Dev Notes

I have a couple comments:

First, RMS is widely known for his highly agressive stance on open source and software rights. He has a belief and he stands by it with strong conviction.

Microsoft has a similar tradition stretching back almost as long as Stallman's, albeit to different ends. Quoting Bill Gates, "As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?"

Second, your quote is pretty selective as you stopped quoting just before this passage: "By the way, Microsoft is deceiving people when they say this is an 'open standard', since in the US they are trying to patent some aspects of it. It could be useful to bring that up and expose it."

Submitting something to open standards bodies and then filing for patents on it seems like a "childish and shocking" misuse of the open standards process.

"And when it comes to the point of pricing...how free is linux?"

That's just it... it's not about pricing. It's about freedom. Quoting from the FSF web site:

``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.''

"Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. ""

The core of the movement isn't about the cost of the software, it's about what people can and can't do with it. Lowering TCO is another issue altogether, although there are compelling arguments that freedom begets efficiency. After all, isn't that what ___free___ market capitalism is all about?

"well you might want to read this case study/Report, if you are not treating Forrester as a liar."

Not as a liar, but as a single, possibly biased presentation and interpretation of facts.

mschaef, whoever you are -
http://pensieve.thinkingms.com/CommentView,guid,1eab0c67-3e2a-427e-936c-1b03da573160.aspx

check this one

http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2004-
October/002477.html

-------
And how do you think .Net is different from Java in this regard?

- Both are backed by software giants
- Both companies have traditionally been fiercely proprietary
- Both of them offer a new language/platform.
- While C# is now an ECMA standard, Java is still architected by Sun's
engineers (even though Sun can claim that they have a "community" process
for extending the language/specs)
- Both have patents of various aspects of the implementation.
- Both have proprietary implementations in the market.
- Both have evangelists eager to win converts to the new platform.
- Both the corporations are profit driven.

Yet, since the days Java came into the market, there has been an explosion
in FOSS software. We have several Java implementations now(including
various GNU ones), and none to my knowledge was started off to defeat
someone, but rather to provide an alternative.

Then why jump upon .Net just because it is offered from a particular
company? Let them be misled into thinking they can infect the FOSS
movement, while let us keep doing the reverse. ;)

BTW, the heydays of software products is over. Prepare yourself for the
next generation - services[1]. In the future, it wont matter to consumers
which OS/language/platform they use - the service will be God. In that
point of view, Mono(and especially Mono ASP.Net)/dotGNU is going to be
critical. So call them enhancing a dirty venture, if you will. But just
like Apache has taken over the backend web server market, you will find
Linux/Mono/dotGNU taking over the currently booming market of ASP.Net
applications.

As somebody had once said something similar - "The dirty plan being
defeated will be entirely a side effect". :)

Roshan,

" the FSF is a political agitation/movement more than anything about technology or software. "

Of course it is. The FSF is entirely about property rights in a specific domain.

Other than that, the patent related statements are interesting (particularly the RAND stuff). Ut brings to mind a few questions:

*) Who enforces that Microsoft will license the patents on a RAND basis?
*) Why did Microsoft file for the patents if there's no intent to enforce them? (This implies that they believe they didn't sign away all their rights with the RAND bit.)
*) What's the definition of Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory?
*) What other implementations (Mono?) have patent licenses _now_, with legal contracts with Microsoft to back them up? Do these license agreements expire?
*) Given that future work on the language isn't necessarily standardized, future technologies aren't necessarily protected by the RAND clause of the ECMA agreement. Why should other implementations of .Net have any confidence that they'll be able to avoid patent issues if they follow the evolution Microsoft's de-facto standard?

These are the issues that licenses like the GPL try to avoid.

"Learn the goods and bads of every system – but more fundamentally try to learn about as much as you can about the art of computer science – that is so rare and there seem to be so many fewer people who know about it."

The debate isn't technical. The technical community does a good job commoditizing and reinventing technology over and over again. The debate is really about how we govern technology.

"And how do you think .Net is different from Java in this regard? "

I don't.



"BTW, the heydays of software products is over. Prepare yourself for the next generation - services[1]. In the future, it wont matter to consumers which OS/language/platform they use - the service will be God. "

Which is exactly why choice in software is all the more important. I'd rather pick the best platform on which to deploy and develop my service than have it chosen for me by a vendor on which I'm too dependant to economically break free.

"Personally, I have an objection to being called unethical."

I would too...

More info here...

http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2004-November/002490.html

Hello!!! weblogs.asp.net is one of the most outstanding resourceful websites of its kind. I enjoy reading it every day. I will be back.

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