Re: FN-FORUM: Best Blog stuff?

date posted 18th January 2006 12:13

Lee Fogarty wrote:

> There is one point I would like to raise though - which isn't a very popular
> one.
>
> "Open source software - software whose source code is published and made
> available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute
> the source code without paying royalties or fees." - wikipedia

Which article is that in? It doesn't seem to come from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Software

There are two meanings of the word "free". Open Source software is free
as in "free speech" and not necessarily free as in "free beer". Of
course it's usually free in both senses, but the "free beer" sense isn't
essential. In fact in the first version of the GNU Manifesto in 1984
Richard Stallman said that it was ok to charge a small copying and
distribution fee for free software (of, course it was all distributed on
tape back then - not downloaded from a web site).

> If you're not paying royalties or fees, then how can you justify charging?
> I have never objected to designers adding to my costs for commission, but if
> I was working for free, I would be annoyed if I then found out that my
> scripts were being sold. If you ARE paying royalties or fees, then it's not
> open source.

Well, you're obviously charging for the time you've put in researching,
installing, configuring and testing the application. I'm no-one would
expect anyone else to do all that for no money.

> Also (and I am sure I am going to be proved wrong), these 'licenses' are
> worthless. Are they legally binding?

They're likely to be just as binding as any other licence. Although,
it's true that the GPL hasn't yet been tested in court.

> And yes, I do believe that open source has its place.

Obviously. In your first message in this thread you said that you'd
write the system in PHP and mySQL :)

> Last point - I can add the same functionality of open source code. It's not
> rocket science. But then again, I have been coding in one language or
> another since I was 12. Please don't imply that 20,000 programmers are
> better than one. There could well be 19,999 bad programmers. And how much
> of that 'functionality' is needed?

I'm not necessarily saying that 20,000 programmers are better than one
(although that would be one damn impressive programmer!) I'm saying that
the more programmers that look at a piece of source code, the more
likely they are to find any bugs or security holes. "Given enough
eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" as Eric Raymond said.

I'm also saying (perhaps more importantly) that if you know that your
code will be available for anyone to look at, then "security through
obscurity" is not an option and you just might take the time to raise
your game and write better quality code from the start.

But, like you, I don't want to get into an argument about it. If you
don't want to use Open Source software then no-one's forcing you to use
it. I was just putting the counter-arguments to your points.

Dave...

--
Magnum Solutions Ltd
Open Source Consultancy, Development and Training