SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

As most of you know, I'm a FOSS supporter. I believe strongly that openness and freedom is one of the most important things in our modern society. We've reached this on many different levels, but when it comes to computer, I think our society is really lacking. My curiosity about how other people at SRL think about it is growing by the day, hence this thread.

So what is all this babble about Open Source? Let's start off with a little historical story.

At the very beginnings of computer science, (when the computers were as large as you entire living room) researches were the only ones with access to computers. Researches (as they always do), shared their research and source code. Of course there was some rivalry about who was the first to built a specific computer or feature; but once they had finished their system, it was made public. This way people all over the world could reach the research paper, and do more research based upon those papers. This is the appropriate way to do science and science is (up till now) still using this system. There are literally millions of thesis and papers freely available to read. (Although some require that you are a student or member of the university)

Then, when the hardware became much smaller, the idea of having a computer in every house slowly started to become realistic. I'm not accurately going over the exact time line nor historical events, but there were some operating systems that could run on those computers, and do basic tasks).

A few years later, Bill Gates started Microsoft, and did something surprising (I'm not sure if he was the first to do this, but he's definitely a co-inventor in my eyes); he decided NOT to show the world his code. His strategy turned out to be quite a success from the economic point of view. (IOW: He got lots of money) Soon other companies picked this strategy up, and the closed source strategy became the standard for many companies, up till today.

Basically this meant much more rivalry, and even though the computer industry is still booming up to today - less research was shared by companies and more of them started doing the same stuff - in parallel. Universities and researchers still share their research and source code.

In order to counter this movement, some hackers (no, that's not crackers) created a very restrictive license (the GPL), that basically allowed you to use their code only if you kept the full source open, AND licensed it under the same license.
In my opinion this license also removes a small piece of your freedom, namely, the choice to share your code with everyone regardless what they do with it.

OK, so I'm a bit tired of writing history stories and I'm not sure how historically correct my little story is, but it should give you the general idea.

So why is this a problem? The closed source strategy turned out to be successful, what is the problem? The problem lies in that fact that closed source quickly conquered the personal computer industry. Now the problem with closed source isn't just a moral one (not sharing information), but more problems arise.

As products of companies become more popular, so becomes the desire to find holes in the system, to break the system. Curiosity is what brought mankind and science this far, and it is what will take us much further. So what happens if people break a system that is used all over the world? They could tell the company, and the closed source company can secretly issue a fix to address this problem. Or… the group (or person) who found the bug abuse the hole in system to cause a lot of damage.

This problem is applies to open source software as well. However; open source software is often much more secure. Everyone can look at it, find bugs, send in patches, and the leak is fixed. With companies that maintain a closed source strategy, this is not the case. In real life situations, you will also very often see that the person who found the hole in the software will issue a patch to an open community, but will not necessarily tell the company about it. Whether this a moral question or just the case that most open source software isn't as widespread as the closed source software remains open, but I personally think it is combination of both.

So we covered a security issue. But what about our freedom? Can we see what the program actually does? Can we change the behaviour of the program? (IAW: can we modify it?) Can we use the program for whatever purpose we like? Can we fix the program if it does not work? Are we allowed to share it with our (close) friends, like we can with books?

No, we cannot do any of this. (Sharing is possible, but not legal)
This imposes a serious breach upon our freedom. You may be used to it, but imagine you're not allowed to share books with friends, and whoever publishes the book keeps track of who reads it, where, and when. This is basically what DRM (Digital Rights Manament) does. (A policy strongly followed by Apple) The company decides and monitors whatever you (can) use.

In the light of recent events: the appstore on the iPhone is controlled purely by Apple. They decide what gets in, and what does not. On a more recent topic, Apple claims to be for the open web, but they have still not put any open codec in their browser, nor in quicktime. (no VP8, no Theora, no Vorbis)
If I recall correctly, the appstore also does allow any app that even remotely contains erotic material.

Another downside to closed source is the following - and I'd like you to consider this very carefully - that there is no way to ``revive'' an old program / project, without rewriting it from scratch. If the sole developer of a project loses its interest or can no longer maintain the project for whatever reason, it simply dies off. And if the program had a community based around it, the community will simply die with it. If there's a large community based around a closed source program, there's a fat chance that the community will have little say about decisions that are to be taken around the project, and this leads to obvious problems.

There are some other downsides to closed source, but I'm not going to cover them (now, anyway).

I wanted to cover one last part specifically; and that is the effect closeness has on a community. In my opinion it is very important that a community is open about it's opinions and decisions. Without openness, people will become suspicious (which is their good right) and curious why certain decisions are taken. Obviously it is not possible at all times to share all information, but information should be handed out as much as possible. This is probably not directly related to Open Source, but it is to openness so I though I'd put it out in here. If you want to comment on this specifically, please do so in this section.

If I have assumed correctly some of you will think that this post is aimed at a specific person - or at a specific event - but it is not. Closed Source is (in my opinion) anyway a huge problem in the world today. My opinions on this subject are probably very one sided, thus my interest in other opinions. There are other problems I have with this world currently, but it doesn't seem like the right thread to post them here now anyway. (Perhaps I will go write a long post on one of those subjects somewhere else, on a new thread later)

I also have the intention of teaching some of you a bit about open source software and my reasons for liking it. I'd love to discuss this subject with you guys and girls, and I hope you give it a good thought. Looking forward to the comments and reactions.

Wizz

Closed source relies on the sometimes misplaced idea that competition is a driving force for progress. This idea works very well for baking bread and making shoes because any customer can easily tell the difference in quality between different producers of bread or shoes. The customer does the selecting here, if they don't like that way of making bread or shoes, the baker and shoemaker have to change or go out of business.
The big difference with computing is that the customer knows nothing. It takes a very knowledgeable person to tell between a good and bad operating system (say). This ignorance allows competitors to do dirty tricks without the customer being able to fight back.
One example is with the windows and linux situation. I don't feel like articulating the rest of this argument but hopefully you guys will come up with examples of how windows screws over its customers and post them.

There's also other problems like vendor lock-in and insecure closed source programs allowing botnets to spread.

The closed source software model is a failure of the market.

Windows is a marking platform. Windows has all these cool APIs like .NET and the winapi that make programming easy and fast, to draw programmers to the platform. These programmers typically don't know how to program these mechanisms themselves, they just know how to manipulate the APIs to do everything for them. Then, when they go to sell their application, the don't know anything about the GPL (or other open source licenses) due to Microsoft's FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) campaigns on them (they call the GPL a virus). So they just distribute binaries and not the source, as that is what everybody else does (makes the developer good money too!).

Failure of the market? It seems to do rather well compared to open source products. But I must say I really like your comparison with the bread, and how most peopledon't know enough about bread to make a proper choice.

Tootoot, I don't want to go into microsoft bashing as it will only kill the thread, but I must say it's funny you call the WinAPI an API that makes programming easy and fast. Because honestly, that particular api slows down programming more than it speeds it up.

But I was hoping on replies other than from you two guys, as I already know your particular opinion on this matter. :p

From: Tootoot222
Then, when they go to sell their application, the don't know anything about the GPL (or other open source licenses) due to Microsoft's FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) campaigns on them (they call the GPL a virus)

I have never heard of Microsoft even suggesting that GPL is a virus, let alone running a "FUD campaign" against it. Citation please?

but is it legal to download an ebook of lets say…Lord of the Rings? You can borrow books from people just like you can borrow Unreal Tournament 3.

/me waits for a tl;dr :(

I didn't read all of it but I support open source all the way. I honestly right now don't have any reason to support it since I never really look at programs behind the scenes that are open source because 99.9% of the time they confuse the living hell out of me. I plan to get pascal script and take a look at simba though =).

But I do know that pursuing (sp?) my computer engineering degree/computer science degree that I will start to <3 developers that have everything open source since I will be learning a lot from it in the future.

From: bullzeye95
I have never heard of Microsoft even suggesting that GPL is a virus, let alone running a "FUD campaign" against it. Citation please?

Hm. They have called it a virus, and microsoft does run those FUD campaigns. Some time ago they had an open job application, and the task was ``fighting open source''. (Not strange considering the threat open source imposes on the company, but still immoral and bad in my book)

From: Dan Cardin
but is it legal to download an ebook of lets say…Lord of the Rings? You can borrow books from people just like you can borrow Unreal Tournament 3.

Most ebook readers enforce DRM. Those readers from Amazon use DRM as well. I think they once removed a book from everyone's ebook who bought the book, because the book was not (which they decided after sales). They did give all the customers their money back, but it's scary how they can just remove the book from YOUR ebook reader.

From: HyperSecret
I didn't read all of it but I support open source all the way. I honestly right now don't have any reason to support it since I never really look at programs behind the scenes that are open source because 99.9% of the time they confuse the living hell out of me. I plan to get pascal script and take a look at simba though =).

But I do know that pursuing (sp?) my computer engineering degree/computer science degree that I will start to <3 developers that have everything open source since I will be learning a lot from it in the future.

Yeah, it's a great source of knowledge. :)

when i say ebook, i mean more just online versions of books. Afaik, just like a pdf or a txt file of a book is not legal either.

I Have to agree. I'm not a big fan of windows for WAAAY to many reasons. But Open Source is the future. Notice how Windows/Apple both are *nix based? (Apple more so than Windows, up till Windows 7 anyway, which is just KDE on a Windows Platform tbh). And especially with "security" (rofl) on most peoples minds nowadays (With Identity theft, "hackers", "crackers" etc), slowly plugging holes as Adobe/Windows does isn't going to cut it.

You WILL need more than just your developers pouring through your source code, because they're not perfect. They WILL miss something (*cough*User32.dll*cough*). Totally got off topic there but yea Open Source is FTW. Ironically, it's probably the ONLY thing I like about RsBot too :|

Windows is *not* *NIX based.. Its based around Windows NT. Which is a 32-bit OS that is closed and always has been.

Mac is based around *NIX, yes.

From: Nava2
Windows is *not* *NIX based.. Its based around Windows NT. Which is a 32-bit OS that is closed and always has been.

Mac is based around *NIX, yes.

Windows NT was based off of *Nix. They said so themselves when they released it. When I get back I'll try and find the quote (It's on Packetstorm (somewhere)still I think)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Unix-history.svg

Thats pretty much the history of UNIX.

Networking in Windows seems to have some basis in UNIX though:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix
Since the newer commercial UNIX licensing terms were not as favorable for academic use as the older versions of Unix, the Berkeley researchers continued to develop BSD Unix as an alternative to UNIX System III and V, originally on the PDP-11 architecture (the 2.xBSD releases, ending with 2.11BSD) and later for the VAX-11 (the 4.x BSD releases). Many contributions to Unix first appeared on BSD releases, notably the C shell with job control (modelled on ITS). Perhaps the most important aspect of the BSD development effort was the addition of TCP/IP network code to the mainstream Unix kernel. The BSD effort produced several significant releases that contained network code: 4.1cBSD, 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD, 4.3BSD-Tahoe ("Tahoe" being the nickname of the Computer Consoles Inc. Power 6/32 architecture that was the first non-DEC release of the BSD kernel), Net/1, 4.3BSD-Reno (to match the "Tahoe" naming, and that the release was something of a gamble), Net/2, 4.4BSD, and 4.4BSD-lite. The network code found in these releases is the ancestor of much TCP/IP network code in use today, including code that was later released in AT&T System V UNIX and early versions of Microsoft Windows. The accompanying Berkeley sockets API is a de facto standard for networking APIs and has been copied on many platforms.

^Maybe that's what I was thinking of (Or Maybe the HAL/Novell thing). Though I coulda sworn I'd read it on PSS :\. Ah well, doesn't really change much.

From: Wizzup?
I also have the intention of teaching some of you a bit about open source software and my reasons for liking it.

^ Looking forward to that.


But, the thing with closed source is that it works like oil in a way; sure, it pollutes the world, but people pay for it nevertheless; so the workers who produce it can get paid. Now, how big do you think MS could grow if they had released the source of their OS on initial release? And, don't you think their stocks (and eventually company) would collapse if they published it now?
Now, I'd like to state that the real issue is our ideology and it's principles.

TLDR (there ya go Ray);

Once you begin to market something, people start keeping secrets. It keeps the innovators on top, allowing them to innovate more and charge more money for their product. In people's minds, at least.

Look at any large industry: do you see big pharma sharing their recipes, or chip houses giving away their new etching techniques?

From: Wizzup?
Failure of the market? It seems to do rather well compared to open source products.

no you've misunderstood me.
I meant failure of the market as defined when the market doesn't serve the public interest as well as it could.
The market serves the public quite well with bread baking and shoemaking, we can see that because we all have access to good bread and shoes at low prices and I haven't heard anyone suggest how bread and shoes could be better without the market already delivering.

But say we let building of roads be dictated by market forces. You'd have two or more competing road systems snaking across the land, heavily wasting building materials, manpower and a whole lot of other stuff which I won't go into right now. There would be no extra benefits. Such a system would be a failure of the market which is why all governments of the world handle building roads themselves instead of allowing the market to do it.

Another example would be if you allowed nuclear power stations to have complete freedom. It's likely that you'd get companies cutting corners and saving on safety and strength. Remember that a company is accountable to its shareholders and can't be expected to think about environmental issues. So this nuclear power station would probably blow up taking its county with it. It would be a catastrophic failure of the market to deliver which is why governments have strict regulation on how nuclear power stations work.

Notice the similarities with this and deep sea oil rigs. You can't expect any company to think about the environment and we've seen how the administration of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig have cut corners and stuff like that, leading to this oil spill we see in the news. It is my view that deep sea oil rigs should be regulated to the same level as nuclear power stations, and for the same reasons.
I wonder if it will ever happen, the US is known for its hatred of government intervention. I'm sure any such plan will face stiff opposition.


But anyway, this is relevant to Open and Closed source because its clear to me and many people here that the closed source free market solution is a failure of the market. It has failed to deliver as well as it could have with notable examples being operating system kernels.

From: bullzeye95
I have never heard of Microsoft even suggesting that GPL is a virus, let alone running a "FUD campaign" against it. Citation please?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_license

History

The term 'General Public Virus', or 'GNU Public Virus' (GPV), has a long history on the Internet, dating back to shortly after the GPL was first conceived.[3][4][5] Many BSD License advocates used the term derisively[6][7][8] in regards to the GPL's tendency to absorb BSD licensed code without allowing the original BSD work to benefit from it, while at the same time promoting itself as "freer" than other licenses. Microsoft vice-president Craig Mundie remarked "This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it."[9] In another context, Steve Ballmer declared that code released under GPL is useless to the commercial sector (since it can only be used if the resulting surrounding code becomes GPL), describing it thus as "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches".[10]

FUD:
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/57261/index.html
http://www.opensource.org/node/147
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/microsoft-fud-campaign-vs-customer

Heck, don't you remember that campaign on best buy?
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2009/09/14/microsoft-tries-to-bribe-best-buy-employees-to-learn-lies-about-linux/
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/microsoft-trains-best-buy-linux-assassins/5406

E: Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_leak

I am a supporter of open-source software. Yet I see the same obstacle as EvilChicken! - marketing of open-source software. If something is open-source then sooner or later it will have a competing alternative which will most probably be cheaper than the original, meaning that the original wouldn't survive for long.

The only solution I see in this case is the open-source requirement applied to everyone. But then comes the scenario I described above; the market would need some sort of regulations to protect new ideas and solutions(patents, maybe?). Then again, it would be rather hard to make sure what needs to be protected and what not. So, yeah, it would be great if all the software would be open-source, but it will still be a two-bladed sword if people would want to make money out of programming…

Argh, too many woulds and coulds for my liking, but that's how I see it…

EDIT: Just to clarify - from my point of view computer science isn't yet in a state to be good enough of a base for open-source money-making…

Hm, it's not all about money… The point is the knowledge should be free. Ofcourse this doesn't make marketing easy - and sometimes impossible, but I don't believe that much money needs to be spent on buying products. It would be much better if all governments put some money in a large group of programmers that all worked together one several big open source projects. Much better than keeping your source closed as a company because otherwise you would not survive. But yeah, I can imagine some companies can't do without it with their current strategies.

Patents? Hm… The idea is O-K, but it doesn't work. The idea behind patents is to protect the one with the new idea from large companies. What happens in reality is that one large company buys the parent from the person who ``invented'' it (read: patented does not mean invented per say), and then misuse the patent to fight other companies; thus totally destroying the point of patents. (See: Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, HTC, IBM, etc)

E: sig related. :p

If there's no money being made on software because everything is open sourced, you'll have a lot less software.

From: Wizzup?
Patents? Hm… The idea is O-K, but it doesn't work. The idea behind patents is to protect the one with the new idea from large companies. What happens in reality is that one large company buys the parent from the person who ``invented'' it (read: patented does not mean invented per say), and then misuse the patent to fight other companies; thus totally destroying the point of patents. (See: Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, HTC, IBM, etc)

E: sig related. :p

Yes, I am aware of that. As for now the patents are killing software development. If I recall corretly, then I gave my vote to the thing in your sig more than a month ago and suggested all my friends to do the same.

About the money-making. If it's not all about making money', then who on earth would have enough motivation to create, uhm, let's say a new custom-made OS? I'm quite sure it wouldn't be me and I'm quite sure the governments are not capable of hiring every single programmer they've produced…But hey, I guess my point of view is called the capitalism(which was good 30 years ago, but is facing new problems nowadays :p)

First of all, I would like to point out that different countries, and even different places have very different communal views on these sorts of things. For example, European countries are very copyleft, anti patient etc. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case. While I acknowledge that this doesn't cover all Europeans or anything of the like, it just goes to show how two places view things differently.
I would like to provide a bit of background on contributing factors to my current view of all of this sort of thing.
Obviously, school. I got in the top 2% of Australasia for a computing test for my year when I was about 11-14 (Can't remember the exact age). My first job working with computers was doing part time webdesign from 15 to 17. This is very much a field where there is NO opensource. For one, graphics designers are greedy bastards (all of the good ones, not the people who sit on forums and make signatures), secondly, no one wants to do this kind of work. The only way opensource and webdesign mix are in the technologies they use, for example, we used Silverstripe, an opensource CMS (BSD, NOT GPL - see http://linuxmednews.com/linuxmednews/975943604/index_html for a pro BSD comparison).
Following that, I got offered a job here in Australia, where I left New Zealand to work, doing PHP and Web Development for a private company, that sells books (so a very commercial business).
Here, everything we do is closed source. When I started working here the contract specifically talks about everything I write belonging to my employer. Also, this is VERY common when getting a computing job (In New Zealand, Australia, and the US). We obvious use Linux servers (CentOS, Debian sometimes), Apache, MySQL (InnoDB of course), that sort of thing. Everything that gets written stays in-house though.
First of all, commercial entities of this type don't have the time to fix every possible security hole, nor do they need to. This doesn't mean they leave security exploits there, this means that they don't devote time for finding them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity on widely used technique.
By releasing our code, we would open ourselves up to thousands of attacks, resulting in users data being compromised; for all intents and purposes, putting ourselves out of business. We would also lose our competitive edge over the competing companies, effectively doing the same thing.
It's just not viable for commercial ventures of this kind to be releasing all of their code, or even most of it. Anything that results in a loss of money, isn't worth it for a business like this.
I'm not against being opensource at all, despite what it may seem like at times. What I am against, using propontents of opensource acting like it's the ONLY way to go. It's not, in my opinion, and also the opinions of thousands of other people who also don't opensource everything they do.
I've contributed to opensource projects before, and I think opensource suits Simba perfectly.
I don't use Linux for my primary OS, mainly because of application support, and how horrible I find the Gnome/KDE interface. When I look at something like Open Office and compare it to Microsoft Office, I don't see how anyone can possibly support opensource all of the time; it's just something that I cannot comprehend. Of course, it's possible that people hold their values to do with being opensource above functional, fast, decent looking applications, hence why they would still use Open Office, but that doesn't give opensource any favor at all, I would say it makes it look worse, as in, some people will be pro opensource, even when it's not the best option for the job, leading to questions about whether thats why they support other opensource things. What I just stated is what I believe to be a primary reason there aren't more people switchign to opensource. There are people who firmly believe that opensource CAN DO NO WRONG. That if an opensource and a closedsource product exist, they believe that the opensource product is better in every case, and would gladly say they know that, even if they've never used either product (yes, I have talked to people like this multipule times). At the same time, pro closedsource people exist in the same way, but it's not a case of people getting annoyed/scared from those type of people, because they're already using closedsource products (as in, to them, it's no reason to change), but when opensource people are like that (and I'm going to say I've met 1 pro closedsource person, and over 6 pro opensource people (extremists I'm talking about)), which a higher portion of them are, it leaves a negative mark on the whole opensource community.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I don't believe anyone should be "pro opensource" or "pro closedsource", instead, they should evaluate the program, software, and situations based on their needs and make a decision from there. The place I work for is just one example of closed source being a good thing, (I know this will make OO fanboys rage but) another example would be when you have to choose between MS Office and Open Office etc.

(also, Chrome thinks that closedsource isn't a word, but opensource is :P)

edit: Also, you don't want KFC to give away their secrert 'erbs and spices do you?

From: Dan Cardin
If there's no money being made on software because everything is open sourced, you'll have a lot less software.

Less software? Perhaps, perhaps not. Because you can fork any open existing project and turn it into your project.

From: ss23
First of all, I would like to point out that different countries, and even different places have very different communal views on these sorts of things. For example, European countries are very copyleft, anti patient etc. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case. While I acknowledge that this doesn't cover all Europeans or anything of the like, it just goes to show how two places view things differently.
I would like to provide a bit of background on contributing factors to my current view of all of this sort of thing.
Obviously, school. I got in the top 2% of Australasia for a computing test for my year when I was about 11-14 (Can't remember the exact age). My first job working with computers was doing part time webdesign from 15 to 17. This is very much a field where there is NO opensource. For one, graphics designers are greedy bastards (all of the good ones, not the people who sit on forums and make signatures), secondly, no one wants to do this kind of work. The only way opensource and webdesign mix are in the technologies they use, for example, we used Silverstripe, an opensource CMS (BSD, NOT GPL - see http://linuxmednews.com/linuxmednews/975943604/index_html for a pro BSD comparison).
Following that, I got offered a job here in Australia, where I left New Zealand to work, doing PHP and Web Development for a private company, that sells books (so a very commercial business).
Here, everything we do is closed source. When I started working here the contract specifically talks about everything I write belonging to my employer. Also, this is VERY common when getting a computing job (In New Zealand, Australia, and the US). We obvious use Linux servers (CentOS, Debian sometimes), Apache, MySQL (InnoDB of course), that sort of thing. Everything that gets written stays in-house though.
First of all, commercial entities of this type don't have the time to fix every possible security hole, nor do they need to. This doesn't mean they leave security exploits there, this means that they don't devote time for finding them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity on widely used technique.
By releasing our code, we would open ourselves up to thousands of attacks, resulting in users data being compromised; for all intents and purposes, putting ourselves out of business. We would also lose our competitive edge over the competing companies, effectively doing the same thing.
It's just not viable for commercial ventures of this kind to be releasing all of their code, or even most of it. Anything that results in a loss of money, isn't worth it for a business like this.
I'm not against being opensource at all, despite what it may seem like at times. What I am against, using propontents of opensource acting like it's the ONLY way to go. It's not, in my opinion, and also the opinions of thousands of other people who also don't opensource everything they do.
I've contributed to opensource projects before, and I think opensource suits Simba perfectly.
I don't use Linux for my primary OS, mainly because of application support, and how horrible I find the Gnome/KDE interface. When I look at something like Open Office and compare it to Microsoft Office, I don't see how anyone can possibly support opensource all of the time; it's just something that I cannot comprehend. Of course, it's possible that people hold their values to do with being opensource above functional, fast, decent looking applications, hence why they would still use Open Office, but that doesn't give opensource any favor at all, I would say it makes it look worse, as in, some people will be pro opensource, even when it's not the best option for the job, leading to questions about whether thats why they support other opensource things. What I just stated is what I believe to be a primary reason there aren't more people switchign to opensource. There are people who firmly believe that opensource CAN DO NO WRONG. That if an opensource and a closedsource product exist, they believe that the opensource product is better in every case, and would gladly say they know that, even if they've never used either product (yes, I have talked to people like this multipule times). At the same time, pro closedsource people exist in the same way, but it's not a case of people getting annoyed/scared from those type of people, because they're already using closedsource products (as in, to them, it's no reason to change), but when opensource people are like that (and I'm going to say I've met 1 pro closedsource person, and over 6 pro opensource people (extremists I'm talking about)), which a higher portion of them are, it leaves a negative mark on the whole opensource community.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I don't believe anyone should be "pro opensource" or "pro closedsource", instead, they should evaluate the program, software, and situations based on their needs and make a decision from there. The place I work for is just one example of closed source being a good thing, (I know this will make OO fanboys rage but) another example would be when you have to choose between MS Office and Open Office etc.

(also, Chrome thinks that closedsource isn't a word, but opensource is :P)

edit: Also, you don't want KFC to give away their secrert 'erbs and spices do you?

Australia is actually much worse than closed source, as they also restrict the internet. (Or planning to, same thing)

Not sure what your top 2% in computing grading is supposed to mean… I can assure you that people who actually use the computer for anything else than open office writer and thunderbird will belong to the 5% best grades for computing. So ignoring that statement… How can you say that companies simply don't have the time to fix security holes, and therefore keep the source to themselves? the latter I can understand, but not the first statement. Are you suggesting microsoft does not have enough engineers to fix an exploit in 5 days? (It took them five days alone to make a plan as to when they would fix the bug, they approximated 60 days)

I simply don't believe this. Perhaps they write too much web applications in the wrong language? PHP sucks for security; but nevertheless not hard to make secure. Choosing a better language would help probably. Security through obscurity is also the worst security apart from no security. People who write applications with StO should simply stop software development, as they only harm the world rather than help it.

What I don't see in your points is the commercial aspect. If you make a product that you sell multiple times, then I can understand you don't want to make it open as you want to sell it, but StO is simply not a good excuse. We recently had a large company give a presentation on our university on their products. ( http://www.onehippo.com/en/home ) Their products are completely open source, used across several countries in several government instances, and completely open source. Their software has no known holes, and the source is freely available. What you pay for is support. They also hire several people from my year to work for them. (I didn't apply, as they work mainly in Java)

What's more, if you don't open up your source and someone does find a bug, the chance that he'll actually inform you of it is much smaller. Thus, resulting in major loss and you'll have to spent weeks to find out what possible hole he has used or found. (Obviously this applies too if the source is open and the cracker does not inform you how, although it would still be easier if it was open) Effectively spending much more time on finding security holes than you would if you simply opened up the source and would find all leaks right away. With StO you simply try to keep catching up with whatever bugs are found, and have a hard time fixing it. If it was open, most would be found right away; and patched. This assumes holes in your system as found, but trust me, if someone wants to find bugs in your system, he'll sure as hell find them, especially if your ``security'' is StO.

It's funny you don't like the KDE interface, as Windows 7 literally stole a whole lot of components / ideas from them. But your actual argument is moot, as you have the freedom to style it the way you like, and both gnome and KDE make it is easy to this. If you want, you could make it totally look like Mac, or Windows. Or you could simply create your own theme.

I'm not a fan of your quite random OpenOffice bashing, because I don't think the program is worse than Microsoft Office at all. OpenOffice is no slower than Microsoft Office, and I'm sure they both have their ups and downs. Granted, I haven't used an Office suite in quite some time (there are much better ways) but I don't think you can generalize the differences between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office like that. The most valid point would probably be that ``OpenOffice is not the same as Microsoft Office''; as that is what you're used to. (Most people are afraid of change)

I would like KFC to give away their secrets, as that would give the entire world access to their delicious food. (I've actually never been to KFC, but I'm showing how you can apply open source to other random situations as well, and I consider KFC pretty random when it comes to this.)

From: Wizzup?
Less software? Perhaps, perhaps not. Because you can fork any open existing project and turn it into your project.

I'm talking about all the people that make software for money. No money = i doubt they'll make it.

From: Dan Cardin
I'm talking about all the people that make software for money. No money = i doubt they'll make it.

That is why they would have to be funded by governments. Plus, you seem to be forgetting I already mentioned a few companies that make a lot of money by working on Open Source products? Red Hat, Novell, Canonical… And OneHippo. But those are only a few.

From: Wizzup?

I would like KFC to give away their secrets, as that would give the entire world access to their delicious food. (I've actually never been to KFC, but I'm showing how you can apply open source to other random situations as well, and I consider KFC pretty random when it comes to this.)

I actually think it is quite a good example.

Herbs are available to most everyone, however, KFC is the only place which took them and combined them in a way which is tremendously popular.

This is the same as programming, as in a video that was posted here (Maybe I got to it from your sig, im not sure). They stated that you are basically patenting math, and math is something natural that just IS, you should not be able to patent it.

My question to you is, does it get much more natural than herbs(herbs being math/algorithms in this situation)? Should people not be rewarded for originality? If I am going to work hard on something (devote my life to it ect) I want the reward that may go with it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the open source movement and such, but part of my hatred for Apple(Random I know) are the rabid fanboys it has. One thing is not always better than another, strengths and weaknesses need to be evaluated on an individual basis, while open source may have more potential than closed source, it is not always better.

From: sirlaughsalot
I actually think it is quite a good example.

Herbs are available to most everyone, however, KFC is the only place which took them and combined them in a way which is tremendously popular.

This is the same as programming, as in a video that was posted here (Maybe I got to it from your sig, im not sure). They stated that you are basically patenting math, and math is something natural that just IS, you should not be able to patent it.

My question to you is, does it get much more natural than herbs(herbs being math/algorithms in this situation)? Should people not be rewarded for originality? If I am going to work hard on something (devote my life to it ect) I want the reward that may go with it.

I guess that completely depends on what you call a reward. Making billions a year and monopolizing the world because you once had a bit more luck than other companies isn't what I call a reward. Plus, I don't think any company that is large now became large by going with the law. Whom does the reward go to, you think? The people who already literally bathe in money; not to the employees of the company. Quite the reward, isn't it?

So, no. I don't think these rewards are fair. Of course people should be rewarded if they by chance have a good idea, but that doesn't mean the idea should then by hidden from the world to build upon / learn from.

From: sirlaughsalot

Don't get me wrong, I like the open source movement and such, but part of my hatred for Apple(Random I know) are the rabid fanboys it has. One thing is not always better than another, strengths and weaknesses need to be evaluated on an individual basis, while open source may have more potential than closed source, it is not always better.

The rabit fanboys of Apple hardly ever have a real idea about what a computer can do, so you can completely disregard them.

You misunderstood me when I said open source was better. You are looking at individual applications and programs, whereas I am looking at the larger picture, the morals, the idea behind the strategy. You can't argue that one is better than the other if you look at (very) specific cases, as that will always be called an exception.

From: Wizzup?
That is why they would have to be funded by governments. Plus, you seem to be forgetting I already mentioned a few companies that make a lot of money by working on Open Source products? Red Hat, Novell, Canonical… And OneHippo. But those are only a few.

Yea, there are companies that make money, I'm not saying its not impossible to do. But there's no way that every close sourced program being sold, were it forced to be open sourced would continue making their product. Funded by governments what?

From: Dan Cardin
Yea, there are companies that make money, I'm not saying its not impossible to do. But there's no way that every close sourced program being sold, were it forced to be open sourced would continue making their product. Funded by governments what?

What I said, funded by governments. Programmers paid by governments to work on open source. That's why you pay taxes.

ermm, will this work when you need to pay all those extra people as well?

Seeing that over 40% of the population works for the government (I think anyway, may be 20% or 60% too), I don't think it will make a big difference.

Where exactly do you get that statistic? The best i could get for something similar to what you said was 13% of the US is directly working for the government. That doesn't take into account the percentage of people that are making software, and the percentages that are close sourced and open, so it really means nothing (along with it only being in the US). I think though, that considering the number of close sourced programs out there, suddenly paying all of them would require more taxes. no? Then you're not charging the people that are using the software but everyone?

@Other Topics:

How can you honestly say Open Office is worse than MS Office? It's (usually) faster (Office slows down unexpectedly a lot more than OO), has more features (when saving as .doc/whatever, it usually warns you about removing features…), and is absolutely free. In fact, of all applications I use, I find that open source ones (opensource is not a word, there is a space) are generally the more feature-rich and easier to use of the lot.

And you know what? Having access to the source has little effect on whether your site gets hacked, the majority (ever since "input sanitation" became the new thing) of problems exist in libraries or the daemons themselves…

@ Open Source

Sure, it's a good idea. If someone wishes to protect their creation, they can simply patent a process (not the software…), maintaining their customers and sharing information about how they did it. Such a system isn't new – it's how the current system works for non-software items.

How do you evaluate a specific program for the funds it should receive?

You know, I'm not even going to write everything I'm thinking. It simply isn't worth the time. The idea is ludicrous. An entirely open source/government funded software ecosystem simply could not work.

From: Dan Cardin
Where exactly do you get that statistic? The best i could get for something similar to what you said was 13% of the US is directly working for the government. That doesn't take into account the percentage of people that are making software, and the percentages that are close sourced and open, so it really means nothing (along with it only being in the US). I think though, that considering the number of close sourced programs out there, suddenly paying all of them would require more taxes. no? Then you're not charging the people that are using the software but everyone?

I don't have exact statistics. I recalled them, and it is likely I did not recall them correctly. but even it is > 2%, my point is valid. Especially when you know the IT branch covers less than 0,05% of the jobs.

I think people should be allowed to choose if they want to make their product closed or open source after investing lots of time and/or money to it. And yes, open source doesn't necessarily mean no profit, but when you need to choose between making thousands or making millions from your product it should be a pretty obvious choice for almost anyone. Most people prefer getting paid well rather than a lot less or nothing…

From: R0b0t1
How can you honestly say Open Office is worse than MS Office? It's (usually) faster (Office slows down unexpectedly a lot more than OO), has more features (when saving as .doc/whatever, it usually warns you about removing features…), and is absolutely free. In fact, of all applications I use, I find that open source ones (opensource is not a word, there is a space) are generally the more feature-rich and easier to use of the lot.

Hurr durr, maybe because it uses way more resources while having less features? It's good for a free product, but it's not as good as MS Office. Same when you compare GIMP and Photoshop and nearly all other cases too.

From: GoF
Hurr durr, maybe because it uses way more resources while having less features? It's good for a free product, but it's not as good as MS Office. Same when you compare GIMP and Photoshop and nearly all other cases too.

Herp-derp.

1) Where are your statistics as to it using more resources? I've been running OpenOffice from time to time, and it did not use a lot of resources. But my OOo does not use Java. It is pure C++.
2) You can't compare a few products and make it sounds like a general fact.
Apache is doing quite well I'd say? http://news.netcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/wpid-overallc.png

Wait, what? I didn't notice a RAM spike, nor did my CPU usage go up by more than 2%. MS Office programs usually take more than that. (I'm using the Java version, I think)