Linux Adoption Goals
Posted: May 22nd, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business, technology | 4 Comments »I have a coworker who stated that the goal should be to increase the adoption of Linux and make sure it is ubiquitous in enterprises and desktops. I agree with this goal and think it is a noble endeavor.
If we achieve this goal, our company has a lot to gain. We stand to make a lot of money through our subscription sales. We will continue to remain relevant. Our shareholders, management team and employees will also benefit.
When developers contribute their code and copyrights to the free software movement, they are contributing to our society. Everyone is allowed to enjoy the contribution as long as they abide by the terms of the license.
Software developers who placed their code and copyrights in trust with the Open Source movement have made an altruistic and immeasurable contribution to our society. It is altruistic because they gave their time and energy up for little or no monetary compensation. It is immeasurable because it is a social annuity which will continue indefinitely.
The problem is the true cost of achieving the goal mentioned above. If it is necessary to give up the freedoms that define free software, then I would argue that it isn’t worth it. If we cannot run, study, distribute, and improve the program freely, the costs are too high.
Imagine that we do accomplish our goal and that we achieve an ubiquitous operating system without the freedoms explicitly stated by the FSF. We will end up where we started – an ubiquitous closed operating system. And we would have done it in the worst way, by trading in something that was developed for the public good for our personal gain.
Cross-posted to my other blog.
Ah, but Sal, it’s not all or nothing. The choice is between GPLv2 and GPLv3, MS/Novell deal or no MS/Novell deal. We have free software today with GPL2 and an MS/Novell deal, so why change the terms of the license just to kill the deal?
The idea is to improve the GPL to prevent loopholes that result in less freedom. “Tivoization” is one of those loopholes. I’m not sure about the Novell/Microsoft deal because I don’t understand the whole deal.
More generally, my point is that the freedoms allow for a contribution to society. They also enable a services-based business model. Of course you can trade in freedoms to make money, but that detracts from the community. GPLv3 will be an improvement because it defends encroachment on those freedoms.
If you don’t like the philosophy or the license, you can always go with a BSD license, which will let you do the things you want to do.
I don’t think contributing to free software is altruistic, from a developer’s point of view. I have often contributed to free software projects for entirely selfish reasons.
Also, I don’t think anyone believes the terms of the GPL license are being changed “just to kill the [MS/Novell] deal”.
Alejo – true enough.
Sal – I guess my broader point is that, if you’re objective is Linux ubiquity, then GPLv2 is working very well. BSD would be an obstacle to ubiquity, and my concern is that GPLv3 could be an obstacle to ubiquity. If ubiquity is your goal, then GPLv2 could be the best balance bt freedom and flexibility.
If your goal is simply to maximize software freedom, then GPLv3 is better. But you may wind up with fewer users of the software.
So it’s not a question of closed vs. free software, it’s a question of just how much freedom and just how much flexibility. How you answer that question depends on your ultimate goal, which is why you and I differ on GPLv2 vs. v3.