Quote: Original post by WazzatMan

Quote: You can also only take ideas from the book so far or it's illegal.

And the same thing should apply to Software.

I've yet to see a convincing reason why, other than "knowledge should be free" which is not necessarily true. TANSTAAFL.

Quote: Original post by WazzatMan

Quote:
* Not necessarily
* Not necessarily
* "high draconian prices"? That's just a matter of perspective isn't it? $50 or $60 for a game isn't high to me. Being able to buy something isn't a right.
* So?
* So? If the software doesn't do what you need it to do, don't buy it!

The thing is I'm not talking about games specifically. I don't consider $50 dollars a ridiculous price. I consider one-hundred dollars, per-year, per-core, a ridiculous price.

You consider it a ridiculous price. Companies or other individuals might not. Because you consider it ridiculous doesn't make it something that shouldn't be done.

Quote: Original post by WazzatMan
And if I buy software which only does what I need it to do up to point, but it's missing that feature which would make my life a hell of a lot easier...and there's no other alternative...then I'm stuck...

Either that or I build the thing up from scratch.

And this latter option doesn't work, why exactly?

Quote: Original post by WazzatMan
Now let me rieterate that I'm not suggesting you should give away stuff for free.

And you've offered no way that I can see for a company to profit from selling source code or support or whatever. Piracy is bad enough with companies not releasing the source. I can only imagine how ridiculous it would be if everyone did make the source available.

Huh. It's incredibly how incredibly pompous this thread's premise is. The buyer DESERVES to be able to buy the source code? You consider a price to be "ridiculous"? Based on WHAT, jackass? How cheap you're feeling that day? You don't want knowledge trapped in a vault? Well guess what -- you never had a right to it to begin with!

Talk about a sense of entitlement. God damn. Do you demand the Word files used to build every book you buy? When you get a DVD, do you yell about how it's not fair that you haven't been provided the Avid source files?

Quote: My main problem with the GPL is not so much its inherent idea, but the fact that it comes with an attached political manifesto. I absolutely despise the way its creator and its supporters try to use it to 'educate' people with that sickening holier-than-thou attitude about how their way is the only way, how everything else is bad and destroy-worthy, and how everybody should embrace their idea of "freedom". That is fundamentalism and it is incompatible with a free society.

I nearly released SlimTune under GPL, but it became clear that there's so much bullshit and so many assholes surrounding the whole thing that I was better off just releasing it as MIT and any attempt at protection would simply lose me customers. For my purposes I didn't really mind, but the discussions yielded some interesting lessons. Even licenses like Mozilla posed similar problems.

Quote: My main problem with the GPL is not so much its inherent idea, but the fact that it comes with an attached political manifesto.

There are many, many projects out there using the GPL that don't give a rat's ass about FSF, RMS or their political agenda. The Linux kernel probably being the most well know.

What do you think the whole "free software v.s. open source" debate/flamewar is about?

Quote: Original post by Sander
There are many, many projects out there using the GPL that don't give a rat's ass about FSF, RMS or their political agenda.

The GPL is the political agenda. It is the legal vehicle used to bring RMS twisted ideas upon this world. Political agenda and GPL are inherently tied together. You just can't use the GPL without agreeing (at least on a conceptual level) with the agenda. Many people might use it out of ignorance, but this is just as dangerous, as they will inadvertently support the FSF and their political goals.

Quote: Huh. It's incredibly how incredibly pompous this thread's premise is.

The thread's premise is that while the majority of open source software is supported by hobbyists, the best projects are generated by fulltime programmers. Ergo, it would be helpful to everyone if we paid for open source software like we pay for closed source, because that sustains the programmers who devote their time to these projects.

I don't see how that's pompous. That's the premise I started with, if I diverged from it, I didn't mean to.

Quote: The buyer DESERVES to be able to buy the source code? You consider a price to be "ridiculous"? Based on WHAT, jackass? How cheap you're feeling that day?

It's ridiculous because it is unsustainable (P.S I mean one-hundred thousand dollars, not one-hundred). The price of a lot of closed source software is propped up by vendor lock-in. It's also propped up by general ignorance of the technology, which a lot of software vendors abuse. These restrictions don't last forever.

They provide a good bounty to the corporation in the short term, but in the long term it's existance would be constantly on edge. It would need to devour other smaller companies, and expand into other markets, abusing it's monopoly in order to do so.

It would also need to create barriers in order to keep competition away from the markets it is entrenching in. If it has the resources, it could also buy a few pawns in the local government and create a legal environment which approves it's practices.

This isn't a good environment for anyone, and especially not the people who work for the company. They would be subjected to constant spikes in workload, and mass expulsions during depressions.

It also hurts the relationship that Corporation has with non-IT oriented businesses, which are it's bread and butter, and who are least likely to have unlicensed copies.

I work as support staff in a non-IT oriented company, I see a lot of these things from the outside.

Quote: You don't want knowledge trapped in a vault? Well guess what -- you never had a right to it to begin with!

I acknowledge I don't have a right. I don't have a right to a lot of things unless someone else gives me that right. And no I'm not saying the government should beat you bloody and release every piece of knowledge you have to the World. I'm saying that if it's trapped in a vault it hurts everyone more than it helps everyone. Ergo I don't want it trapped in a vault.

I'm not demanding it be released from the vault immediatly under penalty of death.

[Edited by - WazzatMan on November 18, 2009 11:59:27 AM]

Quote: Original post by Yann L
My main problem with the GPL is not so much its inherent idea, but the fact that it comes with an attached political manifesto.

That's exactly why I would be uncomfortable to release something under the GPL. I could agree with a short statement extolling the virtues of open source, but since I don't agree that proprietary or closed source software is "evil" I can't in good conscience agree with the political opinions expressed within the GPL license agreement. I even feel slightly uneasy using unmodified LGPL licensed libraries like the SDL, even though I didn't touch the code and the preamble isn't explicitly in the LGPL license agreement.

I'm also a bit wary of the incompatibility of the GPL license with other licenses, especially later versions of itself. The GPLv2 isn't compatible with GPLv3, which I assume isn't compatible with a future GPLv4. The GPLv2 is compatible if you wrote your code under a "GPLv2 or later" license, but I'd be really uncomfortable about doing that; that's effectively handing your IP over to a third party (in this case the FSF) to do as they please.

When it comes to open source and free software, I look at things like this:

1) If you want to charge, sell it. Knock yourself out.
2) If you want to give it away, really give it away; don't rope other people in with some crazy license like the GPL.

Hence why I try to make all of my open source projects licensed under MIT or MS-PL to try and be as unrestrictive as possible with people's usages. I don't have the time, money, or, most importantly, the desire to deal with enforcing a license like the GPL. I have better things to do. If people want to give back, they will.

Interestingly related, Ogre3D recently had a similar revelation and changed from the LGPL to MIT for future versions of their source code. They, too, realized that the people who will contribute will do so anyway and that they'll get more adopters by moving to an easier-to-understand license.

Back to the premise of whether companies should or should not have to give you some or all of their source, I don't think they should. It's the company's decision to release what they want to release at the price they believe their assets are worth. If they don't want to give you the source code, they shouldn't have to. If that inconveniences you, tough luck, I guess.

Quote: Original post by WazzatMan
It's ridiculous because it is unsustainable. The price of a lot of closed source software is propped up by vendor lock-in. It's also propped up by general ignorance of the technology, which a lot of software vendors abuse. These restrictions don't last forever.

They provide a good bounty to the corporation in the short term, but in the long term it's existance would be constantly on edge. It would need to devour other smaller companies, and expand into other markets, abusing it's monopoly in order to do so.

It would also need to create barriers in order to keep competition away from the markets it is entrenching in. If it has the resources, it could also buy a few pawns in the local government and create a legal environment which approves it's practices.

This isn't a good environment for anyone, and especially not the people who work for the company. They would be subjected to constant spikes in workload, and mass expulsions during depressions.

It also hurts the relationship that Corporation has with non-IT oriented businesses, which are it's bread and butter, and who are least likely to have unlicensed copies.

I work as support staff in a non-IT oriented company, I see a lot of these things from the outside.

That just sounds like a whole lot of Microsoft-bashing to me. I can name dozens (hundreds!) of software companies that have been around for decades, selling proprietary software and who haven't had to resort to "devour[ing] other smaller companies, expand[ing] into other markets" or "abusing it's monopoly". Monopoly? Other than Microsoft, what proprietary software companies can be argued to be running a monopoly? Even Microsoft's monopoly has been eroding away in recent years, and they're in no danger of going out of business any time soon (certainly not in the forseeable future).

And anyway, what's wrong with buying smaller companies and expanding into new markets anyway? If I were running a small business, I would love for it to be bought out by Microsoft!

Quote: The GPL is the political agenda.

Not according to many people that use the GPL.

Quote: Many people might use it out of ignorance

And many people use it because it does exactly what they want. Like me.

Quote: Original post by Sander

Quote: The GPL is the political agenda.

Not according to many people that use the GPL.

Uhm, it is written in the preamble of the license...

Quote: Original post by Sander
And many people use it because it does exactly what they want. Like me.

And do you agree with his political agenda or not ?