Re:Miguel de Icaza responds to latest RMS article
by jacquesm on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @02:49PM
(#864903)
> What you're saying is you don't want to make a concrete decision and you want options to be open to you.
No, what I'm saying is I want to be able to make my own decision regardless of people trying to make it seem as if the one or the other side is 'evil'.
I've long ago decided the world of closed source is no longer mine. But that doesn't stop me from having respect for those that try to change the closed source world from the inside, and it doesn't stop me from having respect for those that try to keep it alive.
I just don't agree with them.
> It's a war between many businesses, non-profits, users, developers, etc. Do you want to be stuck with Microsoft Windows everywhere? Or Intel's x86 hardware everywhere? Intel, Microsoft, Apple, etc. will all do what they can to kill the competition.
Possibly. But that does not mean I'm going to have to stoop to their tactics in order to make my points. The last time I wrote software for or explicitly supported closed source platforms is very long ago.
> Yes there is. One idea is opposed to the other. How can there not be polarization?
Because there is a lot of gray stuff in between. Closed source software that ends up being open sourced. People working for closed source companies writing open source in their spare time using company resources (with approval), closed source companies donating money, equipment, programmers and other resources to open source project and so on. Dual license software, etc. To polarize means that the issues are black and white. They're not.
> This is actually Stallman's point, and it was also the open source movement's point. Code is not enough. There is also the discussion of freedom or the discussion of marketing.
So, let's do it. Let's not attack people on the other side of the imaginary divide, if it even exists. The best way to make sure that Microsoft and company are irrelevant is to make their software irrelevant. To literally outcode them. Once that's done, there is really no fighting with free.
No, what I'm saying is I want to be able to make my own decision regardless of people trying to make it seem as if the one or the other side is 'evil'.
I've long ago decided the world of closed source is no longer mine. But that doesn't stop me from having respect for those that try to change the closed source world from the inside, and it doesn't stop me from having respect for those that try to keep it alive.
I just don't agree with them.
> It's a war between many businesses, non-profits, users, developers, etc. Do you want to be stuck with Microsoft Windows everywhere? Or Intel's x86 hardware everywhere? Intel, Microsoft, Apple, etc. will all do what they can to kill the competition.
Possibly. But that does not mean I'm going to have to stoop to their tactics in order to make my points. The last time I wrote software for or explicitly supported closed source platforms is very long ago.
> Yes there is. One idea is opposed to the other. How can there not be polarization?
Because there is a lot of gray stuff in between. Closed source software that ends up being open sourced. People working for closed source companies writing open source in their spare time using company resources (with approval), closed source companies donating money, equipment, programmers and other resources to open source project and so on. Dual license software, etc. To polarize means that the issues are black and white. They're not.
> This is actually Stallman's point, and it was also the open source movement's point. Code is not enough. There is also the discussion of freedom or the discussion of marketing.
So, let's do it. Let's not attack people on the other side of the imaginary divide, if it even exists. The best way to make sure that Microsoft and company are irrelevant is to make their software irrelevant. To literally outcode them. Once that's done, there is really no fighting with free.