I have a license for a very expensive program which I have been updating for over ten years. That program is Mathematica. As soon as I discovered that it was available for Linux, I switched my license from Windows to Linux. Companies such as Adobe have toyed with the idea of providing their products for Linux, but backed off. Part of the reason vendors shy away from supporting Linux versions of they products seems to be a hostility on the part of the FOSS community toward closed source products. Personally, I don't mind paying Wolfram Research to produce a powerful product, and feed a handful of talented Mathematicians. The value WRI returns to the world is far in excess of the money paid for their products. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ http://functions.wolfram.com/ http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/ http://www.mathmlcentral.com/ And this site was maintained for years by the person who manages/moderates the Mathematica mailinglist and newsgroup. http://sunfreeware.com/ To this day, I still go to http://smc.vnet.net to find the address. What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux? Steven
On Thursday 17 November 2005 13:53, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
No doubt the stuff of endless flamewars, but that gets into mixing politics and OS's, something I try to stay away from. :) We use a number of closed-source products on Linux. As the mighty SGI sank into the sunset, another platform was needed for those of us in the visual FX biz - and Linux was an obvious choice. Still is - more and more products are being porting to Linux, including a recent announcement from Discreet about their Flame compositing system being ported. I have little doubt Inferno will follow. We run a number of proprietary packages alongside all the great OS products out there. I see no problem with that. If there was an OS product that did as well for any given product, I'd use it in a heartbeat. Cheers, J.C. -- John Coldrick www.axyzfx.com Axyz Animation 416-504-0425 425 Adelaide St W Toronto, ON Canada jc@axyzfx.com M5V 1S4 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The world's as ugly as sin, And almost as delightful -- Frederick Locker-Lampson
Steven T. Hatton wrote:
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
No problem whatsoever. There will always be more or less specialist applications for which the OSS model doesn't work or doesn't pay. /Per Jessen, Zürich
Steven, On Thursday 17 November 2005 10:53, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
...
Personally, I don't mind paying Wolfram Research to produce a powerful product, and feed a handful of talented Mathematicians. The value WRI returns to the world is far in excess of the money paid for their products.
Wolfram (the man) is an egotistical tyrant who mistreats, abuses and exploits the programmers and mathematicians he hires. Switch to an alternative. Putting money in his pocket is far worse than feeding Billy boy or any of his hired guns.
...
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
There's nothing wrong with it (not all classes of software have economics that will support open source, though I'm not claiming that's the case for symbolic and / or numeric mathematics packages). But as with all commercial endeavors, you should consider precisely what and whom you're supporting by patronizing any particular business. By the way, the same goes for Novell, of course. So far, I'm happy to support them, but it's by no means any kind of unconditional love thing.
Steven
Randall Schulz
I have a license for a very expensive program which I have been updating for over ten years. That program is Mathematica. As soon as I discovered that it was available for Linux, I switched my license from Windows to Linux.
I thought Mathematica was Open Source on Linux. I guess I'm thinking of a different project, or else a clone of Mathematica. -- Marshall Lake -- mlake@mlake.net -- http://mlake.net
On Thursday 17 November 2005 02:35 pm, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Steven,
On Thursday 17 November 2005 10:53, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
...
Personally, I don't mind paying Wolfram Research to produce a powerful product, and feed a handful of talented Mathematicians. The value WRI returns to the world is far in excess of the money paid for their products.
Wolfram (the man) is an egotistical
I have that impression. I don't believe his contributions to science are quite as unique as he would like to believe. He should certainly tip his hat to Douglas R. Hofstadter. Nonetheless, Mathematica is an amazing product. I really don't know if any of the other computer algebra systems are anything like it. He has full room to be proud of his accomplishments.
tyrant who mistreats, abuses and exploits the programmers and mathematicians he hires.
I'm composing an email right now to one of his programmer/mathematicians. I'm not about to ask for a comment on that subject, but I believe the man is fairly happy to be working for Wolfram (both the company, and the man).
Switch to an alternative. Putting money in his pocket is far worse than feeding Billy boy or any of his hired guns.
Can you provide substance to this accusation? All human beings have faults. One, or even a few episodes of bad behavior do not a tyrant make. I may be knocking on his door soon. WRI have been very generous to me in the past, and I have no reason to complain about their business practices.
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
There's nothing wrong with it (not all classes of software have economics that will support open source, though I'm not claiming that's the case for symbolic and / or numeric mathematics packages).
There are FOSS products in these fields. I haven't seen a "Mathematica" among them.
But as with all commercial endeavors, you should consider precisely what and whom you're supporting by patronizing any particular business.
I do consider such things.
By the way, the same goes for Novell, of course. So far, I'm happy to support them, but it's by no means any kind of unconditional love thing.
I assume you have concluded that I share your postion on this. I have no reason to complain about my dealings with Novell over the years. That is, until they took a swipe at the KDE. I'm dead serious when I say that much of my reason for supporting the KDE for the past 7 years (IIRC) is a direct result of my experience with Novell products in the Windows NT environment. When I saw that Novell execs were double talking about remaining behind KDE development, well... Steven
Just to answer in the context of the subject.
I feel that in some cases, a commercial, closed-source product is fine. I
would not mind paying for a GOOD product. Some products are the result of a
sizable investment in manpower as well as financial resources. Some
companies have a mixed model where they have both an OpenSource, free
product and a commercial version of that. Trolltech's QT is one that comes
to mind. Adobe is primarily closed source, even for their freely available
products. I see nothing wrong with a company, like Adobe making their
product line available on Linux.
--
Jerry Feldman
On 11/17/05, Steven T. Hatton
On Thursday 17 November 2005 02:35 pm, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Wolfram (the man) is an egotistical
I have that impression. I don't believe his contributions to science are quite as unique as he would like to believe. He should certainly tip his hat to Douglas R. Hofstadter. Nonetheless, Mathematica is an amazing product. I really don't know if any of the other computer algebra systems are anything like it. He has full room to be proud of his accomplishments.
tyrant who mistreats, abuses and exploits the programmers and mathematicians he hires. Switch to an alternative. Putting money in his pocket is far worse than feeding Billy boy or any of his hired guns.
Can you provide substance to this accusation? All human beings have faults. One, or even a few episodes of bad behavior do not a tyrant make. I may be knocking on his door soon.
not that I'd want to subscribe to OP's characterization, but the epsiode of a related in the following review of Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" (treatment by the author of one of his students, who, it seems, proved the most important theorem in ANKoS) is (to say the least) not nice. http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ (The review is worth reading, too, IMHO) regards Geza
On Thursday 17 November 2005 2:21 pm, Per Jessen wrote:
There will always be more or less specialist applications for which the OSS model doesn't work or doesn't pay.
Income tax programs are a good example. There will never be an open-source version of them because they need a major update every year to keep up with the tax code, and authors understandably aren't willing to donate the immense amount of labor needed for that. Paul
On Thursday 17 November 2005 16:19, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
Income tax programs are a good example. There will never be an open-source version of them because they need a major update every year to keep up with the tax code, and authors understandably aren't willing to donate the immense amount of labor needed for that.
It's not the update I think. They all need to be approved by the tax body. They all need a fair bit of insurance in case something gets screwed up. It looks like the Italian government produces it's own tax program. Outside of keeping the software companies happy I don't know why the various governments don't do the same. Nick
On Thursday 17 November 2005 19:53, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
Steven
For the last 3 years I've maintain an ActivePerl Pro Studio subscription with activestate (Currently slightly over 500$/yr). I develop both open and closed source projects with their komodo ide. I enjoy the Safari Book shelf (practically: read all the books from your local book store online!), and require the perl-script to .exe compiler for windows distribution of my projects. IMHO it's well worth the steep price, and a must for professionals. Jerry. BTW. it's an example of a company building (closed source) professional tools for open source languages. No problem here... P.S. Before you turn on your flame thrower, please take a look at what activestate has done for the opensource community!
On Thursday 17 November 2005 03:36 pm, Geza Giedke wrote:
On 11/17/05, Steven T. Hatton
wrote:
Can you provide substance to this accusation? All human beings have faults. One, or even a few episodes of bad behavior do not a tyrant make. I may be knocking on his door soon.
not that I'd want to subscribe to OP's characterization, but the epsiode of a related in the following review of Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" (treatment by the author of one of his students, who, it seems, proved the most important theorem in ANKoS) is (to say the least) not nice.
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ (The review is worth reading, too, IMHO)
There seem to be a good number of allegations in the review which are unsubstantiated. I don't know the details of Cook's work. Nor do I know anything about the law suit. It may be the case that Wolfram was more concerned with protecting the marketability of Mathematica than his own glory. I find the notion that a person could hold a patten on a theorem in mathematics pattenly absurd. I have ANKoS, and have read some of the introductory material, as well as thumbed through it. I agree that he has a large estimation of the importance of his own work. I suspect there is much of worth in the book, even if there is less there that is original than he contends there to be. The author of the review has certainly ground an axe with Wolfram's name on it for some time. I find the title of the review "A Rare Blend of Monster Raving Egomania and Utter Batshit Insanity" indicative of the seriousness with which I should take it's allegations. Steven
Steven, On Thursday 17 November 2005 12:04, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
On Thursday 17 November 2005 02:35 pm, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Steven,
On Thursday 17 November 2005 10:53, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
...
Personally, I don't mind paying Wolfram Research to produce a powerful product, and feed a handful of talented Mathematicians. The value WRI returns to the world is far in excess of the money paid for their products.
He is very aggressive about protecting his so-called intellectual property, to the point of inhibiting progress in areas he believes he has claim to. This holds back progress rather than encourages or contributes to it.
Wolfram (the man) is an egotistical
I have that impression. I don't believe his contributions to science are quite as unique as he would like to believe. He should certainly tip his hat to Douglas R. Hofstadter. Nonetheless, Mathematica is an amazing product. I really don't know if any of the other computer algebra systems are anything like it. He has full room to be proud of his accomplishments.
Wolfram has as much right to be personally proud of Mathematica as Bill Gates has to be personally proud of Windows. In both cases, they're managers or executives, not technical contributors (at least not for a long time, now), so in my book, pride of accomplishment is not warranted.
tyrant who mistreats, abuses and exploits the programmers and mathematicians he hires.
I'm composing an email right now to one of his programmer/mathematicians. I'm not about to ask for a comment on that subject, but I believe the man is fairly happy to be working for Wolfram (both the company, and the man).
Switch to an alternative. Putting money in his pocket is far worse than feeding Billy boy or any of his hired guns.
Can you provide substance to this accusation? All human beings have faults. One, or even a few episodes of bad behavior do not a tyrant make. I may be knocking on his door soon.
I have not had personal dealings with him, but I've talked personally to people who have, and they are exceedingly unflattering and resentful. The impression is widespread, and so most likely is generally valid.
WRI have been very generous to me in the past, and I have no reason to complain about their business practices.
This makes me curious about who you are or represent, what has been the nature of Wolfram Research's largesse towards you and / or your organization and why it was granted.
...
By the way, the same goes for Novell, of course. So far, I'm happy to support them, but it's by no means any kind of unconditional love thing.
I assume you have concluded that I share your postion on this. I have no reason to complain about my dealings with Novell over the years. That is, until they took a swipe at the KDE. I'm dead serious when I say that much of my reason for supporting the KDE for the past 7 years (IIRC) is a direct result of my experience with Novell products in the Windows NT environment. When I saw that Novell execs were double talking about remaining behind KDE development, well...
I don't know why you'd assume that. I cannot and do not pretend to know how you feel about Novell, nor is it more than an aside here. It's just a parallel to show that similar considerations are in play. That, and perhaps to allude to the fact that if they depart from the practices that made SuSE Linux so great, I will seek those qualities elsewhere.
Steven
Randall Schulz
On Thursday 17 November 2005 06:17 pm, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Wolfram has as much right to be personally proud of Mathematica as Bill Gates has to be personally proud of Windows. In both cases, they're managers or executives, not technical contributors (at least not for a long time, now), so in my book, pride of accomplishment is not warranted.
I believe what Wolfram originally contributed to Mathematica is still essential to what it does today. The same cannot be said of the technology Gates contributed to Windows NT.
This makes me curious about who you are or represent,
I'm just a reformed juvenile delinquent who gave up drugs for math, computers and physics.
what has been the nature of Wolfram Research's largesse towards you and / or your organization and why it was granted.
I purchased an upgrade to Mathematica a couple days before the next version was released. They let me get the second $250 upgrade for free. There have been other cases where they have been pleasant to do business with. I will say they have, in the past, been overly proud of their Motif GUI. There was a time when that pride was justified, but the GUI is now among the worst I use. That, however, is merely a wrapper around the improtant stuff. Furthermore, they are now in the process of redesigning it, or so they claim. I believe the Notebook interface can also be improved upon, and have provided significant feedback in that area. But, as it stands today, with all it's clunkyness, it is a very powerful tool.
I assume you have concluded that I share your postion on this. I have no reason to complain about my dealings with Novell over the years. That is, until they took a swipe at the KDE. I'm dead serious when I say that much of my reason for supporting the KDE for the past 7 years (IIRC) is a direct result of my experience with Novell products in the Windows NT environment. When I saw that Novell execs were double talking about remaining behind KDE development, well...
I don't know why you'd assume that. I cannot and do not pretend to know how you feel about Novell,
I thought that would be clear from the discussions regarding the KDE, and the fact that I have advocated supporting them, and trying to do what we can to improve their cash flow so that they aren't forced to cut people, and/or projects. Steven
Steven, On Thursday 17 November 2005 15:53, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
...
This makes me curious about who you are or represent,
I'm just a reformed juvenile delinquent who gave up drugs for math, computers and physics.
Yeah, I suppose there's a lot of that going around... I hope math tickles your brain in a suitably pleasant manner.
what has been the nature of Wolfram Research's largesse towards you and / or your organization and why it was granted.
I purchased an upgrade to Mathematica a couple days before the next version was released. They let me get the second $250 upgrade for free. There have been other cases where they have been pleasant to do business with.
Of course, the public face displayed by the business entity Wolfram Research is one thing, while that of Wolfram himself is another thing entirely. And that sort of thing is not particularly generous or exceptional. Many companies will do similar things (though I doubt the heartless Duff... I mean Microsoft corporation would do the same).
...
I don't know why you'd assume that. I cannot and do not pretend to know how you feel about Novell,
I thought that would be clear from the discussions regarding the KDE, and the fact that I have advocated supporting them, and trying to do what we can to improve their cash flow so that they aren't forced to cut people, and/or projects.
I didn't connect this thread with any others to which you may have posted. To be honest, I've been at best skimming all the stuff that's transpired since the "announcement" about KDE's place in the Novell Linux lineup.
Steven
Randall Schulz
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2005-11-17 at 16:29 -0500, Nick Zentena wrote:
It's not the update I think. They all need to be approved by the tax body. They all need a fair bit of insurance in case something gets screwed up.
It looks like the Italian government produces it's own tax program. Outside of keeping the software companies happy I don't know why the various governments don't do the same.
In Spain too. The goverment provides programs for tax return, and some other things. The snag is that it is for windows only, but I heard of a company that makes one for linux. It seems that even if the goverment gives the program gratis, there is a small market for making other versions. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDfRTqtTMYHG2NR9URAh7tAJ9UGs9/ZBug22DrHGeXN1N1a3MEbwCggyzz hk3c+q8hOkSPmJpx+Xhs62w= =uWco -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 13:53 -0500, Steven T. Hatton wrote: {snip}
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
I have no philosophical problems with commercial software on Linux. It's more a question of is this worth paying for over what might be available from FOSS.
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
My employer supports Linux - and we sell a commercial closed source product for Linux. We also use several closed source Linux applications - and have paid good money for them... willingly. Honestly I don't think anyone has any qualms about buying/paying for quality software on Linux. I think we all understand that you can't get something for nothing... which is probably why so many of us pony up and pay for a nice shiny new copy of SUSE Linux every 6 months - even though we really don't "need" to. C.
Steven T. Hatton wrote:
What do others think about the place of closed source, proprietary software running on Linux?
There are some excellent products only available on the Windows platform for which I willingly paid money for and use on a daily basis. I would so much rather have paid that same money to use it on my SuSE 9.3 installation. I would have loved to have Photoshop on Linux - I've been using it for several years before I started using Linux on my desktop. I am currently using The Gimp on Windows and Linux and must say that Linux does the job so much better. This morning I had to open and edit a PNG image which requires about 1.03 GB of RAM - both my machines only have 512MB of RAM. The SuSE machine was busy so I have Windows a shot - after it fell over twice I decided to try it on SuSE. It opened the image and I was able to do all the editing and save it again without even noticing a decrease in performance. The big problem, I think, is that there is a stigma around Linux that everything should be free and the other that OSS is free. Because of this, there are some companies who tried there hand at the Linux market and failed. Examples of these are Corel Wordperfect and Borland Kylix. Yes both had design faults (like the Borland Kylix IDE requires a specific version of Wine to run which doesn't work on the newer Kernels but the compiler doesn't). Had these been open source products, someone out there would have been able to fix the problems in these products after they were abandoned by their makers. Albert -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.3/174 - Release Date: 2005/11/17
On 18-Nov-05 Randall R Schulz wrote:
Steven,
On Thursday 17 November 2005 15:53, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
...
This makes me curious about who you are or represent,
I'm just a reformed juvenile delinquent who gave up drugs for math, computers and physics.
Yeah, I suppose there's a lot of that going around... I hope math tickles your brain in a suitably pleasant manner.
A mathematician called Hind
Had erogenous zones in his mind.
He *enjoyed* the sensations
Of solving equations
(Of course, in the end he went blind).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding)
On Friday 18 November 2005 07:55, Albert wrote:
The big problem, I think, is that there is a stigma around Linux that everything should be free and the other that OSS is free.
Because of this, there are some companies who tried there hand at the Linux market and failed. Examples of these are Corel Wordperfect and Borland Kylix. Yes both had design faults (like the Borland Kylix IDE requires a specific version of Wine to run which doesn't work on the newer Kernels but the compiler doesn't). Had these been open source products, someone out there would have been able to fix the problems in these products after they were abandoned by their makers.
Albert
I started to use Linux because Borland launch Kylix in 2000, I was programming in Delphi when use Windows. I purchase all versions 1, 2 and 3, but Borland stoped to update kylix and I love too much Linux that it was impossible to return to Windows. Then I go to C++ and KDevelop, I missing something of Delphi/Kylix, but the bugs of KDevelop is corrected by the community, on the other side Borland simply abandon your users, and in my opinion this is a great problem of closed/proprietary software, there is no compromise with the users. Thadeu
Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
The Thursday 2005-11-17 at 16:29 -0500, Nick Zentena wrote:
It looks like the Italian government produces it's own tax program. Outside of keeping the software companies happy I don't know why the various governments don't do the same.
In Spain too. The goverment provides programs for tax return, and some other things. The snag is that it is for windows only, but I heard of a company that makes one for linux. It seems that even if the goverment gives the program gratis, there is a small market for making other versions.
In the Netherlands the tax form program has been MS Windows only for as long as I care to remember. But last year it would run on wine except for the very final stage where the electronic signature didn't fit into the input box! :-) Oh, well. But rumor has it that they will have versions for Mac and Linux users next year. In eager anticipation, -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704
On Saturday 19 November 2005 04:48, Jos van Kan wrote:
In the Netherlands the tax form program has been MS Windows only for as long as I care to remember. But last year it would run on wine except for the very final stage where the electronic signature didn't fit into the input box! :-) Oh, well. But rumor has it that they will have versions for Mac and Linux users next year.
IIRC the Italian one was java based. But even then they managed to have problems. Nick
On Fri, 2005-11-18 at 08:26 -0200, Jose Thadeu Cavalcante wrote:
On Friday 18 November 2005 07:55, Albert wrote:
The big problem, I think, is that there is a stigma around Linux that everything should be free and the other that OSS is free.
Because of this, there are some companies who tried there hand at the Linux market and failed. Examples of these are Corel Wordperfect and Borland Kylix. Yes both had design faults (like the Borland Kylix IDE requires a specific version of Wine to run which doesn't work on the newer Kernels but the compiler doesn't). Had these been open source products, someone out there would have been able to fix the problems in these products after they were abandoned by their makers.
Albert
I started to use Linux because Borland launch Kylix in 2000, I was programming in Delphi when use Windows. I purchase all versions 1, 2 and 3, but Borland stoped to update kylix and I love too much Linux that it was impossible to return to Windows. Then I go to C++ and KDevelop, I missing something of Delphi/Kylix, but the bugs of KDevelop is corrected by the community, on the other side Borland simply abandon your users, and in my opinion this is a great problem of closed/proprietary software, there is no compromise with the users.
It has been proposed that all corporate abandonware be made open source so that companies will either support or disclose. I like this concept as it would solve many problems by providing users or companies incentive to maintain good programs. Even on open source there is a process of natural selection for quality. IMHO it may be the purest form of capitolism in that no government or corporation can own it to the exclusion of all others and the innovations they bring to the table. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/
Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:
It has been proposed that all corporate abandonware be made open source so that companies will either support or disclose. I like this concept as it would solve many problems by providing users or companies incentive to maintain good programs. Even on open source there is a process of natural selection for quality. IMHO it may be the purest form of capitolism in that no government or corporation can own it to the exclusion of all others and the innovations they bring to the table.
While it may have been proposed, it is still up to the author, whether they want to release it or not, as it should be. You cannot unilaterally take someone's work, "abandoned" or not and declare it open.
On Saturday 19 November 2005 16:25, James Knott wrote:
Nick Zentena wrote:
IIRC the Italian one was java based. But even then they managed to have problems.
Java or Espresso? ;-)
I think they forced you to download the Microsoft java. So I'd say American -) Nick
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2005-11-19 at 10:48 +0100, Jos van Kan wrote:
In the Netherlands the tax form program has been MS Windows only for as long as I care to remember. But last year it would run on wine except for the very final stage where the electronic signature didn't fit into the input box! :-)
Ah, ours doesn't work with wine. It can start, but it fails when trying to load the databases, becasuse they are "file.mdb" type, ie, access, I think. Pity. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDgLCOtTMYHG2NR9URAiqwAJ0Y+s8+OxinEfJ+afGNNvqjA28qLwCfRodN newdR3PbqD4Pr84geoTnE84= =STDZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2005-11-19 at 16:20 -0500, James Knott wrote:
While it may have been proposed, it is still up to the author, whether they want to release it or not, as it should be. You cannot unilaterally take someone's work, "abandoned" or not and declare it open.
Except if it is maken a law. Users of a program abandoned by the company might them claim protection, ie, forced disclosure of the code. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDgNhVtTMYHG2NR9URAjdEAJ9VJVanBu1P5kFtpgKBEo/pxeUKpQCfX4yE XUqPK8/ouxXE2J49DmHwNw0= =4fiD -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Carlos E. R. wrote:
The Saturday 2005-11-19 at 16:20 -0500, James Knott wrote:
While it may have been proposed, it is still up to the author, whether they want to release it or not, as it should be. You cannot unilaterally take someone's work, "abandoned" or not and declare it open.
Except if it is maken a law. Users of a program abandoned by the company might them claim protection, ie, forced disclosure of the code.
That's called expropriation. How'd you feel, if the govermnent decided to take some of your land, because you weren't doing anything with it? As much as I support open source software, doing what you propose still amounts to theft of someone's property and is extremely offensive.
On Sat, 19 Nov 2005, Jos van Kan wrote:
In the Netherlands the tax form program has been MS Windows only for as long as I care to remember. But last year it would run on wine except for the very final stage where the electronic signature didn't fit into the input box! :-) Oh, well. But rumor has it that they will have versions for Mac and Linux users next year.
The Linux version was published for test in a small test group. Off course a lot of comments/remarks were given, I hope they continue to make a version available. If I'm not mistaken you can get specifications the application has to fulfill, so if you want to create a boring piece of software that is used a lot you can step up. Remember that you need to update it every year.
In eager anticipation,
Best regards from the Netherlands, Aschwin Marsman -- aschwin@marsman.org http://www.marsman.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2005-11-20 at 21:03 -0500, James Knott wrote:
Except if it is maken a law. Users of a program abandoned by the company might them claim protection, ie, forced disclosure of the code.
That's called expropriation. How'd you feel, if the govermnent decided to take some of your land, because you weren't doing anything with it?
No, that's not the same. It is as if I'm making "cars", and at some point I'm out of business, or now I make planes. After some time, the patent for "cars" expires, and anybody can make "cars". My goverment, by the way, was thinking of expropiating houses if not in use...
As much as I support open source software, doing what you propose still amounts to theft of someone's property and is extremely offensive.
A law can take into account such things, including payment for the expropriated land as seen fit. I'm not proposing theft. Another example. Suppose that all documents were done in "wordfine". At sometime, that company dies, or refuses to maintain that software. A lot of documentation could be inaccessible, and the damage to the public would be great. It could be contended that in the public interest the "wordfine" code be expropriated. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDgczetTMYHG2NR9URAqAUAKCDLkRoQIVg4HsQhy57QVGiqttTagCgiSrp WwMX2443ZZ/+Qvt1InbJ64c= =gciJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On 21/11/05, Carlos E. R.
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The Sunday 2005-11-20 at 21:03 -0500, James Knott wrote:
Except if it is maken a law. Users of a program abandoned by the company might them claim protection, ie, forced disclosure of the code.
That's called expropriation. How'd you feel, if the govermnent decided to take some of your land, because you weren't doing anything with it?
No, that's not the same. It is as if I'm making "cars", and at some point I'm out of business, or now I make planes. After some time, the patent for "cars" expires, and anybody can make "cars".
My goverment, by the way, was thinking of expropiating houses if not in use...
As much as I support open source software, doing what you propose still amounts to theft of someone's property and is extremely offensive.
A law can take into account such things, including payment for the expropriated land as seen fit. I'm not proposing theft.
Another example. Suppose that all documents were done in "wordfine". At sometime, that company dies, or refuses to maintain that software. A lot of documentation could be inaccessible, and the damage to the public would be great. It could be contended that in the public interest the "wordfine" code be expropriated.
- -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
Absolutely nothing to do with SuSE Linux of course but the British Government, many years (centuries) took the people's land for themselves. It was called the Enclosures Act. It was still stealing/theft. -- ============================================== I am only human, please forgive me if I make a mistake it is not deliberate. ============================================== Take care. Kevan Farmer 34 Hill Street Cheslyn Hay Staffordshire WS6 7HR
Carlos E. R. wrote:
A law can take into account such things, including payment for the expropriated land as seen fit. I'm not proposing theft.
Whatever the law, it must always be the authors decision, as to the dispostion of the software. If I write something, you have no right to demand that I release it, under *ANY* circumstances.
On Monday 21 November 2005 08:21 pm, James Knott wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
A law can take into account such things, including payment for the expropriated land as seen fit. I'm not proposing theft.
Whatever the law, it must always be the authors decision, as to the dispostion of the software. If I write something, you have no right to demand that I release it, under *ANY* circumstance
Agreed. But if you are trying to sell it to me for profit, I would be wise to put in a clause "should said James Knott go belly up in a drunken fit and sent to the poor house, he agrees that I shall be allowed to have access to the source for purchased software under <given set of restrictions>.." If I don't do that, I am at your mercy should you close up shop.
Bruce Marshall wrote:
On Monday 21 November 2005 08:21 pm, James Knott wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
A law can take into account such things, including payment for the expropriated land as seen fit. I'm not proposing theft. Whatever the law, it must always be the authors decision, as to the dispostion of the software. If I write something, you have no right to demand that I release it, under *ANY* circumstance
Agreed. But if you are trying to sell it to me for profit, I would be wise to put in a clause "should said James Knott go belly up in a drunken fit and sent to the poor house, he agrees that I shall be allowed to have access to the source for purchased software under <given set of restrictions>.."
If I don't do that, I am at your mercy should you close up shop.
What's included in a contract is completely different from unilaterally taking, long after the fact. In one, the author agrees to the terms, including open source etc. In the other he doesn't even get the chance. Again, if I as an author decide that the source be locked away and never revealed, then that is my right. Please note, that I'm not ruling out the possibility of some extenuating circumstances that may force the issue, but as a general rule, the author's decision should be final.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2005-11-21 at 20:21 -0500, James Knott wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
A law can take into account such things, including payment for the expropriated land as seen fit. I'm not proposing theft.
Whatever the law, it must always be the authors decision, as to the dispostion of the software. If I write something, you have no right to demand that I release it, under *ANY* circumstances.
Maybe yes, maybe not. If the law (mind, no such law exists yet as far as I know) decides not to take into account such things as author wishes/rights on behalf of the society needs, it wouldn't matter what the author thought/thinks. Laws are different on each country. I don't know what yours are, but I know that here things can be expropriated by the state if there is good reason for it, and the reason be legislated. Of course, you can go to court and fight it. For example, if the government decides to make a road through my land, and I don't want to sell, they expropriate, house and what ever included, and I'd be paid a certain (insufficient) amount. And my private concerns be f*. That's how roads are built here. What is different about software property there? Intellectual property? Patents? Perhaps because they are the tools for the sustenance of a group of people? Which reminds me... in some countries patents protecting certain expensive pharmaceuticals (for aids) have been deemed sort of public property. I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm only posing questions... like the devil advocate. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDgpLCtTMYHG2NR9URAmG/AJ99RueRYAn8+HDA5Uc+fjZZ5COUZQCglBhK wDZ+Ltt4YEvRoYd3dj076fU= =Dr4I -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Monday 21 November 2005 22:38, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Maybe yes, maybe not. If the law (mind, no such law exists yet as far as I know) decides not to take into account such things as author wishes/rights on behalf of the society needs, it wouldn't matter what the author thought/thinks.
I think this is all quite hypothetical. Given the nature of law, absolutely anything is *possible* - it just needs enough judges laying down enough precedents and a failure of challenges to it for something to become law. AFAIK, you can't currently force an author to make their work public, and should that be true that's all that matters right now. The example of the company having endless critical docs in a proprietary format really just says two things: it's a good lesson for a company nowadays to be using an open format, and there's a market for programmers that can reverse-engineer file formats. J.C. -- John Coldrick www.axyzfx.com Axyz Animation 416-504-0425 425 Adelaide St W Toronto, ON Canada jc@axyzfx.com M5V 1S4 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The world's as ugly as sin, And almost as delightful -- Frederick Locker-Lampson
What usually happens when the GOV purchases proprietary software they deem important is, they insist you place a copy of the source in escrow somewhere so that in the case you cannot or will not support it any longer, they can get to the source and have a right to do so. If you don't agree to the escrow accnt, they do not buy it and go else where for a solution. If they buy it without an escrow agreement they are stuck and shit out of luck should you decide to go away. I'm speeking of the US GOV BTW. Mark
On Tuesday 22 November 2005 08:06 am, John Coldrick wrote:
AFAIK, you can't currently force an author to make their work public, and should that be true that's all that matters right now.
Did you ever hear of expiration of copyright? Use to be short term now is life of author +70 yrs or so. Created by Congress and can be uncreated if necessary. What the king giveth he can take away anytime he wants. Problem is the Congress is owned by the big (wealthy) boys so we're screwed! ra
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2005-11-22 at 09:06 -0500, John Coldrick wrote:
I think this is all quite hypothetical. Given the nature of law, absolutely anything is *possible*
That's what I meant. There are precedents: the copyrights do expire, classical music, for instance.
The example of the company having endless critical docs in a proprietary format really just says two things: it's a good lesson for a company nowadays to be using an open format, and there's a market for programmers that can reverse-engineer file formats.
Very true. At least all file formats should be documented. But is not only software that matters, but hardware; for instance, the records of old NASA space missions are in magnetic media (tapes?), for which there are [almost] no readers now, or so I heard. Same thing can happen to digital libraries. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDg2zhtTMYHG2NR9URAkwrAJ9mOcfOJsco9oPdrNgxchToR8cfVACaA2We iqoRS4pV95xwqo8I+7nARP0= =YbtM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2005-11-22 at 09:09 -0500, Mark Hounschell wrote:
What usually happens when the GOV purchases proprietary software they deem important is, they insist you place a copy of the source in escrow somewhere so that in the case you cannot or will not support it any longer, they can get to the source and have a right to do so. If you don't agree to the escrow accnt, they do not buy it and go else where for a solution. If they buy it without an escrow agreement they are stuck and shit out of luck should you decide to go away. I'm speeking of the US GOV BTW.
Good method! Sounds logical. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDg2r1tTMYHG2NR9URAgQuAJ9kjKdAoaIyA8j/A9GXHmnPrfRnogCfd8HL aRy7PdKsR8IU9fdo5T2gzSo= =nT8e -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Tuesday 22 November 2005 14:09, Carlos E. R. wrote:
There are precedents: the copyrights do expire, classical music, for instance.
Sorry, I still don't think this applies to source code! You cannot pry source code from a programmer's hand(assuming they own it) in the name of public domain! I don't care how old it is. If it's locked up somewhere, it's private property. Music is a completely different beast - it's not "compiled" - if it's played once in public...then it's out there - anyone with a good ear can copy it. The copyright is designed to protect creative ability and does indeed expire. Again, I'm not counting special cases like national security, etc...we're talking about the right for me to claim that because "wordwrite" was written in 1980, I'm somehow entitled to get the source code. It just doesn't fly, IMHO. I think where this might become more relevant is if someone, out of need, reverse-engineers the format and embeds it in their software, and the original coders decide to sue, despite "wordwrite" having been mothballed years ago. That seems like a more likely exercise of this issue. Cheers, J.C. -- John Coldrick www.axyzfx.com Axyz Animation 416-504-0425 425 Adelaide St W Toronto, ON Canada jc@axyzfx.com M5V 1S4 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better press than people who are just funny and smart. -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2005-11-22 at 14:58 -0500, John Coldrick wrote:
On Tuesday 22 November 2005 14:09, Carlos E. R. wrote:
There are precedents: the copyrights do expire, classical music, for instance.
Sorry, I still don't think this applies to source code! You cannot pry source code from a programmer's hand(assuming they own it) in the name of public domain! I don't care how old it is. If it's locked up somewhere,
I didn't say I can. I said that if the law makers make the appropriate law with the appropriate warranties, then it could be done. It wouldn't matter much the author complaints then. And, if the software is protected by copyright, the copyright has an expiration date. It has happened already with the gif format.
it's private property.
Land is private property, but it can be (and is, in fact) expropriated in my country.
Again, I'm not counting special cases like national security, etc...we're talking about the right for me to claim that because "wordwrite" was written in 1980, I'm somehow entitled to get the source code. It just doesn't fly, IMHO.
I never said "me". Nor a private person, but the society, after proper litigation or whatever the law dictates. That means the government. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDg4LotTMYHG2NR9URAkYwAJ9osQaveZvrwBrBL+5UoUK9yJ9/XgCfTAJX Okbsx4ZCWy9va0rWTKeTP9k= =HcqM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 10:27 -0600, Richard Atcheson wrote:
On Tuesday 22 November 2005 08:06 am, John Coldrick wrote:
AFAIK, you can't currently force an author to make their work public, and should that be true that's all that matters right now.
Did you ever hear of expiration of copyright? Use to be short term now is life of author +70 yrs or so. Created by Congress and can be uncreated if necessary. What the king giveth he can take away anytime he wants.
Problem is the Congress is owned by the big (wealthy) boys so we're screwed!
I was thinking about this yesterday. It seems equitable that if a company folds, that after a given time (say two years) that it's intellectual property isn't purchased and maintained, that said property would revert to the public domain, which would allow those using the software to benefit, and those supporting the software to benefit.
participants (24)
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Albert
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Aschwin Marsman
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Bruce Marshall
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Carl William Spitzer IV
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Carlos E. R.
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Clayton
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Geza Giedke
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James Knott
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Jerry Feldman
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Jerry Westrick
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John Coldrick
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Jos van Kan
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Jose Thadeu Cavalcante
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Kevanf1
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Mark Hounschell
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Marshall Lake
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Mike McMullin
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Nick Zentena
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Paul W. Abrahams
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Per Jessen
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Randall R Schulz
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Richard Atcheson
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Steven T. Hatton
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Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk