But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils and govn't, distorting the job market. This is a less harmful Microsoft than it was 5-10-20 years ago.
Or the era of "Linux is a cancer"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_c...
Most Microsoft shops in my area are now at least 25% Linux these days on Azure.
People confuse Steve Ballmer with present Microsoft. They don't do the patent wars anymore.
Nor the stealing of Google's search results.
I'm not ready to bless Microsoft yet.
I still don't trust Sony after the RootKit fiasco, and it might be another decade before I do. Or Sprint after the IQ agent keylogger.
There are simply too many other companies with similar products to ms, sony or sprint that have no public dishonesty on their record. I can just use someone else's product until they have been good corporate citizens long enough that I have forgotten.
Basically there are filesystems out there that are superior to FAT and not encumbered by patents, but device makers are forced to use FAT because of interoperability reasons.
This goes to show that the innovation argument is bullshit.
Does it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/License_compatibility
Note that more permissive licenses (MIT/BSD) allow more freedom for the developer.
The GPL increases the user's freedom by forcing developers to contribute back, ie limiting the developer's freedom (to close code down).
Likewise, BSD and MIT type licences increase developer freedom at the cost of end users.
You have got to keep these two roles clearly separated when thinking about licences, even though in lots of cases the actual users will be developers (but of other products).
If you do, there's nothing controversial about that statement.
That begs the question of whether or not one has the right to limit one's users' freedom to use, modify & share code. I don't think that one does.
> Likewise, BSD and MIT type licences increase developer freedom at the cost of end users.
They certainly increase developer power, but power is not freedom; might does not make right.
You're not refuting anything I say, but instead debating the morality around different licence models. And that's clearly a different and subjective argument.
No, it doesn't. The GPL reduces the probability of the user being offered a non-Free derivative in addition to the original Free software and any Free derivatives, but does not increase the user's freedom.
Even with a more permissive license (MIT/BSD) the developer as a user never has the freedom to close down the original source code. Integrating that code into a proprietary offering does not close down the original code base. If there was only one copy of the code, then yes, integrating into proprietary software would close down that code. The original code can be copied indefinitely.
There is certainly a tradeoff. I prefer BSD/MIT to give developers the same freedom as users to use the software as they wish. If I was going to try to make money off the miscellaneous tools I open source I would prefer one that limits unfair competition (coopt and close). At the very least one that requires improvements to the direct code base to be given back (those licenses exist without full copyleft). That said, my go-to is MIT.
I also like license clauses that prevent use in a patented product. That way, regardless of how the code is used (even proprietary) the functionality can be reverse engineered and offered as a free product. Edit: Although embrace, extend, extinguish can be very effective with protocols because of the difficulty of reverse engineering edge cases.
You're trying to make it complex, but this is really simple.
GPL maximises end user freedom. BSD/MIT maximises developer freedom.
By conflating the two terms ("developer as a user") you are trying to make it seem like you can have it both ways at the same time.
But obviously and rationally there's no way for that to be possible.
When you as a user of product A decides to use your freedom and take that code to create product B, you become the developer of that product.
If product A was GPL licenced, you would be forced to provide your users with the same freedom you were granted. End user freedom preserved.
If it was MIT/BSD licenced, you as a developer could make your product closed source, and as a developer be free to take away freedoms from your end users.
Both are fine options, depending on your point of view. I'm not rating one against the other.
I just don't see how understanding these simple differences can at all be difficult.
Ballmer wasn't stupid he could have been nuanced and precise if he wanted, he certainly knew the difference between a kernel and a license. He wanted to convince people to not use a given technology stack because he was invested in another. If that is not convincing enough at the time there was already a more accurate but still negative sounding phrase "The GPL is Viral", but that wasn't offensive enough and didn't attack the perceived enemy OS.
And it's an invaluable tool. For the indie dev that can't hire a team of lawyers copyleft can be a powerful legal strategy as relates to their IP. It has built entire communities.
IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think?
>This is a less harmful Microsoft than it was 5-10-20 years ago.
The key to that is Microsoft being far less powerful than it was 5-10 years ago. Where MS can throw it's weight around, it still does.
The aftermath of the DOJ case is probably as much as responsible for that as the competition which ended up marginalizing them.
They still do this in France and they are being sued for this. Actually this is in today's French headlines.
I wasn't aware of this. At least the IT textbooks in my home country write about “text processor” and “spreadsheet tool” and not explicitly MS Word or Excel. The programming classes don't require MS Visual Studio project files to be submitted either.
In 2008 Hungary paid $162M for the “Clean Software Programme” for 3 years. In 2011 it became $54M for an other 3 years, in 2014 it was reduced to $2.8M. I don't hear stories any more about their legal bullying team called BSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance) which with members of the local police they appeared time to time at business offices asking the for proof of purchase. Even they had no search warrant, they used a psychological terror with the presence of the police to threaten the businesses.
This is one of their ads from the past http://img.index.hu/cikkepek/0101/tech/bsaplakat2.jpg It says: “Don't use illegal software! _Users_ of illegal software can sentenced to 2-5 years. _Have you been inspected today?_