thelinuxlink.net

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=928

This is like the third article in the past two month that I've read where ESR attacks the need for the GPL. I'm really starting to not like this guy.

greggh wrote:http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=928

This is like the third article in the past two month that I've read where ESR attacks the need for the GPL. I'm really starting to not like this guy.

What I think is extremely ironic is that ESR's arguments are remarkably similar to those lazzez-faire economists who are like "No government regulation necessary at all, the market will fix everything, because markets are efficient, and will punish those who don't follow the rules", except of course, when you eliminate regulation you eliminate those rules and people start showing their true greed and irresponsibility.

ESR can stand on his pedestal and rant against the GPL as much as he wants to, I don't care personally, because it's not gonna change much, the Linux kernel will remain under GPL (Linus says he'll have trouble moving it to GPLv3, imagine the trouble he'll have if he tried moving it to the New BSD License!), KDE and GNOME will remain under GPL and tons of other things.

ESR's only goal seem to be numbers, more people using free and open source software, and more people developing it. Well, that's his idea of what's better. I happen to think that freedom is important, not saying that "numbers" aren't good either, to me they go hand in hand, freedom is important in itself, and expanding that freedom to others is important as well. OpenOffice.org may not exactly be technically on-par with Microsoft Office, although it's certainly good enough for what most people need. When I look at what a school needs, the freedom to freely share an office program with the students, would be infinitely more valuable than a shinier interface. My sister is at gymnasium (I'd say it's roughly the equivalent of high school in the US), and they are using Microsoft Office 2007, and the students basically pass an unauthorized copy around at the start of the school year. I just can't help but shake my head.

I see ESR's point of view, but I don't agree with it. The idea that given the superiority of Open Source as opposed to Closed Source it would reward the system that followed the tenants of Open Source more than that of the Closed Source model. Thus economically, the Open Source model is superior, there are greater benefits to be reaped. But the argument starts to become shaky when you actually look at corporate, group or individual behavior. "Not giving back" or "participating as a proper member of the Open Source Community" would preclude one from reaping the entire benefits of the Open Source Community and thus punishing in and of itself.

I think this could be the case were the playing field level. But when you have a disparate system, where a few companies have commanded the top spots and attempt the reap the benefits of Open Source with a Closed Source model, the punishments are shadowed by the rewards. Now perhaps these rewards are merely short term gains and will be defeated in the long run by the superior model; but that remains to be seen. In a world where Microsoft rules with a heavy hand and has embraced and extended Open Source software, perverting it to the point of being almost unrecognizable from the original and breaking the original, it's hard to immediately see the punishments Open Source levies in light of the gains or maintenance of the status quo Microsoft reaps.