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On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 1:56 PM, Heiko Baums <lists@××××××××××××.de> wrote: |
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> |
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> And this again. You know the difference between OpenSource and ClosedSource? |
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> |
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> You pay for ClosedSource. For OpenSource you don't need to pay. But I |
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> have neither time nor energy to explain you the philosophy (before |
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> Poetterix) of OpenSource. |
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|
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OpenSource has nothing to do with whether something costs money. Not |
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even RMS or ESR would agree with "For OpenSource you don't need to |
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pay." |
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|
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For starters, all software costs somebody something. It might be |
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offered for free TO YOU, but somebody spent a lot of time and effort |
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making it, and somebody may or may not have been compensated to do it. |
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|
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Here is a decent overview from the FSF's perspective, though they're |
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more focused on free software than open source: |
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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html |
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|
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Here is their take on free software vs open source: |
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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html |
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|
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Now, if you asked ESR for his take he'd have a different perspective, |
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though he'd agree with the FSF that neither has anything to do with |
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whether you have to pay for it, and he would agree on the |
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differentiation between OSS and FOSS. |
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|
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Some off the cuff definitions: |
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Open Source: generally means the author makes the source code |
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available. OSI has their take on it which most people accept: |
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https://opensource.org/osd |
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Free Software: licensed in a manner that guarantees the FSF's four |
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freedoms. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html |
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|
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In general all free software is open source, but not all open source |
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software is free software. |
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|
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Either can be free as in beer or not. It is completely legal for me |
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to download a Debian DVD, make some changes to it, put a copy of the |
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source code on the DVD, and offer to sell it to you for $5000 licensed |
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under its original licenses. The only thing I can't do is prevent you |
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from sticking an image of that DVD on your website after you buy it so |
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that nobody else has to buy it from me. In practice a lot of it tends |
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to be free as in beer because FOSS licenses make it impossible to |
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prevent somebody from offering it free of charge, and people tend not |
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to pay for something when they can get the same thing for free. |
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However, companies like Red Hat can and do charge for their distros |
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all the same, usually offering things like support to entice people to |
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pay. When you buy RHEL you're buying the software and not just the |
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support, even if you could get most of it for free without paying for |
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it. |
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|
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> But I can tell you this much. OpenSource and |
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> its developers usually have no commercial intentions. |
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|
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This is true of some open source software. I'm not convinced it is |
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even true for most of it. |
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|
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Half of the companies that contribute to Linux are for-profit entities |
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that have a profit motive behind their contributions. Some of the |
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most popular Linux distros like Ubuntu and RHEL are for-profit |
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enterprises. A few major projects are backed by foundations, but IMO |
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some of them are really only non-profit in the sense that they don't |
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pay dividends to anybody (heck, the US National Football League is |
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non-profit by that definition); some of them have small armies of |
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executives and administrative staff like any other large corporation. |
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Quite a bit of FOSS isn't developed by organizations like Gentoo which |
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are community based with low amounts of money going around. |
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|
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A lot of FOSS is also failed commercial software, or parallel |
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community versions to commercial software (think Fedora/CentOS, or the |
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old MySQL model). |
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|
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And there is nothing wrong with any of this. It is just free |
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software. At worst you can just ignore it. At best you can adapt it |
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to your own needs, or just use it as-is if it fits your needs. We |
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aren't worse off because somebody made it available to us. I might |
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never use RHEL, but the fact that it is out there doesn't hurt me. |
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Maybe the fact that RHEL is actually paying developers means that |
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fewer of them have free time to donate (assuming that you don't care |
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for the stuff RedHat does contribute), but who am I to begrudge |
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somebody the right to make a living? Programmers don't have to be |
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starving artists to claim some kind of moral superiority. |
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|
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Personally I prefer to work in a community-based environment, which is |
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why I'm here and not running Debian (well, that's just one reason, I |
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also prefer the Gentoo approach in general and have used Gentoo since |
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long before openrc even existed, let alone systemd). Ultimately |
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though we're just a small part of a much larger ecosystem. There are |
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things about that ecosystem that I like more, and things that I like |
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less. However, if we allow developers the freedom to create what they |
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want to create then we're going to need to deal with the reality that |
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sometimes they won't want to create the things we want them to. |
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|
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-- |
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Rich |