RMS Blasts Sun's Open Source Patent Licensing 591
cdlu writes "RMS takes Sun to task on its recent announcement that it is releasing 1,600 patents to the open source community. Among the major points, the license the patents are released under doesn't apply to patents, and Sun has not promised to not sue anyone using the technology within free software projects."
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Just very RMS. ;-)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
That the CDDL is inapplicable to patents is a very valid point and, if true, nullifies the entire benefit of this "release." I may be flamebait, but you're just offtopic.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
RMS is on to something.. (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS wants to do away with copyright and all "Intellectual Property-rights" entirely. He does not want to force everyone to use the GPL, but he created the GPL, "copyleft" as an answer to copyright: Since Free Software cannot legally obtain source or dumps from proprietary software, there was a need for a license that allowed everything to be shared. Except to proprietary software, since they're restricting sharing unnaturally. How else would Free Software be able to compete against copyright? It's an ironical stab at copyright.
When RMS started, he was laughed at. Nobody believed quality software could be made by people in their spare time. Leaders of corporations thought that making something like a UNIX OS would be impossible for others to achieve, but forgot it's us, human beings , who really created the software in the first place. Now, we're seeing Free Software is ahead in some respects, and is slowly overtaking proprietary solutions and making them uncomfortable.
RMS doesn't live in his own world, he sees the illusion our society is building its card-house on. He sees "IP-rights" as unnatural: It is natural to share information. With the advent of free cost copying and distribution of information (The Internet), we as a society now have roughly two choices:
1) Implement more and more draconian laws to conserve our social structure as it is now. Only the elite will be able to produce and invent, while the poor becomes poorer both in monetary riches and knowledge - one of the ways to oppress people. There's no way to prevent the freedom of information, except to create higher and higher barriers between every entity in this world: nations, cities, communities, institutions, neighbours, family, your own brain. Yes, it becomes ludicrous at a point, but at that point, who can stop it? When you've already lost touch with your community, nobody is on your side anymore.
A way to do this, is to create an artificial war against an abstract enemy, thus making people think they need these laws for protection. Even though more people die in car-accidents each year, than to this fictious enemy.
Back to point #2:
2) Another approach is to create a natural abundant society where people collaborate and contribute to the whole. Free Software is only the beginning, and has already proven its more efficient, flexible and reusable than proprietary solutions. Technology will slowly eliminate limitations and create abundance. In such a society, work will be more like play than the hour-wrecking, time-stretching, guilt-ridden, manipulative, forced labour we have today. Why are we waiting for the clock to turn 4-5 if there's not more work to be done that day? In fact, most of the population will not be required to "work" at all, and what work exist can be done taking turns on it. It requires a mature society that will take care of all its inhabitants. Like it or not: socialism, though just like in Europe not everybody need be treated equally.
The GPL is not forcing anybody to do anything. Copyright and so called "Intellectual Property-rights" are forcing people, and is the enemy to a natural progression towards an abundant society.
Abundance or not, is really a state of mind. Some people want to create a future of everlasting feeling of lack. You need more, and more, and in order to get it you have to do what they tell you to do. No matter how advanced technologically we get, we will never be happy, we will be slaves to emotions being manipulated by a paranoid society - our spirit crushed or perverted into material goal-chasing.
I want to live in a mature, natural and abundant society, don't you?
Ask yourself, who is working against the natural progression of evolution,
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)
Better said, some people frequently agree with RMS's opinions.
Nice job, Sun. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:2)
Has anyone seen the end of the tunnel? In the end, you will be able to run those free software from linux on an overpriced sun hardware. That's it!
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:4, Informative)
Before we went to all Macs with a Linux backbone, we always had to download stuff off of Sun Freeware [sunfreeware.com] to get a get reasonable commmand line tools.
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:2, Informative)
It was lots of open source stuff... including Gnome and KDE, long before the Java Desktop System.
Sun Freeware was just the latest and greatest... plus a few other things that may not have been included on the Solaris CD.
And not for nothing but... (Score:4, Insightful)
First you gotta plumb the interface. Then you might enable DHCP or BOOTP with it. Then you might use it to configure trunking or fail-over.
GAAAH.
Linux did one thing right with networking. Different commands that control different interfaces.
iwconfig handles wireless auth and behavior.
ifconfig handles address binding and state.
dhclient handles DHCP control.
some other kernel tools control trunking and packet shaping. etc.
Instead of one hideously long man page. (Shudder)
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Patents may have been donated only to CDDL projects, which would still preclude them from being used in GPL'd projects.
2) It is not clear what the actual scope of the licensing is and whether it will be GPL-compliant.
I am hopeful that these issues can be worked out, but it is too soon to tell whether this will actually be helpful or just a publicity stunt devoid of any real meaning.
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:3, Informative)
2) I may be wrong, but from my understanding it's clear right now that
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:3, Informative)
Depends what GPL-Compliant means. CDDL is very similar to GPL and appears to have much the same end game - if you develop with CDDL/GPL then all derivative works must use the same license.
However that also means that they are mutually un-compliant. Something developed under the GPL cannot be licensed under CDDL and vice-versa.
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:2, Insightful)
So what did Sun do? They basicly opensource Solaris under a license that makes sure that the Solaris code can not be used in any opensource projects not under the especially created license (which is every other open source project out there) and then with a lot of noise declared that people developing for Solaris will not be sued for patent infr
Re:Nice job, Sun. (Score:2, Insightful)
All those who modded down the parent take note of the following:
It's Sun's property, they can do whatever they want with their property.
Anybody/everyone who thinks that if source code is opened for viewing that it must also be opened for use with the GPL or Tom-Dick-and-Harry's License is full of it.
I'm sure that the powers that be at Sun would be more than happy to tell RMS to stick it you know where. Just as RMS seems to think it is his God given right to do all so often.
Copy Right Infringement (Score:5, Insightful)
So what has really happened here? Reading the announcement clearly, I think that it doesn't announce anything at all. It simply describes, in a different and grandiose way, the previously announced release of the Solaris source code as free software under Sun's idiosyncratic license, the CDDL. Outside Solaris, few or no free software packages use that license--and Sun has not said it won't sue us for implementing the same techniques in our own free software.
Perhaps Sun will eventually give substance to its words, and make this step a real one like IBM's. Perhaps some other large companies will take similar steps. Would this make free software safe from the danger of software patents? Would the problem of software patents be solved? Not on your life. Neither one.
We can be quite sure that not all large patent holders will do this. In fact, there is one company with lots of patents that surely won't take such a step. That is Microsoft, which says it is our enemy. Microsoft would love to make useful free software effectively illegal, and has plenty of money to pay lawyers to use whatever avenues governments provide them.
But the danger is not only from those that specifically consider us their enemies. It also comes from patent holders that are the enemy of everyone. These are the patent parasites--companies whose sole assets are patents, and whose only business is threats. Patent parasites don't really produce anything, they only suck the blood of those who do. As regards their choice of victims, they have the scruples of a mosquito, so you're only safe if they don't think you're worth biting.
Consider, for instance, the company founded by ex-Microsoft executive Myhrvold, which cheerfully says it is spending $350M to buy up patents (not specifically in software) so it can go around threatening and bullying everyone else. Of course, these parasites don't like to describe their activities in such terms. Much as the mafia, when it threatens to attack local businesses unless they pay, says it is charging for "protection", Myhrvold's company prefers to say it is "renting out" the patents. It expects this investment in what we could call the "patent protection racket" to pay off handsomely. For that to occur, lots of people have to get bitten.
The danger of software patents is not limited to free software, which is why the opposition to software patents is not limited to free software developers. Everyone involved with computers, aside from the megacorporations, must expect to lose. For instance, proprietary software developers are much more likely to be the victims of patents than to have a chance to use patents for aggression. Although I don't think proprietary software is ethically legitimate, it is a fact that developers of proprietary software are in the same danger from patents, and many of them know it.
Then think of all the software that is neither free nor proprietary: private-use software, software developed for and used by one client. Most software is pri
Re:Copy Right Infringement (Score:3, Informative)
Missing a zero somewhere?
Re:Copy Right Infringement (Score:3, Funny)
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
Re:Copy Right Infringement (Score:2)
Insightful? (Score:2)
If Sun didn't have a patent on big, heavy purple servers, I'd be whacking a moderator with one right now.
Re:Copy Right Infringement (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks
Bruce
Sigh again (Score:5, Interesting)
Who here is sick and tired of companies lying about what they release to the public in order to hoodwink fanboys?
Aside from those, I personally am sick and tired of so-called intellectual property. Patents and copyrights have become so abused that we have reached the point where the goal of stimulating the economy would be better served by getting rid of copyrights and patents altogether.
Re:Sigh again (Score:3, Interesting)
But the difference between you and me is that I'm not calling for the abolition of the freedom of speech, or denying that it ever existed in the first place.
Re:Sigh again (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom of speech is a fundamental freedom which the government cannot take away because it was never "granted" in the first place. It simply exists as a basic, inalienable human right. The body of law, which only recently became in vogue among lawyers to call "intellectual property," is a limited granted privilege. The US Constitution gives Congress the power to create such laws, but it does not require it to nor does it claim that copyright, paten
Re:Copy Right Infringement (Score:5, Insightful)
You sound as if you are deliberately trying to be offensive. If you haven't noticed, we are the folks who have been creating software and giving it away with licenses designed to keep the software free for everyone and without the patent strings that Sun is imposing on the process. We just want the right to continue to give away our own work and have everyone use it as they please. The gimmie-gimmie-gimmie is coming from folks who think they have the right to own ideas and keep others from using those ideas.
You send the message that you're about the destruction of property rights that we've held as axiomatic for centuries.
You mean since approximately 1984. There was no software patenting before the court case that made it legal in the U.S.. Even the U.S. patent office thought it was a bad idea. You can't possibly be that ignorant of history. You must just be trolling.
Bruce
Re:Copy Right Infringement (Score:3, Insightful)
Saying you are stunned is a rhetorical device. And you're doing it wrong, anyway. Try this way:
It's important to italicize the second one. It gives it that breathless sort of flavor.
Slavery was the first one I thought of, and certainly it's the most obvious sort of property ownership that is held to be offensive these days but in an earlier day was legal, and socially acceptable - indeed the ownership of many slaves was held to be a sign of high social status at one
Re:Copy Right Infringement (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I'm just a nameless number on a message board so I won't deceive myself about the import of my opinion in all this. But as reasonably impartial third party, it seems to me, Leo, that for all your talk about Bruce being condescending, you're the one that is maligning your own position with your heavy hand.
Now, I won't deny that some of what you've said has been insightful, but consider: you've phrased virtually every response to Bruce in this thread as if you were a professor in public relations. Some of the points you've made -- regarding phrasing things in a way that makes them appealing to someone who would otherwise be hostile to your platform -- are true, from a PR perspective, and I believe I should know, as PR is my profession (though in semiconductor manufacturing, not software). But the way in which you attempt to lecture Bruce makes you seem like the intellectual blowhard, when it seems that you desperately want to make him seem that way.
Furthermore, while some of your comments on, for example, business hostility to RMS's platform are unarguably true, your attempt to marginalize Linux, of all things, is just laughable! I'm going to talk from a completely business-oriented perspective here, and say with absolute confidence: Linux is, in the minds of today's IT-savvy businesspeople, the next big thing. That's why adverts for Linux-based solutions are popping up everywhere; that's why companies like IBM and Novell are pumping more money than you or I will make in a lifetime into it. It is seen by many, many knowledgeable people as the future, and by many companies as a serious threat.
Its future is not certain -- Bruce, ironically, has been making posts exactly to that effect throughout this story -- but to think that you could seriously imply that in 10 years Linux will be relegated to anything as trivial as an "Anyone remember Linux?" one-liner on a future message board is just silly.
I'm not sure that GNU has been a PR success, and it's quite likely that this is exactly for the reasons you enumerated. But Linux? Come on, be serious. It's a tremendous success. Everyone is talking about it. It's gaining mindshare at a tremendous rate. Non-technical people know the word, even if they don't know what it means. It runs much of the internet we use everyday. It's a tremendous, phenomenal success, whether you agree with its idealogy or not.
Further, there's much more to a "company" than a group of people united with a common goal -- someone with as sophisticated a vocabulary as yourself must be aware of this. A company has the distinctive implication of a group of people united with a common goal, certainly -- a goal that involves making money. Otherwise, Médecins Sans Frontières, Greenpeace, the Libertarian party -- all would be companies! Your definition is so wide as to be useless.
Community, movement, collective -- they have their good points and their bad points, all of them, because of the feelings they give the people that hear them. Company is like this as well -- ultra-capitalists especially are wary of companies, knowing full well that they (rightly) owe nothing to anyone but themselves.
Public relations is all about giving the public the impression you want them to have. In this game, audience is everything. Bruce is not talking to a bunch of suits looking to buy his product -- he's preaching to the choir. Most everyone here agrees with him (exceptions noted). Therefore, there is no reason for him to go around sounding like a PR flak.
Bruce, I've always been impressed with how tempered you manage to sound, but it seems to me that you let Leo push your buttons a little bit too much in this thread, and it did make you come off as
Interesting discussion point. (Score:3, Interesting)
If they do that: Great. If they don't: That's not so good, Al.
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bruce
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:2)
Specifically what licensing issues do you refer to?
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Specifically, the grant is promoted as being to the community of Open Source developers, but its terms restrict it to software that is under a license that is unique to Solaris. The Linux developers, who use a different license, can be sued for using the same patents. And Sun attempts to tell us how charitable a community member they are for doing this. It has a deceptive flavor that sticks in the craw of many Open Source developers.
Bruce
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:2)
Which includes the GPL, right? If that's the case, I'll see you on the rooftop.
If they do make this a CDDL only thing, then it's a shame.. I care about Free Software.
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:4, Insightful)
What are the odds that, of those 1,600 patents, NONE of them are violated by Linux in its current form? (I'm assuming near zero, since both Solaris and Linux are unix like operating systems. Has anybody with sufficient knowledge actually looked at the patents in question?)
If Sun were worried about killing Linux or other open source software, I don't think they would need to resort to trying to get people to suck in their code and then sue them. In most cases they don't need to waste their time - a simple filing of a patent case, even of no merit whatsoever, is enough to torpedo most open source programs. The options are a) pay up or b) break the patent. Either one takes $$. So why try a bait and switch approach when all they need to do is swing a flyswatter?
The Linux kernel and a few other programs might be able to mount some kind of defense, but if you want to kill the open source movement you don't need to kill the Linux kernel. You just hit the wealth of small, non-funded private projects that make Linux and friends worth using. A kernel is pretty useless by itself. Even if the big projects could survive, open source as such would still die.
Maybe I'm blind, but I just don't see how the CDDL and the patent "release" does anything except highlight a problem that has always been there and is still there. Twenty useless, indefensible, overly broad patents could conceivably be enough to sink 10,000 open source projects in the wrong hands. And if they go after users it's The End, regardless. Maybe Sun is trying to bait a booby trap here, but I just can't see it. If Sun has those patents, they are a potential headache for Linux no matter what, if they cover things that people might want to include in the kernel. If Sun wants to be a bad guy there is nothing stopping them even without the CDDL. So the upshot is, they're exactly the same problem they were to begin with. Maybe it would be easier to prove patent violation if CDDL code were used, but if matters reach that stage for most open source projects it's already far too late.
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:4, Informative)
OSRM has a list of patents they found that Linux might infringe upon. No court has ruled whether or not any of those patents are valid. My attorney can look at the list and answer some questions, but I can't look at it. If I did, it would contaminate my work on Linux and I might have to pay triple damages for knowing infringement rather than unknowing. The law is set up so that you get penalized if you look. This is just one of the many very bad things about the software patent system.
My fear is that without a direct patent attack on Linux, Sun has no hope of making further headway with Solaris. Give the Linux folks just two years and there will be no value left to Solaris, Linux will have far overtaken it.
Bruce
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:2)
Wow, either you're being extremely sarcastic or you didn't realize that you just responded to Bruce Perens with that question.
Bruce Perens is probably one of the most knowledgable people in the world who understands Open Source licensing issues (afterall, he is the primary author of The Open Source Definition).
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:4, Informative)
The point of my statement is that you can lie in a press release and most readers, even highly educated ones, won't realize. They don't have the specialized knowledge. So, it's up to people like us to point out details that others might miss.
Bruce
Re:Interesting discussion point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun has been posturing about Linux in a hostile way for about two years. I think that what we are seeing is the prelude to a patent lawsuit against Linux developers.
Bruce
in the wise words of Admiral Ackbar (Score:5, Funny)
Promised? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Promised? (Score:3, Insightful)
So the "promise" requested from Sun isn't just a "we promise not to sue", it is a very specific request for a "use license" for the patents. Such a license can be posted on their website independent of their CDDL lic
Re:Promised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Promised? (Score:4, Interesting)
You are right in that donative promises are generally not enforceable in court. However, there is a legal doctrine called "reliance."
Specifically, if I make an unenforcable donative promise to you, and you reasonably and foreseeably rely on that promise, the courts will step in and enforce that promise.
The textbook example of reliance is a company that promises a worker a pension in return "for the consideration of his many years of previous service." The problem is that prior consideration (in this case the previous years of service) can not be bargained for, and we fail to have a binding contract here since consideration is offered by the company (the pension) in exchange for no consideration by the worker.
However, due to the equitable principle of reliance, if the worker retires (which would be reasonable and foreseeable) the courts will enforce the promised pension.
So, if Sun publicly promised to not sue open / free software projects for using their patents, you reasonably and foreseeably rely upon that promise to use their patents in a open / free software project, and Sun sued you or others for patent infringement, the courts could be reasonably expected to enforce Sun's earlier promise.
Remember though, that Sun has not promised to not sue you for using their patents outside the CDDL, and even if they did you might have to pay a lawyer to get a court to enforce said promise.
- Neil Wehneman
Re:Promised? (Score:2)
Even more simply viewed, their "promise" would really be a license. An IP license is really nothing more than a covenant not to sue. As for mutuality of consideration, their license requires that all derivative works be released under the same license as well as contains some patent cross-licensing provisions (IIRC) which should certainly suffice as consideration. It doesn
Re:Promised? (Score:4, Insightful)
-russ
Re:Promised? (Score:2)
If the company (i.e., someone who without doubt *is* authorized to act on its behalf) signs a written contract with an actual third
He's pretty much right (Score:5, Interesting)
OpenSolaris (Or any CDDL project) is a torpedo waiting to sink any GPL project whose members happen to think about looking at CDDL code.
RMS is right on this, and he should be; he crafted the GPL during the days when reading AT&T code carried similar considerations.
Re:He's pretty much right (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a case where using an idea from the code you read can hurt you. Cut and paste is necessary to infringe on copyright, only use of a similar algorithm is necessary to infringe a patent.
Bruce
Re:He's pretty much right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:He's pretty much right (Score:3, Insightful)
A writer or artist can look at one of those works, because they're not subject to patent protections like the Sun code or WinNT code is. It's unfortunate, but borrowing an idea from Sun or Windows can get a programmer in a heap of trouble.
If all was right with the world and software patents didn't exist, this would be a non-issue.
Re:He's pretty much right (Score:4, Informative)
Even if you never look at the other side's code, if you use a similar algorithm to theirs, and they've patented it, they can sue you for infringement. Even if you invented it independently. Indeed, some patents are so vaguely written that they can be used to sue people regarding ideas that were not yet invented when the patent was filed.
Supose that someone sued you and you knew you were right. Would you have the funds to prove that in court? Probably not. You'd have to admit they were right and settle for whatever terms they wish.
I can't overemphasize how badly the system stinks. It rewards bad actions at every level.
Bruce
Re:He's pretty much right (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, just by reading it.
That's a good part of what drove RMS to create the Free Software movement in the first place.
As far as what you remember; it's not the code, it's the algorhithms that the patents cover, and the methods that the programs use, that potentially are the issue.
As far as getting in trouble, it depends on how you define 'trouble'. If someone from ReactOS (just continuing the example) admits
In other news (Score:2)
He is right... (Score:2, Interesting)
What is the point of open-sourcing Solaris (read free as in freedom) if we can't be sure of using the code that has been "opened" to further the open-source movement? Sun must open its software patents in order to do this.
uh-oh (Score:5, Funny)
Later on, he gave IBM a stern talking to, and then towards the end of the article, he gave Microsoft a vigorous tongue lashing. Also, mosquitos, as a species, were maligned.
Seriously guys, the trash talk is getting embarrassing...
Schwartz blasts IBM patent hooie (Score:4, Informative)
Somewhat similarly, Sun honcho Jonathon Schwartz posts these comments about IBM's patent assignments to the OSS movement in his blog [sun.com]:
ps. You've got to love IBM's ability to play the community. Going through some of the patents they "donated" to the open source community a few weeks back, it looks as if they all, curiously, seem to be due for payment - and thus potential expiration - this year. Were they destined for the bit bucket (turns out IBM is among the largest patent expirers in the world, along with its largest issuer).
And some of the patents have nothing to do with open source software - my favorite in the heap is this one [uspto.gov].
Re:Schwartz blasts IBM patent hooie (Score:3, Funny)
The world of Richard Stallman (Score:3, Interesting)
As a software creator I am free to choose to release the software for free and I am free to demand payment for my software. On the other side of the coin, consumers are free to accept my terms or not.
Oh wait, we already live in that world. So what is his beef with people making decisions for themselves?
Re:The world of Richard Stallman (Score:3, Insightful)
What is the software you are creating? Software like Adobe Photoshop, or custom software for internal use/a client?
Don't forget - the FSF sells Free Software too. It helps them survive. [fsf.org]
Re:The world of Richard Stallman (Score:2)
This isn't about what Sun does with it's software. It's about Sun threatening to charge you royalties for YOUR software, that you wrote yourself, on your own, with no help from them. See the difference?
He sure blasts a lot. (Score:2)
Those are Sun's patents.
Re:He sure blasts a lot. (Score:2)
I agree with you, however, if Sun had not made their original announcement, RMS wouldn't currently be "blasting" them about it.
I'm tired of the mega-corporations spouting deceptive legalese and press releases in order to gain the respect of hippy, freedom loving FOSS advocates and developers. Don't these corporations know that they're not fooling anybody? Why bother?
A good business strategy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's look at Sun's Open Source strategy:
You can take OpenSolaris source code and modify it. You cannot take OpenSolaris patented concepts and place them into other works OSS or otherwise. If things pan out for Sun that means they will have a large developer base dumping code into Solaris, which will make Solaris better and more competitive. Sun basically just improved Solaris with no R&D by leveraging the OSS community. It appears, as of now, that Sun is in this for free skilled labor and nothing else. They are trying to have their cake (revenues from Solaris) and eat it to (no competing products resulting from Open Solaris concepts because of patent issues). The open code without the freedom from patents is like saying "Hey, developers, help me make a buck off this OS by contributing your code for free."
It doesn't take a zealot or a great deal of common sense to notice this. I say let Sun do it, and when they don't attract the huge developer base they hoped to attract maybe they will rethink their OSS approach.
Has anyone noticed... (Score:2)
Some of them are trolls, but come on...is RMS a sacred cow now?
Re:Has anyone noticed... (Score:2)
Re:Has anyone noticed... (Score:2)
So if you can point to one of the posts that actually makes a good criticism about RMS's article rather than the man himself I'd like to see it.
ill-conceived use of legal docs? Sounds like SOP (Score:2)
yes: RMS is nuts. no, he's not wrong this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Often, he's right about things, and this is one of them. Sun is a hardware company, not a software company. they're trying to get the foss community do their software maintenance for them, so they can continue to sell their hardware. They're not, in this case, particapating as equal partners with the foss community ( any more than apple is ), they just want our help with their code.
Re:yes: RMS is nuts. no, he's not wrong this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Often, he's right about things, and this is one of them.
I'd say that he's obviously nuts, in the sense that Martin Luther King was obviously nuts: they both have a single issue that they care passionately about, to the exclusion of all other considerations.
Both were/are right. Both were personally offensive enough that some people are still unwilling to forgive them, or accept their positions.
Today, we know that, however offensive MLK and his followers may have been, the Dream in his ``I have a Dream'' speech was worthwhile. There are still way too many people who've never forgiven MLK for being unpopular, and for proving them wrong in their racism.
As time passes, it becomes more and more clear that RMS is dead on in most of his positions, and the people who say otherwise are beginning to open themselves up to comparisons with MLK's detractors, who are generally a nasty bunch.
Re:Unreasonable and misleading generalization. (Score:3)
I re-read my post, and I'm pretty sure I didn't make that generalization. Quoting myself:
And it's not fair, reasonable, or useful to imply that people who d
your indian replacement thanks you... (Score:4, Insightful)
IBM understands it...you're not winning a war by IBM playing 'nice' with the opensource community. A company will do whatever is profitable. At the moment, IBM get's free code and great PR out of a few token gestures. They they outsource any actual development work to [insert current outsource country here] which use your freely given code to lower their development costs. RMS argues that there is enough money to be made in the service markets to sustain your wages...well, guess what...IBM has been making a pretty spectacular play for that service market for quite some time now...and it's taking your freely given software and using it to increase it's market penetration. Do you really think that 'small developer X' will be able to compete with IBM in the service market? But it's ok, RMS will be safe because he can always make a living on the tour circuit.
Brilliant strategy guys, see you in the soup kitchen line.
Re:your indian replacement thanks you... (Score:4, Insightful)
Face it, the vast majority indian software developers are doing proprietary software development for US companies, not offering solutions based on open source software. The open source vs properietary software debate has very little to do with outsourcing.
That said outsourcing is not the big bad thing you like to paint it as. Economic growth in Asia hurts America as little as economic growth in Europe after WW2 did, in other words it do not hurt at all, in fact it a positive contribution.
Another dirty Sun trick. (Score:4, Funny)
1)Everybody stop using NFS. If it comes from Sun, it can't be good.
2)Dump OpenOffice now! It is just another trojan horse of theirs.
3)Dump GNOME! Besides, when there is KDE, who needs it?
4)Dump X.Org. It has been touched by evil. Can't be too carefull with these matters.
5)Do not write applications using Java. Java is evil. There are god knows how many of these no-good Sun patents in there. Sun can pull the carpet under your feet at any time.
6)Burn every machine that has this dispicable Sun logo on it. It may infect your trustworthy intel and ibm servers which have served you so well in the past.
Summary slightly misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me say it again for those who won't read the article - IT DOESN'T MATTER whether or not Sun releases these patents. ANYBODY with a patent and no sense of ethics can do incalcuable damage to the free software movement. Even if sun broadened it's release to include all open source licenses, 1,600 is just a few leaves in a forest. And personally I wouldn't consider Sun's hands to be the most dangerous. Suppose Microsoft hires itself a few proxies with big patent portfoilos to sue every small to medium size open source project they can find, and all users they can track down? Sun's patent release doesn't do ANYTHING about that problem, and that is the real problem here.
Sun is unlikely to do anything so rash - they don't dominate the market and can't affort to become the next SCO in public relations. Microsoft can, and it can even more so afford for hired flunkie companies to be reviled.
Patents are far and away the most dangerous threat to open source software. But, to be a bit fatalistic, I think if the large corporations get serious about killing open source, nothing will save it. If nothing else, they could try to buy some laws making giving away software for free illegal, because it is unfair competition. The biggest problem with enemies is that they are your enemy. They will not stop until you are dead, and how you die is of no importance. The specifics don't matter - the fact someone wants you dead is enough to seal your fate unless you can either change their minds or force them to back off. I don't know how open source can do either, at least in the US, where money is everything.
Re:He's right! (Score:4, Interesting)
There seems to be this view that if someone offers a gift, then being suspicious of their motives is bad.
Slashdot commentators are very bad at analogies, so I won't break that tradition with this one:
Various charities, such as greenpeace etc, are very wary about companies wanting to talk to them and/or give them gifts. Because often the companies then turn around and claim they are 'working with' greenpeace etc, without actually doing anything.
Re:He's right! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He's right! (Score:2)
Re:He's right! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm personally not a big fan of the Sun-MS and I guess that's my personal bias. They've done their share of good for the OSS movement, but have also done some incredibly damaging things to OSS as well. They're one of those wait-and-see types.
If the Chief GNU is barking at something, I'm willing to bet there's something
Re:He's right! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:He's right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's break it down for you. To use your analogy, Sun gives itself a gift horse, and shows it to the open source community.
Sun: "see all these gold teeth?"
Open Source Community: (shrugs) "They're OK I guess..."
Sun: "I'll let you take a closer look at these teeth, study them, and improve upon them by redesigning/refactoring them, and improving the manufacturing process if you sign up for our special license!"
Open source community: "Oh, so we can look at the design of the teeth, think about how we've managed our own horse's teeth, and contribute our best ideas and work hard to improve your horses, is that it?"
Sun: "Of course, won't that be fun?"
Open Source Community: "So, does it work both ways? I mean, we can then think about how you've implemented your horse's gold teeth, and maybe use some of the ideas to improve our own horse's teeth, right?"
Sun: (confers with lawyers, who violently signal a negative response) "Let's not worry about that for now, the main thing is, you can all work hard to make our horse healthy, strong and more popular than ever, and won't that be fun?"
Open Source Community: "So, we are supposed to take up a new hobby, improving your horse's teeth, right? That's cool, we like programming... But just to be clear, are you saying you won't sue us if we use some of the ideas to improve our own horses teeth?"
Sun: (glances at lawyers, who give him dirty looks and pantomime a slicing motion across their throats) "I'm not sure what you're getting at here, and I really don't know what you expect from us. Come on, this is offered in good faith, so just trust me, OK?"
Open Source Community: "Well, that is certainly a great offer, but I think I'll pass for now. I mean, it sounds like a blast and all, but I've got my hands full taking care of my own horses. But hey dude, listen, take care and good luck with it, aight?"
Super duper condensed: (Score:3, Insightful)
Open Source Community: The license does not sync with our philosophy. No thanks.
Free Software Community: This license is blasphemy in our collective holy eyes! Cast thee away from our presence!
Everyone walks away, life goes on.
Go suck eggs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go suck eggs (Score:2)
Re:Is this really news? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is this really news? (Score:3, Insightful)
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So long as that step is in the right direction.
zeal sometimes does as much harm as good
You mean like zealously opposing anything RMS says without offering a shred of reasoning one way or
the other about what he actually said? (and I'm guessing without reading the article either)
Re:Is this really news? (Score:2)
It's pretty obvious that RMS will complain about every license that's not the GPL, just because if it were enough like it for him to not complain, whoever came up with the license wouldn't have bothered and would just have used the GPL instead.
(Yes, that entire post was just an excuse to use the ph
Re:Is this really news? (Score:2)
Re:Is this really news? (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as supporting other licenses, it seemed to me like he complained about all of them because I was looking at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html#TOC L icensingFreeSoftware [gnu.org] last night, and based on that
Re:Is this really news? (Score:2)
Note that in the article in question RMS uses the GPL only in way of comparison. He doesn't care one iota what license you use in so much as the license you do choose provides the same freedoms as the GPL. In this instance what he is saying is that SUN is crowing about their "gift" of software patents when in actual fact the gift is really a poisoned pi
Re:*/OpenSolaris (Score:3, Funny)
Proper punctuation in the string is left as an excerise to the reader. Besides, it's a frickin joke.
Re:"Significant"? (Score:2)
I personally would welcome an announcement by IBM like this: "Recognizing that patents stifle innovation and limit wide deployment of technology, IBM will no longer patent any of its discoveries and will rather publically release implemetations under the GPL."
Until that day, IBM is still evil.
As far as Sun, yes, they are also evil. Let Java and the class library go GPL.
Agreed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I the only one who thinks this is getting old? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one who thinks this is getting ol (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one who thinks this is getting ol (Score:3, Interesting)
Having lost touch with reality generally lowers your credibility considerably. I've had the interesting experience of meeting RMS once. His coding prowess speaks for itself but the man has the social skills of a gnat.
If something is said he doesn't agree with he won't debate it, he'll deny it. (I was the only person dressed in a suit at a programmer's soc
Re:Oh... (Score:2)
Re:Oh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm Sorry... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would not call a person who fights for the freedom of all people 'wacky'.
You lost me with the "now all code should be free without exceptions" bit.
Why? Does not everybody have a right to study and modify the software they run? In our lifetimes we will probably see direct neural interfaces between men and computers; do you want to connect your brain to a piece of software that only the manufacturer knows of what it does? Do you want to be told you cannot 'think' certain thoughts, because they have been patented? These are the things RMS keeps in mind! There is no compromise possible; a user should have certain rights to the code he is running. It's either that, or we might end up being Borg.
Just like you should have unlimited access to what is under the hood of your car, you should have access to what is under the gui of your applications.
Re:I'm Sorry... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Does not everybody have a right to study and modify the software they run?
Not if it was written by someone else who allows you to use it with the explicit condition that you cannot study the source or modify it. Is it ideal that you can acquire these rights? Of course, but it shouldn't be mandatory.
Do you want to be told you cannot 'think' certain thoughts, because they have been patented?
Using Z to prove A never makes any sense. I know it's convienient to make this connection to argue that "