[maemo-developers] Open Source Software New Global Alliance - proposal

[From: ed at okerson.com]

Darius,

You seem to have missed the whole point of the Open Source Software
movement.  Many people, myself included, have been working for years to
promote the use of "Free Software", and that means Free as in Speach, as
well as Free as in Beer.  What that means is that after the software is
published, other people are free to use it how they see fit, that includes
making products around it and making money from it.  When you buy a
Tom-Tom GPS unit, you are paying for their GPS and mapping software,
integrated into a nice hardware unit, not just the Linux operating system
that is on it.  It is perfectly legal if they want to have some kind of
hardware lock to prevent people from copying their application onto
another device, as their application is not free.  The other thing you
don't seem to consider is where most of this "Free" software comes from,
it comes largely from companies like Nokia, IBM, Novell, Google, who
employ the developers that write the "Free" software, so in large part it
is "Free" to everyone else because those companies already paid someone to
write it.  Now there are also some developers who work on this stuff in
their spare time, but it is because they want to, and they make it "Free"
because they want to, largely for bragging rights, not because they expect
some "Global Alliance" to pop up and pay them for it.  If some "Global
Alliance" were to start sueing companies to make them start paying every
open source developer that worked on the Linux kernel, embedded Linux
products would quickly disappear from the marketplace to be replaced by
WindowsCE, and VxWorks products, as it would be cheaper and easier to pay
the licensing fees for those commercial operating systems than to wade
through the thousands of people who worked on Linux.  Do yourself and us a
favor, and go read The Cathedral and Bazaar by Eric Raymond, if you don't
want to buy the book, you can read it online here in several different
languages:

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/

It explains in excrcuating detail the reasons and economics involved in
Open Source Software.  After reading this, you should understand that
having Linux and other Open Source software packages in as many diverse
devices as possible is "A Good Thing"(tm).  The alternative is going back
to the completely closed world as it was before Linux, and much less open
software for everyone.

Ed Okerson



> Hi,one way is to protect developers and their open
> source software products,another is to provide FSF with extra
> financing from embedded hardware manufactures, incorporating Linux based
> software solutions.  In each case there is a need for calculations,
> assessment of open source software development costs, charges, fees,
> basing on some real life examples.  For TomTom and others, once
> developed Linux applications can generate millions, duplicated with each
> car navigation device sold.  Others, like Approsoftware.com, sell
> open source Linux based software as a commercial product bundled with
> hardware lock key.  One way to go is to ask developers and discover,
> how much money they expect to get, if any, from manufacturers of
> embedded hardware devices, appliances.  Linux Thorvald is the right
> person to speak to and ask for proposals and
>  solutions.Linux based open source applications wre ok for open
> hardware PC computers. Today any laptop/palmtop can run hardware
> locked Linux based open source applications, sold as a commercial
> product. It's up to developers of any such application in
> development tree to request or not some form of gratification for
> his/her job/work and input in the final product. In intellectual
> property transfer business, one good idea gets patented and earns a lot
> of money and the alike idea is published for free on the net at the same
> time and generates no profit to its author at all. As any part of
> source code has its author, unfortunately no signature affixed in text
> file form I have setup Open Source Software - Google
> group http://groups.google.com/group/opensource2 authors,
> developers of open source code, applications, can post their
> respective<br>input in development of the Linux based open source
>  code, applications, claiming their rights to be covered by the New
> Global Alliance, given signed one day. New Global Alliance in Open
> Source Software, representing developers, coders on one
> side, manufacturers of Linux based hardware embedded devices,
> appliances, systems and FSF, Linus and others volunteering their work,
> time any such Open Source Software New Global Alliance to be
> concluded. It is not good to have open source applications,
> developments offered for free to download and at the same time offered
> as a commercial product at a "reasonable fee". It's a good
> business idea to have free workers in IT business to work for free but it
> is not fair to offer their product for fee , as a commercial
> product. Linux based open source software has a status of
> community effort, work and there is no need to let few make really big
> money, basing on work donated by the community for the community for
>  free. Darius