On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Alexander Maryanovsky wrote:
> I found the lectures today rather unimpressive, although the event itself
> was quite nice and well organized.
> Some specific notes:
> 1. The "Ila" guy seemed to misunderstand the whole "use Linux in govt."
> proposition. This has been discussed a lot, but worth repeating:
> His argument was that if Linux is good, it should compete and win based
> on that, and not on a law. This is all well and nice for private
> organizations and people, but for the government, one of the *features*
> of Linux and OSS is their openness and auditability. Therefore, the
> law is doing just what he suggests should be done - the best OS is being
> chosen based on its features, where "features" is not restricted
> to technical superiority. Basically, for the government, the openness of
> Linux is just as important as the technical advantages are, if not
> more so.
>
I agree that this is gray area as far as Morality is concerned. However,
there are software houses making money off selling proprietary software,
and are fully supportive of their customers and listen to their needs,
give good Q&A, may license the source under some terms, etc. I don't think
there is need to reject proprietary software without terms, regardless of
it.
Let's suppose there's an Oracle database powering an Israeli government
web-site. Now the interface to the web-site (what the surfers see) is
fully compliant with all browsers. Is there any reason they should be
forced to switch to MySQL, PostgreSQL, InterBase, SAP-DB or whatever? What
if Oracle is willing to let government hackers verify the Oracle code if
they pay a certain amount of money? Even with open-source programs there
is the problem of Ken Thompson's "Reflections of Trusting Trust".
> Especially disappointing was Moshe Bar's lecture. I've only heard about him
> until now, but since he teaches the "OS design" class in TAU (which I'm
> going to have to take for my degree), I assumed he's more knowledgeable
> that that. Of course, it could also be that I'm the ignorant and uninformed
> one, in which case, I'm sure you folks will be happy to put me in place :-)
>
I was quite disappointed as well. He confused everything.
> 2. Nobody is making money from selling Free software? This may be true per
> se, but it's a very bad statement. There are many companies who are making
> money *developing* Free software, so who cares if they're not *selling* it
> to make the money? The important thing is that valid business plans of the
> type:
> 1. Develop Free software.
> 2. ???
> 3. Profit.
> do exist, by replacing the question marks with something reasonable.
> Examples? I was going to say "RedHat and Trolltech", but since Moshe
> already replied about RedHat, I'll put up Trolltech as an example. Theirs
> is the most viable business model I have seen so far for developing
> Free/Open source software. For those who don't know, Trolltech give away Qt
> under the GPL (and the QPL), but also sell it to under a different license
> you if you want to avoid the "viral" nature of the GPL and make your own
> changes without having to release them.
>
He was correct in this case. You cannot build a software model by
developing an open-source product, and expecting to make a lot of money by
sell it. With the Internet, high-bandwidth, etc. it is simply not going to
work. But there are other models beside sale-value.
For instance, digital creations developed Zope distributed it as free
software, and made a lot of money from setting out Zope-based sites. Check
ESR's "Magic Cauldron" for more examples. Or the Apache guys are now
very popular consultants, because they know Apache in and out.
He did not say it was impossible to profit from free software. But you
cannot expect a fortune from actually selling it. What Linus Torvalds got
out of starting Linux, is a lot of prestige and experience, and an income
for life because companies will fight for employing him. (partially
because it gives them prestige)
> 3. Linux is Open Source? FreeBSD is Free Software? Am I missing something
> here? Last I checked, Linux was GPL and FreeBSD was BSD, making Linux Free
> Software and FreeBSD OSS. I would've believed it was an honest mistake,
> unless he repeated it (in various forms) so many times. The "Zend" guy
> seemed much more proficient regarding the GPL/LGPL/BSD than Moshe Bar...
>
Both Linux and FreeBSD are both open-source and free software. Some
open-source licenses are not free software. Both terms roughly mean the
same thing, but have different crontations. Some people (notably RMS)
refrain from using open-source entirely. The Open Source Initiative guys
seem to think free software is a bad word for describing what you went and
prefer open-source.
I, and many others, use both terms where we find appropriate. Then there's
this OSS/FS (Open Source Software/Free Software) thingy that is crawling
up.
Most of the software out there is free software. Moreover, not every
perfectly free software is compatible with the GPL. Generally, releasing a
software under a license that is not compatible with the GPL is considered
a bad idea, because most of the software and many of the libraries out
there are GPLed.
> 4. OpenOffice a fork from last available open version of StarOffice?I'm
> not 100% sure that it's not true, but AFAIK more than half of the people
> working on OO are Sun's people. From what I understand, StarOffice is just
> OpenOffice with various useful add-ons... Am I wrong?
>
Right. OpenOffice is actively maintained and endorsed by Sun. StarOffice
is a distribution of it with a few proprietary add-ons, and as a product
is proprietary. But OpenOffice is dually-licensed under the GPL and so is
fully free.
> 5. The Theodore Ts'o lecture was of course much better, but too business
> oriented for me. I would've preferred to hear about Linux kernel
> development, relationships between the main developers, perhaps his stand
> on the BitKeeper issue, etc. Not his fault of course... this is
> what he's been asked to talk about by IBM.
>
IMHO, it had too much of a marketing pitch, and was too long and
repetitive. I later talked to him outside and he is a very nice and
interesting guy.
Naturally, I was disappointed that Stallman did not show up, but still I
did not find it disappointed because I got to meet a lot of my Linuxer
friends whom I do not get to meet very often (IRL, that is).
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
>
> Alexander (aka Sasha) Maryanovsky.
>
>
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Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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