networkworld.com— The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is due to release the second draft of the GNU general public license version 3 (GPLv3) Tuesday, according to sources close to the organization.
Jul 23, 2006View in Crawl 4
@i440:If people are willing to make software for free, that's their perogative. I'm extremely thankful that so many people are nice enough to spend the time to make some wonderful pieces of software.Free software isn't going to drive programmers out of a job. A lot of the more important work is being sponsored by various companies and organizations, as well as by volunteers. Although the FSF people may want all software to be open source (or free source) this will not simply replace the entire software market with people who will work for free, as people who don't get paid tend to want to only work on projects that appeal to them, which isn't necessarily projects that people need.I personally would stear away from GPL from most of my personal projects as I'd rather either keep them closed or totally available (ala BSD), but many people who volunteer their work don't want it taken over and closed off. For many, that would drive them away from volunteering their work, and reduce the amount of open source software available.I don't see how GPL 'hurts' the economy. Just because it usually isn't sold for a monetary value, doesn't mean it's worthless, and just because it competes with commercial software that does cost money, doesn't mean it's hurting the economy. The software itself provides value to it's user, and to those who use build up upon it. Since it is free, this benefit isn't limitted only to those who can afford the software. Since it is open source, the softwares value can be increased for everyone as others build up on it.
From what I understand he's had RSI for years and probably can't code that much anymore. It's a shame, because he's a great programmer but lousy at PR.
As much as I hate DRM just as its your perogative to use GPL software it is the entertainment industry's perogative to use DRM software to protect their IP. Valve does the same exact thing with Steam. I'm an advocate for open source software, but I'm not an advocate for the GPL (especially the last proposed revision). I'm not exactly sure that the GPLv3 is going to fly too well anyway. Linus has been pretty vocal about not wanting (or even making an attempt) to contact everyone about changing the license.
Personally I'd get really ticked off if some big-shot software company stole my work to help make something commercial, so that's why I use the GPL where appropriate. The GPL just works to keep things free, to keep Free Software competitive. Absolute freedom doesn't work - that's why we have the law.If commercial software developers want to keep being paid, they should start working harder. Commercial software developers have the advantage because they're working full time, they've actually got budgets, and often they have large dedicated development teams.Or they could go into game development. Free Software games have pretty low success rates, as far as I have seen.
You're an idiot, i440. Free software development is simply much more efficient. There would therefore be a reduction in jobs in the field seeing as there would be fewer programmers being employed to do duplicate work.To argue anything different is to argue that we should do things deliberately inefficiently so that it creates more jobs. You should perhaps try and gain employment in the coal mining sector and get them to dig with children's buckets and spades if this is your attitude.(However, the reduction in jobs probably wouldn't happen anyway. The increased productivity of the software sector would make advances much quicker and open up more avenues of research requiring coding skills.)
Free country = free to chose whichever license you please.People do the work and have the right to do with their code whatever they please and if you don't abide the license it is theft as much as lending your CD's to your friends is theft. The problem is a few people had a nice little system to rip people off and now other people have adapted that system to bring things back into the users favour. When MS let me play with their code they can play with mine, its very simple. Fortunately the only way the GPL can disappear is a heavy slackening of the current IP laws.If people don't like the GPL they should move to a country like China where IP laws aren't as strong or some other non-free country.
i440Jul 24, 2006
And more work on his hygiene. Trust me, that can only help.
samnmaxJul 24, 2006
@i440:If people are willing to make software for free, that's their perogative. I'm extremely thankful that so many people are nice enough to spend the time to make some wonderful pieces of software.Free software isn't going to drive programmers out of a job. A lot of the more important work is being sponsored by various companies and organizations, as well as by volunteers. Although the FSF people may want all software to be open source (or free source) this will not simply replace the entire software market with people who will work for free, as people who don't get paid tend to want to only work on projects that appeal to them, which isn't necessarily projects that people need.I personally would stear away from GPL from most of my personal projects as I'd rather either keep them closed or totally available (ala BSD), but many people who volunteer their work don't want it taken over and closed off. For many, that would drive them away from volunteering their work, and reduce the amount of open source software available.I don't see how GPL 'hurts' the economy. Just because it usually isn't sold for a monetary value, doesn't mean it's worthless, and just because it competes with commercial software that does cost money, doesn't mean it's hurting the economy. The software itself provides value to it's user, and to those who use build up upon it. Since it is free, this benefit isn't limitted only to those who can afford the software. Since it is open source, the softwares value can be increased for everyone as others build up on it.
nofxjunkeeJul 24, 2006
From what I understand he's had RSI for years and probably can't code that much anymore. It's a shame, because he's a great programmer but lousy at PR.
j_belloneJul 24, 2006
As much as I hate DRM just as its your perogative to use GPL software it is the entertainment industry's perogative to use DRM software to protect their IP. Valve does the same exact thing with Steam. I'm an advocate for open source software, but I'm not an advocate for the GPL (especially the last proposed revision). I'm not exactly sure that the GPLv3 is going to fly too well anyway. Linus has been pretty vocal about not wanting (or even making an attempt) to contact everyone about changing the license.
jameshalesJul 24, 2006
Personally I'd get really ticked off if some big-shot software company stole my work to help make something commercial, so that's why I use the GPL where appropriate. The GPL just works to keep things free, to keep Free Software competitive. Absolute freedom doesn't work - that's why we have the law.If commercial software developers want to keep being paid, they should start working harder. Commercial software developers have the advantage because they're working full time, they've actually got budgets, and often they have large dedicated development teams.Or they could go into game development. Free Software games have pretty low success rates, as far as I have seen.
lbrtukJul 25, 2006
You're an idiot, i440. Free software development is simply much more efficient. There would therefore be a reduction in jobs in the field seeing as there would be fewer programmers being employed to do duplicate work.To argue anything different is to argue that we should do things deliberately inefficiently so that it creates more jobs. You should perhaps try and gain employment in the coal mining sector and get them to dig with children's buckets and spades if this is your attitude.(However, the reduction in jobs probably wouldn't happen anyway. The increased productivity of the software sector would make advances much quicker and open up more avenues of research requiring coding skills.)
gmorganJul 25, 2006
Free country = free to chose whichever license you please.People do the work and have the right to do with their code whatever they please and if you don't abide the license it is theft as much as lending your CD's to your friends is theft. The problem is a few people had a nice little system to rip people off and now other people have adapted that system to bring things back into the users favour. When MS let me play with their code they can play with mine, its very simple. Fortunately the only way the GPL can disappear is a heavy slackening of the current IP laws.If people don't like the GPL they should move to a country like China where IP laws aren't as strong or some other non-free country.
ciaranJul 27, 2006
Stallman gave a preview of what's changing in draft 2 at FSFE's recent 2-day GPLv3 conference. Videos and audios of the whole conference are online, and here's Stallman's comments in the transcript of his talk:<a class="user" href="http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/barcelona-rms-transcript#draft2-preview">http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/barcelona-rms-transcript#draft2-preview</a>