Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
The goals of the CodePlex Foundation are spelled out on the website as enabling the "exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities," as well as "increasing participation in open source community projects." Further goals include complementing "existing open source foundations and organizations, providing a forum in which best practices and shared understanding can be established by a broad group of participants, both software companies and open source communities.""
Posted Sep 11, 2009 19:28 UTC (Fri)
by shemminger (subscriber, #5739)
[Link] (41 responses)
Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:02 UTC (Fri)
by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
[Link] (40 responses)
Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:13 UTC (Fri)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (28 responses)
Posted Sep 12, 2009 7:35 UTC (Sat)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link] (27 responses)
As for "parasite activities" - the only parasite activity here is when code under permissive license is incorporated into code under restrictive license, such as GPL. The reason is that while the BSD project can - and often does - get various benefits (code, financial support, employment etc) from a company that produces its own closed derivative, there is nothing GPL-ed project could give back to BSD project it took the code from. In other words - while incorporating BSD code in GPL project is a parasite activity, incorporating BSD code into closed source product is just a symbiosis.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 7:56 UTC (Sat)
by job (guest, #670)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 12, 2009 8:50 UTC (Sat)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link]
Forcing everyone working on a product to give code written by them to their competition for free can also be detrimental - in this approach, the best way to make business is to spend as little time and money working on code as possible, instead focusing on marketing. This is precisely what you see on most embedded products based on Linux.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 12:12 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (23 responses)
Posted Sep 12, 2009 12:37 UTC (Sat)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link] (14 responses)
This is not a theoretical proposition; it happens all the time. Think about proprietary drivers for Mac OS X; BSD cannot touch those, but of course de Raadt can then complain about the lack of wireless drivers. With Linux however the drivers are all there for anyone to see.
Your (trasz's) reasoning about parasitic activities, however, is biased and based on possible but uncommon occurrences. Why can't the BSD-based GPL projects be commercialized and give BSD developers money, fame and glory? Where are the high profile projects that have been relicensed under the GPL?
Posted Sep 12, 2009 13:06 UTC (Sat)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link] (13 responses)
So, OSX has closed source drivers. OSX took them from BSD, and BSD license allowed Apple to close the code, so drivers have to be rewritten.
Now, look at the situation in Linux. OSX took them from BSD, and BSD license allowed Apple to close the code, so drivers have to be rewritten.
See? You missed one crucial factor - the fact that the vendor who wants to close their sources simply won't fork from GPL-ed project, unless they are really stupid. The only thing using GPL buys you here is the guarantee that they won't use your code and won't give you anything back.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 15:05 UTC (Sat)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link] (2 responses)
But even so: your analogy is again biased. If we are speaking about companies basing their operating systems on Linux, I would say that the situation is rather:
Posted Sep 13, 2009 18:49 UTC (Sun)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (1 responses)
Well actually... Name off all these proprietary drivers?
The only one that people can't seem to do without, right now, would be Nvidia's proprietary drivers. That and some GSM stuff for mobile phones.
Otherwise it's pretty damn easy to do avoid proprietary drivers altogether and yet find inexpensive and high performing hardware for everything you'd want to do.
The main reason why people run proprietary drivers today, other then to get away from Linux/X.org poorly performing, overly complex, and archaic driver models, is because they did not pay enough attention when buying their hardware.
Posted Sep 13, 2009 19:14 UTC (Sun)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link]
Posted Sep 13, 2009 9:48 UTC (Sun)
by njs (subscriber, #40338)
[Link] (9 responses)
Posted Sep 13, 2009 15:53 UTC (Sun)
by foom (subscriber, #14868)
[Link]
Posted Sep 13, 2009 17:12 UTC (Sun)
by quotemstr (subscriber, #45331)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Sep 13, 2009 18:51 UTC (Sun)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (1 responses)
Although so far GCC still outperforms them...
Posted Sep 13, 2009 19:02 UTC (Sun)
by quotemstr (subscriber, #45331)
[Link]
Posted Sep 14, 2009 7:53 UTC (Mon)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Sep 14, 2009 8:30 UTC (Mon)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
(And Objective C is not worthless. I use it quite a lot. The language is
Posted Sep 14, 2009 14:18 UTC (Mon)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (2 responses)
Meanwhile, you're complaining (as I note you have done every time you have seen an opportunity to "counter" mentions of the GPL with advocacy of permissive licences - http://lwn.net/Articles/310925/ to provide just one example) that it somehow isn't fair that copyleft-licensed projects can make use of permissively-licensed code. Well, one would think that the numerous advocates of permissive licensing, as they so often urge others to use permissive licences so that they may "consume" such works and incorporate such code into larger works employing different (and frequently proprietary) licences, would be able to stomach their own medicine and live with the effects of releasing such code under such licences themselves. Following up words with actions - that kind of thing.
Or is the real issue here the regret that permissively-licensed code can have a life of its own out in the open, teasing its authors by being improved in full transparency rather than getting upgraded in some proprietary backroom?
Posted Sep 18, 2009 21:57 UTC (Fri)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link] (1 responses)
As for permissive licenses - I explained this already somewhere else: BSD projects often get important contributions from closed source projects (either code, money or employment), but they almost never get anything from the GPL-ed projects.
Posted Sep 19, 2009 9:09 UTC (Sat)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link]
In other words. Your dead horse sounds like "hey, I lend you my bike, no conditions -- hey, I lent you my bike, why don't you ever give me a ride on your car? The neighbor often does". At least with the GPL you are not hiding that you require code contributions in exchange.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 12:47 UTC (Sat)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link] (7 responses)
When GPL-ed project takes BSD code from some project and creates its own, GPL-ed fork, there is zero probability of the original project getting anything in return. This just doesn't happen - for variety of reasons, one of which is that the GPL license prohibits incorporating changes back to the BSD-licensed code. That's not a symbiosis.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 13:47 UTC (Sat)
by xilun (guest, #50638)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 12, 2009 14:54 UTC (Sat)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link]
Posted Sep 13, 2009 9:51 UTC (Sun)
by njs (subscriber, #40338)
[Link] (1 responses)
I believe that's exactly what you're claiming only proprietary companies do?
Posted Sep 14, 2009 7:59 UTC (Mon)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link]
Posted Sep 13, 2009 14:55 UTC (Sun)
by clump (subscriber, #27801)
[Link]
Posted Sep 14, 2009 8:39 UTC (Mon)
by hppnq (guest, #14462)
[Link]
Stop complaining that people make use of the freedom that you have yourself stipulated in your license. This is incredibly stupid, even if someone like Theo de Raadt seems to think differently. I say this because obviously, this is especially true for people who have chosen the BSD license to release code: it permits using it in a GPL project. Whatever happens in the real world is part of the process that leads to chosing the license, it's not the other way around.
Posted Sep 15, 2009 8:30 UTC (Tue)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link]
Posted Sep 12, 2009 18:30 UTC (Sat)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link]
If Linux and the GPL were not here most the the open source code they so benefit from would not be written at all. Sure, a lot of it is not under the GPL, but that's because the evil Linux parasites are gracious enough to contribute most of it while keeping historic licenses BSD people agree with.
Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:18 UTC (Fri)
by Trelane (subscriber, #56877)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:27 UTC (Fri)
by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
[Link] (1 responses)
My point is still valid though, you cannot extinguish open source. Using the code from a open-source/free project in a proprietary product cannot extinguish the piece that is open-source/free. You can extinguish the proprietary fork all you want, but who in the open source/free software world cares?
Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:53 UTC (Fri)
by Trelane (subscriber, #56877)
[Link]
Posted Sep 11, 2009 20:40 UTC (Fri)
by zotz (guest, #26117)
[Link]
You can perhaps extinguish the foundations themselves though...
Posted Sep 11, 2009 21:32 UTC (Fri)
by einstein (subscriber, #2052)
[Link] (5 responses)
You don't seem to understand what microsoft is doing here. What good is an snippet of "open source" code that is useless outside of ms windows since it won't work without the proprietary microsoft libraries?
This is just microsoft poisoning the open source pool, creating windows-only "open source" that helps microsoft and hurts everybody else.
While microsoft may here, in the eyes of some, fulfill the letter of the law, so to speak, they attack the very heart of open source, and they know full well what they are doing.
Posted Sep 11, 2009 21:53 UTC (Fri)
by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
[Link] (3 responses)
Perhaps I don't, your post seems rather unclear to me, lot's of evil adjectives used with no real evil behavior sited. Are you speculating or are you privy to some specific knowledge that I am not? You seem to speak in the present tense as if they have already done whatever evil behavior you are eluding to?
Why would I care if MS creates open source software that only works with their proprietary software (is that what you are suggesting)? How does this hurt open source? How is this different than any other piece of free software that relies on proprietary stuff (say: anything that is windows only) created by someone else? Would this somehow magically be evil software, and the other software good? If I use it, will I become tainted and have bad luck (any more than if I have to use windows in the first place)? :)
What law are you talking about that they are fulfilling? I am sure that you have something specific in mind, but I am sorry, I am not able to grasp your explanations.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 0:02 UTC (Sat)
by Hellow (guest, #57997)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Sep 12, 2009 0:14 UTC (Sat)
by quotemstr (subscriber, #45331)
[Link]
Posted Sep 12, 2009 0:34 UTC (Sat)
by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
[Link]
There is plenty of windows only free software developed by open source (non evil corporations) that would be extremely difficult to port to a free operating system. That free software is not non-free because of it. If we take your reasoning to its logical conclusion, all of the original GNU software would have been non-free before there was a free OS to run it on!
Do you forget that before linux/bsds, GNU software developers were just developing software that relied on a very proprietary operating system that did not have much of a chance (would require a behemoth of effort to create) of becoming free? The GNU software was no less free then than now! Naturally the users were, but one could hardly blame the free software developers for that, could we?
Posted Sep 12, 2009 7:39 UTC (Sat)
by trasz (guest, #45786)
[Link]
;-)
Posted Sep 15, 2009 1:01 UTC (Tue)
by AndreE (guest, #60148)
[Link]
Posted Sep 11, 2009 19:52 UTC (Fri)
by frazier (guest, #3060)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Sep 11, 2009 19:58 UTC (Fri)
by leomilano (guest, #32220)
[Link]
http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/158:jim-zemlin/4...
Posted Sep 11, 2009 21:21 UTC (Fri)
by cyperpunks (subscriber, #39406)
[Link]
[1]:
H-Online
Posted Sep 11, 2009 21:15 UTC (Fri)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (5 responses)
The other thing to keep in mind is that Microsoft now loves open source... As
Posted Sep 12, 2009 3:26 UTC (Sat)
by elanthis (guest, #6227)
[Link] (4 responses)
There's no question that Ballmer is not a fan of competition, but he does not call the shots. His voice has more say than any other single person in the company, but the hundreds of thousands of Microsoft employees (including thousands of department heads and managers, and hundreds of VPs and program directors) more than outweigh Ballmer. In fact, one of the complaints I heard from an old Microsoft employee is that since Gates left there has been no real direction in Microsoft, because Ballmer doesn't have the charisma and support from the rest of the company the way Gates did. Ballmer can scream "Open Source is vile and must be destroyed!" all day long while many of his people right in the main campus run Linux on their laptops, flaunt their iPhones, and hack on Open Source projects for fun.
Microsoft has no unified vision anymore, has no true leadership, and it's not at all surprising to see Microsoft warmly embrace Open Source with true sincerity while simultaneously trying to crush it absolutely with real earnestness. Sometimes it might seem stupid, and other times it might seem like some big conspiracy, but in reality it's just a giant mega-corporation splitting into a countless factions due to a lack of true leadership.
At some point, Ballmer and Ozzie will be replaced. If a true leader takes over, Microsoft's many pieces might actually realign again. If so, Microsoft may go back to a true enemy of Free Software... or it may become a true friend. Neither is going to happen so long as company remains divided due to Ballmer's unpopularity with the company's staff and Ozzie's lack of clout with the development community.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 3:44 UTC (Sat)
by jordanb (guest, #45668)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 12, 2009 4:39 UTC (Sat)
by cmccabe (guest, #60281)
[Link]
Posted Sep 12, 2009 6:29 UTC (Sat)
by tdwebste (guest, #18154)
[Link] (1 responses)
As long as Microsoft's new open source strategy is NOT
Microsoft and other Corporate contributors must come clean and clearly
GPL v3 solves this patent problem in paragraph 11.
11. Patents.
Posted Sep 12, 2009 6:37 UTC (Sat)
by tdwebste (guest, #18154)
[Link]
Its too long to copy in full, please see
Posted Sep 14, 2009 0:14 UTC (Mon)
by PaulWay (guest, #45600)
[Link] (2 responses)
I think this is just going to be another one of those things that they talk about, and when no-one buys in and makes it worthwhile they just quietly shunt aside and try to forget about - like OOXML. The lesson here is that Microsoft does not play well with us if we try to co-operate with it - it tries to play well with us when we go and do things.
Have fun,
Paul
P.S. Yes, I agree with the 'schizo-soft' interpretation - I'm talking primarily about upper management and company direction here.
Posted Sep 14, 2009 20:52 UTC (Mon)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (1 responses)
When another well-known company built it's own open source hub reaction was more
positive... may be because it was done will less fanfare and more substance.
Compare Microsoft's "We wanted a foundation that addresses a full spectrum of
software projects, and does so with the licensing and intellectual property
needs of commercial software companies in mind" with Google's
"Code.google.com is our site for external developers interested in Google-
related development. Its where well publish free source code and lists of
our API services"... Actually it may be more difference between Google culture (code comes
first, merketing will come later) and Microsoft culture (marketing is the
king... everywhere and without restraints), but the difference is
stricking.
Posted Sep 15, 2009 14:39 UTC (Tue)
by hingo (guest, #14792)
[Link]
Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish has come to the open source foundation world.
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
less restrictive license than BSD. This is... peculiar.
I assume nix means "a closed-source product has a less restrictive license than GPL". It is a very perverse reasoning since proprietary products may give some code, money, employment and all kinds of financial propositions to the upstream BSD project. But they conceal the most important thing of all, and that which is rightly singled out in the GPL: knowledge about what the downstream project is doing, and the ability to share it. With the GPL you can know what the derivative product is doing, and rewrite it in BSD code if you feel the need. A dual license is also a very common proposition.
Contributions
Contributions
In the theoretical situation described above, Apple could give back the driver code to the original project, like they gave away e.g. their audit subsystem implementation back to FreeBSD. However, Apple couldn't give anything back to Linux - simply because they chose other system to take code from instead.
Fine, drivers were not the best example in the world; after all there are lots of proprietary drivers for Linux and there is little we can do about it except complain.
Contributions
Now, look at the situation in Linux. Red Hat (a $1B company) contributes drivers to Linux. Intel (a $30B company) contributes drivers to Linux. IBM, Novell contribute code to Linux. Manufacturers (Realtek, Broadcom) contribute drivers to Linux. About 194 companies contributed just to the last kernel iteration.
All these companies gave plenty back to Linux. And the code is there for everyone to see, share and expand upon. Other developers (closed or free) can reimplement them with a different license or for another language. Meanwhile, Apple (another $30B company) contributes nothing back to nobody since their code is opaque. Except of course when they feel like it. And BSD enthusiasts feel they are not parasitic.
Contributions
There are proprietary drivers for many pieces of hardware: graphics cards, wireless cards, even for the NSLU2's wired interface. Sure, sometimes there are free equivalents which may or may not have the same functionality; but the thing is that the GPL has not stopped proprietary drivers from sprouting all around, despite Linus' clarification.
Contributions
Contributions
Contributions
Apple to pay to be taken over. :)
Contributions
Contributions
Contributions
Contributions
Contributions
not going to be in any way biased. Oh no.
worthwhile even without the enormous Apple runtime.)
Contributions
Contributions
One would have thought that people release code under the BSD so that others can use it, not so that others contribute anything back. After all there is no requirement to give anything back in the license (either in the text or in the spirit). But BSD people still feel free to complain when their users don't contribute anything back. For example you don't see people complaining in GPL projects that they don't get money or employment from proprietary companies, or when they use the code internally (and therefore they don't have to contribute back their changes).
Contributions back
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
No, let me repeat. When some company takes BSD code from some project and creates its own, closed-source fork, there is a non-zero probability that this company will hire developers from the project and return code that is not a selling point for them. That happens a lot - from PostgreSQL to FreeBSD to Xorg. That's symbiosis.
"This happens a lot" is a pretty thin broth to serve. It's nowhere close to being required by the license to make changes available.
When GPL-ed project takes BSD code from some project and creates its own, GPL-ed fork, there is zero probability of the original project getting anything in return. This just doesn't happen - for variety of reasons, one of which is that the GPL license prohibits incorporating changes back to the BSD-licensed code. That's not a symbiosis.
Zero probablility? This is completely false. You seem to be arguing that since companies that make proprietary code from BSD *can* return code, they *will* return code. Yet your anti-GPL arguments miss the point that GPL code *can* be dual-licensed... allowing them to be used by ... BSD-licensed projects. Need an example? Hostap. Look at NJS's comment as well.
You don't appear to be saying anything on-topic, I might add. It's as if you've been asleep for nine years and woke up fresh to bring the year 2000's favorite dead horse back for new kicks.
What annoys me a bit about this whole discussion, is that it is not so difficult to understand the BSD and GPL licenses, and why they are there. In either case, getting anything back other than the warmness that comes from releasing Free Software is not part of the deal. If you are in this business then go write proprietary code, force people to love you or pay their respect or whatever it is that you want, and be happy.
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Many "BSD people" release code with the (not so) secret intention of getting hired and making money. The code is a means to that end.
Most "GPL people", on the other hand, are (A) forced to release because they are adding to a GPL'd base or (B) because they care about the code and want help from others.
That GPL'd projects enjoy a wider developer base seems a consequence of type A developers, and maybe the fact that it looks much more fair from an occasional contributor perspective (the ones that would not be hired).
And of course, users don't care much as long as the stuff works.
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
wine is famous for being able to run win32 binaries, but it's also usable as a porting library.
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Seems like Monty (MySQL) did like Big Corporations after all[1],
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
The advisory board does at least contain three prominent figures
from the open source world MySQL co-founder Monty Widenius,
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
companies is completely schizophrenic. I don't know how MS is divided up
logically and physically, but there are going to be a number of fiefdoms each
ran by a different person with a different personality and outlook and these
fiefdoms will be mostly independent..
long as it has Windows and their other proprietary products as dependencies.
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Patents
- a means of incorporating Microsoft patents into open source,
- and using the incorporated patents to collect royalties and as result
restrict open source usage and growth,
I am 100% in support.
state that they authorized usage of any patents infringed upon by their
open source contributions.
A contributor is a copyright holder who authorizes use under this License
of the Program or a work on which the Program is based. The work thus
licensed is called the contributor's contributor version.
Patents
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)
Strange...
Hmm... Google doesn't have a foundation though?
Strange...
Bear in mind that the site codeplex.com has existed for years, this announcement is about spinning off to an independent foundation (and putting money in it). Sure, it's easy to be sceptical about Microsofts intentions, I just want to correct obvious facts.