Weekly Edition
Return to the Press page
| |||||||||||
Open Source needs centralized PR, not development (NewsForge)
NewsForge is looking for a
better way to find out about open source projects. "It happened
again: A complaint was brought up on a free software email list I'm on
about the lack of a certain type of open source program, but there are
several healthy projects in that area I knew about, and other list members
pointed out yet others. Why didn't we all know about all of them? And if we
don't know, how can we expect potential corporate open source adopters, who
aren't on "inner circle" Linux and open source email lists, to know what's
available to them?"
(Log in to post comments)
Open Source needs centralized PR, not development (NewsForge) Posted Mar 31, 2003 23:49 UTC (Mon) by martin.stafford (guest, #10417) [Link] What's wrong with freshmeat.net?
Open Source needs centralized PR, not development (NewsForge) Posted Apr 1, 2003 7:20 UTC (Tue) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link] Fair enough as a comment, but what does the world as a whole know about commercial software products under development? Yes, there is a whole load of speculation, or deliberately leaked information disguised as speculation released in order to test the market: also a few customers sign non-disclosure agreements & participate in beta test programmes - but I am not convinced that the status of real information about soon-to-be-released commercial software is really much better than that of information about open-source software in development.Let's face it - part of the charm of the "linux experience" is finding information for yourself rather than having it forced down your throat by marketing droids.
Free Software can be commercial Posted Apr 1, 2003 13:22 UTC (Tue) by ber (subscriber, #2142) [Link] Please don't repeat the mistake to implicitely call Free Softwareuncommercial. There is a lot commercial and commercial grade Free Software around. With commercial Free Software development, you sometimes get the software before the 1.0 release in various stages of development. My company does Free Software commercially and it would help us
Free Software can be commercial Posted Apr 1, 2003 13:59 UTC (Tue) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link] Sorry, I should have used the word "proprietary" rather than "commercial".
FSF are trying to help Posted Apr 1, 2003 13:29 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link] This is a problem.The FSF are working on the Free Software Directory as one way to help solve it. Ciaran O'Riordan
Free software only Posted Apr 1, 2003 17:03 UTC (Tue) by cwong15 (guest, #3013) [Link] Note that they specifically want to list "free software", which is ideologically and legally not identical to "open source". There is also some source-available free-of-charge software that will not qualify as either, such as Pine (the most polished text email client) and qmail (a secure MTA).Chris
Free Software only Posted Apr 1, 2003 18:08 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link] I was in a rush earlier, thanks for pointing out the pluses of theFree Software Directory. It's great to be able to search for software without having to look for licensing info. Now just one person looks for licensing info, if it's Free, it goes in the directory. Wars over which text editor is the best can go on for ages and are QMail's licensing terms are unforunate. It's lucky Exim and Sendmail are The differences between OpenSource and Free Software are not that great. Ciaran O'Riordan
Free software only Posted Apr 2, 2003 6:59 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] The Open Source Definition is just the Debian Free Software Definition with "Debian" struck out, and the OSI and FSF people are really using the same rough definition. In cases where the FSF has claimed that something isn't free software that OSI said was open source, what you're seeing is a different referee making a different judgment call for a boundary case; in some of these cases Bruce Perens (who wrote the document in the first place) said that the OSI made the wrong call. So in practice, in >99% of the cases, the OSI and the FSF will agree that something is open source / free software. In the remaining cases, it's some tricky license written by a corporate lawyer, and not one of the standard licenses.
Free software only Posted Apr 2, 2003 16:11 UTC (Wed) by cwong15 (guest, #3013) [Link] No, "free software" (a misleading term, IMHO) and open source is not equivalent, and there are significant cases where they differ. The Perens open source definition has the patches clause: an author may restrict modification of the original if patches can be distributed with the original. This results in a number of open-source-but-not-Stallman-free cases, many significant. The old QPL for Qt, for example, was one that was open source but not Stallman-free. Pine is another example, as are Dan Bernstein's qmail and djbdns.Another notable app that would not be listed by FSF not considered open source is Aladdin Ghostscript. These examples are notable. There is no other text email app comparable in polish, user-friendliness and features as Pine. Until Postfix, there was nothing as secure as Qmail, certainly not security-hole-of-the-week Sendmail. And this goes too for djbdns: Bind security holes are serious problems for the whole Internet. Finally, Linux printing would be in the stone age: without Aladdin Ghostscript, we would not have the trickled-down GNU Ghostscript.
what's your point? Posted Apr 3, 2003 10:25 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link] I don't understand your post, you seem to state and argument in thefirst line but then go on to back it up with completely irrelevent data. > "free software" [...] and open source is not equivalent Nobody said they were were equivalent, who are you talking to? I said that 99.6% of software that can be classed as "OpenSource" also > The old QPL for Qt, for example Hey great example! A bunch of people that decided to make up their own ...and then you go on to talk about your favourite console based mail Ciaran O'Riordan
Corrections Posted Apr 3, 2003 17:31 UTC (Thu) by dthurston (subscriber, #4603) [Link] > The Perens open source definition has the patches clause: an author may> restrict modification of the original if patches can be distributed with > the original. While Stallman's definition of "Free Software" is a little vaguer than the OSD (or DFSG), it's clear that some forms of the "patches" clause are acceptable to him. For instance, TeX, one of the earliest pieces of free software (and accepted as such by the FSF), has such a clause. > The old QPL for Qt, for example, was one that was open source but not At http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html , the QPL version 1.0 is listed as a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with the GPL. > Another notable app that would not be listed by FSF not considered open I would be very surprised if Aladdin Ghostscript were considered "open source", since the license explicitly prohibits commercial distribution, which is point 1 ("Free Redistribution") of the OSD. The license is not on the list of OSI approvsed licenses at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ . (For those following at home, note the distinction between Aladdin Ghostscript and GNU Ghostscript: GNU Ghostscript is published under the GPL, but is a few versions older.) I am still very curious to see any significant difference between the terms "open source" and "free software" applied to particular licenses. > There is no other text email app comparable in polish, user-friendliness I'm very confused, since you yourself pointed out that none of these are "open source" nor "free software". In fact, the restrictions on all of these programs cause significant problems for distributors in practice. (I also disagree with your assessment of the utility of the alternatives, but that is beside the point.)
The information is out there. Posted Apr 3, 2003 5:43 UTC (Thu) by frazier (subscriber, #3060) [Link] As I posted in reply to the article's comment(from http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/03/23/1322252):Yes, freshmeat.net is a vital resource. It gives a fairly complete picture of open source projects as they are updated and who is working on what. But -- by design -- it is primarily useful to "inner circle" people who already use or work on open source software. It is not a useful tool for reaching out to people who have not yet discovered open source, which is -- let's not kid ourselves -- at least 95% of this planet's population.Yes, they need a table of applications matching familiar Windows apps to Linux apps. This page exists: I didn't note further that the table is published under the GNU Free Documentation License or that the author is encouraging contributions (from http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/): If you want to add the program in table, send mail to xoid26@linux-online.ru with the name of the program, the OS, the description (the purpose of the program, etc), and the link to official site of this program (if you know it). All commentaries, remarks, corrections, offers and bugreports are always welcome - send it all to xoid26@linux-online.ru.
|
|||||||||||