Pandora's box for open source (News.com) [LWN.net]

Pandora's box for open source (News.com)

Posted Feb 13, 2004 6:03 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

> No choice? What a crock! [] "Open source"
> is a big win for every business except proprietary
> software vendors trying to sell commodity software.

.. And that's precisely who the article was talking about when it said they had
"no choice".. the currently closed source software suppliers now opening up at
least SOME of their products, just as the company headlining the article,
Novell, is doing.

I, for one, am glad to see Novell on our side, and wish them well, both
because I want them to be glad they are taking that open source step, and
because I'd hate for them to become the next Corel/SCOG.

I must admit, it IS going to be interesting to see how this whole Novell thing
ends up. They DO seem to be playing all the right cards in favor of FLOSS
right now, and that's a GOOD thing, but so was Corel, which later became
SCOG, at one point. Still, Novell's definitely a step up the ladder from
where Corel was when it did open source, and it looks like they're making the
choice at at a better point in their history and in a better economic climate,
so hopefully, both them and IBM stay on our side.

I really don't see IBM turning, tho. as ultimately, I think their strategy is to
return the computer tech landscape to something they are VERY familiar
with, and know VERY well how to operate in, essentially "free" software, but
where one pays for the hardware and support services. Don't forget, IBM was
once king of the hill in that sort of market, and I believe that with Linux, they
see an opportunity to return to it in many ways, taking back the leadership
from current software giants such as MS. Thus, libre-ware fits very well with
IBM's historic strong points, and I don't see them turning away from it any
time soon. Novell, OTOH, remains a bit of an open question, tho I definitely
like their current moves RE Linux and IBM v. SCOG.

Duncan

Pandora's box for open source (News.com)

Posted Feb 13, 2004 12:23 UTC (Fri) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link]

Just my two bits on the topic...

> I, for one, am glad to see Novell on our side, and wish them well, both
> because I want them to be glad they are taking that open source step, and
> because I'd hate for them to become the next Corel/SCOG.

I will join Novell in the coming months, and the impression I have is
that they are really caring for their acquisitions (Ximian and SuSE).

At least the "core" Ximian mono development team is expanding, and this
is IMHO a very good thing.

Novell and Mono (and Java and Perl..)

Posted Feb 22, 2004 14:15 UTC (Sun) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

You may not see this even if you have comment notifications on unless you
have them on for more than the default week, but anyway..

I'm glad for you going to Novell. Unfortunately, I can't be as enthusiastic as
you concerning Mono. I'm of the opinion that MS has it by the tender parts,
and if it becomes anywhere near universally popular, MS will squeeze those
tender parts, causing a lot of agony to a lot of people that may have come to
depend upon it in software libre.

I just wish Sun would truly GPL/LGPL Java, perhaps as a dual license. They
could do that and STILL make $$. Look at TrollTech and QT. And under
that sort of license, MS still couldn't pervert it to its own ends.

Until something like that happens, it's perl and friends for portable run-time
compiled apps here. Perl6/Parrot shows some interesting promise, and there's
already a proven cross-platform infrastructure in place and fairly mature.

Duncan

Novell and Mono (and Java and Perl..)

Posted Feb 23, 2004 9:12 UTC (Mon) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link]

> You may not see this even if you have comment notifications on unless
> you have them on for more than the default week, but anyway..

The same should apply to you at this point...
By the way, I am <code>'m.mantione' . '@' . 'computer.org'</code>.

> I'm of the opinion that MS has it by the tender parts, and if it becomes
> anywhere near universally popular, MS will squeeze those tender parts,
> causing a lot of agony to a lot of people that may have come to depend
> upon it in software libre.

Well, there is more in Mono than "somethings that belongs to MS".
All the ECMA standardized parts are OK, and in principle the risk of
hitting some more or less obscure patent for JITting techniques is the
same in any JIT implementation, be it Mono or Parrot.
Until the Mono team sticks to "tried and proved" programming techniques,
this should not be a problem.
About the reimplementation of MS .NET APIs... this is not much different
that working on Wine, or Samba; the fact that it can be risky does not
mean it should not be done (and anyway, it sould not be risky: one can
at best patent a method, not an API, and APIs cannot be really protected
by copyright as well). There are many basing their network infrastructure
on Samba, and this is not perceived as a problem.
And anyway, Mono is more that that, I expecially like the GTK# and other
"tipically UNIX" APIs, and they are not subject to MS in any way.

> I just wish Sun would truly GPL/LGPL Java, perhaps as a dual license.
> They could do that and STILL make $$. Look at TrollTech and QT. And
> under that sort of license, MS still couldn't pervert it to its own
> ends.

Yes, I wish it as well, but I'm not holding my breath, either (and I have
spent the last three years coding in Java all the time, so this is not a
"foreign world" for me).

> Until something like that happens, it's perl and friends for portable
> run-time compiled apps here. Perl6/Parrot shows some interesting
> promise, and there's already a proven cross-platform infrastructure in
> place and fairly mature.

Yes, I know about Parrot.
Everybody has his preferences, and I really appreciate competition.
For various reasons, I prefere the .NET approach to the platform
architecture, but for sure I'll watch Parrot closely.

Ciao,
Massimiliano

Pandora's box for open source (News.com)

Posted Feb 12, 2004 18:09 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Well with Open- Source or without it...

*BOXED* software selling is about good as *DEAD*... and Microsoft knows it...

The only salvation,*IMHO* be it proprietary or closed source are selling services over the WEB, or close by, regional, with in the terrain men, *technical* support... (very important to small to medium entreprises that account for more than 90% of global IT services clients).

The only "boxed software" versions capable of surviving are, tailor made specificly costumazed and tweak for a particular costumer, region, and kind of business... oh, what i'm sying?!!... suggesting that the big M$, inspite of his monopoly on the desktop has to drop profit margins(~85% now), perhaps for less than half of what it is today, and apply that money for costumizing and tweaking their software for particular sectors or costumers in the IT world?!!...

HOW ARE THEY GOING TO MAINTAIN THE *HUGE* FINANCIAL PYRAMID (the Ma$ters syndicat) OF THEIRS ??...

It could mean that a substancial part of theirs *Billions* in the bank could evaporat much much more quickly than expected, if Microsoft change to adapt...

""All in all Open-Source is much better positioned to the new software selling and services paradigma than Microsoft, and or others proprietary software houses...""

Menwhile M$ is not going to spend wildly, without first trying to lock its users, specialy in the desktop, behind DRM(NGSCB/Paladium) schemes, and at the same time prevent others OSes, specialy linux, running on their protected hardware platforms...

That is *WHY* linux to dominate the next IT paradigma "era", needs to gain more desktop oriented development and much more Hardware Support... because the odds are clear(IMO)... if Linux fails to dominate... it surely looks lyke its going to be killed(somehow)... and those that sell hardware where Linux would be possible, and even others proprietary vendors to M$ locked platforms are going to inherit *Billions of wort* in uncared and droped by its rightfull owners, open source software programs...