Comments on: What Open Source Means to Microsoft, Nokia

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:30:49 +0000

Under almost all circumstances, most expenses are not acquisition-related, but maintenance- or customisation-related instead. The whole idea of Free software is based on the assumption that better business and better software can be made this way. Gates: No! There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed. FOCUS: Oh, my God. I always get mad at my computer if MS Word swallows the page numbers of a document which I printed a couple of times with page numbers. If I complain to anybody they say "Well, upgrade from version 5.11 to 6.0". Gates: No! If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug. Maybe you're not using it properly. Have you ever considered that? FOCUS: Yeah, I did..."

--Bill Gates, FOCUS Magazine, 1995

By: Victor Soliz

Victor Soliz — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:44:47 +0000

You are aware that open source isn’t about freedom, but about making useful programs?

You are aware that you are incredibly wrong/misinformed? That statement is so wrong that the only logical explanation is that you are some sort of drone from MS, if you are not, please get informed:

Please memorize this:
http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php

My favs:

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

However, Just open source is not enough, the ideal is something that fulfills both open source and free software:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

More things to memorize: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

By: Ajay

Ajay — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:28:00 +0000

i think most organizations are fool and insecure because they are not using open source.
please check what is open source
some time open source software vendor not provide any support for the failure.
not every things comes free dear some one in paying for it.
do you thing end customer has any thing to do with source code?

By: Lyle Howard Seave

Lyle Howard Seave — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:11:42 +0000

@Bob:
Open source IS free software but Tienman, Raymond and company thought up of the new name in 1998. Free as in libre scares some people.
Just because you just fell off the turnip truck Bob doesnt mean we all did.

The freedom you refer too is the Four Freedoms of the GPL, not of this thing you call ‘open source’ which has become a bastardized word that even Microsoft uses.

If you use GPLed code, you have to respect the four freedoms.
If you dont, you can use BSD or Microsoft licenses.
Same thing with MS and Nokia, they can participate and use the fruits of the community work but MUST abide by all the tenets (read the MS ‘open source’ license to see the subtle differences which make it incompatible with the GPL) of the license.

Roy is right, Microsoft wants free labour and to get to control the code.
They get to pick and choose and call it open source.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:42:22 +0000

You are aware that open source isn’t about freedom, but about making useful programs? What MS and Nokia are doing here are taking the fruits of the community and using it to make their own offerings better. Everything is fine as long as the product gets better, right? Open source isn’t like free software