Verily I say unto thee, that chrisv spake thusly:
> OK, let's agree that it is a philosophical/moral victory of sorts.
> But what of the drawbacks? Less OSS code is written.
I don't see any reason why that would happen. Indeed, with companies
like Tivo restricting development with unmodifiable software, I'd say
*their* actions result in less OSS code written.
What little Tivo may have contributed to /our/ Free Software (if
anything), is largely negated by the way in which they implemented it.
> Companies are chased into the arms of "the enemy", who profits from
> the idealist's intractability.
Let them.
The sort of companies that would demand restrictions on Free Software,
are more than welcome to do so, and good riddance.
I don't see this as a "competition". The "enemy" is only such if they
sabotage Free Software and its associated community. They are not the
enemy simply because they have a greater market share (monopolies
aside), or make bigger profits. That's the kind of thinking expounded by
the likes of Microsoft, thus motivating them to behave so aggressively.
Like I've said before, if I was the only person in the world using Free
Software, I'd still use it regardless. Market share is irrelevant. I
simply do not care about domination, or even popularity. The only thing
that matters is freedom, which is after all the entire raison d'être for
Free Software.
Certainly I'd like to see Microsoft's monopoly broken, but not if that
means compromising the very thing I am trying to promote and defend. To
do so would be to become just like that "enemy". I'd sooner that
Microsoft won, than compromise my principles. What would be the point of
Free Software having a bigger market share, if it was no longer Free?
> To me, it's not clear that it's a net gain for OSS or the world.
That depends on how you measure "gain".
Will rigorously defending the principles of Free Software dissuade
certain types of companies from using and developing it? Yes,
undoubtedly. Good.
Will this mean that GNU/Linux continues to have a small market share? In
the short-term, probably. In the long term, I'm not so sure. Certainly
there seems to be a surprising degree of Linux adoption in the industry
ATM, despite Free Software's "handicap". Take Asus embedding Linux into
their motherboards, or the Eee PC, for example, both of which will run
modified code without restrictions. Obviously not all companies are as
suspicious and contemptible of Free Software as Tivo.
As for "volume of software", well I doubt very much if I will ever use
even a fraction of the 20,000 or so packages currently available in the
Fedora repos, so I don't think I have much to worry about.
Certainly, much of the funding for software projects comes from
companies, and you may be concerned that if Free Software does not tempt
companies like Tivo with compromises on freedom, then those companies
will not offer or maintain funding. Again, I say good riddance. There
are plenty of others out there who will fill the void, without making
unreasonable demands. I'd sooner that Free Software had no funding at
*all*, than be financially obligated towards those who wish to pervert
it for their own selfish purposes.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "[Microsoft] are willing to lose money for years and years just to
| make sure that you don't make any money, either." - Bob Cringely.
| - http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2007/07/cringely-the-un.html
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Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.23.8-63.fc8
18:40:59 up 35 days, 16:16, 3 users, load average: 0.07, 0.07, 0.07
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