better tomorrow both open and proprietary software are essential. They act as stimulants for one other.

I Agree with you 100%

 

[Sumeet_naik]

I can agree wit u guys.. Though restricting watching dvd's on free software is wat i don't like here.

 

[ThinkFree]

What is wrong if all software go open source? It is going to help consumers only.

 

[Jayanth.M.P]

People should really learn to respect intellectual property just like they do with the physical ones.

 

[gxsaurav]

if all software is OSS then most of the development will be by non-full time developers. they r not as experienced & fast as full time developers.

Software is like a service. U pay me money & I will make a software for U. I will make another copy which I will sale to someone else who pays me ammount for me. I however won't release my source code as I made it & it's secret.

This isn't much different from a baker making cakes.

Richard stallman looks like he is frustrated. Instead of making OSS compelling & attractive to consumers he is trying to downplay MS which shows him as jealous. Even I hate uber costly software but I don't want all apps to go open source. We need
Pidgin as well as Yahoo messenger for vista

 

[infra_red_dude]

People should really learn to respect intellectual property just like they do with the physical ones.

Couldn't agree more...

if all software is OSS then most of the development will be by non-full time developers. they r not as experienced & fast as full time developers.

Lol... thats not the reason I say both should exist.. definitely not. PLZ GET YOUR FACTS RITE.. TRY TO DO SOME RESEARCH BEFORE OWNING YOUR OWN SELF BY POSTING SUCH THINGS ON PUBLIC FORUMS.

Software is like a service. U pay me money & I will make a software for U. I will make another copy which I will sale to someone else who pays me ammount for me. I however won't release my source code as I made it & it's secret.

True.. But there exists "free" service too.. and that's why I'm for both free as well as paid service.

We need Pidgin as well as Yahoo messenger for vista

+1.

What is wrong if all software go open source? It is going to help consumers only.

Software is IP. So its the wish of the developer if he/she wants it to be open or closed. What would happen if Intel releases the confidential Core microarchitecture details? Other companies would simply copy it and produce hardware on the lines. Innovation would be at an all time low.

No offence to AMD/VIA fans, was just an example.

Jus coz AMD came up with the first Athlon, Intel realized that the flawed Netburst arch. is not going to keep them in the market for long; they raked up their brainz and came up with Core. The Core was an innovation. Similar things happen in software.

The closed software stimulates the open source developers to come up with something new on their own, out of which many new products are born which even the closed software may not haf in its repos. This will again stimulate the closed software group to come with a better product. End of the day the consumer has a choice and is benefitted.

 

[chandru.in]

Software is IP. So its the wish of the developer if he/she wants it to be open or closed. What would happen if Intel releases the confidential Core microarchitecture details? Other companies would simply copy it and produce hardware on the lines. Innovation would be at an all time low.

I would not agree on it. Red Hat has made a record at server-side transaction processing. Is that not innovation? The entire code is open but it did not make Red Hat lose money.

Some of the best computer languages (in their respective area of strengths) were developed and available as open technologies (C, C++, Perl, Python). Proprietary languages like Java (now fully open) and C# (the language is ECMA standard but the framework it depends on is highly closed) would not exist if it was not for the open innovations of C/C++. Perl is till date the strongest language for text processing (it is used by many scientists to analyze structure of molecules which are generated as text patterns).

So open-source will not inhibit innovation. In fact, it would promote innovation as people can re-use existing code of other projects and innovate on top of it. And of course, those innovations will flow back to original project (if it was under a license like GPL).

The most successful hardware architecture today, reached its place because it was an open one. If alone it was not for the monopoly of Windows, I bet MS's market share would come down too. I had to quote MS only because it is the only totally closed company which is wildly successful. (Oracle uses open standards like SQL and Java EE. So we can't call it completely closed. Google uses plain HTML, Javascript and Jabber (all are open) for most of its big business services. Yes, they are not open-source but are far from fully closed.)

I can bet that the moment MS loses its monopoly (less than 75-80% of OS market) it will come down fast and stabilize at some point (maybe a wild guess of 40%).

 

[praka123]

^+++++++

 

[iMav]

People seem to have no idea what-so-ever of how many people earn their living and feed their families by coding and selling softwares And then they preach others about giving away their time, effort and hard work for free for others to innovate on it. Infosys, Wipro, TCS, the small coders and developers, the big Indian IT firms, leading the IT revolution in India wo oh! India is on the global map. India rules, India this, India that. If Murthy and others started giving away their software for free, India would have been well let's just say still in the 1990s and Murthy wouldn't be even given a job back at Patni for his lack of business accumen

 

[chandru.in]

@iMav

In fact open-sourcing will not affect Indian IT in anyway. Please understand open-source is not about cost of software. We can very much sell open-source software.

Most Indian IT companies develop custom software for specific client's needs. So whether you license it under GPL or your own EULA does not matter. You develop for a client and charge him for that. In fact, many clients even ask that the rights for the source code of developed software is granted to them so that once the support contract ends with X they can move to company Y for further support. My own company did that for the project I work in. It is a subsidary of a large well known Indian business group (it is not TCS ).

 

[tgpraveen]

i respect richard stallman
but sometimes his statements and philosophy seems to be too extreme and somewhat unrealistic

 

[infra_red_dude]

I would not agree on it. Red Hat has made a record at server-side transaction processing. Is that not innovation? The entire code is open but it did not make Red Hat lose money.

Some of the best computer languages (in their respective area of strengths) were developed and available as open technologies (C, C++, Perl, Python). Proprietary languages like Java (now fully open) and C# (the language is ECMA standard but the framework it depends on is highly closed) would not exist if it was not for the open innovations of C/C++. Perl is till date the strongest language for text processing (it is used by many scientists to analyze structure of molecules which are generated as text patterns).

So open-source will not inhibit innovation. In fact, it would promote innovation as people can re-use existing code of other projects and innovate on top of it. And of course, those innovations will flow back to original project (if it was under a license like GPL).

The most successful hardware architecture today, reached its place because it was an open one. If alone it was not for the monopoly of Windows, I bet MS's market share would come down too. I had to quote MS only because it is the only totally closed company which is wildly successful. (Oracle uses open standards like SQL and Java EE. So we can't call it completely closed. Google uses plain HTML, Javascript and Jabber (all are open) for most of its big business services. Yes, they are not open-source but are far from fully closed.)

I can bet that the moment MS loses its monopoly (less than 75-80% of OS market) it will come down fast and stabilize at some point (maybe a wild guess of 40%).

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.

People seem to have no idea what-so-ever of how many people earn their living and feed their families by coding and selling softwares And then they preach others about giving away their time, effort and hard work for free for others to innovate on it. Infosys, Wipro, TCS, the small coders and developers, the big Indian IT firms, leading the IT revolution in India wo oh! India is on the global map. India rules, India this, India that. If Murthy and others started giving away their software for free, India would have been well let's just say still in the 1990s and Murthy wouldn't be even given a job back at Patni for his lack of business accumen

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!

 

[RCuber]

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!

Yes .. I have two friends who work on linux and get hefty pay ..... more than any IT company can afford for the same experience..

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?

 

[Pat]

^^ Dude you are again missing the point. Open source does not mean giving away your product free of cost!

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!

 

[RCuber]

^^ Dude you are again missing the point. Open source does not mean giving away your product free of cost!

yea? then people will jump in and say they are making free software paid!!!

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!

I dont drink beer so I dont know what the word "Free as in Free Beer" means.

Jokes apart I agree with your point.

 

[MetalheadGautham]

1. Open Source can ALSO make money. Its been proved.

2. Every developer has the right to release his product under a licence which HE HIMSELF sees as perfect for his use.