On Sun, 21 Oct 2007, Josh Paetzel wrote: > On Sunday 21 October 2007 15:33:09 Mike Miller wrote: > >> Well, not the whole world but at least it is the "L" in TCLUG. I >> notice that your email address is at TCBUG - no "L"! >> >> I like all unixy things but am working toward doing all my work on >> Linux (still use Solaris some due to force of habit) because it seems >> to be the most likely to succeed for the next decade or so. I also >> prefer the GPL to the BSD license because the GPL is more >> self-promotional. > > > Ah, licenses...substitute self-promotional with viral and we're probably > at agreement anyways. I don't mind calling the GPL viral if viral means that it has a tendency to propogate itself. It does have that tendency and that is good. > It's interesting that for ~15 years the FSF has been telling me what > 'Free' is, and their definition has essentially been GPL compatable. > Specifically the GPLv2...many licenses have come and gone in those > years, only those which have been GPLv2 compatable have been declared > free by the FSF....until now. The FSF has recently released the GPLv3 > which is *not* GPLv2 compatable, but somehow it is the new definition of > free....it also carries with it more restrictions, which melts my brain. > I am more free because of more restrictions. I think the new changes are about software patents, aren't they? And software patents seem to be a recent legal innovation and a serious threat. As to their definition of free software, it is here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html Regarding compatibility of GPLv3 with GPLv2, see here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility The reasons for changes were explained by Stallman here: http://gplv3.fsf.org/rms_gplv3_launch_transcript > The FSF would also have you believe that commercial software is bad or > wrong somehow....another position I really have a hard time with. You can now have an easy time again because you were wrong all along. Their opposition is to proprietary licenses not to commercial applications. > I am all about choice. To me freedom is best given to me when I have > freedom to choose. Give me the freedom to choose between an open source > and a closed source solution, or a solution that I can have and use for > free versus one that I have to pay for. The FSF (and their virus they > call a license) attempts to limit my freedom to choose, and if they had > their way they'd take away my freedom to choose commercial software > completely. Do you mean your freedom as a developer to make a non-free proprietary program using formerly free code? I agree with Stallman and others that it is not desirable for me as a developer of free code to provide you with that option. I want my free code to stay free after it has been modified for other uses. Analogy: If I lend someone my car, I might allow him to drive it to wherever he pleases, but I wouldn't grant him the permission to run me over! Distributing software under the BSD license is like saying "go ahead, run me over." > I've been using open source solutions both professionally and > recreationally for well over 15 years now. 99.9% of the commercial code > I write at work goes out the door with a BSD license on it, and the > people buying it gladly pay 6 figures for our product. (In case you are > wondering the remaining .1% goes out GPL'd because of virus > infestations, but we're working on eliminating that little pest) I don't know what you mean by "virus infestations" unless you mean that you were incorporating GPL code into your code. It is unfortunate that you are using the BSD license. Do your employers know that any competitor can take your code, improve it and use it in a competing product and they don't have to share their code with you? But if your employer were using GPL instead, the competitor would have to share back with your company. So why is BSD better for you than GPL? Seems like BSD was a bad choice. > What's scary to me is how much mindshare the FSF has captured, and how > readily an entire generation has bought in to their song and dance. Please consider that maybe you are the one who is wrong. > I sometimes sit back and wonder how it all happened....was it IBM's > billion dollar marketing scheme for linux? How did you hear of > linux...and how long did it take you to buy in to the FSF afterwards? > And what were your influences? I've been using UNIX systems for about 20 years and have been sysadmin on my Solaris box (SPARC) for 12 years. I first used Linux in 1996 at an internet cafe in San Francisco. The thing that I liked a lot about Linux at that time was that it could run on ordinary PC hardware allowing me to have UNIX (essentially) with a color monitor that didn't cost $3,000+ (yes, Sun monitors were pricey!). I also used emacs back then. I don't even know when I first heard of FSF but I think it was back in about 1994. I liked the idea but as a psychiatry postdoc it wasn't a high priority. Over the years I learned more about it and I have been impressed with the record of success of the GPL. I think it is working because it is a good license that serves to promote collaboration and developer communities. I think you should not pretend that use of the GPL has to be due to some kind of herd mentality following some kind of religious indoctrination or corporate marketing scheme. Maybe it's just a good thing for many developers. > At the end of this email I reread your reply....my first take was that > you thought solaris was most likely to succeed for the next decade or > so, which I totally agree with...upon rereading it I got the impression > maybe you thought linux was the most likely to succeed in the next > decade or so....just curious, but which one of my readings is correct? You should remove the parenthetical remark and read it again. My statement was not ambiguous. Linux is the OS that has been massively successful in recent years and has pretty much taken over. Every major UNIX distributor (IBM, Sun, HP, SGI) started offering Linux as an option on their hardware several years ago. Even Dell started offering Ubuntu on their machines. Young people use Linux. All these signs point to continuing growth and success for Linux. I don't think Solaris will cease to exist any time soon, but it will continue to lose market share. It's hard for me to see the point in using Solaris when Linux is readily available to me. For me, Linux is *clearly* the better choice. I think you should reconsider some of your ideas. You come across as firmly entrenched, but I'm not seeing a logical argument to for the superiority of the BSD license to GPL licenses in what you wrote. I do have the impression that you believe the BSD license is better. I have had arguments like this before, possibly on this list and maybe even with you, Josh. The one argument for using BSD instead of GPL came from someone who didn't care about starting a community around his code base and he didn't care about competitors -- he just wanted his code to be used by anyone. Wider use meant more attention to his work and more impressive claims in his CV (e.g., "Microsoft uses my code in Blah"). That makes sense, but most of us are trying to do more than that with our projects. Mike