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Whatdya Mean, Free Software? (IT-Director)
Robin Bloor lists the factors he sees limiting free software adoption in this IT-Director column. "There is no Standard Open Source License: Actually there is wide variety of Open Source licenses, just as there are a wide variety of proprietary licenses. Small companies may not care too much about this, as they probably have never even read a license, but large organizations do care because they have to. No large organization can afford the risk of not knowing the license terms for the use of key software products."
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Whatdya Mean, Free Software? (IT-Director) Posted Nov 2, 2004 15:30 UTC (Tue) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link] Most of this reads: "Hey, this is exactly the same as with proprietary software!". Yes, of course Open Source software requires maintenance, careful inspection of licenses, skilled administrators and what have you. Support is one where there is a big difference, which I think is actually one of Open Source's attractions.Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if lots of shops already depend on some form of community support, perhaps they just don't realize it.
Whatdya Mean, Free Software? (IT-Director) Posted Nov 2, 2004 17:14 UTC (Tue) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link] Everyone depends on community support, even the most reclusive of hermits. If more people understood how incredibly true this is, things would be a lot different from the way they are now. Think about it: It is not impossible that hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions of people may die this year, because our community couldn't support the distribution of flu vaccine. We were far more concerned about profit-making. Frankly, I'm getting very, very tired of people who are derisive of community-supported endeavors. If they had their way, everyone would buy everything from a vending machine. And pay rent to the vendor for access to the machine, at that.
Whatdya Mean, Free Software? (IT-Director) Posted Nov 2, 2004 15:36 UTC (Tue) by bajw (guest, #11712) [Link] "No large organization can afford the risk of not knowing the license terms for the use of key software products."
And when they read know what those terms are, they'll pick from the list of licenses that are agreeable to them, given any choice.
Big companies and software licenses Posted Nov 2, 2004 16:09 UTC (Tue) by jvotaw (subscriber, #3678) [Link] Having worked in IT for a large computer company (330,000 employees?) in the past, I'd say the procedure for handling software licenses was: ignore them, pop the CD in, install, and do what you need to get the job done. In other words, the same as most people do at home. Of course, there may have been someone independently reviewing all licenses, or perhaps the official policy was different than what we did, but if so I never heard of it and was never told "don't install X because of the license".
It would seem very difficult to know the licenses for all software a company of that size uses. Aside from the sheer number of different platforms and packages, there's the issue of automatic updates and the new licenses they may bring -- supposedly, Windows updates come with changed licenses on a regular basis.
Free software has several advantages in this regard. The GPL, for example, rarely changes, and certainly not on a per-update basis; there are many, many packages under those same license terms; the license grants more freedom than proprietary licenses. The same can be said of other free software licenses.
-Joel
Big companies and software licenses Posted Nov 2, 2004 16:24 UTC (Tue) by cpmielk (guest, #25808) [Link] Please post this reply on the IT-Director comments for the article. I think it is important for pundits to see REALITY as it is.
Cheers,
Big companies and software licenses Posted Nov 3, 2004 8:06 UTC (Wed) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] You also miss a critical point - the GPL explicitly does *NOT* cover use (which is what Robin Bloor was talking about). It just assumes the "doctrine of first sale" applies.
Cheers,
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