2011/11/10 Praseed Pai <[email protected]>: > Hello all , > I will start in a bottom up manner
Now we are having a conversation and I like it. >> Praveen Wrote >> >>I don't agree to your assessment at all. I think it is more to do with >>our cultural and economic situation, when you are worried about your >>own existence, it is hard for people to be thinking about giving back. >> > Every movement or an institution ought to have some synergy with the > socio-economic > aspects of the society which they are trying to cater to. For a country like > India , where > people struggle to live their daily life , why we should be adament about > stuff like > "freedom" ? സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം തന്നെ അമൃതം, സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം തന്നെ ജീവിതം, പാരതന്ത്ര്യം മാനികള്ക്കു്, മൃതിയേക്കാള് ഭയാനകം. -- കുമാരനാശാന് In spite of all this difficulties or in the current system some people get to not have these issues, however tiny percent they are. And Freedom is a concept that appeals to people. So somehow a few of those privileged people who don't have to struggle for day to day sustenance (I consider myself one of those) - they have a good paying job, can afford to think about Freedom. Now what I try to do is bring more of such people into Free Software. "things you cannot do, should not stop you from doing things you can do" - my friend So I would like to fix the inequality problem, I know it cannot be done in short term, that does not stop me from bringing more of the better privileged people "who can afford to think about freedom" into Free Software. There is a self interest part for students to contribute which I think I will try to elaborate later. It is always easy to think ourselves as poor, because there are richer people out there, but not many people actually think from the side of those poorer than us. > As computer software developers , we should focus on delivering products and > services > without worrying much about externalities. So , BSD/MIT/GPL are all same > for us. I don't consider myself as a computer software developer - even my role at my work is system administration. I'm happy as long as it is Free Software, among the free software license I prefer copyleft. > "When you are not hungry , You can Think about Gandhi" - Anonymous "You cannot wait for the biggest problem to be solved first before solving anything else." For example, you want remove hunger from this world, you might have to spent your whole life and still fail in it, would you not solve any other problem because they are less important? But I understand your logic, but we are not trying to bring people who are hungry to Free Software first, they should be getting their food first, but what about those us who can eat four meals a day? Should we keep the hungry people as an excuse to stop contributing to Free Software? >> Praveen Wrote >>yes, a lot and not just wondering I'm actively working to get more >>contributors from India. >> > Convince people about the wider incentive of contributing to the OSS > projects , > whether it is Free Software or not. I think you are confused about the difference between OSS and Free Software. Technically they are almost same, except for one rarely used license. Their difference is philosophy. So I wouldn't mind people contributing to Open Source at all if that is the philosophy they are comfortable with, but I will always try to reason with them why Free Software philosophy is important. >>> Praseed Wrote >>> Take the case of GNUCash. It is one of the best source code base >>> available >>> out there. If some one adds >>> some India specific modules , they can sell it. Whenever , I have >>> suggested >>> people to use that >>> as a platform , GPL license were found to be restrictive and constraining >>> for them. > >> Praveen Wrote >>What is restricting them to add it? > > Most pragmatic people who want to use these source code base are reluctant > to > release the effort of their "sweat" (code ) to the public. You are contradicting yourself, there are so many pragmatic people who release their code as Free Software, there is so much Free Software code out their, it is "sweat" of people like us. > In Behavioral finance , it is called "Loss Aversion". Even if , we consume > millions > of lines of code , distributing 100 lines of code pains most people. Then don't distribute, but then you don't get to use the sweat of other people too - isn't it unfair to expect other people to give their code out for your benefit and you want to keep your efforts of improving it to yourself? That being said, there are super kind people who don't mind helping others without looking for anything in return, like BSD/MIT and other permissive licenses. So stop whining about people who gave out their sweat to improve the commons, go and use code given out by the kind people or write your own. We are not talking about charity and that too these programmers are not hungry, if we were about charity there would be much more worthy people than the software professionals. > People who do distribute their code has got other strategic gains. An > invidual > who sits in a remote corner do not find the threshhold energy for this > "altruism". fine, its the rule of the game, don't play it, nobody is forcing anyone to use GPL code. The rules are states upfront, you are given a choice. > If it is optional to release the dervative , all people will jump in. Some > will release > it for strategic reason. No sane individual can tolerate others profiting > out of > his endeavors. Again your argument is baseless, there are tonnes of Free Software out there and many companies profit out of there, but they play fair. Are you calling all these Free Software people insane because you did not like their rules? > Even Stallman is jealous. If he is getting a re-birth , he will think twice > repeating > his stupidity. I don't think generally even most stupid people think they are stupid, and I don't think he would be wanting to be anything else. He might be jealous, is that a problem? >>Are you saying taxing consulting work is bad? >> > I have seen taxation (here again Loss Aversion ) as a deterrent for lot of > people > to take up additional consulting work on top of their day job. ( It is > fallacious > but the attitude is prevalent ). Any one who feels like me on this ? Many people don't want to pay their fair share of taxes, so should we stop taxing people? >>> Praseed Wrote >>> Most Individuals prefer OSS licenses and corporations (paradoxically ) >>> use >>> GPL. Those corporations >> Praveen wrote >>GPL is an OSS license approved by Open Source Initiative. >> > GPL has got one more clause than other OSS licenses. OSS , now a days > include > even Pseudo open source licences from Microsoft. > What I meant was corporations prefer a license other than GPL !!!. but then be clear about it, because OSS includes GPL. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > I will tell you my encounter with FOSS. Last Year , I Open Sourced a > (toy ) Compiler (http://slangfordotnet.codeplex.com ) using MIT license. I Thanks for your contributions, now you are contradicting yourself, you said no one would release their code to let other people profit from it and you yourself released code for other people to profit! > did some research on > the licensing model (back then). I chose MIT license after some thought > > Here are my motivations > > 1) Writing a book on Compiler Construction (The source code contains a book > called > "Art of Compiler Construction in C# ) > 2) To show the project as a specimen of my skills in writing Interpreters , > Compiler Backends and > .NET IL executable. > > 3) If possible, stuff should provide me some consulting assignment. > To achieve the above objective , I understood GPL is limiting. The third > goal won't be achieved > in my case , as the code base will be used only by indviduals or small > companies. I thought , > If someone profits , let them. In retrospect, It was a nice decision. > > The Project has been used as a base for some academic projects (which I am > aware of ) and > I have consulted for a japanese company and a German company to incorporate > the > Compiler Backend in their proprietary products. > > Their legal departments were interested in the project because it was having > a flexible model and > they can keep the derivative proprietary . There is definitely a place for BSD/MIT and all other license else they wouldn't existing now. So use whatever license you like the most. I respect your choice and I would like you to respect my choice too. > The spirit behind FOSS movement is not philosophy. It is self-interest. If self-interest is what drives you, so be it, more power to you, continue contributing for the self interest. But don't demand others that they should also contribute only because of self-interest. It could be altruism, it could be charity, it could be activism, let every one choose why they want to be in Free Software or Open Source. And now about the self interest for students, it is the best way they can show their skills to a prospective employer, none of the students participating in google summer of code had anything to worry about a job, because they have something to show people that they have the required skills. So this is one argument we can give to any student, when you contribute to Free Software you can show any employers code that you have written which solves real world problems for so many people in the world and your code is accepted as good by best programmers in the world. It not just for Free Software company, which company wouldn't want to hire some good programmers? And interesting more Free Software people are now in positions of hiring people and that is going to increase only. So it is all the more important for students to contribute to Free Software - even if they are doing it for their self-interest. Every body is doing it for their own self-interest, only thing is self-interest is different for different people. My self-interest is to be able to use only Free Software! I'm selfish about that, and I trick people into writing more Free Software for me :) -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as they follow the rules: laws and constitution. _______________________________________________ Indian Libre User Group Cochin Mailing List http://www.ilug-cochin.org/mailing-list/ http://mail.ilug-cochin.org/mailman/listinfo/mailinglist_ilug-cochin.org #[email protected]
