Re: Total Joy of Ownership

[Raj Mathur <raju@xxxxxxx>]

>>>>> "Arun" == Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxx> writes:

    Arun> Anyways, in the GPL world, the only way people can make
    Arun> money is using support and other peripheral stuff. If I were
    Arun> to invent a cool algorithm to make Linux do job X, 20 times
    Arun> faster, there is no way I'll be rewarded for it. The moment
    Arun> I release it in an open source manner, cheapbytes will burn
    Arun> a CD.

Not really.  One of the ways to make money in the GPL world is to
solve a need for a particular entity and get paid for it;
subsequently you can release the source code under GPL.  E.g. If
someone wants to interface a Telex machine with Linux, I'd charge him
for developing the software while reserving (and exercising) my right
to release the source under GPL.

In general, though, you're quite correct: the GPL world is a service-
rather than a product-oriented world, which is really as things should
be (are my pinko panties showing? ;-)

    Arun> To put it in a different way, just because Linux is making
    Arun> headlines, the commercial closed/properietary world is not
    Arun> going to come to an end. Linux or any other wannabe MS
    Arun> contender has to learn to co-exist with closed (non open
    Arun> source) software. And GPL refuses to do just that.

Afraid I disagree again.  If the GPL movement gains enough momentum,
all software (except maybe some very specialised packages) will
eventually become free.  IMO it is better to aim for that objective
and not keep compromising at each step, leading to dilution of both
the message and the power of the GPL.

    Arun> If you read www.gnu.org and the philosophy etc, GPL goes out
    Arun> of the way to make it hard to co-exist with non-free
    Arun> software. This is what worries me. Something to think about
    Arun> when you write free software next.

Been thinking about this since 1988, and I still don't see any reason
to not adhere to the GPL.  And yes, I do write free software :-)

    Arun> Note that I'm not bashing GPL here. Linus probably made the
    Arun> right decision in GPL'ing Linux. It's success speaks for
    Arun> itself. But making Gnome/KDE GPL'ed has larger
    Arun> implications. It might make it impossible to write
    Arun> commercial software using those libraries - which would be a
    Arun> big blow to Linux.  (Ref: The infamous 10 line clause in
    Arun> LGPL)

I think I see a problem with perception here.  I hear, ``Linux is
being accepted in corporates because of the support of large software
vendors.  If they can't port their software to Linux because of GPL
issues, this support and consequently the acceptance will suffer.''
But don't forget, the only reason that these large software vendors
are porting stuff to Linux in the first place is because Linux is GPL
and hence popular!  Enforce the [L]GPL more strictly and Linux will
probably become more popular and even more companies will want it as
one of their platforms.  Just because an idea has worked in the past
is no reason to assume that it will stop working :)

    Arun> Views mine only.

I speak for Man(and Woman)kind, the Indian Cricket Team, Mr Atal
Behair Vajpayee and SGI at various times.

This is not one of them.

    Arun> 	-Arun

Regards,

- -- Raju

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