Re: Anyone familiar with "aspforums"?

[Brad Jensen <brad -at- elstore -dot- com>]

puff -at- guild -dot- net wrote:

> Brad Jensen writes:
> > Free software is a myth. Someone is paying for it.
> 
>      Bzzt!  Wrong.  Thanks for playing.

Someone is paying for it. 

> 
> > If no one else, the programmer who makes it, but probably the
> > company or organization that pays that person.
> 
>      Probably not.

Actually, if you are a salaried employee and you create software
'on your own time'
in the USA, it belongs to the company who is paying your salary, 
unless you have a specific contract that excludes this. This is
true
if you are a programmer in the course of your normal duties at
the
company or organization that employs you. 

An hourly employee does not have this problem.
 
>      The majority of free software is not directly 

my point exactly. It is still being paid for, it's just that
often the 
company/org doesn't know it is doing so, or doesn't care

> sponsored/published
> by some corporation.  Most of that time and energy that goes into Free
> Software comes from programmers' personal time and energy.

Salaried employees don't have personal time and energy in their
area
of paid-for expertise, unless they have a contract. 

> If I
> expend _my_ time and energy to create something, and I make that thing
> free, then it's free in all of the senses of the word "free" that are
> relevant.

If it were actually free, it would be a better situation.

>      Most free software gets written because programmers like to solve
> problems and play with technology. 

In my case, so does the commercial software. I suggest everyone
find what they love and do it, and the
money and happiness will follow. 

> Programming for a living can be
> massively unfulfilling, mostly because of factors that have nothing to
> do with programming. There's a whole sub-industry devoted to
> explaining why this is (and the topic occasionally is discussed here),
> so I won't try to explain it here. The fact remains that programmers
> get a lot of frustration from shifting strategic directions, shifting
> requirements, canceled or undeployed products, companies that just
> plain go under (I've had a few of these), and just plain boring
> topics.

If thery are too chicken to go out and make a commercial
product, I should 
cry for them? 

>      Programmers are usually programmers becaues they LIKE to program,


I hope everyone is doing what they are doing because they like
to do it.

The whole anti-commercial attitude is the problem - for the
people who have
it more than anyone else. And it is entirely hypocritical - as
shown when
their own paychecks are threatened. 

Software is a butterbrot serum - a cheese sandwich. 

> and as a result, they seek that enjoyment on their own time - and if
> they're doing it on their own time, they tend reason that they might
> as well make it Free Software or Open Software, for numerous reasons.

Fear and self-loathing? Lack of intelligence about the internet?
Inability to set up a 
regsoft or PayPal account? Personal hygiene? Addiction to
whining and 
conspiracy theories? Inferiority complex? Secret condescension?
Don't want to tell the 
spouse or significant other? (I understand that one.) 

> Some of them even do it for profit (indirectly, via improving your
> expertise, and your reputation).

If they do it for the glory, they are being paid. Even if it is
the glory of having 
your peers consider you a peer. 

>      Now, there are (fortunately) a number of companies that sponsor
> Free Software in various ways.  The most common way is to publish
> software that the company developed in the process of supporting
> something else - most often something that is not part of their core
> business, but is necessary to support their core business.

Or like IBM, to co-opt the Linux trend to kick Bill Gates in the
ass, and 
save money by abandoning your proprietary OS development. 

>      It makes good business sense for those companies to publish that
> work as free software, for several reasons. 

It is not really free. As long as there are conditions on the
use, it is 
LESS free than commercial software. The noble libertarians of
'free' software 
are actually the proponents of their own cybernetic animal farm. 

Show me unconditional software use, and I will show you free. 

> The biggest one from a
> bottom-line point of view is that if the product isn't core, it's not
> going to bring in revenue.  It is, however, going to cost to maintain,
> and it's in an area that is *not* the company's strong suite.  By open
> sourcing it, they enlist a large community of developers and testers
> who will help maintain and extend it and they get to use the existing
> base of open source software to maintain and extend it.  Now that open
> source is gaining a lot of ground, it becomes ever more likely for
> companies to start with an existing open source package instead of
> reinventing the wheel.

As I read the license for MySQL, it makes it impossible to ship
MySQL with a
commercial  product to a nontechnical user.  People violate this
all the time
(see the commercial libraries that build on top of the PNG
library code) but 
everyone downstream from them has a liability problem.
 
>      The company also, of course, get a PR advantage and the advantage
> of making their employees happy and hence highly motivated.

"Here, take this shiny trinket so I don't have to pay you. I'll
pay you
with your own ego instead."

That seems entirely unethical to me, and reprehensible. 

> > I don't have any problem with open source, but I don't think 'free
> > software' is any more noble than 'free novels'or 'free lunch'.
> 
>      Free Software is not quite as noble as Free Speech, or Free
> Thought, but it's a difference in quantity, not in quality.  Look into
> the history of Free Software, sometime.

Look into dropping the condescension sometime.

> > And with many of these projects, you have to pay for it by putting
> > up with the attitudes of the control freeks who write it.
> 
>      Free Software is far from perfect - I think I made that quite
> clear in my earlier posting 

It's not free. It just doesn't cost money to the person using
it, if they are
permitted to use it for steal it (use it without following the
license provisions.)

By the way, if the license provisions are never enforced, they
aren't in force.
If someone would go to the trouble of showing that the license
provisions are 
routinely ignored (which they certainly are), then in the eyes
of the law they are a fiction. 

> - but comparing it against some
> non-existent "perfect" software is exactly the the sort of fallacy I'm
> ranting about. 

Then you had better not do that. I haven't done it, or even
mentioned perfect software.

It would be simple enought to create free software, and some
programmers actually
do. God bless them. But the blue-faced GNUs who get the press
for 'free' software don't 
deserve it. They are the Big Nurses of the development
community. 

I don't like Unisys either - I'm consistent. I think 99% of all
software patents are 
just an artifact of the lack of expertise of the patent
examiners. 

> There is no "perfect" software, Free or proprietary,
> and using an unfavorable comparison of Free Software against perfect
> software as a justification for proprietary software is ridiculous.

Find the guy who did that, and I will help you tongue or
keyboard lash him.

I'm gald to compare actual free software to the things that pass
for it because of the ignorance or indifference of the
journalists.

>      The only freedom you don't get with Free Software is the freedom
> to impose control on the software. The FSF's license is designed to
> keep people from leveraging Free Software to create non-Free Software.

So it is not free. It is thought control.

I can use Huckleberry Finn to create a derivative work, or as a
starting
point for something new (as West Side Story stole from Romeo and
Juliet).
That's because Huckleberry Finn is free, the copyright is long
expired.

> The various Open Source licenses don't even worry about that -
> something Richard Stallman has burned a lot of oxygen and phosphors
> railing about - they just don't want you making the open source
> software closed.

that's a non issue. As long as the original source is there,
anyone else can
continue to use and modify it - they just don't get the
proprietary modifications.

That sghouldn't be a problem to someome who respects my choice
to make my efforts
commerical or noncommercial. If the original programmers wrote
their code with strings 
attached, then they are just as commercial as I am - only their
commerce is payment
in the control of the subsequent use.

Remember when (I think it was) Microsoft tried to put the
contract provisions in, that
users could not criticize Microsoft? What an uproar!

The 'free' software licenses are the same kind of
non0-commercial control. There is nothing to
admire in them. 

In any case, they aren't really licenses, just statements of
opinion.

>      Also, there are several Free Software and open source packages
> that are offered both under Open Source licensing and under
> proprietary licensing.  MySQL is one example.  So if you really just
> can't live without the right to restrict distribution of your
> application derived from MySQL, you can buy it and sell it.

Sure, and the liability that goes along with it. No thanks. 

And an application that uses MySQL is not derived from it -
except in the minds
of the misty-eyed misanthropes - any more than the same
applciation using SQL Server or
Oracle is derived from those products. The difference is the
commercial organizations 
accept limitations on the extensiveness of their control  over
subsequent use, while the
'free' control freaks do not.

>      As for putting up with attitude - sounds like you ran into
> somebody who you didn't like, or who didn't like you.  That doesn't
> stop you from taking the source and developing it as you like to serve
> your purposes.  Or you're free to go hire somebody else to develop or
> support the source.

I cabn't expose my customers to the liability of using those
products -
there are too many trial lawyers looking for the next big class
action.

Anybody running a major-sized commercial enterprise on top of 
'free' software products, is sitting on a ticking time bomb. 

> If you don't like the attitude of somebody who's putting their
> time and energy into a project, don't use it. If you have to use it
> because everybody is using it, then maybe that's a clue that they have
> some justification for their attitude.

I like programs that come without attitude attached,. You pay
for it, 
the people who wrote it respect you, you respect them, and you
don't have to
pour libations to their insecure egos. Get one with life, and
get the job done. 
 
> > If it were 'free' there would be no conditions on it at all.
> 
>      If you want to take that silly a definition of freedom, then
> fine, so that means in a free country, I'm free to own slaves? 

There's no logical consistency in that argument. First of all,
it is
the license agreements themselves that try to enforce a limited
form
of slavery on the subsequent users - by controlling their
behavior.

It is commercial software that, for the most part, does not try
to control the
user. 

Second, in the scenario you mention, you are free to call a
person your slave, but 
they are free to laufgh at you and walk away.

Placing no conditions on the use of software is making it free.
It's done all the time 
on the web. 

The same pointy heads who kept the Internet as a publicly
supported private 
domain for so long, are happy to contionue their unhealthy and
unappreciative
attitude towards the rest of us. Once again people will ignore
them, and they 
will fade into the oblivion that they so richly deserve.

They don't call the operating system 'euunuchs' for nothing. 

> Now
> why don't we keep the conversation back here on planet earth and the
> normal usage of "free?" 

Well the conversation you are having with yourself about
perfection is 
fun to watch. 

> There are two common usages (outside of the
> political arena) by the way, just to keep things from getting further
> muddied.  There's free as in "free beer" and free as in "Free
> Software" and "Free Speech".

Free software has as much to do with free speech as free lunch.

TANSTAAFS

> > You have to pay for it by joining and validating their ego trip.
> 
>      What drugs are you on?  I've never been required to "join"
> anything to use Free Software or Open Source software, though I do
> voluntarily join a wide variety of mailing lists to talk with other
> people who use the same software - and often get advice and help from
> the people who write the software.

If you agree to a license that limits your use of the software,
you are paying for the software. 

> > There are people who contribute their efforts by giving out free
> > source with no limitations. But there are others who have a big
> > chip on their shoulder and just want you to admire it. That's
> > their right if that's the price they want to charge for their
> > contributions.
> 
>      Sounds like you have some personal issues to work through with
> whoever it was put your nose out of joint :-).

If you would actually deal with the argument instead of
employing rhetorical 
devices, you will experience more respect. 
 
>      There are in fact some strong egos in the Free Software world,
> just as there are elsewhere in the world.  I suspect that most of the
> real ego problems occur because it takes a strong ego to create
> something real to begin with.  However, I suspect that a lot more ego
> problems are perceived because the people who invest hundreds of hours
> of their personal time expect and demand some respect, and a lot of
> small-minded or inconsiderate (literally - they don't stop to
> consider) people perceive that as ego.

Who on earth could you be talking about?

It is ego, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you want to
get paid in ego, that''s
your business. Just don't call it free, or pretend it is more
noble than commercial
software. Commercial software suports a wider diversity of
efforts than 'free' software. 

> > Actually, if the people who have developed some of this open
> > source are salaried employees working for ewither the government
> > directly, for universities and nonprofits, or for government
> > contractors, and they don't have explicit contracts with their
> > employers that grant them the right to do this, it could be argued
> > that their contributions actually beloing to their employers.
> 
>      Not true.

This was fought out in the courts int he seventies and eighties. 

>      Let's take the easiest one first.  I'm not sure what country
> you're in, but in the United States of America, where I am, anything
> published by the government is, by law, automatically Public Domain,
> which means it doesn't belong to the government (and in fact it's much
> easier to subvert Public Domain material than Free Software). 

That is untrue. If it is written by government employees and
published by teh government, it is true. Even the SBA site has a
lot of articles, published by the government, that contain
author's restrictions on their use, including pseudo-licenses. 

> This
> includes software.  The exceptions to this are situations where there
> are existing licenses or copyrights involved, in which case the
> material is covered by those existing licenses or copyrights as a
> derivative work.
> 
>      Second easiest one, the fallacy that salaried workers by default
> lose all rights to anything they create, 24 hours a day, seven days a
> week.  This is most definitely not true.
> 
>      What specifically is true is tricky - there are a lot of laws,
> conditions, circumstances, and local law to take into account.
> Obviously I'm not a lawyer (or I'd be charging you for this :-) but in
> general, if you did it on company time, under company direction, in
> the pursuit of company goals, it's probably a pretty safe bet that
> the company owns it.

Even if you do it at your own home, if you are a salaried
employee and it 
relates to your paid duties. This also was fought out in the
courts, and 
is why people have employment contracts. 

>      Now, if you write software on your own time, whether or not your
> employer has any interest in it depends on a lot of fuzzy issues,
> starting with your contract (and not everybody is stupid enough or
> scared enough to sign away all of their rights for a job, at least not
> anymore), going from there to local laws, and ending with whether you
> did it at company direction, or in relation to the company's business.
> E.g. if your boss tells you to develop something and you end up taking
> the work home and doing it on your own hours, the company probably
> still owns it.
> 
>      Third, in situations where a programmer works on existing Free
> Software, on company time, at company direction, the company doesn't
> own the work because the work is bound by the licensing of the Free
> Software.

It's not free, they are stealing the name Free. It's a Bolshevik
thing again.

> > I assume tech writeres are the same way, if you are a salaried
> > employee everything you write (whether it is on 9 to 5 time or
> > not) belongs to your employer unless you have an explicit
> > agreement that exempts your outside efforts.
> 
>      Not true.

Anybody on this list have a contract with their employer to
protect and exempt
outside efforts? 

> > On the other hand, if you are a contractor, what you write belongs
> > to you unless you explicitly contract that right away.
> 
>      At last!  Something that's true!  Give that man a gold star!
> 
> Steven J. Owens
> puff -at- darksleep -dot- com

Well, if you can see one thing, there is hope that you can see
others. 

--
Brad Jensen brad -at- elstore -dot- com
President
Electronic Storage Corporation Tulsa OK USA 
918-664-7276 

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