On Tue, Nov 06, 2001 at 02:52:12PM -0500, Bill Mills-Curran wrote:
<opinion> Also, there are valid reasons for licensing and selling/leasing some products. [snip] Although I believe in the open source model, I don't think it's all-encompassing. Some products just need income in order to live. </opinion>
Absolutely, open-source software is great but there is plenty of room for commercial stuff out there. Licenses are one thing, locking software to a particular machine is another issue entirely. I have no problem with people charging me money for products that are worth it (heck, I *buy* my RedHat CDs whenever possible), but I really don't like the one license/one machine model. There was some talk a while ago about making open-source licensing code, ala flexlm. Essentially there's a daemon somewhere that says "there are X licenses available", and the application can be installed in a billion different places. However, the licensing code will only allow the application to run in X places simultaneously. It's the "book licensing method" -- you can give the book to anyone you want, but it can only be used by one person at a time. It would also be possible to say "unlimited licenses", and then use the licensing system as an audit system to find out how many users are actually using the application, etc. I think the end of the discussion was that open source and this licensing type of system are contrary to each other. Personally, I think it'd be a fun thing to work on if I had the time. -- Randomly Generated Tagline: There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. (From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a)