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Re: Leeches or Users? Should Enterprise IT Have to Give Back to FOSS?
Posted by: Katherine Noyes 2009-06-11 06:28:41
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When an enterprise adopts open source software, that's generally cause for celebration in the eyes of most Linux fans, signifying as it does another victory for all that is FOSS. Not everyone sees it that way, however, as a recent debate on the Linux blogs made patently clear. "The eclipse community should create peer pressure to prevent the freeloaders and parasites from getting away without punishment," suggested Michael Scharf in April. "Leeches" was the term applied to such users in an article that ran just last week.
Copyright governs software, free or otherwise. (Sadien.com Editorial)
Posted by: Sadien 2009-06-11 08:20:01 In reply to: Katherine Noyes
(I hope this doesn't post twice. I think my first attempt disappeared.)
I don't understand the anger between pro-FOSS people, and pro-Commercial people.
All software is governed by copyright law (in the US, EU, AU, etc). And copyright usage is regimented by agreements... commonly called "licenses."
Unless you create a piece of software... from scratch... (and/or own the copyright pursuant statutory definition), you are bound by the constraints of copyright law and/or a software license.
All contracts (by legal definition) have to have an element of "consideration." Consideration is basically defined as "I am giving you this, and you are giving me that."
The consideration with commercial software, is typically money, along with various types of usage restrictions (lots and lots of restrictions, but that's a different discussion for another day).
The consideration mostly associated with FOSS is the idea that, "if you modify this software, and distribute it, you have to share your code as well."
Commercial, FOSS, GPL, etc... are all simply types of contracts. That's it.
Saying that an individual or company is "bad," because they use one, or the other... is just silly and pointless.
It is literally as ridiculous as saying someone is "good" or "bad" because they drive Ford vs Chevy... Or wear red shirts vs green shirts... Or like early 90's rock vs late 90's rock...
Who cares!
Sometimes using FOSS makes sense. Sometimes using commercial software makes sense.
Many times using BOTH makes sense.
Relax. Ultimately, we're all just licensees...
(...unless you wrote the entire thing yourself)
;)
Sadien Staff Editorial
Sadien, Inc.
http://www.sadien.com
I don't understand the anger between pro-FOSS people, and pro-Commercial people.
All software is governed by copyright law (in the US, EU, AU, etc). And copyright usage is regimented by agreements... commonly called "licenses."
Unless you create a piece of software... from scratch... (and/or own the copyright pursuant statutory definition), you are bound by the constraints of copyright law and/or a software license.
All contracts (by legal definition) have to have an element of "consideration." Consideration is basically defined as "I am giving you this, and you are giving me that."
The consideration with commercial software, is typically money, along with various types of usage restrictions (lots and lots of restrictions, but that's a different discussion for another day).
The consideration mostly associated with FOSS is the idea that, "if you modify this software, and distribute it, you have to share your code as well."
Commercial, FOSS, GPL, etc... are all simply types of contracts. That's it.
Saying that an individual or company is "bad," because they use one, or the other... is just silly and pointless.
It is literally as ridiculous as saying someone is "good" or "bad" because they drive Ford vs Chevy... Or wear red shirts vs green shirts... Or like early 90's rock vs late 90's rock...
Who cares!
Sometimes using FOSS makes sense. Sometimes using commercial software makes sense.
Many times using BOTH makes sense.
Relax. Ultimately, we're all just licensees...
(...unless you wrote the entire thing yourself)
;)
Sadien Staff Editorial
Sadien, Inc.
http://www.sadien.com
