> You should get out more. I meet people every day who couldn't care > less whether software is GNU GPL 2, LGPL, AGPL or whatever. The vast > majority of people I meet want software that works. That's it. If it's > free of cost that's a bonus.
I have to agree here. The actual license used really makes very little difference tot he end user. Take TrueCrypt for example. They have their own license. If you're an end user you just use the software with that license and don't really care. That same license from the developers perspective is terrible and essentially forbids us from legally including TrueCrypt in Ubuntu repositories without wholly and completely rebranding it which is... not worth the effort. That's where I start to care about licensing. That really has nothing to do with FSF. They produced the licenses and likely spent a whole big chunk of money doing it - but it basically ends there. > I am a carpenter by trade. If I'm way up in some roof doing crazy > framing and my nail gun doesn't fire reliably I'll toss, er throw it to > the ground. I did that type of work for a while. We got to use hammers... When I started my hammer didn't fit the job. By the end of the day my hand felt like it had been run over. It was like I was punching the nail to make it go in. That night a bought a heavier hammer. While it took more effort to move the hammer, the work it did make the work I was doing feel like nothing. I think that can take the form of the analogy you mentioned too. > For me, and I stress *for me*, if it works or not really matters. I've > worn out more Porter-Cable framing guns than I have fingers on one hand; > Paslode and Bostick are the best with Hitachi close behind but those > tend to get too hair triggered for my taste. > > My construction and tools analogy doesn't port well to computer hardware > and software but perhaps it explains my point of view. I think it does. If you're going to use something, it needs to work, and work well. There's no room anymore for something that just kinda works or only works sometimes. > I fully realize the free software that I use daily is produced by some > one "working" on that software. Back to the blue collar > perspective...what I build is somehow, to me, more tangible. How about producing websites where the only thing 'tangible' is a pretty picture on a magical light emitting device. > Hum, so I own what I'm using...software wise...dang it you're making me > think when I'm just supposed to be staking tomatoes today :) > Free Software isn't an airy ideal, it's a real down to earth > practicalism, it's just that it's a practicalism of tomorrow. Protecting > yourself and your community from over zealous people who think that just > because they did a little bit of work it entitles them to be able to > dictate how things are used after sale. I've met this before. Not only did they contribute only a little, but the work was incredibly poor. I asked them to leave and with that came a month long battle over ownership of the code. After a month of things escalating I wound up simply giving sherkin the boot and had to do a lot of things that I really really didn't want to have to do. Even with a license attached to the source code, it's really not enough. When a user comes along that just wants to take control of everything, there will be a battle coming up with it. Now if we got everyone working together... for the better interest of the community... then we could get even more done. The costs of producing the free software would go down as the productivity went up from overhead going down. Makes me wonder how much RMS sits around figuring out how to argue with people. He definitely has a great goal (assuming he's still sticking to the original). I'd love to see how effective GNU could be if there was less time spent arguing with the whole rest of the world. > Again.. meanwhile back in the real world, I'll carry on doing my > little bit. Not good enough for you, fair enough, lets agree to > disagree. I'll agree here. I need to start working again. Today I am building an open source module that integrates with a proprietary project. Both code sources are being paid for by our client. He had reasons for keeping one piece closed. This is like soyuz was going to be in Launchpad. There's room in this world for both. When I walk down the street, I see people with black, white, tan, orange, and sometimes red colored skin. I'm not a Hitler type person.. I don't disagree with either. When it comes to intermixing, I again don't care. There's very little difference between this and software. -- Michael Lustfield Kalliki Software, LLC Network and Systems Administrator -- loco-contacts mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts
