Is this FUD or Ignorance?
I am sure that almost anyone following the Linux news for any length of time has gotten completely used to the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) that comes out of Redmond over and over. Sometimes it is outrageous, sometimes it is just annoying, but I have never seen something as blatantly uninformed as this.
Yesterday, Wired reported this: (he is Bill Gates)
“There’s free software and then there’s open source,” he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. With open source software, on the other hand, “there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.”
Open source, he said, creates a license “so that nobody can ever improve the software,” he claimed
What?
Bill Gates is saying that GPL makes it “so that nobody can ever improve the software.” Apparently he does not understand what “open-source” means. With open-source software, GPL in this case, you have the right to modify and redistribute the program. How on earth does that make is “so that nobody can ever improve the software.” Is this supposed to be FUD or ignorance?
Can anyone give a logical explanation for how this could possibly be at all true?
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:58 pm
“Improve”, as it is used by Bill Gates in that sentence, translates to ‘control’. In other words, Microsoft can not unilaterally charge money for its use.
Microsoft’s long reign has tainted their vision and those closely associated with them to the poin where others see black, they see white. We see freedom, they see anti-competitive practices. In the world of Microsoft, nobody matters but them.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
man’s an outright liar.
he and novell have cosied up and hope to make a killing in china. the more he can trash open source, the better chance he and his cohorts have of closing much of it.
people need to beware this alliance and the implications it has for compromising open source and the gpl.
microsoft has to be desperately looking for a replacement their tired old ‘operating system’ and open source offers a route to a lucrative revenue stream.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Gates and Company wish GPL was more like BSD in licensing (not starting a flame war, just stating obvious points) since BSD licenses would allow you to take the code and practically convert it to proprietary, closed source.
Another fallacy is Gates wishes folks would confuse the GPL with Open Source instead of Free Software. Even if the source were open, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have the freedoms the GPL would give you. Remember that Freedom is more important, hence simply showing the code doesn’t give other developers the ability to build upon that code Freely.
I personally would like ‘FOSS’ to become the proper moniker so folks cannot separate the two anymore, but not everyone buys into RMS’s extreme views … especially Gates and Company!
Having said all of that to hopefully untwist Gate’s spider web, folks have to be careful not to get confused with some of the stuff he spews. That quote was built in order to plant some seeds of confusion since what he said really doesn’t jive with the truth of the matter.
April 26th, 2008 at 3:11 am
I’m more disgusted with wired’s clear lack of journalism to research the statements of others and shade them appropriatly. I think we should write wired.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Wired was only quoting Gates. They even added a note saying “Yes, Linux fans, we’re aware of how distorted this definition is.”