Microsoft 'killed Dell Linux' - States

The Register ^ | 03/19/2002 | Andrew Orlowski

[Justa]

Your analogy is broken on many fronts. Common property has it's roots in Christianity, not Marxism. Does the term "village commons" ring a bell? Furthermore, neither GNU/Linux nor GPL prohibit private ownership. The users of the software are the owners, not the makers. Remarkable concept eh? Furthermore, companies are allowed to charge for their GNU/GPL-licensed products or they can release them under any one of a number of other public licenses, retaining whatever rights they so choose.

GNU/GPL confers no different rights than the same rights one has when purchasing an automobile or any other product. If some software vendors choose to give their products away at no cost to certain users so be it. It's their choice, and unlike Marxism no one is forcing them to give their intellectual property away. It's voluntary. The difference between MS's EULA and GNU/GPL is that with GNU/GPL the user is the owner whereas MS retains all ownership rights to their software. Apparently, private property is too radical a concept for you to accept.

Otoh MS's EULA is a throwback to Medieval serfdom where people were not allowed to own what they paid for and worked on. Any imbicile can see this.

[jodorowsky]

Otoh MS's EULA is a throwback to Medieval serfdom where people were not allowed to own what they paid for and worked on. Any imbicile can see this.

If you object to people not being "allowed to own what they paid for and worked on" then you are arguing for the wrong side.

[StickyWings]

Thank you for helping me to understand this cyber war,

I guess Mac dose not have this trouble!

[jodorowsky]

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"

--Samuel Adams (1722-1803), letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776

[PatrioticAmerican]

" Within the next 2 years expect to see Federal regulations banning closed source software from government computers"

"no one is forcing them to give their intellectual property away"

So, which is it? Marxism or volunteerism? I suppose you also loved Clinton's labeling of taxation as "contributions"?

You also got the commons thing wrong. People retained private property and were not required to give it away, even though a village had a commons.

"The difference between MS's EULA and GNU/GPL is that with GNU/GPL the user is the owner whereas MS retains all ownership rights to their software. Apparently, private property is too radical a concept for you to accept.

Newbie to the game, I see. No company has ever sold their software to a user. If a user owns it, then they can do as they please, unless you don't understand ownership principles. To place restrictions on software means that the person does not "own" it, they pay for its use. So, what the Hell is the difference between licensing software and owning it with hordes of restrictions? Nothing, because the result is the same. Does "is" mean "is' in your vocabulary?

[Justa]

Perhaps you should actually read the GPL license before deciding what it means. It doesn't force anyone to "give away" their software.

[PatrioticAmerican]

I have read it. Are you really so stupid as to believe that giving someone your work produce, read: source code, that they will not take advantage of it? Do your really believe that copyright laws can prevent such use? Do you really believe that the internals of a software product are not valuable?

I have worked on a number of projects were the source was valuable to the competitor. You obviously don’t know this, but Excel 3.0 displayed results 3% faster than Lotus 123. Lotus made claims of Microsoft using undocumented API calls. The problem was Microsoft didn’t. They just had better routines, routines they should not distribute as open source.

There are some things that are candidates for public sourcing, but not everything. That idea is socialism to the hilt. “Let’s all hold hands and share as one, one community of personhood.”