To hopefully close the book on this sad saga, it appears that the controversial Mac emulator CherryOS has been removed from the market
To hopefully close the book on this sad saga, it appears that the controversial Mac emulator CherryOS has been removed from the market
With the mounting pressure to show the source code to the PearPC developers, it was just a matter of time before this happened.
If it was not a rip-off of PearPC all the arguments would have ended a long time ago and CherryOS would still be in business (and probabally making a small profit).
They were not honest to begin with and they deserve every bit to go out of light. I hope we don’t get more companies like that in the future. It is just horrible and the way they try to collect money is no different from that of a con-artist.
the Open Source Community closed a start up company that could have taken Mac emulation to the nth level. We will never know if CherryOS can honestly influence MAC OS on PC, and not the mention, jobs are now lost, and fellow devs are out on the streets. Thank you Open Source Community, your triumph over CHERRY OS has been noted, and will be a foot note to the greater scheme of things. All for OSS am I correct boys? YOu can keep it.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
PearPC is still there. CherryOS, even if it wasn’t a rip of PearPC, wasn’t available for sale. You’ve lost nothing.
Fellow dev’s out on the streets? They have a skill (most likely), they’ll find a job. What about the millions in the US that are REALLY on the street who don’t have a skill?
Give me a break.
If CherryOS were merely a repackaging of PearPC, then how exactly would they have “taken Mac emulation to the nth level” in a way that the developers working on PearPC wouldn’t? I fail to see what the problem is. Is this any different than Microsoft trying to keep unauthorized third parties from selling repackaged configurations of Windows?
If the CherryOS people had really advanced the state of the art, they wouldn’t be shutting down their product. They’d be selling it like gangbusters.
I just hope PearPC will get a better user interface soon, something like VMWare, well it doesn’t need to be as bloated as VMWare just a bit more user friendly so it can reach out to the masses. This is a bit old new, but i got moderated the last time i pointed that out.
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http://bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.
“If CherryOS were merely a repackaging of PearPC, then how exactly would they have “taken Mac emulation to the nth level” in a way that the developers working on PearPC wouldn’t?”
Because prior to CherryOs, nobody ever heard of PearlPC. The publicity generated around CherryOs was enough to get things moving as like having OS/X on i386 (or at least in emulation mode). Things that PearPc wasn’t able to accomplish since almost no one in the (professional) PC world ever heard of this other product.
Why don’t you try an existing GUI like KPearPC from kde-apps.org for KDE? I’m pretty sure there is one for Windows too. How much more UI do you need?
Then, mission accomplished, and we can all give a hearty thank you to the CherryOS guys for their publicity stunt. I think you’re probably right, but that doesn’t mean that CherryOS would be any better suited to advancing the cause. In fact, they would be much worse, because if they hadn’t been discovered, they probably would not have let on that they were using PearPC, and kept the source closed.
Didn’t CherryOS turn out to just be a Visual Basic frontend to PearPC more or less? They promised drag and drop support of files between the Virtual Mac and the physical HDD, which is probably something they’d never be able to code. I’m glad this project died, it gives credit where it should be–to the PearPC team.
By the way, Raven, you were probably modded down because you usually use osnews posts (that are thin on actual content) as a flimsy pretext to promote your bitsofnews web site. Let me give you a formal warning. Please discontinue this practice. Please don’t include links on your posts unless they are on-topic to the subject matter of your post. This goes for “Free iPod” links and all other advertising.
Because prior to CherryOs, nobody ever heard of PearlPC. The publicity generated around CherryOs was enough to get things moving as like having OS/X on i386 (or at least in emulation mode). Things that PearPc wasn’t able to accomplish since almost no one in the (professional) PC world ever heard of this other product.
PearPC was mentioned in multiple different high profile places before CherryOS appeared. At the very least it was on here and Slashdot. There was enough publicity that PearPC became a highly ranked SF.net project before CherryOS was even mentioned.
How did the Open Source Community kill CherryOS? If they had a legitimate product, there was no reason for them to close up shop (unless their product was garbage).
How did the GPL kill them? If they really had a value added distro of an GPL’d project, why didn’t they just acknowledge it distribute the source, and continue to sell it? Its not like there aren’t plenty of startups and established companies that do just that.
This is about them lying about their product, claiming credit for other peoples work, and getting caught.
“If anything, it probably is the nail in the coffin for a MacOS port to PC.”
What? How on earth would it have affected Apple’s decision to make an X86 port (which is almost infinitely unlikely anyway)?
If anything, keeping Mac emulation a volunteer, hobbyist project is less likely to anger Apple than a commercial product.
But clearly you have no idea what you’re on about, so I won’t write any more.
I just think the Open Source Community cant live with the fact that, since their Intellectual Property is out there for the world to view, they cannot gain profit from it. So they created GPL which means I gave the code up, but damn it if you touch one line of this code. If it even looks similar to this code, I will sue you. That is truly Phil Hendrie-ish to me.
If you don’t like the GPL, just don’t redistribute any GPL code. It is simple: just write your own code from the start, and won’t have to worry about people “forcing” you to shut down your projects.
Yes, it *is* as simple as that.
Yes and had Microsoft Developed an emulator and this cherry OS company used their source, microsoft would be perfectly ok with that right?
Enrique, stop the Anti_GPL_FUD.
You obviously don’t understand the GPL or any other license for that matter. If this cherry OS company took anybodies source and sold it regardless of the license if they break the license (by not acknowledging the creators and releasing source in the case of the GPL) then they deserve to be shut down.
as for the dev’s at cherry? in all seriousness I doubt they had any “devs”.
and it in no way stopped Apple from considering the X86 platform… the decision is made, it’s NO. Apple wants 100% control over the hardware. the PC market does not allow that. If you want to use Mac OS, maybe you should buy an apple computer?
(and stop your BS about the GPL.)
Check this link out and you will see it seems they (Maui-X) have stolen all kinds of code.
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000534.html
They research this guy did in order to check this guys out is amazing.
Enrique, you have made the mos ignorant statement ever. They where stealling form OS projects, and selling (ever?) as closed source, stollen work. Plain and simple. They didn’t have the capacity of studying how PearPC worked, and then implementing theire own version.
>GPL killed CherryOS,
Wrong, what killed CherryOS was a company trying to steal other peoples copyrighted code. That the code in question are licensed under the GPL don’t make any difference on the case.
Besides with a good enough product and a realistic businessplan you can start a company based on GPL code. CodeWeavers are one nice example.
The GPL is meant to promote free and open software, not to promote businesses to be lazy, take the code, and do what they will with it without contributing back. Developers who want to spread free software and at the same time defend their work from companies who might use it without thanks, use the GPL. Developers who don’t care about what others do with their code, use the BSD license. Both are perfectly noble ways of approaching free software.
I can’t believe you are directing your anger toward the open source community when you should be directing it toward the company that violated a license expecting profit with little to no work.
Its not FUD….GPL is just another way to inforce IP. Plain and simple. Let the REAL devs write their own code with out having to worry about IP. And how in god’s name do we know CherryOS’s source code? Have they released it for scrutinization? Have you seen it? It could have went bankrupt because of all the bad publicity the Open Source Community has put upon them. My final word on this subject is, GPL enforcers are no better than any closed source company like Microsoft.
No, I haven’t seen the code, but there is enough evidence out there that has convinced me that CherryOS is not legit. Look it up sometime.
Yeah, and I am sure they went “bankrupt” because of all this “publicity” surrounding their product. Give me a break.
>GPL is just another way to inforce IP.
Doh! Of course it is, using copyrights btw. It was never about just giving away your code, it’s about Free code not gratis. It’s a way to force people who take, to also give back.
If you don’t like the GPL. Then don’t use any software licensed under it.
And as for the CherryOS issue, it was not a GPL violation. It was a copyright violation. If your going to go spouting off FUD, at least get your facts right.
The GPL doesn’t take away the owners copyrights. It only offer’s other’s the rights to use the source code. Only if they are willing to follow the license it is released under.
If they had accepted the GPL license that the source code was released under. And followed it, then they would be more than able to release a product. There are many companies that have been able to make a business selling GPL code. But they follow the rules of the license in doing it. Look at linksys, they follow the GPL with their hardware firmware. Does it stop folks from buying their product. No, it in facts helps them sell more.
of course it’s another way to enforce IP. It’s a kinder gentler way though. Microsoft’s way you have to register your product within 30 days or else it stops working. If you want to modify the source you first have to pay microsoft for a source license. if you want to release the code to the public you have to negotiate again through microsofts hoops.
the GPL way is that if you are a user you are free to redistribute it (as long as you include the original license) – modify it with your own bit of code (you can even keep it closed source as long as you don’t release it to the public) and create as many backup copies as you want.
If you do release a modified GPL program the restrictions are simple. you give what you did back to the community. It’s much fairer than the traditional IP license method on developers, distributors and users.
Without copyright law, Cherry OS could’ve taken the Pear PC source and Pear would have no recourse at all. Cherry could sell pear’s code without having to give anything to pear.
Is that the system you want? That’s more communistic than the GPL is, tell you that much.
I’ll just repost what I said on my Blog:
Anyone who didn’t see this coming needs an eye exam. Maui X-stream has offically shut down the CherryOS web site after being caught red handed with stolen code from the PearPC project on several different occassion. After countless lies and website redesigns, the company has finally given up. Instead of saying I told you so, just print out this handy cupon and show it to anyone who you may have debated this issue with.
<img src=”http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y222/idumych/told_you_so.jpg“>
“it’s about Free code not gratis”
What in gods name does this mean? its about free code not free?
It means this: they give the code for free, but you are not free to do anything you want with it: it’s there for taking, using, but not abusing. Like, say, as a poor comparison, think a library: the books there are gratis for you to lend and read, but you are not free to do anything you like with them (for example, you are not allowed to resell library books).
And then the third definition for Free in this context: the code must remain Free. If you take the code (for free), and do something you can do with it (are free to do it, as the license grants), in the end after what you did to the code, the code must still be free.
And to end on a lighter note…
Talking to the Open Source Community is like talking to a bunch of Democrats, You get no where fast…
Talking to you is like talking to a bunch of Republicans. You just don’t get it.
Enrique (IP: —.sea.devry.edu) wrote:
Again, Open Source Community, thank you for your hinderances and your communist adherence to the “Almighty GPL”. GPL is now a tool to sue devs over.
What a pile of rubbish.
Premise: I don’t like the GPL very much since I do think it’s based on communistic principles, since as a matter of fact it aims to abolish private property as far as software is concerned.
But your “argument” is incredibly flawed. There’s nothing “communist” about asking a party to abide by the law. You *can’t* take code you didn’t write, and then not comply with the license. That’s illegal, end of story.
Everything is this PearPC/CherryOS saga points to the fact that the PearPC folks were right.
On a side note, though, I would really like the GPL programmers to show for the other licenses the same respect they want for their own:
http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/g4l.html
Oh, and anyways: there’s no such thing as an “Open Source community”. There are OSS communities. The GPL is hardly the only Open Source license, there are the BSD and BSD-like licenses, which have a totally different spirit – academical, not political.
While the BSD folks share with the GPL folks the view that Open Source is better, they also think software is just a wonderful tool, and shouldn’t be meant as a vehicle for politics. These different views are nicely represented by the 2 very different licenses (different also in length):
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php
>>”it’s about Free code not gratis”
>What in gods name does this mean? its about free code not free?
You are quite dense, are you not? The GPL is about free as in freedom not free as in gratis. It may bee little hard for some to understand, whitout explanation but not very. The use of the word free was RMS biggest mistake when creating the GPL.
Ding, dong, the witch is dead! 🙂
“Premise: I don’t like the GPL very much since I do think it’s based on communistic principles, since as a matter of fact it aims to abolish private property as far as software is concerned. ”
You don’t get it either.
Communism makes personal property GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. The GPL what you make is still your property. Had this been a communistic license Cherry could continue as normal, no gratis towards Pear.
The GPL is still private property. It’s still owned by the proprieter of said software. If you decide to use said property that belongs to someone else, do you think that you should automatically be able to transfer ALL property rights to yourself? There’s no license that allows that. Socialism allows that. All property you make belongs to the public.
With the GPL or any other license, property you make BELONGS TO YOU.
did they not just comply with the GPL and keep doing business?
I can’t believe you guys let Enrique get away with trolling like that, jeez. If they didn’t steal the code then they could have been proven right. There would be alot of money to be made from a polished Mac emulator on PC. I’m not assuming they were guilty or innocent, but lashing out and trying to bring politics into the mess and insulting the GPL just doesn’t strike me as relevant to the original topic of CherryOS. Can’t we all just get along and stay on topic?
Yuck
That’s because it’s a baby project, it’s still development….
Does anyone know if they’ve made a stable release even?
that’s sad, I had high hopes in CherryOS and I mean it – no joke
Calm down kid. The CherryOS thing has been riddled with problems from day one. Even if it was completely legitimate the company was never able to put a product to market and have it work.
I still can’t understand why they even tried the whole ordeal. My understanding is that the CherryOS stuff (what they did put out) is almost word for word (and by word I mean (sizeof *int)) the same as pearPC.
the business world would never use Cherry OS even if it was an awesome mac emulator because bottom line…… if a business wants a mac, they will buy one for their choice applications, and run vmware on it to run the pc apps they cannot run otherwise
think about it… a company that wants to run osx is going to want to do some sort of video/audio/photo editing, or use it as a server…. why lose performance and do this under an emulation mode when you can have the full performance of a RISC based mac with altivec
makes no sense
Nope, you’re the one who’s not getting it.
Maybe it was me not making it clear enough: I was talking about software ownership (as in owning a *copy* of the software), not copyright ownership.
I think Enrique was part of the CherryOS development, and he is just sour now that he has been caught stealing code.
The GPL is simple to understand, as is the definition of copyright.
The GPL says, in a nutshell: “You can study this code, you can modify this code, you can do anything you want with this code as long as you make your modifications available under the GPL.”
Copyright law says, in a nutshell: “You cannot claim a copyrighted piece of work as your own. You must have permission to use copyrighted work in your own work.”
Based on these definitions, it is clear to see that CherryOS was in violation of the GPL, since it is a *license* governing how the code can be used. CherryOS was also in violation of copyright law, since the PearPC code was obviously (and yes, it is completely obvious to any skilled developer, Enrique) being used in the product without permission from the original authors. I would have happily testified in court as an expert witness on the side of the PearPC developers.
This is basic stuff. Anyone who releases a commercial product without first understanding these principles is doomed to failure.
And Enrique, you have misunderstood the largest benefit of open source. OSS projects are creating prior art. Do you know what that means? It means that once it has been released, nobody can patent that idea since prior art can be demonstrated. Software patents are a huge problem to small software shops, so the OSS community is actually benefiting every independent developer in the world.
that last reply was to enrique on his first post about this
I doubt it:
http://www.devry.edu/federalway/programs.html
If he’s a professor there I doubt he’d be working for a startup too… And if he’s a student I don’t think he’d be working for a startup (who has time for 15 hour employees when you have a project to ship).
I’m not sure I understand his motive. He must honestly believe the OSS Community has actually destroyed CherryOS and done so with wrong motives.
Um…CherryOS wasn’t even written by hungry devs here. It was written by a Pakistani out sourcing company named COMSDEV. This is a known fact.
So no devs were put out on the street that you are refering to.
Oh wow, you’ve gotta read this. Its really long but worth it. A lot of it is about another product, VX30, created by the same people. But later on down, he starts asking people about Cherry OS and PearPC as well.
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000534.html
And yes, the only devs who are now hungry in the streets live in Pakistan.
yes I realize that, my reply is still valid.
With GPL you own the software you write, thus when Pear went after Cherry (pear being the owner of said code) cherry was forced to shut down because they didn’t have a leg to stand on.
If your talking about consumer ownership, then the GPL actually allows you to own that as well, with microsoft’s license (and other similiar licenses) you don’t own anything. You don’t even have the right to resale anymore!
another thing about ownership ulib, do you think you’ll be able to take microsoft source and claim ownership?
oh wait you think you should be able to take someone else’s code and claim ownership right?
if you write your own code and license it GPL you are the sole owner. if you take someone else’s code and add to it you are not the sole owner. nor would you be on any other licensing scheme.
(microsoft style licenses you can’t even build upon their work without paying them an arm and a leg for royalty fees.)
I want to clarify my original assertion, since I realize that maybe it wasn’t understood.
It’s true that, especially for the final user, a free/open program, whatever the license, is much better than an equivalent proprietary one.
What I’m asserting is that the complete abolition of the concept of private property (the *user’s* property) of the software, that is the openly declared purpose of the GPL, is a communistic principle, and it would be a bad thing for the economy, since in that scenario (that is not the current one of course, but is the one that many GPL advocates, including its creator, would like to become real) it would be impossible to write software with a market value different from 0.
Free/Open Source Software has a market value = 0. This is not a bad thing in itself, of course. Moreover, we all know that F/OSS can be as good as proprietary software – if not better.
My point is: there are some kinds of software that no business (and, more generally, nobody) would deem worth to make, if the market value of the software in the end is bound to be 0.
That’s why I think that the freedom to produce software that has a market value different from 0 is very important.
I call some of the principles beyond the GPL communistic because they’re trying to prevent that.
That’s why I like more those licenses (especially the so-called academic licenses: BSD, MIT) which always leave the developer free to choose what to do with *his own* source code.
Of course Open Source is better than proprietary: the more software is Open Source, the better.
But if a software business writes a proprietary extension to a piece of OSS, I don’t see it as a loss.
OTOH, if a software business *can’t* write a proprietary extension to a piece of OSS, I see *that* as a loss.
Bingo…that was my motive. No one ver gave Cherry OS a chance to fight their case. The demanded source code, which in their own right was closed. If Pear honestly felt such way about the source code they should have had a court injunction to do so, to prove finally what that the source code was stolen. Since no one has a copy of their source code, I guess we will never know. I believe that in this case, the Open Source Community bullied CherryOS out of business.
I think you miss the point that while the market value of open source software can =0, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be greater than 0. There are many ways to make money off of Open Source software that work quite well.
Whether thats selling the hardware to run it (Apple), providing support (just about everybody), or from having mixed products that add something of value (Apple). You can very easily add value to a piece of free software. Especially considering most companies are more comfortable in buying a product from a company and getting people they can call when something breaks, than simply downloading an ISO.
You can have a product that is mixed open source and closed source (so long as you are careful and observe the rules). You just can’t take a GPL’d project extend it and close it. This is a good thing, because it ensures that we won’t see more companies embrace a widely used standard, extend it, and then close it to the competition.
Is it communistic? Yes to some extent. Its also very capitalistic, because it creates a open market where there wasn’t one before.
Screw CherryOS… If Apple won’t release Marklar then I don’t want anything to do with OSX
They did bully CherryOS out of business. But there is no question it contained Pear code in it. A lot of it. See my link posted above, where they talk a little bit about it. They found exact string matches inside the executable file. There’s also an email transcript from one of the developers where he admits they copied code from Pear.
The same group has also stolen open source code for 2 other projects, so this isn’t a 1 time thing. (A PDF to HTML converter and several projects like xvid, lame, etc. for another project)
A small clarification: about the ‘abolition of the concept of private property’, of course I don’t mean that with FOSS the final user *owns less* the software. Simply, the very concept of ‘user ownership’ loses its meaning.
I think you miss the point that while the market value of open source software can =0, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be greater than 0.
No, this is not true.
You’re right that there are many ways to make money off of Open Source software, but in those cases the market value belongs to other things (assistance, hardware).
The market value of F/OSS is 0. I’d say it is true by definition: everything that is indefinitely reproducible and freely distributable has a market value 0.
Again, this is not a bad thing in itself: it would become a bad thing, IMHO, if you *forced* developers to only produce software with market value = 0.
Is it communistic? Yes to some extent. Its also very capitalistic, because it creates a open market where there wasn’t one before.
I don’t think GPL (or even F/OSS in general) is creating a new market: customers need assistance/hardware/etc. irrespectively of the freeness/openness of the software.
“I’d say it is true by definition: everything that is indefinitely reproducible and freely distributable has a market value 0.”
If thats true, then all digital media has a value of 0. Which brings us to the CD argument. Many people download music, but there are just as many people (with a good overlap) who buy CDs because they like the extra material provided, and having a physical copy. The same is true with open source software. There are people who buy Linux Distros for the same reasons.
No one is forcing developers to use GPL software. If they want to use something else, theres plenty of BSD liscensed code out there.
If what you say is true, that there is no money from open source, or opportunities created, you have to explain RedHat.
you’ve managed to ruffle feathers here quite easily with your remarks
on the troll scale of 1 – 10, 10 being the tolliest of trolls, i’d give you a 9
as far as the point of the article goes, thank the lord and good riddance!
Bullied? How did they bully? By not filing an injuction but instead trying to solve the problem between Cherry and Pear without involving lawyers first?
I don’t see the logic man. Frankly, it’s quite obvious that there was something seedy going on in Cherry otherwise they wouldn’t suddenly dissappear into oblivion. People don’t just give up on a market over a few semi-idle threats and an enraged slashdot readership. It’d be like Linus dropping linux development because SCO said he took code out of System V! Actually, that’s a bigger deal, because SCO actually did sue!
Now that CherryOS has folded for abuse of the GPL, maybe someone should take a look at the IMBlaze/Gaim situation. It’s another case of a corporation taking a product ( http://gaim.sourceforge.net ) under an open-source license, calling it their own work, and refusing to open their sources in accordance with the GPL. The site ( http://www.imblaze.com) is still there…
Couldn’t we just add Enrique to the Troll Hall of Fame?
If thats true, then all digital media has a value of 0. Which brings us to the CD argument.
Nope. Not all digital media is “freely distributable” – most songs aren’t, for example.
The fact that people buy Linux or *BSD CDs is a great thing, because it supports F/OSS, but it doesn’t raise the market value of the *software*, that is still 0 since it’s available for free.
If what you say is true, that there is no money from open source, or opportunities created, you have to explain RedHat.
I never dreamt about saying such a thing (“there’s no money from open source”), since of course it would be false.
Red Hat makes money out of *assistance*, not out of selling the software – that’s pretty obvious.
Yep. Unbelievable the number of concerned answers such a crystal-clear troll gets…
Anyway… On the cherryos story and its apparent ‘ending’, i still believe that Maui-Xstream has found a ‘good enough’ business plan. Get some open source code, bundle it in a proprietary product and pretend you’re the author whether the licenses allow it or not, and sell it. By the time you start looking like a fraud, just discontinue the product, and keep the money.
I’m afraid this is only the beginning of a thread…
[best]
> If thats true, then all digital media has a value of 0.
> Which brings us to the CD argument. Many people download
> music, but there are just as many people (with a good
> overlap) who buy CDs because they like the extra material
> provided, and having a physical copy.
Actually you support ulib’s claim. Those who buy the CD because they don’t want to download pirated copies of the music – they pay for the music which is (for them) not freely reproducible. Those who buy the CD for the goodies and the physical copy – they par for the goodies and the physical copy, not for the music which they could also download.
[best]
> If what you say is true, that there is no money from open
> source, or opportunities created, you have to explain
> RedHat.
He’s not saying so. There *is* money to be made, but not for the software, but for support, goodies, …
Now the GPL certainly allows to make money off goodies and support. But imagine what would be if RedHat gave you no support and no goodies for your money, just the software. Then you could be sure that most people would copy the software instead of paying for it. BTW, the same could be said for any license that allows free reproduction.
I would count this as a strong indication that, by releasing software under a free-repdocution license, you choose not to make money with the software. If you want to make money, you’ll have to make it otherwise (e.g. support).
> free-repdocution
this should of course mean “free-reproduction”
Let’s everyone assume that I have made a wonderful piece of software. I start selling it for $50 apiece. A company buys 10 licenses from me, paying $500. They make good use of the product, and earn $5000 by using it. Now is my piece of software worth $50, $500 or $5000, if we assume that I make no other sales? Or $4500 or $5500, or any combination of these?
This in a microsofty situation, where they have no other rights than to use the piece of software as it is, with no guarantees.
Then let’s assume that I publish the software under GPL. Suddenly another company discovers it, makes good use of it, and earns $8000. Is my software now worth $0 or $8000? Another company tries to use my GPL’ed software, but finds out that it won’t do the job for them. They spent $2000 trying it out. Is my software now worth $-2000 or $6000 ($8000-$2000)?
Or maybe my software is worth $6000 + $5000 (the money the 1st company made) – $500 (the money that they paid “for nothing”, because I later GPL’ed my code)?
Am I a bully if I _give_ the people my software with certain conditions, and then enforce those conditions? The police must be a real bully if they give me a driver’s license and then have rules and speed limits they expect me to obey!
The GPL has nothing to do with communism, and everything with charity and fairness. If I write software, it is mine to give away as I see fit. Do some anti-GPL’ists propose that giving things away should be outlawed?
GPL is called a copyleft, because it is less restrictive than an ordinary copyright. There is nothing in it that would abolish private property. It is exactly the other way around. GPL makes the right to use, copy and modify the code _public property_, and enforcing the GPL equals preventing the private hijacking and abuse of that _public property_. That public property being the rights given in the GPL to the general public.
Now, BSD licenses are about giving the rights to every single individual in the world separately. The same rights that are given to the general public in the GNU GPL. IANAL, but I think it is just about a different recipient.
That could be legitimate (as in they could be selling a modified GPL program). While I don’t see source availability, I also don’t find binary availability.
Terrible to think people would do that. Use a product with ads inserted into a completely free product. It’s like paying for AOL and still getting ads…
Because people feel that something isn’t reproducable, doesn’t change the fact that it really is. The fact that laws prohibit some reproduction doesn’t change that it is in fact unlimited in how many you can produce.
“But imagine what would be if RedHat gave you no support and no goodies for your money, just the software. Then you could be sure that most people would copy the software instead of paying for it. BTW, the same could be said for any license that allows free reproduction.”
There are plenty of places that will sell you a linux distribution without support, documentation, or other extras, it seems there are plenty of people who believe that its worth $5.
“The GPL has nothing to do with communism, and everything with charity and fairness. If I write software, it is mine to give away as I see fit. Do some anti-GPL’ists propose that giving things away should be outlawed? ”
I think Ulib and enrique would love that. You no longer are allowed to give things away for free. You have to purchase a copy of the software/media for every different form of media you want to use it on.
Communism is SO misunderstood. Communism YOUR PROPERTY BELONGS TO THE STATE.
GPL Your property belongs to you. If you want to sell it you are free to do so (libranet, suse, redhat, etc.)
If you want to give it away for free, and only get money on support you are free to do that! (Mepis, Ubuntu)
The GPL if anything is more empowering for everyone involved.
#1 – it deflates the value of software… this is true, but software prices are inflated! Do you think it’s “fair” to pay 400 dollars PER copy of MS office?
#2 – it’s communist because it supports giving away IP.
WRONG. It is trying to win back the right to sale, and the right to copy that was supposed to be an original part of the copyright law but has been subverted by large corporations.
These same corporations that wanted to outlaw the VCR.
want to see the future of ridiculous IP laws like the ones you want?
http://wearcam.org/seatsale/
read the whole site, he wants all property to be public property, he makes some good points, but I think property should still have an owner, just not have so many rights given to that owner that no one else can use that idea.
There are plenty of places that will sell you a linux distribution without support, documentation, or other extras, it seems there are plenty of people who believe that its worth $5.
I don’t know if you’re deliberately missing the point, but this has nothing to do with what Morin and I wrote.
It’s a very good thing that some people are willing to pay some bucks for a *BSD variant or a Linux distro, but if they simply want the software (i.e. without the CDs, without the shipping service, without handing out some bucks to support the projects, etc.: just the *software*), they can have it for free – and legally, of course – by downloading it from the internet: therefore, F/OSS has a market value = 0.
This is a matter of pure logic, and there’s very little to argue about that.
I think Ulib (…) would love that.
No, of course I wouldn’t. But I think that’s already pretty clear to anybody who reads my posts – anybody who has a mind and uses it, of course.
That anything that can be had for free will be had for free. If somebody gives away free dirt, is the market value of all dirt 0?
I can record music from the radio, and record television shows for free (Legally even). Does this make the value of the music, and the television shows 0?
I just think the Open Source Community cant live with the fact that, since their Intellectual Property is out there for the world to view, they cannot gain profit from it.
Um, if they wanted to gain profit from it, why did they release it as open source in the first place? That argument makes no sense.
So they created GPL which means I gave the code up, but damn it if you touch one line of this code. If it even looks similar to this code, I will sue you. That is truly Phil Hendrie-ish to me
After reading your first post, I assumed you were just doing a typical post-and-run flamebait troll. But after your second post, it looks like you’re just an apologist with a poor grasp of copyright/intellectual property in general, and the GPL specifically.
I apologize for so harshly misjudging you originally – I should know better than to assume malice when incompetence is more likely.
First I want to apologize to scythekain for my being harsh earlier, but I really think that he’s not using his logic while reading what I write, otherwise he wouldn’t say such things.
Second, @Best:
If somebody gives away free dirt, is the market value of all dirt 0?
Uh.. yes. (To say it all, I think it would be < 0, since you usually pay to get rid of it.)
I can record music from the radio, and record television shows for free (Legally even).
I think usually you can’t do that. And if you do it, you can’t legally redistribute what you recorded. At least, that’s how I think it works (and it sounds reasonable).
That Open Source Software is like a free rock and roll festival. You can get in the gate free, but once you’re inside, you’re likely to buy a tshirt, and drinks, and food, and everything else. Are the performances of the Bands at the festival worthless? Or are there plenty of people making plenty of money off of it?
Thats how open source is both the most marxist and the most capitalist thing around. Anybody can get it for free, and anybody can set up a company to sell something to go with it.
ulib, you’ve obviously not been in the midwest, where farmers will pay good money for dirt, or noticed that Family Guy is back on the air, because all the people who downloaded episodes of it, or watched it on TV the first time around, all ran out to buy the DVDs of something that they already had.
Plenty of people make money on things that are essentially free. That MXS wasn’t a success doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work for anybody.
You think I’m saying things I’m not even dreaming of. F/OSS is very far from worthless.
(market_value = 0) != worthless
The only thing that worries me, in a hypothetic world where all software is GPL, is this: (quoting my previous post..)
“Free/Open Source Software has a market value = 0. This is not a bad thing in itself, of course. Moreover, we all know that F/OSS can be as good as proprietary software – if not better.
My point is: there are some kinds of software that no business (and, more generally, nobody) would deem worth to make, if the market value of the software in the end is bound to be 0.”
That’s the issue. That’s what makes me prefer academic licenses (BSD, MIT) to GPL.
You also say:
you’ve obviously not been in the midwest, where farmers will pay good money for dirt
Then it means that its value on the market is high. Otherwise the farmers would get the one that’s given away for free! Why shouldn’t they.
or noticed that Family Guy is back on the air, because all the people who downloaded episodes of it, or watched it on TV the first time around, all ran out to buy the DVDs of something that they already had.
Well, I seriously doubt that *all* of them ran out.. The ability to download stuff is making the CD & DVD sales drop.
Another clarification (then I call it quits, since I’ve already made my point pretty clear):
Of course I’m talking about the market value of the *software*. Everything that’s around the software (assistance, hardware, whatever) has nothing to do with the issue.
What I’m asserting is that the complete abolition of the concept of private property (the *user’s* property) of the software, that is the openly declared purpose of the GPL, is a communistic principle, and it would be a bad thing for the economy, since in that scenario (that is not the current one of course, but is the one that many GPL advocates, including its creator, would like to become real) it would be impossible to write software with a market value different from 0.
That’s true, if that situation were ever realized, which it won’t be (and you even say why in your post).
I also fail to see how that is necessarily worse than the stated goal of (say) a publically-held coporation: to earn as much money as possible for its shareholders. And the best way to do that (or at least quickest/most efficient) often involves practices that certainly aren’t beneficial to the economy as a whole (putting competitors out of business, price-fixing, conglomeration, outsourcing/sweatshop labour, etc).
And really, which seems more likely? The prospect of a corporation completely fulfilling that “as much money as possible for shareholders” goal (“One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock”)? Or the prospect of the entire software market somehow becoming OSS-only? Given the existence of the Wal*Marts, McDonald’s, and Microsofts of the world, the former seems the least unlikely of the two.
We will never know if CherryOS can honestly influence MAC OS on PC, and not the mention, jobs are now lost, and fellow devs are out on the streets.
Open source has nothing to do with it. If PearPC was a closed-source product, the vendor would have found what CherryOS was and put a stop to it.
The bottom line is that they violated PearPC’s rights and deserved to be removed from the marketplace.
> I can record music from the radio, and record television
> shows for free (Legally even). Does this make the value of
> the music, and the television shows 0?
No, because it takes you some effort to start the recording, because the quality sucks, and because reproduction takes some effort. If you could record by pressing a single button, quality was optimal, and you could reproduce the tape instantly by pressing another button (and distribute it legally), then yes, it’s market value would be 0.
> That Open Source Software is like a free rock and roll
> festival. You can get in the gate free, but once you’re
> inside, you’re likely to buy a tshirt, and drinks, and
> food, and everything else. Are the performances of the
> Bands at the festival worthless? Or are there plenty of
> people making plenty of money off of it?
The performances aren’t worthless because you cannot reproduce them for others. You cannot even decide yourself *when* and *how often* you go there, because it’s only happening once. If the same bands played there every day, with the same show, then the market value of a single performance would be zero.