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Worrying trend.

Off-Topic discussions about science, technology, and non Debian specific topics.
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buntunub
Posts: 591
Joined: 2011-02-11 05:23

Re: Worrying trend.

#221 Post by buntunub »

edbarx wrote:The "worrying trend" appears to be instigated by an assumption that GNU/Linux users use it for political reasons alone or that political reasons regarding software licensing are the main motivation. Alternative licencing to proprietary licencing may be be one reason, others may opt to use GNU/Linux for its extra challenge that it offers, some may use it for its vast repositories of software and still others may be capable to code and want to start off a proven software base instead of starting from the beginning.

I see the failure to acknowledge the simple fact that motivations differ according to peoples' aspirations and values as what is causing this unnecessary worrying. As highlighted already, tons of packages in Debian were created by individuals and organisations outside the rule of Debian. However, having the source open and free to edit, Debian developers can edit it to suit the Debian guidelines. This means, to literally spoonfeed it, that Debian developers can still edit those parts of, say systemd and the kernel, that do not meet the Debian guidelines.
Exactly right. If I understand what you are saying here correctly Edbarx, the sky is not falling. I agree. Far from it in fact. The world of Linux and Open Source is more alive and well off than ever. Linux indeed is far surpassing Windows and MAC in so many ways now and I believe that is primarily because it welcomes everyone, without question or exception, into the fold.

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swirling_vortex
Posts: 631
Joined: 2007-02-16 20:30
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: Worrying trend.

#222 Post by swirling_vortex »

I'd concur with the others. If corporate contributors are concerning, then you probably should've stopped using Linux in the mid-90s. I think that one reason we see people paid to contribute to open-source is due to the GPL ensuring that the openness of the code remains on a level playing field. This is one problem that seems to plague the BSD community where a lot of the code gets sucked away and hidden under an EULA. This also influences funding decisions as well. All three BSDs have run into major funding shortfalls at one point or another.

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-an ... /0000.html
http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/12/12/09/ ... -nearly-50
http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=arti ... 0114072427

Just remember that while programmers may work for free, hardware and electricity doesn't.
Randicus wrote:As for the FUD in the quote from vbrummond, Gnome should not have been used as an example. One of the main reasons Gnome has moved in such an awful direction is that its development is highly influenced by Red Hat's money. Not only has Gnome's interface been influenced by the desires behind the money, Gnome was also very quick to begin incorporating systemd (another Red Hat offering).
Hardly. Red Hat abandoned the desktop as a target market when they split the Red Hat Linux distribution into Fedora and RHEL. In fact, 4 months ago the Gnome Foundation mentioned they were running into a budget shortfall before they received more aid.

The reason why Red Hat is listed as a prominent contributor is because a lot of the other companies that did contribute either stopped or ran into problems themselves. Compaq got swallowed up by HP, VA Linux has been dead for a while and Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle.

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llivv
Posts: 5340
Joined: 2007-02-14 18:10
Location: cold storage

Re: Worrying trend.

#223 Post by llivv »

swirling_vortex wrote:I'd concur [...] and Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle.
I was curious, after reading this post, about what was happening at sparc with the sun/oracle merger. :(
http://www.sparc.org/news/get-the-facts-forget-the-fud/

It's nice to see the ole workhorse still alive and kickin. :twisted:

I'd like to see a list of members and/or users that actually read or have ever read any eula. :evil: :twisted:
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

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electrovalent
Posts: 41
Joined: 2011-10-21 18:45

Re: Worrying trend.

#224 Post by electrovalent »

I think what should really concern us is that many issues around linux are not the technical skills or the matter of being paid or not (as a developer), free/open source or not. Although they affect, are not the major reason this topic is talking about. It is about what can a system do comparing to others and how and if the existing technology is apllied. To be more specific new users and old users usualy ask questions for things they know that can be done within a OS. Linux for many years now is still trying to be a desktop OS. I use the desktop term because most questions come from desktop users, and i dont know how much linux want's to be a desktop OS because as a server is doing very well. Thats why you can see hardware support BUT for server products mostly. Development on the "desktop side" of unix like OS is very very slow, and thats why so many questions stay unanswered and repeated.

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