Use open source? Then you're a pirate

http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2811&blogid=10

by dreemteem • 16 years ago

91 42 16 years ago

proemeth• 16 years ago

Provocative tagline. It's worth noting that most open source users do so not to avoid paying, but for more idealistic and teleological reasons.

mseebach2• 16 years ago

Maybe not paying as such, but freeing your organisation from the annoyance of dealing with licenses has been a major factor in some migrations I've seen. I wouldn't call that ideology, more more of an economic factor, as there is both a direct cost and an opportunity cost to dealing with licenses.

pingswept• 16 years ago

Totally agreed. In a professional setting, especially when working on a project basis, using open source stuff is huge.

I work on embedded systems in renewable energy manufacturing. I can't imagine what it would be like trying to deploy some of our stuff if we had to worry about database licenses, subscriptions, or any of that stuff. Negotiating licenses with several vendors for each project would be horrendous.

robin_reala• 16 years ago

Open source products still require you to deal with licences. It’s just that the software’s usually licensed under a clear and free-as-in-beer licence.

timwiseman2• 16 years ago

I think a lot of people use many open source packages because they are better with little thought spared for idealism.

Python is, in my own personal opinion, the best language for much of what I do. I prefer it to say C# with Visual Studio, for most projects, and I have a fully licensed and paid for version of Visual Studio (I do use C# for a few things where it works well, especially in conjunction with SQL Server). I prefer FireFox to every other browser on the market. I do not do heavy image manipulation, but for the little I do I think GIMP works better than Photoshop.

Of course, I also use proprietary software. I do use C# for some projects. I prefer SQL Server to all other RDBMS, including MySQL. And I have yet to see top rate video games from the Open Source community.

seldo• 16 years ago

Most open-source users are doing it for reasons of idealism? I would be interested to see actual numbers. I personally think open-source is nice and everything, but the reason I started using it was when I lived in the developing world and any commercial software was prohibitively expensive.

pw0ncakes• 16 years ago

It would be amusing if this were a subtle advert for R...

tjogin• 16 years ago

I don't really mind describing myself as a pirate. They need to come up with a label that stings. "Thief" works better, but unfortunately also makes it obvious that it's just bullshit.

scotty792• 16 years ago

I think "Infringer!" sounds really malicious. I could imagine Hollywood B-type movie with this title.

ZachPruckowski• 16 years ago

"Infringer" doesn't sound malicious, it sounds like you violated the laws of fashion by hemming your cuffs some ugly way or something.

mark_l_watson• 16 years ago

So stupid since open source licenses are all about intellectual property rights: you create something and thus it is your right to determine the license that allows other people to legally use it.

That said, shitty laws paid for by corporations will be problematic for us (an easy prediction to make!)

CapitalistCartr• 16 years ago

In any industry, the major players respond to effective, game-changing, competition, not with appropriate, creative competitive strategies and tactics, but by running to the government and begging for a law against the competition. This has happened over and over in history.

dangoldin• 16 years ago

It's a business decision. It's much cheaper to lobby the government than to innovate. It would be irrational for them to do otherwise, at least in the short term.

mtarnovan• 16 years ago

IIPA claims "open source [...] fails to build respect for intellectual property rights". Wtf does that even mean ? Not respecting ip rights is one thing, but since when is anyone's obligation to build respect for ip right ?

lutorm3• 16 years ago

Since respect for IP rights was elevated to the status of human rights... or higher, since the US seems to put HR on the back burner whenever it threatens commercial or business interests.

krobertson• 16 years ago

So what exactly does this mean? You get put on a "shame" list? So what. The article doesn't talk about any legal repercussions. Pointless headline.

It mentions the DMCA, however fails to mention a connection between the Special 301 list and DMCAs.

meta• 16 years ago

It mostly feeds into other negotiations and trade agreements. It is not actionable itself but provides political pressure during almost any other trade agreement.

Canada has been a member of this list for a least the last 2 years and I think longer than that. http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2010/02/annual-301-parad...

I don't have first hand knowledge but am led to believe that this report is often used during trade talks to apply pressure to favour USA in negotiations. (as suggested by the above Howard Knopf and Michael Geist)

Slashed• 16 years ago

How open-source can be seen as a threatening factor for capitalism? In my opinion, thanks to open-source, entry barrier for startups is much lower. Even though, 99% of startups fail - 1% will create new workplaces or will be acquired by another big capitalistic company.

lutorm3• 16 years ago

It's the usual sleigh of hand that equates capitalism with specific current players. Like the Economist said, "being pro-business is not the same as being pro-market."

dasil003• 16 years ago

The terrifying thing is that it's easy for a good writer/orator to convince legislators that software is a zero-sum game. It's easy to visualize a big pie of software and see open source conversion as cutting into the profits.

Whereas for those of us actually in the industry it's obvious how pathetically shallowly we've scratched the surface of the potential of software, and how commodified open source software is the foundation of future software progress which will never be achieved if everyone has to endlessly pay a tax on every decades-old innovation that a company stole from academia to bootstrap a software business back in the day.

lutorm3• 16 years ago

I guess they are in league with the SCO guy who considered open-source the equivalent of Communism...

It reminds me of an awesome Swedish cartoon where a kid during WW2 who works at the post office takes Christmas packages sent to people with fancy titles and gives them to the poor. When his father finds out, he says "What did you say you did? I have nurtured a Communist!" and the voiceover goes "... because Tycho Jonsson was one of those people who thought that anyone who gave something away for free was a Communist."

mike_organon• 16 years ago

Except in that story, the kid isn't giving his own stuff away for free, he is stealing, and this sounds similar to "from those according to their ability to those according to their need."

chrischen4• 16 years ago

Communism is bad when it is forced (which it must be in order for any hope of working properly). I can see the resemblance to the GPL, but in general you shouldn't equate the two because open source is used as a capitalistic business model too.

loup-vaillant4• 16 years ago

Are you saying that the GPL forces anyone to do anything? It doesn't. You still have the choice not to use GPL code.

chrischen4• 16 years ago

And no one is forcing us to adopt communism. Nothing is truly forced, in the sense that you have no alternatives.

They are similar because they both take an all or nothing approach that only works in a perfectly ideal situation.

In a perfectly free software world the GPL would have no problem, but the GPL (if you want to use the software) forces you to adopt the policies of that ideal world in the current incompatible unideal world.

Like. Communism, if it is being attempted, people will have to be forced to be dedicated to the whole (if they want to exist in the group).

Free software should be enforced by nothing but practical reasoning, just as communism should too (but most people are selfish idiots). The GPL seeks to enforce it through law, regardless of whether it makes sense here and now (similar to forced-upon communism).

Also if anyone disagrees with me I'd love a response. Better to win over enemies than destroy right?

joshu• 16 years ago

Actually it's the swashbuckling and ocean-based armed robbery that makes me a pirate. Arr!

gcb2• 16 years ago

i get a license to use open source from my employer. Does that makes me a corsair?

systemride• 16 years ago

Why did the pirate use open source?

Because he doesn't like trademarrrrrrrrrks.

jrockway• 16 years ago

It doesn't matter. It's already been proven that code is speech, and unless there is an amendment to the Constitution, speech cannot be restricted.

If it becomes illegal for me to give away my work for free, I will just sell unlimited rights to my code for one cent. Proceeds will be donated to the EFF.

gcb2• 16 years ago

in other news. Libraries will be closed because they show little respect for the knowledge market.

"if you want to learn, enroll in a university. Libraries are destoying jobs" said the spokeman on the matter.

tcarnell• 16 years ago

...well the amount of code 'snippets' developers copy from the Internet (tutorials, QA forums, tech websites and blogs) - I would argue that almost all software contains 'open source' code :-) - which again makes a farse of this type of legislation.

known• 16 years ago

Then, I'm a pirate since 1991. I need to update my CV.

Use open source? Then you're a pirate

Related Stories