Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: B Knotts
However, when there is a legitimate option that costs less, and does not require per-seat licensing, that other option will eventually take a big bite out of Microsoft's market share.

I totally agree, and would support that option if it is a for-profit US company that owns the technology. Just like I currently support Sun, Apple, etc. But I will never support these sneaky licenses that steal your IP and provide no return revenue to the IT market which I work in.

58 posted on 08/21/2003 10:40:53 AM PDT by Golden Eagle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies ]


To: Golden Eagle
But I will never support these sneaky licenses that steal your IP and provide no return revenue to the IT market which I work in.

If you don't want your code to fall under the GPL, then don't use GPL code in your programs. The GNU library license does allow you to dynamically link your programs to GNU software, which is why proprietary software is made for Linux. You seem to think that you can't run commercial software on Linux. Oracle and quite a few other vendors seem to disagree. The GPL will only "steal" your IP if you first "steal" GPL IP. That seems to be a fair trade to me.

61 posted on 08/21/2003 10:51:42 AM PDT by Question_Assumptions
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies ]

To: Golden Eagle
But I will never support these sneaky licenses that steal your IP and provide no return revenue to the IT market which I work in.

Open source licenses do not "steal" IP. Some of them require that you contribute your IP if you choose to redistribute your work derived from it. Others don't impose that requirement at all.

However, there is plenty of return revenue to the IT market. A lot of people are earning revenue while supporting and developing open source systems. It isn't large in comparision to the proprietary systems, but it is non-trivial.

I've personally done consulting for companies that use open source systems among the rest of their infrastructure, and wrote (non-GPL'ed) code for them to meet a specific need. It's not yet a large piece of my work, but it has been steadily increasing over the past couple of years.

62 posted on 08/21/2003 10:55:06 AM PDT by justlurking
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies ]

To: Golden Eagle
You have no clue how GPL works. BTW Apples UNIX base (DARWIN) is under BSD (not quite GPL but in practice close) would you liek to see the code? Apple yet another company that uses open source software yet holds their IP, guess its not quite as viral as you think.

Its funny because Oracle moved off of Solaris as their primary platform and moved to linux yet they still own their IP, BEA provides its own software to Linux and holds its IP. Your argument is weak..

66 posted on 08/21/2003 11:04:33 AM PDT by N3WBI3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson