On 8/31/2014 4:43 PM, Joakim wrote:
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 19:58:03 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
Could be. That is a fairly convincing article, at least for the "time
limit" version of mixed closed/open.
Glad to hear that. :) Nobody has really tried my time-limited version,
which I believe is the final step.
But in any case, even if one takes the Stallman "all must be open,
period" stance, the mixed stuff is STILL a step in the desired
direction. So regardless of whether or not mixed is the final
end-goal, it's still a good direction to taking.
This is what guys like Stallman or ketmar don't seem to get, that
mixed-source still leads to _more_ open source, even if it isn't _pure_
open source.
I suspect they may actually get *that* much of it...I'm just not sure
they seem to *care*. I get the impression it's basically toddler-style
"it's not EXACTLY what I want so I don't want ANY of it!" pouting.
Anyway, either way, that's probably just splitting hairs. Regardless of
their exact level of awareness, the end result is the same.
For example, the success of Android means that there's
more open source code running on computing devices than ever before, a
billion at last count, even if it's not _pure_ open source. As you
said, that pragmatic mixed approach has done more to advance open source
than their purist approach ever will. And my time-limited model
advances it even more, by making sure you get the source to all the
binary blobs eventually.
Exactly. And if Google had insisted on *pure* OSS for android, you
*Know* the carriers (and to a lesser extent, manufacturers) *NEVER*
would have gone for it. And then there we'd be, stuck with Apple owning
a 1990's-MS-style monopoly, but worse because of the iOS's third-party
restrictions and gatekeeping.
