[Asterisk-Users] Re: Advice on OS Choice

[Joe Greco]

> Joe Greco [jgreco at ns.sol.net] wrote:
> > > Distributing the source would allow peer review;  The hospital staff,
> > > and other interested parties, could point out potential bugs, suggest
> > > possible enhancements and even provide patches for consideration that
> > > could turn out to be of benefit to healthcare in the future.
> > >
> > Uh huh.  Well, nice in theory, but not going to happen.  There's no reason
> > to put the code under GPL, distribute it, and give HP access to technology
> > several years more advanced than what they had.  That just doesn't happen
> > in the commercial world.  Nobody's stupid enough to spend many man-years
> > of development work and then *give* it to a competitor.  You might well be
> > out of business a few years later, having saved your competitor a ton of
> > money on development, allowing them to sell a similar product for 25%
> > less. 
> > 
> > Oops.
> 
> Oops is right.  You just revealed the real reason behind your hatred of
> free and open source projects.  That sort of proprietary attitude is
> on its way out now - slowly but surely.

Show me open source for any critical application actually being used in
production.  Medical equipment.  Power grid management systems.  Nuclear 
plant controls.  Go ahead.  I dare you.  It doesn't happen.

> The reason you don't like the GPL is because you can't use the code in
> your closed source projects.  The reason you love the BSD license is
> because you can appropriate all the code you need, and benefit from
> multiple man years of other people's work, without having to give
> anything back that might "give HP access to technology".

The reason I don't like the GPL is because it forces me to do things that
I believe I should have a right to choose.  If I write code, that code
should be mine to do with as I please, whether or not that includes giving
it away.  In my case, yeah, I usually give it away.  Sometimes not right 
away.  And sometimes I don't, if I don't think it would be of any general
interest, and it's not worth the time and effort to write up documentation.

> There's no point in continuing this "discussion" as you're clearly not
> a member of the FOSS community.  It seems that you're just here in a
> futile attempt to gather support for your out-dated development model.

Excuse me, you jerk?  We host free software projects here in-shop.  We've 
provided mirrors for FreeBSD.org in the past, and still provide an archival
source for past FreeBSD releases, and do a variety of things for a number 
of other projects.  Just because I'm not wearing blinders and I can 
actually *see* reasons why closed-source can be appropriate in some cases
doesn't mean that I actively encourage everything to be closed source.

I've been working in the free software community for many, many years now.
If you want to make counterclaims, be specific, because I've contributed to
lots of projects over the years.  You might want to do a little research
before you shove your foot any further in your mouth.  It's already hanging
out the other end.

> *plonk*

Plonk yourself, retard.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.