The Penguin Ping.
Wannna be Penguified? Just holla!
Got root?
Posted on 09/03/2002 2:51:17 PM PDT by JameRetief
Wannna be Penguified? Just holla!
Got root?
Check out CodeWeavers. They design software for the Linux platform.
While they are not exclusively OpenSource, the package they use (WINE) is OS.
You use OS to make commercial software.The only things that remain "open" in your packages are those covered by GPL.
OSS is an open ended term. MacOS X is built on Darwin which is a BSD built by porting FreeBSD over to the Mach microkernel. Darwin is open source for example. OSS varies from license to license. Some of it is OSS in name only like the JDK and JRE from Sun.
Support and customizations would be the primary revenue makers. Even the GPL does not force you to release the source to a modification of a GPL'd program unless you release it to the public. Therefore RedHat could write a modifed GNOME for XYZ corp and as long as XYZ corp doesn't release it to the public, they are free to withhold the source from the public.
The philsophy of the GPL is Jeffersonian. Jefferson did not believe that people had the right to come up with an idea, let it out into the public and say "oh hey I own that idea, you cannot use it without my permission." The philosophy applied to software is simple. Software is like an idea. It has no more scarcity than an idea. Licenses and copyright law are what make it scarce. Therefore since you got the GPL'd software from someone else you are forbidden to use your rights to limit the rights of others. Copyright and patent law don't make it as simple as "if you don't like the software then don't use it!" Because Microsoft is allowed to own patents on its file formats, etc it can restrict the ability of others to freely create products that can interoperate with its thus making switching in theory quite painful for most users. The only thing that has kept the OpenOffice group from getting sued is the US Government's antitrust trial.
The GPL doesn't limit you to one license if you own the copyright to all of the code in your product. TrollTech licenses its GUI toolkit QT under proprietary licenses and the GPL because it doesn't accept outside code into its official product. Therefore it fully owns the copyright and can license as it sees fit. Keep that in mind when people say that the GPL takes away the ability of developers to license their sofware as they see fit because it doesn't if they actually own all of the code in their product.
Spot on, d.
For what it's worth, I view the GPL as the geeks very own Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
The DoI because it promotes freedom of creativity and the Constitution because its rules are concise, easily understood, and to the point.
There ya go... spread the money around locally and eliminate pirated software. How could Microsoft be against this?
That would be too easy, TJY. ;-)
I spent 4 hours researching and two hours tweaking an XP system over the weekend trying to get some (critical) legacy DOS programs to run. It can be done but I'd go back to W98SE in a heartbeat if my company would allow it. Good thing it was a long weekend.
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)
I don't really see how this Venezuelan law helps the US... Unless you consider "Venezuela shelling out $75 dollars for a single American-made Redhat 7.3 Pro CD set, and then proceeding to make thousands of legal copies" good for the United States economy.
I'm often very critical of MS, and I think the criticism is justified. After all, they are a corporation which has been convicted of illegal, monopolistic business practices in federal court.
But, after we cross the border, I support what helps the US economy first and foremost. Why does anybody give a damn what's good for Venezuelan OSS programmers? I'd rather see their govt's money go to our American MS programmers. ( But don't let that go to your head, Bush2000 :-) ) As a corporation, we may not like them or their business tactics, but their campus is still filled with Americans. Some of them (minus Bill Gates) are even conservatives.
Aw hell... This Venezuela thing probably won't hurt MS anyway, though. Their country is run by that communist Chavez. Their checks will probably start bouncing any day now.
The idea is that you (a programmer) voluntarily give up exclusive control of the code and allow anyone who wishes to view the source code and use it for their own purposes.
The economics are that you give away the code, and in so doing you increase the number of people using it. As they fix bugs or add features, you get to then use the improved code which presumably helps you in some way.
Most people trying to make money off of Linux have focused either on selling hardware or accessories (since you cannot make a copy of a Pentium III CPU), or focused on services like tech support or custom consulting.
While some claim it to be "Communist", the reality is that no one is forced to do anything. It is more like a community of farmers where they each help each other out by helping build one another's barn, assist in haying, etc. You help me, I help you - it is a cooperative model.
Hope this helps.
Proprietary file formats? Proprietary communication protocols? Governments could do a lot of good for everyone if they demanded that all software suppliers follow open standards (e.g. TCP/IP) and publish their file formats (e.g. MS Office's mystery formats) in order to get business.
The idea of introducing proprietary non-standards only serves the company that invents these things. In any purchase contract, the buyer has a lot of clout. I'd like to see these big buyers (govts) start using it.
| Governments could do a lot of good for everyone if they demanded that all software suppliers follow open standards (e.g. TCP/IP) and publish their file formats
Know what a CODASYL database is? That's the standard the government settled on for database software. That one was gonna help everybody out by standardizing how data would be stored in computers. How about Ada? Ada ought to be the most popular programming language ever, because the government made it the standard. Run over to monster.com and see how many jobs there are for Ada programmers; then try the same thing with C++ or Java. Bunches of people wasted tons of money trying to adhere to these government standards, only to see them fall on their butts. At one time the government set out to define the Standard Instruction Set Processor... literally the assembly language of the "standard CPU." Some General decided there was no need to invent a new one, so he declared Digital's VAX to be the standard instruction set. IBM ignored him. So did Intel. Today you can buy a VAX for so much a pound. This is the kind of nonsense that goes on when bureaucrats and lawyers try to set technology standards. They start out not knowing what they're doing, and along the way they get pressured politically, and in the end they do something that is just dumb. Leave them out of it... please. |
Green (the proposal that became Ada) was done by a French team. 'Nuf said. The only long-term successful programming languages have been designed by white American men. Cobol is a dead language, Fortran is still flourishing. An exception may be C++, but Stroustrap was in the US when he created C++ and he based it off of Dennis Richie's work.
Is that true? That would surprise me. I doubt that anyone would write anything new in it, but there have got to be millions of lines of COBOL code still humming away doing general ledgers in Fortune 500 companies. Some poor sap has to keep that stuff current with the latest tax changes and so on. Same thing with the Social Security Administration... hopefully they have converted their stuff to COBOL by now. The last time I looked, SSA was still running big chunks of Autocoder code in 1401 emulation mode.
Ah... I am happy to see that a search of monster.com turned up zero jobs for Autocoder professionals. COBOL, on the other hand, has four times as many job openings as FORTRAN. And RPG lives on! So does PICK and PICK BASIC.
I shouldn't be be saying this; the government will want to make one of them a standard.
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Ever heard of ADCCP? That's the standard the government promulgated for synchronous data communications over wide-area networks. Some guy like you thought that government could do a lot of good for everyone if they could make all computers talk the same protocol.