[ale] More from Business Week

[Jonathan Rickman]

On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Marvin Dickens wrote:

> I understand that any code release under the BSD license can turn up
> anywhere, including in MS products: I really don't care: If the code is truly
> free, B. Gates is welcome to it along with everybody else. This does not mean
> I like B Gate or MS: Quite to the contray. I think B Gates business practices
> as well as those of MS are despicable. The fact is, I have not purchased any
> MS products nor have I run a copy of wintendo since 1997..... The BSD license
> is a personal choice for me that reflects my personal views on many
> subjects... However, with that said, whenever I work on anything that falls
> under the gpl, I release whatever code I have added/modified back into the
> gpl domain. But, like I said before, whenever i write code that is my
> original work, I use the BSD license. It's my right and I exercise that right
> exactly as the programmers who work solely on gpl'ed code.

Again, agree 100%

> With that said, in my opinion, the biggest change to affect programming/coding
> has been the change from the development model that states software houses
> are nothing more than factories that produce software and consumers buy the
> end product to the model that states that programming/coding is a service and
> the consumer either pays for the software by purchasing support contracts
> and/or custom programming services and/or some other type of service related
> to the software and/or project. MS has not changed thiner model and still
> operate thier business as if they are a industrial factory which produces
> software like GM makes cars or Cessina make airplanes. IBM, Compaq and others
> are basically betting the farm that the software factory model is dead and
> the service model is now mainstream. I agree with IBM and Compaq: This is
> going to be one of the major undoings of MS.

Bingo.

I believe the GPL has its place, the BSD style license has it's place, and
totally closed source licenses have no place. All software should be open
source, but not all software should be free as in beer, or speech for that
matter. I would have no problem with a company like Oracle saying, "Here's
the source. Look but do not touch." It's their product, if you don't like
it...

--
Jonathan Rickman
X Corps Security
http://www.xcorps.net

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