The software used by the government needs to be auditable by the people, as well as by the government itself. What if MSFT sells the government a ballot counting system which is broken in a manner allowing the party currently in power to win - what incentive does the (current) government have to complain about it?Therefore it can be argued that the government should require software to be auditable by some means, but not to force Linux specifically, or even free software in general. For example, assume that MSFT gives the government a peek at their source code, subject to NDA and a license written by the same lawyers who write soul-selling contracts for Satan.
That's advocacy. The point he was trying to make is that, although the GPL doesAgain, I agree that his statement may be true per se (or at least hasn't been disproved so far), but it's a "bad" statement, in the sense that it's confusing. To (business) people that are new to free/open source software this immediately translates to "You can't make money by developing free/open source software". Unless you are very careful and explain in detail what exactly you mean by your statement, it will only hurt free/open source software, instead of making people more informed about it.
not prevent people from making money on selling free software, real life seems
to do, because nobody is a "fryer". Point being that if you go for free
software, you have to find another way to make your money: the software cannot
be the product you sell.
Even your example of Trolltech is not good enough.Well, this is just playing with definitions... I'm not sure what you would define as an open source company and what as a free software company. The point is the same - you can develop Free (GPL licensed) software and make money on it. Heck - IBM are doing just that - isn't that's what this whole event was about? :-)
Basically, if they make money from allowing people to close their software, then
they are an Open Source company, not a Free Software company. QED.
You forgot the biggest disappointment of all: RMS not showing up. If it wasn'tAgreed. Me probably neither... I've already heard the Eclipse sales pitch at a different occasion :-)
for the promise of his presence, I would not have bothered - I heard nothing new
today that was relevant to me, except perhaps the Eclipse sales pitch...
Alexander (aka Sasha) Maryanovsky.
Herouth
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