[Sussex] Distros

[Steve Dobson]

Hi Chris

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 11:38:05AM +0100, Chris Jones wrote:
> On Mon, 4 April, 2005 10:45, Steve Dobson said:
> > As the proof I give you the Linux kernel.  It now includes JFS, ReiserFS
> 
> I'm not really sure that one kernel is an especially good proof of the GPL
> being the answer for business.

Perhaps "example" would have been a better word than "proof".  But it must
be good for business general that three competing products are now available
(at no cost) on one platform - this was not true in the commercial Unix days.
 
> > propriety.  Would IBM, Hans Reiser and SGI have been willing to donate
> > code to Linux if Linux was released under the BSD license?  I would
> > suggest they would not.
> 
> Perhaps not, but it's very hard to predict such things and it's also hard
> to say that someone else wouldn't have come along and written just as good
> a filesystem and not had a trendy name. It's not like the BSDs are
> languishing with really awful filesystems.

But ext3 was being written when all these three were ported to Linux.  Why?
In the case of IBM I think the answer is clear.  IBM's business is focused 
on support not product.  Sure IBM will sell you hardware and software 
but the real money is to be made in support.  IBM appears to be releasing
more and more software applications as the days go by.
 
> kernels and operating systems aren't all that interesting anyway, the case
> for open source and free software has been made there pretty well now.
> What's far more important is applications. If the Free/Open systems don't
> build up a good stack of applications then we are going to be swamped by
> ISVs writing closed, commercial software as the systems get more popular.
> To some extent this is already happening, but it will only get worse. That
> to me is far more important than another bloody filesystem going into the
> kernel ;)

Granted, but kernels happen to be one of the things I'm interested in so I
know the examples best there.
 
> > change the name and sell it as a commercial product.  Under such a license
> > why should any company give away their own technologies?
> 
> It would depend on the situation, but it does happen. If you were talking
> to a Microsoft sales rep they'd probably be asking you why on earth a
> company should surrender their IP to the GPL license ;)

And I would have an answer for them:  Look at MySQL, their model is in
support and they have an army of un-paid developers testing and improving
the software for them.
 
> > For companies like IBM the GPL is an attractive license.
> 
> I think you'll find that the vast majority of software IBM publishes to
> run on free/open systems is not GPL licensed, indeed a very serious amount
> of it is entirely closed and commercial. This would be because their main
> push is in porting their middleware.

But IBM is releasing more and more of their software (at all levels) under
the GPL.
 
> > shared.  I can share IBM's technology with my clients, and if I need to
> 
> No you can't, you can take a few things they've submitted to the kernel
> and share them. I'd be surprised if you even get source for WebSphere and
> you certainly won't be able to share it.

Well I did mean only the stuff that IBM has released under the GPL or another
F/OSS license.
 
> > The GPL forces everyone to play fair, OpenSource License do not.  We only
> 
> That's lumping a lot of licenses together into one pretty bold statement,
> I am not familiar enough with the bulk of them to comment.

Yes, that was a bit of a general statement, but I still stand by it as being
the general case.
 
> > Thanks, in no small way to the GPL, IBM has managed to destroy most of
> > SCO's case against them.
> 
> SCO destroyed their own case by bringing a really stupid case ;)
 
No!  SCO's case is really stupid I grant you, but it was IBM's lawyers
that had to destroy it.  This is not the first stupid case to be filed, 
but they do appear to be persisting beyond reason.

> > I disagree.  By allowing SWpats or any other form software IP allows IT
> 
> I do find software patents quite worrying, but even if they are
> introduced, they will be so ultimately self-defeating that they will have
> to be repealed. Five years after their introduction the entire software
> industry will be paralysed by huge amounts of due dilligence and
> cross-licensing ;)

I don't quite share you optimism.
 
> > players to build vendor lockin.  RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, ... all
> > have patches that they apply to the Linux kernel.  Their clients
> > are depenant on those patches.  If
> 
> Why does software patents existing mean RedHat customers are more or less
> locked in? It would only mean anything if RedHat started patenting things
> and since they release pretty much all of their software under the GPL
> they would have some problems patenting it ;)

Yes, that was my point.  If Linux was not GPLed (say BSDed instead) and
RedHat's patches were not released back to the community (which the BSD
license doesn't dictate) then RedHat uses would be locked into RedHat's
version of the kernel.

I which to make it clear that I don't think RedHat is not playing by the
rules, far from it.  But as the biggest commercial Linux distributer in the
UK I just picked them for my example.
 
> > The "moral purity" of the GPL forces share and share-a-like.  A Linux user
> 
> That does not make it the tool for all situations though.

And where did I say that it was *THE ONLY* solution?  I remember saying it
was a good solution, even a better solution, but not the only one.

>                                                            The GPL does
> happen to be my preferred license of choice for my own work, but I also
> use these things in a business context and there I am compelled by the
> result, not the means, so I would go for a less pure license if it worked
> better, just as I'd license WebSphere if it was applicable to the task in
> hand. As much as I'd like to grow a long beard and refuse to do that from
> my high horse, I live in the real world where that isn't possible. That is
> what I was getting at originally.

But how much pain are you prepared to suffer that switching to F/OSS for
the benefits F/OSS bring?  The more software is bought the longer the 
ISVs can make money out of selling software rather than supporting it.

Of course buying software may be the better route for your company.  ROI,
time to market, engineering costs all have their place to play on the
profitability of a company, and each company will have a different yard
stick to measure these costs against.  But have you ever asked yourself:
What features of WebSphere do a really need that are missing from the
F/OSS equivalents, and what would it cost me to add those features and
switch?

> I still value the FSF as something of a lighthouse in the sea of morality
> though ;)

Good, on that we agree :-)

Steve