When Free Software Depends on Nonfree
gnu.org
gnu.org
Although we do sell a service to help companies upgrade, there is also an open source tool by the Odoo Community Association to upgrade OpenERP: OpenUpgrade. [1] There is not a single dependency in OpenERP/Odoo against proprietary software or services. We have always fought about any kind of lock-in.
Can you fix your post? it's probably not the intention of gnu.org to make FUD against others open source project.
I guess you have been misinformed by Luis since he has done a lot of misinformation when he decided to fork to promote his project.
Having said that, you should have a look at what we do. We replace thousands of proprietary management software by Odoo, converting whole governments [2], SMEs and big companies as well as NGOs. (60% of the top 10 NGOs are run by Odoo: doctors without borders, red cross, ...)
[1] https://doc.therp.nl/openupgrade/ [2] https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/portugals-an...
I expect rms is gonna say something about being told about "open source", heh.
> There is not a single dependency in OpenERP/Odoo against proprietary software or services.
So, do your servers just run OpenUpgrade? Are you basically just helping others with the overhead of running OpenUpgrade? Or do you have secret sauce that works stronger, faster, higher than OpenUpgrade?
http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/5-things-we-have-forgot...
For the most part, it worked. Almost nobody talks about free software, which is what open source was supposed to refer to.
False, I suggest you read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.e...
The two terms describe almost the same category of
software, but they stand for views based on
fundamentally different values.
“Free software.” “Open source.” If it's the same
software (or nearly so), does it matter which name you
use?
If you use "different arguments" than freedom to argue about software freedom, then it's no longer the same movement. The free software movement has always been about ethics. The open source movement has no ethical backing, it values code quality over ethical treatment of users (which is why people talk about "open source DRM implementations" -- since DRM is meant to subjugate users, it cannot be free software. But it can be "open source").
The DRM point you make is nuanced. There can be free DRM implementations -- it would just mean that users could modify the software to remove the DRM. If the DRM is implemented in hardware, like tivoisation, then it is indeed no longer free. I think open source advocates, if they still exist (the open source movement seems dormant because it has "won"), might consider that to be open source. Stallman certainly thinks they would:
However: the GPL2 says that you can impose no restrictions on what what people can implement with free software so long as they it is only redistributed as free software, so it seems to me that while DRM'ed software is not free, DRM software itself could be free. Hey, if a DRM scheme could be designed to ensure software freedom, it might even be embraced; we already have GPL clickwrap license clicks which a narrow reading of the GPL might suggest you can't have (it's an "additional restriction" that the original software you licensed may not have had; for instance, if clickwraps are covered by law that the GPL is not covered by, you are forcing additional terms)
I know that the GPL3 had some fine tuning with regard to TiVoization and web servers, but I'm not aware that it would bar DRM software itself; but perhaps.
OK, I found it here for GPL3. You are partially correct that the GPL3 contains some anti-DRM measures but not in the sense you describe:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.en.html "It's always possible to use GPLed code to write software that implements DRM. However, if someone does that with code protected by GPLv3, section 3 says that the system will not count as an effective technological "protection" measure. This means that if you break the DRM, you'll be free to distribute your own software that does that, and you won't be threatened by the DMCA or similar laws."
I thought one aspect of the GPL (copyleft being a clever copyright hack) is that the license applies only to the code you are licensing, and not to other copyrighted works you may have authored, but in a certain sense it does. I'm sure RMS and Moglen and FSF have thought harder about this than I have, so it's quite likely I'm missing something; however they do have broader agendas as well.
So, practically speaking, you can't have free DRM software. But you can have "open source" DRM software, because there's no part of the OSI that classifies software that acts like such a trap as being immoral. The GPLv3 essentially ensures that a user is not threatened by legal threats about breaking DRM in a piece of free software. It's the only software license that ensures this AFAIK, so I'm a bit sad more people don't use it for firmware and other places where defence against tivoisation matters.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#Non-Copylefted...
"Odoo 8 is released under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License (also known as AGPLv3)."
"Odoo 9 Community Edition is licensed under the LGPL version 3 (also known as LGPLv3)."
"Odoo 9 Enterprise Edition is licensed under the Odoo Enterprise Edition License v1.0, defined as follows: (...) can only be used ... with a valid Odoo Enterprise subscription ... You may develop Odoo modules based on the Software and distribute them under the license of your choice, provided that it is compatible with the terms of the Odoo Enterprise Edition License (For example: LGPL, MIT, or proprietary licenses similar to this one)."
"Required" is a big overstatement. OpenERP (now Odoo) is FOSS, and uses a standard Postgres database. The thing is that Odoo didn't release the migration scripts when a new version was released, but you weren't required to use their service; OpenUpgrade[1], a community project for implementing these scripts, is proof of that - we've successfully used it to migrate all our clients from version 6.1 to 7 to 8.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Odoo S.A., but I do work for a company that sells services based on the software.
We grew up to 300 employees with this model but reached the limit of the model. (most companies don't want to pay for bugfixes and prefer to buy upgrades later) Now, we rely on 3 different offers: https://odoo.com/pricing
Since we switched to the new open core model, everything is simpler. Revenues grew a lot (monthly MRR growth is 242% higher than before) and we can invest more in the development of the open source product. Relationship with partners is easier too.
Disclaimer: I am the founder/CEO of Odoo.
Why do you need to grow more? 300 sounds like a very big company already.
Our promise is to cover all enterprise needs in a single software, while being super easy to use. It's something nobody succeeded for now on. On the market, you have two types of players: ERP (SAP, Oracle, MS. Dynamics) who deliver a huge business benefit but a poor usability (expensive and inefficient) and one-app vendors (trello, slack, mailchimp) who have a great usability but a low business value. The first category has a huge revenue per customer, and the second category can attract a lot of customers.
We think we can crack that, and offer the best of the two worlds: all business needs, fully integrated, with a top notch usability. We are in a very good position to do it, and be the first to do it. [1] (and every competitors try to do that but they are far from succeeding)
To succeed, we need serious investments in the product and the service offer. We don't need to be very big (e.g. 10.000 people), but 300 is too small for what we do.
tl;dr we want to fix a huge problem and to do it, we need resources.
[1] https://odoocdn.com/openerp_website/static/src/img/2016/home...
At the same time, I am unapologetic for classifying pinky07's language as marketing. Evidence of marketing-speak is in "open source" instead of "free software", "open core" instead of "proprietary extensions" and other things such as "top notch usability", "best of both worlds".
I like it!
After all, your copy of Windows never forced deprecation of API functionality you wanted to use.
Now that the Xamarin SDK is open-source[1] it looks like it's moving towards being freed, which I think is a good thing. That said, I'm not sure the IDE is available on Linux yet, so I guess it's still relying on non-free software.
[0] https://keepass2android.codeplex.com/
[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/xamari...
If you want to stick with 'N', you can. And you can fix it to suit your needs. If you want to convert your database, there are no barriers in your way -- and you can distribute your results. Or maybe you want N+1 to work with the old format -- either way, nothing's stopping you.
If you're not categorically against proprietary software, the converter may be a really good purchase; better than any of the above options. But you're not 'trapped' into buying it -- no more so than, say, GIMP 'traps' you into using photoshop by lacking non-destructive editing features.
The fact that the situation would be kind of lame is because for almost everyone, in practice, It's vastly more useful for your software to be actively maintained than it is for it to be 'open' -- and the developers abandon 'n' when they move on.
Note: while our software is FOSS, we don't publicly publish all of it, though our clients are free to do so.
That sounds like what I used to do with my trade secrets that I semi-publish. Enough detail out that hardworking specialists can build it. I'm curious what you mean by it though. Ive considered a model that sounds similar as I figured companies would be incentivized to keep paying anyway so updates/support have steady quality. Was worried about cloning, though.
It has absolutely nothing to do with corpo-cracy. Since it is a maxim that anyone who writes software can decide to publish it, at the individual level, this is as equally applicable to any corporation as it is on the individual level. However, I would say there are far, far more individual authors of free software out there, than corporate.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not nearly as fanatic about this as Stallman and I'm fine using GitHub for everything, but it is a non-free dependency for every single project hosted on it.
An extremely brief glance at your source shows that you're loading 3rd party javascript from two different hosts, one being Google.
Are you sure you know what you're doing?
If you'll notice, our website does not use broken encryption (because SSL delivered by OpenSSL is a joke anyway). And we currently require you to install Tor Browser in order to have dependable encryption before purchasing.
Either way, thanks for looking at our website!
When you connect to the domain with torbrowser, the server detects your IP, then redirects to the appropriate .onion site if coming from an exit node. In order to be MITM'd, you'd have to either be using a Tor exit node that was compromised, or my server would have to be completely compromised beforehand.
neither of these seem like likely scenarios, so I'm curious as to what you see that I don't.
However, that's not too much an issue. we don't offer binaries (outside of two pdf files that may have a jpg embedded), and nothing on our Onion site requires a download. The most they could really do is make someone give bitcoins to the wrong wallet. That's a pretty easy customer service issue to solve ("We are not responsible for bitcoins sent to wrong wallets").
I guess I'm not seeing the vulnerability here.
If GCC was the only C compiler in the world, my Apache licensed (or hell, public domain) C project wouldn't really be "trapped" by GCC being GPL licensed, because that license allows me and my users unfettered access to GCC whenever we want, so there's no one who can't access compilation of my project, now or ever.
ADDED: This same problem originates from close-source software, so GPL is another extreme I don't like. People from both sides still continue to develop great softwares, but what about MIT/Apache/BSD/...-licensed softwares? I choose the golden mean. I don't mean GPL is a bad thing, I just don't want to blindly support it. Times are changing.
Also, choosing MIT because "it's the middle ground" is a middle of the road fallacy. The GPL ensures users will always have freedom when using the software. Lax licenses provides no such assurance and proprietary software obviously doesn't provide anyone freedom.
The purpose of the GPL is to halt malicious companies from using free software to mistreat users. The middle ground isn't better in this case.
I know the pattent laws in the past were somewhat ridiculous compared to what they are today (though still ridiculous sometimes), so GPL was/is really great then, just like the Creative Commons licenses.
As for "the idea behind the source". Feel free to take the "idea behind the source" of FFmpeg or VLC or Linux. The point is that you can't make changes to the free software and then take away your users freedom. As for "but I'm a poor developer, etc" then you have two choices:
1. Use the GPL code and comply with the GPL. This is actually a good thing if you care about your users' freedom.
2. Don't use the GPL code.
Simple as that. There is no third "but I want to use the GPL without complying" option.
Still, you cannot exactly explain what the freedom is. Proprietary softwares can copy the ideas without contributing back. I know manpower is important, so another great softwares similar to FFmpeg/VLC/Linux with MIT/BSD/... licenses won't appear very soon.
If your freedom just means
1. Hey, just look at our GPL-licensed softwares, you propietary softwares can't use our code directly without any contribution.
2. Everyone should sell services, not code, for a more open world.
then I've already understood. And I don't believe GPL can do much better than MIT/...
0. The ability to run the program as you wish.
1. The ability to modify the program and run the modified program. This requires source code.
2. The freedom to distribute exact copies of the software and source code.
3. The freedom to distribute modified copies of the software and source code.
The GPL ensures that those freedoms are upheld for any single body of work or any works derived from that work. If someone decides to completely replace your software with an alternative, that's fine. But if it's not worth their time (hint: it usually isn't) they'll begrudgingly grant their users the freedom that you wanted them to have in the first place.
The GPL does do much better than lax licenses like the MIT at both points. With an MIT license, it doesn't take any effort to make the code proprietary and thus violate both of the points you made.
So what? Proprietary softwares have said similar words enough.
> The GPL ensures that those freedoms are upheld for any single body of work or any works derived from that work.
Okay, this is the only big difference, the "virus". I can use MIT to fight GPL.
> With an MIT license, it doesn't take any effort to make the code proprietary and thus violate both of the points you made.
My two points above are mainly for GPL. For MIT, that will be:
1. Our open-source softwares are used by more and more people, welcome to contribute if you don't want to see our softwares running everywhere with bugs in your operating system.
2. Our open-source softwares are great and free of charge.
3. Welcome to use our code for your proprietary softwares, dude. There are more and more open-source developers waiting for you.
Has he written any code in the last decade, or is he still going around giving the same tired speeches over and over?
Do his anachronistic computing habits contribute to his continued irrelevance?
Ubiquitous broadband connectivity has changed the world and it seems RMS is still living in the past. I hate SaaS models just as much as the next user, but I am also a realist. There's just no reason for corporations to take RMS's "ethical" route when the profits lie squarely in the other direction. Lofty academic ideals don't buy your family groceries.
I agree he's a bit too extreme; I recall a video where he told a proprietary software developer that between continuing to do his job and letting his children starve, he should do the latter.
But there does have to be someone advocating for this, because free software is in general a social good and is unarguably indispensable in our industry. It's not impossible to make money off it either; look at Red Hat and Canonical, for example. But I'd never argue that all software has to be free or that everyone should do it.
I'd like to know the context, because that sounds like a "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" situation. It's a common trolling/derailing technique: you make a general point, and people reply with these very specific and extreme situations that "disprove" it.
I'd never argue that all software has to be free or that everyone should do it.
Why not?
Agreed. The situation where you have to do an ultra-specific job or starve from lack of employment doesn't really exist. Jobs manage to appear and disappear over time without a death toll of millions.
> Why not?
Because not all useful types of software have volunteers willing and able to write them or business models that sustain them. Expecting all software to be free is unrealistic.
While I agree that we're not going to see companies mass-adopt free software as long as there is no legal or economic reason for them to do so, I don't see how randomly insulting one guy has anything to do with the movement.
Apart from inventing your world, RMS also has the absolutely unforgivable habit of being right about things. This is what really pisses people off about him. (see also: Theo deRaadt)
You mean how he invented democracy, electricity, the internet, the worldwide web, air travel, artificial satellites, and cars?
Oh wait, he invented none of those things.
I'd say his greatest achievement is GCC, which is a pretty awesome piece of software, but to claim he invented anyone's world is laughable.
emacs, GCC, gdb, earlier GNU software were written by RMS.
He gave meaning to the term free software and propagated use of free software and free hardware. His ideas on using non-free Java, Flash, TiVo and DRM put those issues on centerstage.
If we see GPL being used so widely his dedication cannot be ignored at all.
Just like Steve Jobs didn't write all code of Apple or Next (FYI: He wrote none) but still he is "creator" it current Apple, similarly RMS is a chief figure of free and copyleft software.