Stallman hopes to save children from proprietary software

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A comment and a typo to correct

First the typo:

Sugar, even on Windows, always *was* and always will be open source. At least I think that's what you meant to say.

But let?s not throw babies out with bathwaters. Just because Ferraris are fun cars to drive doesn?t mean we should stop making any cars except Ferraris. Further, blocking paths to other platforms just because you philosophically oppose revenue models that keep secrets about the code you use - irrespective of the utilitarian benefits derived from the financial incentives such secrets create - is wrong.

I normally don't like to point out other's faults to excuse my own, but proprietary vendors (especially Microsoft) are just as guilty of this as Stallman is. I agree that it's absurd to expect to live in a world of absolutes, and I agree that Stallman's stance, while certainly understandable in some respects, is about as naive as expecting perfect communism or perfect democracy to work (our world has seen neither). But it's also just as absurd for proprietary companies to expect free source to go away, and it's just as absurd for them to hide behind the shield of arcane patent laws to shut them out of existence. Not to mention licensing schemes that offer free (as in gratis) use of patents EXCEPT for free source software. Also note the difference between this and the GPLv3: The GPLv3 does NOT prevent proprietary vendors from creating their own code from scratch, whereas these licensing schemes DO prevent free software developers from creating their own code from scratch.

Posted by: Michael Kelly   Posted on: 05/02/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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