All Things Microsoft > Microsoft Software
MS-DOS Date
skyman8081:
PP, You're turning Economics into Morality. Stop it.
Aloone_Jonez:
piratePenguin,
You haven't raised any new points in your above post so I suppose I can't raise anything new by responding to each section of your post individualy (I can if you really wish I just don't see the point). So I think I'll approach this from a diffearnt angle.
I'm going to put across my interpritation of your view point and I'll put forward things from my perspective, please correct me (in the unlikely event) I make any errors.
Your stance:
Proprietary software is evil because the software companies are writing software and keeping their source code a trade secret this reduces the potential for competition to exist as they can also keep their data structures secret thus making it hard for their competitors software to interoperate with it.
ELUAs are an insult to humanity because they limit your rights to copy and redistribute the software, also they allow the turms of the licence to change without your consent.
GNU Linux should avoid it like the plague and make it as hard a possible for people to implement it on a Linux based operating system.
Proprietary software on Linux is a bad thing because it will push out free software and it'll become impossible to do my work with out it so I will have lost the right to choose to only support free software.
My oppinion:
Proprietary software is no more evil or selfish than earning money and not sharing the vast majority of it, competition would exist if many companies had equal market share as they'd all make their products interoperate with their competitor's, the only reason why this isn't the case is because Microsoft has a stranglehold on the entire industry it doesn't mean that propreitary software is evil.
ELUAs protect the company's right to keep control of their code and allow them to reep the benifits of their hard work. Any Licence can be changed without the user's consent and this includes the GPL - they can suddenly decide to make it proprietary if they own the copyright so in this respect it's not differant.
Actively encouraging free software on the Linux platform is a great idea because it's boosts investment in Linux on the whole and hence the userbase even more so when it comes to moving people away from Windows.
Right, now I'm going to pretend I agree with you on the basis that proprietary software is evil (even though I don't) but I shall also argue that allowing it's use on the Linux platform is ultimately good for GNU Linux and free software in general.
We've already established that allowing proprietary software on Linux will increase Linux's's userbase, now this will also cause the use of proprietary software to decline since people will drop Windows and move to Linux thus helping the GNU's cause.
Alright we've also said that the use of proprietary stuff on Linux will increase but this won't damage the free software already on the Linux platform, in fact it's likely to help it as the very action of getting more people to use Linux will introduce them to new free software. I doubt that people will start dropping Linux free software and switching to proprietary alternatives as they will have no need to, the proprietary software on Linux will mainly serve to accommodate ex-Windows users and fill in the gaps free software has largely forgot like design software and games.
People are inherently lazy and as you well know they tend to just use what software comes with their system, on Windows this was all proprietary (Internet Explorer Outlook etc.) but now on Linux this is mostly free so they're far more likely to drop their proprietary stuff for the free stuff just because it'd be too much effort not too.
--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---Well I dunno what it's like to be in their situation so how the fuck can I speak for them?
--- End quote ---
That's your problem, you can't speak for others in who are totally reliant on proprietary software, you seem to blaming them for this, how is it their fault that they have requirements not meet by free software?
Here's some friendly advice for you, and please don't take offence I'm not being malicious in saying this:
You really need to try to be more objective, the secret to sucessful debating is to try and see things from as many angles as possible, then it's quite easy to predict how people are going to respond to you because you can see it from their perspective, this allows you to always remain one step ahead.
worker201:
Personally, I would distinguish between Open Source software and Free Software. I use open source software because I can change it or borrow code if I want. I use free software because it's free. GNU software is both open and free, which makes it doubly cool.
Yeah, I know I'm not even a part of your little flamewars, but I thought I would post anyway.
skyman8081:
You know, I this thread has a lot of Fuckidycocktards. ;)
piratePenguin:
--- Quote from: skyman8081 ---PP, You're turning Economics into Morality. Stop it.
--- End quote ---
We're talking about GNU and the LGPL.
--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez ---piratePenguin,
You haven't raised any new points in your above post so I suppose I can't raise anything new by responding to each section of your post individualy (I can if you really wish I just don't see the point). So I think I'll approach this from a diffearnt angle.
--- End quote ---
Just what I was thinking.
--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez ---GNU Linux should avoid it like the plague and make it as hard a possible for people to implement it on a Linux based operating system.
--- End quote ---
No, GNU shouldn't welcome non-free software. They did it with the LGPL, but now I'm kinda thinking that they didn't do if because of this, but they did it because very quickly somone would've made another C library that would alow non-free software to link to, more people would use it, and perhaps, GNU would have to eventually too.
--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez ---Proprietary software on Linux is a bad thing because it will push out free software and it'll become impossible to do my work with out it so I will have lost the right to choose to only support free software.
--- End quote ---
I wouldn't have lost the right, it'd only make it harder.
--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez ---Proprietary software is no more evil or selfish than earning money and not sharing the vast majority of it
--- End quote ---
I think that's quite an exaggeration.
People need at least a small bit of money (or a large bit of money), to pay for whatever they need (quite a confusing term).
Most people only earn enough for themselves and maybe their family (and the government). If they had to give a "vast majority" of it to charity (that does, I think, qualify as sharing), they would be at a tremendous loss (depending on how much they earn and how much they share, they could be unable to pay rent and buy food.).
However, for some people, sharing a vast majority of what they earn wouldn't be such a danger (e.g. Bill Gates).
--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez ---competition would exist if many companies had equal market share as they'd all make their products interoperate with their competitor's, the only reason why this isn't the case is because Microsoft has a stranglehold on the entire industry it doesn't mean that propreitary software is evil.
--- End quote ---
That might be true, but I can't really see this ever happening.
Microsoft isn't the first software company with a monopoly, and they might not be the last either.
--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez ---Right, now I'm going to pretend I agree with you on the basis that proprietary software is evil (even though I don't) but I shall also argue that allowing it's use on the Linux platform is ultimately good for GNU Linux and free software in general.
--- End quote ---
Having read that (the rest of the post), I'm still not convinced.
A web-browser is a very important tool. If Opera allowd it, I would say that alot (probably most) of GNU/Linux distributions would ship with the non-free Opera web-browser. Firefox would have less users and developers, and in the future when new technologies are invented for the web, it'll be increasingly difficult to survive supporting only free software.
There are very few completely free GNU/Linux distributions out there (but that depends on what you mean by "completely free GNU/Linux distributions"). Most come with Java, and other less-significant non-free software.
I don't think explitically allowing non-free software on GNU will further GNU's cause (freedom), but I'd like to think otherwise.
--- Quote from: Aloone_Jonez ---That's your problem, you can't speak for others in who are totally reliant on proprietary software, you seem to blaming them for this, how is it their fault that they have requirements not meet by free software?
--- End quote ---
In what way do I seem to be blaming them?
I know my situation is pretty damn good. I know some other people's isn't so good. I don't know how important it is to them that they don't support non-free software. But I can narrow it down a small bit to: most people don't give a fuck. And IMO that's partly the reason that non-free everything and other (even slight) evils (or non-ideals) are so common in this world.
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