Bill Gates calls Linux/Open Source/Free Software Communist! accurate description or not?

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Bill Gates in an interview called Open Source/Free Software Communist due to it's stance on copyright law and intellectual property. Now he saw this as a bad thing I don't Open Source software is one of the few socially progressive movements that is making some headway the fact that it riles Bill Gates is a major plus point for me!

Maimonides (Maimonides), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:29 (twenty years ago)

Do you have a link? Unless I know the context he could say just about anything about Linux and it may be right.

Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

uh here's the link:

http://news.com.com/Gates+taking+a+seat+in+your+den/2008-1041_3-5514121.html

Maimonides (Maimonides), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

It appears to be more about intellectual property laws than open source...

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

isn't there already a thread on this?

Ste (Fuzzy), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

There's one on everything as far as I can make out, so probably.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

yeah he doesn't actually refer to the Open Source community.

Stevem On X (blueski), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

I believe he's referring to the EU's proposal to change IP laws. I don't know a lot about the actual proposal, so I could (and probably am) entirely wrong, but it appears to be in favour of relaxing the law, such that if one person has an idea, then it's at least more likely to be legal for someone else just to copy it and profit from it.

I think "communism" is a daft word to describe this, but I can see that it's a significant change to how things might work in business; likely to be in favour of larger, more established firms I guess. So for example, if I have a great idea about search technology, then google can just copy it without paying me anything.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:52 (twenty years ago)

It's funny then, that it appears to be large, established firms that are all in favour of it, isn't it?

RickyT (RickyT), Friday, 7 January 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

Who is?

And why do you think that is?

Or is it that obvious; perhaps I'm being stupid.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

Bill Gates continues to add to his record of being an extremely, extremely poor public communicator, film at 11.

I think sometimes that Gates' phenomenal early successes may stem from exactly this kind of thing, the CES disaster the other night, and other things like this - he's got such an utterly nerdly demeanor and misspeaks so frequently people probably underestimated him completely. I mean would YOU think he had any business acumen?

TOMBOT, Friday, 7 January 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

(x-post)
The general concern w/r/t IP laws thatI've read about (disclaimer largely, though not exclusively is linux magazines) is the opposite - that large corporations are patenting (often frivolously) areas of research/development in order to prevent these areas and ideas from being explored by other organisations and people. Also than ms are one of the leaders in this tactic, in that they are aggresively building up a huge portfolio of patents. This does seem to me, based on what I've read to be a very legitimate coincern, and the real reason for Gates' coming out w/all this is, well, fairly transparent.

Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)

Microsoft loves restrictive IP laws, because they can a) use them to make more money b) use them to lock out their competitors. It's been widely predicted that they are about to move into using their patent portfolio in this way.

For example, Microsoft held patents that, they claimed, covered the FAT filesystem used in DOS and Windows 9x, and used on just about every floppy disk, memory card, etc, in the world. They had started to claim royalties from memory card manufacturers, until said patent claims were overturned in court.

Also: Microsoft and their friends - SCO, for example - often try to portray Free Software as somehow "anti-copyright", when the Free Software licenses rely on copyright law just as much, in a way, as other software licences. Free licences effectively say: "you must accept these terms, because if you don't then under copyright law you have no rights to a copy of this software at all".

caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

Yes,

I do believe they do this. They also do something I can't remember the exact term for, which is encircling patents, i.e. someone patents an idea, and then someone else patents every other conceivable idea closely related to it in practical use terms, hence reducing the scope for the individual's idea to come to fruition.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:10 (twenty years ago)

Regardless of the details of the FAT filesystem carry on, do you think it's reasonable to be able to patent a design like that?

It's clear there's a lot of design goes into a file system. Where would you draw the line? Or do you believe that everyone should be allowed to nick everyone else's stuff regardless of who invented it?

With respect to free software and copyright, I think the problem is that these terms (particularly "free", which seems to only mean free in the way I understand it in BSD licenses) simply don't give the whole picture; saying someone is "anti-copyright", means very little; I mean, you can see kind of where you're coming from, but as you rightly point out, all of them come with copyrights.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:15 (twenty years ago)

Yep, sorry, in my haste to be an unnecessarily snarky git, I got my senses confused. Apologies. Pashmina OTM.

RickyT (RickyT), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:16 (twenty years ago)

Yes the GPL is quite clever in the way it leverages current copyright law for wider social benefit, hence why Microsoft et al feel so threatened by it. However to get back to my original question... I think Open Source/Free Software is communist/socialist in execution and intent. The reason being that with software unlike material goods there is no real substantive cost in reproducing a piece of software any number of times. Another progressive aspect of GPL'd software is the erosion of any distinction between use and consumer and it's inherent bias against monopoly...

Maimonides (Maimonides), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:16 (twenty years ago)

The reason being that with software unlike material goods there is no real substantive cost in reproducing a piece of software any number of times.

I guess this moves into the arguments around digital music/film etc!

I actually see GPLd software as less of a danger than other open source licenses to business, in that largely, businesses cannot use GPLd software unless they use them as is, like using Emacs for example. Libraries cannot be used under GPL unless you want to open source all the code that is using the library; something I suspect almost all companies would not want to do.

Open source software is clearly a terrific thing and puts the thumbscrews on to business to make them perform as well as providing free and (in some cases) highly reliable, well-written alternatives. It seems likely that IE7 will turn up soon enough as a result of the gains made by Firefox recently.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

I don't think it is reasonable to start enforcing patents on FAT in the current circumstances - which are that Microsoft, if it wished, could have tried to use those patents to force practically all of its competitors in the OS market to either pay royalties or drop useful floppy disk support from their software. No doubt the reason they didn't was that it would make it very obvious, from an anti-trust point of view, just how powerful their monopoly position is.

If they had patented FAT back in 1981, and had insisted on licensing it out to other companies from the start, I would probably think differently. The software market would have developed very differently, too.

(I'm not sure what exactly was patented in FAT - I don't agree with algorithm patenting, but I would consider that some aspects of a filesystem design could be patented)

Libraries cannot be used under GPL unless you want to open source all the code that is using the library

Where do you stand on the LGPL license?

caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:24 (twenty years ago)

The European commission is in favour of stregthening the IP laws, theywant to introduce patents for software ideas (and business method I think) previously only algorithms have been patentable. The law as it stands to be implemented looks like it will stifle competition and thus invention.

Ed (dali), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

Caitlin,

LGPL is absolutely fine; that removes the aforementioned restriction.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

(By "fine", I mean that it leaves you free to use their software without having to accept their ideals/politics as well)

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:29 (twenty years ago)

I'm not so opposed to algortithm patenting it encourages people to look at other ways of doing things. The patents are too long though. It's ridiculous that something like LZW is still under patent (or just out of it, forget).

I like GPl, but I understand the wariness of it. The BSD license is good because it is simple, unrestricted and doesn't have any ideaology behind it. (believe me it was much asier to persuade my company to accept PostgreSQL and it's BSD licence than MySQL and it's funny mix of GPl and commercial licences.

Ed (dali), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

Plus, another reason why people were considerably annoyed about Microsoft's FAT threats was that it itself was developed/borrowed from ideas first seen in CP/M. The only really novel thing about FAT32 is how it manages to kludge 256-character names into the 8.3 space, and even that isn't all that impressive...

carson dial (carson dial), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

It certainly seems daft to want to retrospectively apply a patent in the way you guys are describing the FAT case; my only point with respect to this is that it seems reasonable that you'd want to be able to patent an innovative design.

I can't really remember the order of things, it was 1987 or so the last time I used CP/M, but I suspect all sorts were copied between these operating systems.

Do IBM hold a patent for virtual memory I wonder? I mean that sounds like a reasonable thing to patent, and yet it did it first; now all OSs use virtual memory.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:36 (twenty years ago)

Yep, IBM did have a patent for virtual memory; they bought it from Manchester University (who did it first with the ATLAS computer), and made a fortune back in the 1960s. My professors liked telling that story - "we could have been so rich…"

carson dial (carson dial), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

might as well throw this link in here:

Bill Gates and "Modern-day sort of communists"

kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

Ed,

Completely agree. In fact (particularly with the forthcoming windows version) I suspect PostGreSQL will overtake MySQL as the number one open-source database in time, basically because of this.

(I assume it's what used to be Ingres... Never been able to confirm that anywhere)

I personally agree about LZW, which is way too obvious an approach to be patented. Lord knows how you legislate for that sort of thing though. Perhaps you're right, it may just be a case of shortening the length of time involved.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:45 (twenty years ago)

Carson,

Cheers; that clears that up! What about hierarchical file systems, databases, VSAM, ISAM, time sharing etc. Were these all patented by IBM too? What's the score, did the patents run out?

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:46 (twenty years ago)

PostgreSQL and Ingres are, I'm pretty sure, unrelated. PostgreSQL started out as Postgres, but that was its name from birth (which was about 20 years ago now).

caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

Ingres has existed since about 1976 though... It was I believe some sort of university thing gone commercial. Can't really remember the details. I was wondering if it kind of forked, like Sybase and SQL server.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

PostgreSQL also started out as a university thing - according to its history page it was originally a DARPA-funded project at UC Berkeley.

caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

I actually see GPLd software as less of a danger than other open source licenses to business, in that largely, businesses cannot use GPLd software unless they use them as is, like using Emacs for example. Libraries cannot be used under GPL unless you want to open source all the code that is using the library; something I suspect almost all companies would not want to do.

This is inccorrect. So long as a business is not planning on distributing a modified version of GPL'd software, it can keep the modified source code to itself. Upshot--if run a business that wants modify emacs for *internal use only*, I am not required to release the changes under the GPL.

For more info, check out:
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic

J (Jay), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

incorrect, even.

J (Jay), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:55 (twenty years ago)

Jay,

Thanks for that; that's obviously been a long held misconception of mine. The definition of "distribution" still concerns me a little though and what the implications are for publicly available web sites.

Caitlin...

Looks as though Ingres and Postgres are related but not the same thing.

http://databases.about.com/od/postgresingres/

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:57 (twenty years ago)

Not sure about VSAM/ISAM, but patent protection lasts for a maximum of about 20 years (I think it used to be 17 in the US, but has been extended to 20), so the early work on databases time-sharing, and file systems is all free now.

There's some company currently trying to do the same to JPEG as Unisys did with GIF. Not sure how well they're getting on with their lawsuits though.

carson dial (carson dial), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:57 (twenty years ago)

> implications are for publicly available web sites.

Richard Stallman is apparently rather concerned with this 'loophole' in the GPL, so the upcoming GPLv3 will probably include language to specifically prevent GPL code from being used in web apps without the source being available. So BSD/LGPL is still probably the best way to go.

carson dial (carson dial), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:02 (twenty years ago)

Oh well! Back to square one! I was quite pleased there for about five minutes.

KeithW (kmw), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

Oh well! Back to square one! I was quite pleased there for about five minutes.

Hey, just fork the GPL and refuse to use the new version.

Anyway, RMS is not the FSF, and the FSF is not RMS, so I'm not sure that what RMS apparently thinks is a 'loophole' will really end up being 'closed' in the GPL revision. I personally don't see any reason why someone using modified database software and having the *results* of that use available to the public should be considered a 'distribution' of that software. How different is that from using internally modified software to create a physical item and then offering the physical item for distribution? RMS wouldn't see that as distribution of the software.

J (Jay), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

specifically prevent GPL code from being used in web apps

What do you mean by 'web apps'? Are we talking about server-side our client-side? I think there's an important distinction there, with major implications for how this should be analysed, and I would bet, what RMS is talking about.

J (Jay), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:46 (twenty years ago)

http://slashdot.org/articles/05/01/14/1626248.shtml?tid=109

more fun and a 4-part interview

kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 14 January 2005 21:36 (twenty years ago)


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