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MS and Indemnification (Groklaw)MS and Indemnification (Groklaw)Posted Nov 12, 2004 13:06 UTC (Fri) by rknop (guest, #66)In reply to: MS and Indemnification (Groklaw) by libra Parent article: MS and Indemnification (Groklaw)
The point Microsoft seems to intentionally misunderstand is that people do not chose OSS solutions just because of money, but mostly because it fits better to their job. Quality and flexibility is the real strength of OSS. The low price is just a way to be sure that those advantages are affordables. Indeed, there are a number of people who choose OSS solutions because of the freedoms involved... although there are also a number of people in the OSS community who are embarassed about that and about people who say that, and would like to deny that that is a factor since it sounds so wishy washy and (somehow) communist. -Rob
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MS and Indemnification (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2004 15:52 UTC (Fri) by danielpf (subscriber, #4723) [Link] Freedom access to source code has nothing to do with ideology, but with very practical advantages that change considerably the efficiency of computer use.
We have experieced this fact when setting up a high performance computing cluster where every aspects of it may be tuned thanks to open source software.
In this cluster a single InfiniBand network driver was closed source, which brought a lot of limitations and problems not only because the closed source driver was buggy, so we had to rely on the vendor to get a working version (which took months), but because the driver compatible kernel versions were too old and not supporting recent SCSI hardware. Fortunately now open source InfiniBand drivers become available, and the situation improves.
This example shows that access to source code with a free license provides considerable advantage which has little to do with cost, or, rather this example shows all the disadcantage of closed source software. A whole HPC cluster may be working inefficiently depending on a single closed source driver.
Freedom Posted Nov 12, 2004 17:58 UTC (Fri) by jamienk (subscriber, #1144) [Link] >>Freedom access to source code has nothing to do with ideology, but with very practical advantages that change considerably the efficiency of computer use.
The Founding Fathers of the US advocated Freedom because
* Those who stop freedom often do it to excercise and consolodate their power, not for any good "reason"
* In a marketplace of ideas, good ideas often gain popularity, and good thinkers are spurred by others' open discourse
* There might be bad things going on today that we don't perceive of as bad just because we are used to it (slavery, womens' vote); Freedom allows unpopular advocates to emerge and become popular
These are all very practical advantages of Freedom. They all also apply to Free software.
The "ideological" argument for freedom, I suppose, would be the Platonic/Christian idea that each individual has a soul and is "equal" in God's eye and thus has individual responsibilities and freedoms. This too may apply to Free software, but is rarely argued.
RMS, when he uses the word moral, seems to me to be advocating the social values of sharing and cooperating. He is concerned that propritary software acts to inhibit this way of interacting. In a way, this seems less an argument for Freedom, and more an advocacy for a way of living.
MS and Indemnification (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2004 9:18 UTC (Mon) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] You hear that kinda often, but it's one of those things that make less sense the more you think about it.There's nothing communistic about wanting freedom. Indeed lots of Americans would say freedom is one of the most fundamental things worth figthing for, and they won't feel particularily communist while saying it... There's also nothing communist about wanting a market place on a level playing-field with lots of healthy competition. Infact that is quite the oposite, Adam Smith would agree to that a lot more readily than Marx would. If you go with MS you have one supplier to choose from. One company can fix (or not) the problems you experience. One company can provide (or not) real tech-support (the sort where you get to speak with someone who can look into what is *actually* going wrong in your software, not the sort that consists of handholding.) One company can dictate it all. If you go with a Linux (or Free Sofware in general) solution then you have multiple suppliers to choose from for every bit of your infrastructure. You can go to IBM and get help, real help, of the sort where "This is ok, but program X needs to sort by order-size rather than by date" can actually be fixed when you need it, rather than "thank you for your feedback, we'll consider that for our next version, due out in 18 months." And if you don't like the answer you get from IBM, there's a dozen larger and hundreds of smaller firms you can turn to with the same request. They'll have to *compete* for your bussiness. They'll have to make you actually *competitive* offers where the services they bring stand in a fair relation to the price they demand. What a UNAMERICAN COMMUNIST concept !
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