Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 27, 2006 06:38 PM
Get your facts right about Thomas J. Watson... The punch-card system the 'germans' leased came from Dehomag, a German(!!) sub-company of IBM, but at that point, there was no war, and there was still no sign of plans for the exterminations of some minorities & Jews. These things were only revealed at the end of - and after the war...
Yes, Watson received a Eagle with Star medal from Hitler BEFORE the war, but that was before the war. At that point, nobody could have predicted what horrible things would be done in the upcoming war. Watson returned the medal to Hitler in 1940 because he didn't like the Nazi policies. The Dehomag company was taken over by the germans when WW2 started.
Also, IBM & a competitive price? Quality - sure, but IBM's price-settings usually were high enough<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:) Also, competitive against who? Can you name a lot of big companies back-then that provided these systems?
That said, I feel like if I'd be using the GPLv3 for software I write, I would as a developer, feel limited and actually feel like MY rights AS A DEVELOPER are violated. A licence should not tell what software itself can and cannot do, and interfere as little as possible with what it could be used for. That's the main difference between Open Source and Free Software. Open Source is by developers for developers. Free software is by developers for 'users'.
I personally feel that 'Free Software' is not bad on it's own, I just feel that the advocates of it should not interfere with other ppl's opinions. I have the feeling that they're on a crusade to conquer the world with Free Software, and that everybody has to release his software under GPL or otherwise, he's evil. This feels like extremism to me, and any form of extremism is BAD imho. I mostly follow Torvald's arguments in such clashes, and they're usually very predictable, because he is more open-minded than the Free-Software ppl. Torvalds is not an idiot, and I've actually never heard him say stupid things, something I can't say of certain 'front-line' ppl of the Free Software movement...
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Re:Open Source vs Free Software
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 27, 2006 06:38 PMYes, Watson received a Eagle with Star medal from Hitler BEFORE the war, but that was before the war. At that point, nobody could have predicted what horrible things would be done in the upcoming war. Watson returned the medal to Hitler in 1940 because he didn't like the Nazi policies. The Dehomag company was taken over by the germans when WW2 started.
Also, IBM & a competitive price? Quality - sure, but IBM's price-settings usually were high enough<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:) Also, competitive against who? Can you name a lot of big companies back-then that provided these systems?
That said, I feel like if I'd be using the GPLv3 for software I write, I would as a developer, feel limited and actually feel like MY rights AS A DEVELOPER are violated. A licence should not tell what software itself can and cannot do, and interfere as little as possible with what it could be used for. That's the main difference between Open Source and Free Software. Open Source is by developers for developers. Free software is by developers for 'users'.
I personally feel that 'Free Software' is not bad on it's own, I just feel that the advocates of it should not interfere with other ppl's opinions. I have the feeling that they're on a crusade to conquer the world with Free Software, and that everybody has to release his software under GPL or otherwise, he's evil. This feels like extremism to me, and any form of extremism is BAD imho. I mostly follow Torvald's arguments in such clashes, and they're usually very predictable, because he is more open-minded than the Free-Software ppl. Torvalds is not an idiot, and I've actually never heard him say stupid things, something I can't say of certain 'front-line' ppl of the Free Software movement...
#