Two fixes (for an otherwise correct and focused answer) and some additions.
On Thursday 11 December 2003 16:43, Oded Arbel wrote: > In addition to the important distinction between open source software and > free software ... The distinction you refer too is between the two ideologies (about *why* this software is needed). The software itself is practically the same as both the open source definition and the free software definition gives the same rights. So as far as technical/economical merits are concerned, open-source and free software are the *same* (and correctly bundled as a single acronym -- FOSS). > for example of a fully commercial but open source software, > you might take the StarOffice software suite by Sun. Oops. StarOffice is not open source at all. It is a proprietary product (no source available), based on the open source OpenOffice. (Just like Netscape-6.x/7.x are proprietary products based on open source Mozilla). But since you tried to highlight the very important distinction between proprietary and commercial, let's give Robert some appropriate examples: 1. JBoss (www.jboss.org) is an open source application server. But the company behind it (www.jboss.com) is completely commercial. Instead of selling the bits (which are free for everyone), they sell their expertise (deployment, customization, training, etc.) 2. Eclipse (www.eclipse.org) is an open source development environment. The main company pushing it (IBM) is not exactly known as an NPO :-) 3. Apache (www.apache.org) is an open source web server (which holds more than 60% of the Internet, vs Microsoft proprietary software which has barely 20% -- http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html ). Most of the initial push for Apache came from *commercial* companies that use it (e.g: www.wired.com). It saved this companies a bundle while giving them flexible product they couldn't buy anywhere. Many fortune-500 companies are using open-source software for many years (way before the term "open-source" was coined). I am not sure if they have obscure TCO studies to back their behaviour, but they use it for mission critical systems, sometimes for their core bussiness. If you think I'm just braging, choose any of the largest VLSI design shops (IBM, Intel, Motorola, AMD) and tell them they should not use open source software like "Perl" or "TCL" because the TCO would be really bad..... These tools were so deeply integrated into their core business that many employees are not even aware they are open source (the tools are just installed and used by everybody in the last 10 years). Note that I didn't mention Linux in the previous paragraph. If you pay a visit to one of these places, you may want to start counting penguins on your way out. In 2001 AMD (the only one I don't have personal knowledge about) reported having a 1000 Linuces design center. I'll bet the reason Linux deployments keep doubling every year (including the "after-bubble" years) because of the bad TCO that keeps poping up :) The pun on the signature is intended... -- Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron If it's there and you can see it, it's REAL If it's there and you can't see it, it's TRANSPARENT If it's not there and you can see it, it's VIRTUAL If it's not there and you can't see it, it's GONE! ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
