All hail the GNU Order!

[Primis]

So in my sleep deprived state, I started looking up the origin of the GNU Project, and I stumbled upon the Manifesto. Quite frankly, after reading it, I now understand the GPL and why it's used. I understand it's purpose, and I understand free as in speech, not as in beer. And for that, I hereby declare I am a follower of Saint IGNUcius, and will honestly be using the GPL for my future coding.

[Thomas]

I do not wish to undermine the great Stallman ( having met him once ) . But I beleive it is a too idealistic view point. I have great respect for him and GNU has indeed helped in reducing software costs. But he goes a bit extereme in many cases and I cannot agree with GNU ideas all the time. For eg ( " If you use anything non free then you are not being ethical etc ... ") . Also I am a devoted Syrian Catholic and do not approve of GNU's saint ! .


--Thomas

[newanabe]

5000 lines of code could take me a month. If I can earn money with that I would.
Imagine a programmer selling his code, hiring more programmers with the benefits, selling more code, hiring more programmers, making bigger programs, larger projects. That scenario is way much better that the free software talk.
And using only the documentation available for free online, one could code a whole hobbyist OS. No need at all to look to the source code of programs of others.

[sortie]

Whether software is commercial has nothing to do with whether it is free. Indeed, the GPL is very compatible with the free market, unlike traditional non-free commercial software that is essential monopolies.

@Thomas: Indeed, he may seem extreme at times, but he proven pretty good at predicting the future of the software industry and at recognizing threats to free software well ahead of time. There usually are good reasons for his opinions, though often many people fail to understand them as there often are basic principles they are yet to recognize.

[newanabe]

Whether software is commercial has nothing to do with whether it is free.

I don't get it. If I change "commercial" by "non-free", the sentence would lose any sense.
Maybe you are talking bout Linux selling support, or bout the case of SUSE.
I could think of releasing my software as free until the interest raises and I sell the whole project. So it was not free since the beginning.
I read bout a comparison between Linux based companies and Windows one. And they said sometimes is cheaper to work with Windows.
I'm not starting a war thread between Linux and Windows, it's just that now I want to ask: "Are you definitively sure if something is free?"
I just remembered how Facebook says it will be free forever and how it starts to give you publicity since the first logging. Next time you are supporting free projects, you could ask yourself: "Am I supporting a truly free project or I am actually helping to a marketing strategy?" It's like asking yourself: "Am I a noble or a cheated noble person?"

[qw]

I don't get it. If I change "commercial" by "non-free", the sentence would lose any sense.

Speech. Beer.

[bwat]

From the GNU manifesto http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

“Won't programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now.

As a professional programmer, I can only reject the GNU manifesto.

[AndrewAPrice]

From my understanding, I can start a software business and sell open source software that is "free as in speech" and still make a profit.

The difference is that the end user - after purchasing the software and then "owning" a copy of the code (compared to purchasing a "license" to use proprietary software) the user would be able to modify it, create a derivative product, and sell it.

Sure, there's the potential for them to sell their own version of it, or give it away for free, and that can undermine your profits (however, people still share closed-source software and get away with it) - for example, by purchasing the software, the user has access to the latest and greatest updates. You can offer support, you can offer subscription services (imagine an MMORPG, even though you give out all of the code, you can make money by letting users subscribe to your main server - and focus on creating awesome content - storylines, adventures, etc - that requires access to your server to play.) You do a bounty-system and charge for feature requests. The possibilities for running a commercial company that develops and sells "free" software are endless.

Then there's also trademarks - Microsoft can release Microsoft Word, source-code and all, but you couldn't modify the product and sell it as "Microsoft Word". Disney could release a Mickey Mouse RPG, but you couldn't sell a product full of their branding.

[nerdguy]

No offence, but I am hobbyist coder, So I don't really care if my code is taken away by people who are hiding the derivative program's source code, so I choose BSD rather than GPL. Although GPL maintains the freedom by restricting it's users to ALWAYS provide the complete source code + all the rights the license gives you MUST be given to the end-user, but BSD gives a copy-paster much more freedom, If a guy copy-pastes my code in his own software, and makes his software proprietary, the BSD license won't restrict him, And so I want that, I would give my code for free, but I give my developers as much freedom as they want, that's how BSD works.
Whereas the GPL approach is different. GPL maintains a long-lasting freedom, For instance I take the Linux Source Code, Modify it to the greatest extent, but it would still be considered as Linux, and I MUST give my users all the rights that Linus Torvalds and the FSF gave me through the GPL,So finally I would probably have my program under GPL or a GPL-Compatible License.

[Griwes]

I wish Solar didn't take down Negix, he had some really valid points there. [url="http://web.archive.org/web/20111128083504/http://negix.rootdirectory.de/?cat=9"]Here, scroll to "You, Sir, are a social problem!"[/url]. Unfortunately, Web Archive didn't save the post's page.

If you want the software to be "truly" free software, you cannot limit the usage of the software or its code in any way. Which obviously implies that only PD and almost-PD is really free, and GNU GPL is far, far away from "free".

[qw]

If you want the software to be "truly" free software, you cannot limit the usage of the software or its code in any way. Which obviously implies that only PD and almost-PD is really free, and GNU GPL is far, far away from "free".

Free speech for who finds the contraction first.

[Antti]

The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now.

Why on earth they included that "just not paid as much as now"? It is a totally unnecessary addition. The sentence would have been complete without it. I am not going to use GPL but I think it is good that GPL/GNU/FSF exists.

Too bad that Solar left the OSDev community. His texts are interesting.

[bwat]

The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now.

Why on earth they included that "just not paid as much as now"? It is a totally unnecessary addition. The sentence would have been complete without it.

But their intentions would not be complete without it. It's part of their manifesto, it's there for a reason, it's what they're fighting for.

[Antti]

...I think it is good that GPL/GNU/FSF exists.

After reading old discussions here on this forum (what a nice Saturday evening activity), I am not so sure about this anymore...

[Combuster]

To say that the Church of Stallman hasn't brought any good is a bit overrated as well: From the user's perspective, the church provides you with all the software to cover your basic human internet needs as charity to all, and expects those that are able to provide said charity for the benefit of all. This all saves the average Linux user something that'd cost you like $400 in earlier years.

And as befitting for a religion, the same church running it's own kind of jihad against the nonbelievers causing most code to be written several times over anyway.