On Friday 05 Dec 2008 4:42:55 pm Steve wrote: > I have to admit, I find this discussion a bit amusing. It's like a lot of > high nosed psudeo-intellectual talk without any real substance. Anyway, > here is why I thing so: > > a. Kenneth's assertion that an open source company "will not last for more > than 5 minutes. " is based on the premise that in an open source company, > is one where all the code produce ought to be open souced, in which case > "neither the employer nor the employee get anything out of the code in > terms of IPR." ....but that's the fallacy. Firstly, open source companies > like Red Hat, don't make money out of their *IPR* (whatever that is > supposed to mean). Secondly, I don't see why every bit of code that a > company produced should be open sourced to qualify it as an open source > company. Isn't it sufficient to open source every bit of code for every > binary bit that the company distributes in the open ? ...I believe Red Hat > does this.
first define what is a FOSS company - only then start sneering at the way others have tried to approach the problem. I freely admit I was wrong about the 5 minute thingie. I was under the wrong impression that all Redhat did was package code written by others - and am very impressed with the cygnus story. Obviously there is a business model where one writes/modifies code for someone and insists that it is open sourced. And obviously the company that produces the said code would be the first choice to enhance/maintain it. Strangely enough I have been following that model - although my business has always been part time. So far none of my clients have given a RF about whether the code is open sourced or not - all they care about is that it works. > > b. NDAs do not apply just to code. As an ex-Red Hat employee, i remember > signing a contract where some of the terms of agreement did sound like > limiting the extent to which i could communicate things that were > considered as company confidential, but none of these IIRC had anything to > do with source code. Does that make the Red Hat contract a freedom-crushing > NDA ? I didn't think so. who is claiming that they are freedom crushing? We were just asking what the going practice was > > c. Does it really matter who owns the copyright of an open souce code base > ? really, think about it ...in practical terms, what are you (as an > individual) do with copyright ? If something is GPLed, and you disagree > with your company, you quit and fork ...you own the copyright of the fork. > If copyright needs to be asserted (for example in the court), I'd rather > have my company do it for me, that fight it out myself. Isn't that why even > the FSF requests copyright assignment ? it doesnt matter to you - but we high nosed pseudo intellectuals have an insatiable curiosity about totally trivial and irrelevant things. > > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html GPL is only a subsection of FOSS licenses - and quoting from the scriptures is not the correct way of proving a point. > > ...how is that different than a for profit company requesting the same ? there are some who argue that the GPL is also a license that restricts freedom - and that the BSD license is the really free one. > > gah ! like I said, this thread is trying too hard to be deeply > intellectual, but it isn't. it isnt - the whole thread has been mainly requests for information on procedures being followed along with information on the same. As I mentioned above it is what we pseudos do, it is our thing - so if you dont like it, or cannot understand it ... -- regards KG http://lawgon.livejournal.com _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe <password> <address>" in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
