Linux vs the Human Greed

[3ra]

Hello, and sorry if this is in the wrong section.

Just wondering, or, me and my mate were wondering, and yea i like the whole linux philosophy and all, but, if linux one day became big, very big, wouldnt it not be free anymore then?

I mean, the world is built on the human greed, and ppl tend to at some point meet the greedy self. Iam just wondering if there are some insurance of this, or if it can as a matter of fact just suddenly cost money. Sorry for my newbishness when it comes to this but gotta get to know it somehow so :)

And sorry for my bad english, not my native tounge :)

[LaRoza]

Just wondering, or, me and my mate were wondering, and yea i like the whole linux philosophy and all, but, if linux one day became big, very big, wouldnt it not be free anymore then?
Distros can be non-free, but not Linux.



I mean, the world is built on the human greed,
Linux is built on freedom.



Iam just wondering if there are some insurance of this, or if it can as a matter of fact just suddenly cost money. Sorry for my newbishness when it comes to this but gotta get to know it somehow so :)
The license protects it.

[tom66]

Because of how it is extremely modular I don't think it would be even feasible for the entire code base of Linux to become a commercial product. Also, since people are able to distribute Linux's source freely without restriction under GPL2 if it ever did become commercial nobody would listen.

[3ra]

Thanks for clearifying this :)

Well, iam thinking of suggesting to the school IT group to try run linux as standard, ubuntu i guess, as its free and then they could order cheap laptops without the unnecesary Windows and such.

The school i go to are in a leading project in the country (Norway) where all students are equipped with a laptop and such, but we only use it for web browsing and writing and such. Linux + openoffice = profit?

Uhm, if it would be free then as well i mean :)

[perce]

There are in fact companies making lots of money out of Linux: Red Hat, Novell, IBM...

[LaRoza]

There are in fact companies making lots of money out of Linux: Red Hat, Novell, IBM...

Canonical, and all those web sites that use Linux as the server.

[runningwithscissors]

You're confusing "The World" with USia.

USia is built upon greed. Not the world.

[LaRoza]

You're confusing "The World" with USia.

USia is built upon greed. Not the world.

United States Information Agency?

Or does that stand for something else?

[runningwithscissors]

United States Information Agency?

Or does that stand for something else?

It's where USians come from.


प्रतिरोध व्यर्थ हैand lol.

[lyceum]

It's where USians come from.

and lol.

I am still lost on the USians :confused: is that -US- as in you and me -ians- as in followers of us? If is is referring to the USA, not everyone in the US is a greedy capitalist pig. Most of us are just normal people trying to put food on our tables after by overly priced X-Boxes :)

[artir]

In capitalist USia you don't buy things. Things buy you!

[original_jamingrit]

distros such as ubuntu promise to be as free as technologically possible for everyone. Not just free as in free beer, but free as in free speech. If there is a sort of greed that wants to take advantage of the linux market share, there will still be a type of greed that doesn't want that.

Example: Career Pirates versus the *AAs. They both exist mostly because of greed.

[Chame_Wizard]

Some people don't understand the OSS values :guitar:

[Ozor Mox]

Linux (the kernel) as well as almost everything that makes up a distribution like Ubuntu is licensed under the GPL or other free software licences, and so it is not possible for them to become non-free just like that. Even if the copyright holder, which may be one person or in the case of the Linux kernel thousands of contributors, were to decide to change the licence to proprietary, people could easily just fork the previous GPL version of it and continue free development using the source code which is very widespread. Even despite this, I don't know of any example where software that was worth anything with a free licence was changed to proprietary.

Furthermore, while there are distributions that charge for products and services and successfully make money from it, distributions like Ubuntu and Debian have philosophies where they are dedicated to using free software and remaining free for everyone, and they are unlikely to give up their values just like that.

Still, I understand your concerns, and had them myself when I first began using Ubuntu, but I think we have little to worry about :)

[y-lee]

I mean, the world is built on the human greed, and ppl tend to at some point meet the greedy self.

I certainly don't see the world as being built on human greed, nor do I understand why one would say that. Do you actually have any evidence or reason for that statement. I see greed as a part of human nature but only a small part as compassion and community is also a part of human nature. Self centered greed I see as psychological immaturity if not some sort of mental or physical problem. People and other primates are too social of an animal to be completely self centered. Community and getting along with others are far more important even in capitalistic societies like the US.

As for people making money off of linux sure plenty of people and companies do. But the philosophy of free and open source software is here to stay for a long while, imho.

peace

[shadylookin]

linux has made lots of companies money or saved them money thereby increasing their profits. Linux is by no means incompatible with human greed. Because of the OS licenses of most linux applications it is unlikely that you would ever be charged for it. Even if the copyright holder changes the license the old gpl/whatever version would probably be forked. However there are proprietary applications made for linux that you could be charged for, but those are few and far between.

[Giant Speck]

In capitalist USia you don't buy things. Things buy you!

Way to turn a totally overused communist joke and convert it into an even lamer capitalist joke.

[3ra]

I certainly don't see the world as being built on human greed, nor do I understand why one would say that.

Well, for as long as our history stretches back, our planet has been a warehouse of resources to serve humanity's selfishness.

[Erdaron]

In capitalist USia you don't buy things. Things buy you!
Yay! \\:D/

[tom66]

If they did change the license, it would just fork into another version. I think this happened with XFree86, they added a 'credit clause' which made the license incompatible with the GPL, annoying everyone to the extent that they forked the codebase and started Xorg. (I believe)

[3ra]

Well, the thing iam worried about is, u know its open etc, but, what if like, a uber pro team of devs just suddenly made their own version of linux, one that outclassed every other linux versions, one that would become near the windows xp level (like, commerce and all), and then all they made was closed, and u had to buy it etc.

It would be like, all other versions of linux would be totally crap in comparisment :P

Ow wait.. Its still up to the rest of the world for linux to become big anyways, drivers and apps must support it aye.. Lol iam just babbling!

[Saint Angeles]

Well, the thing iam worried about is, u know its open etc, but, what if like, a uber pro team of devs just suddenly made their own version of linux, one that outclassed every other linux versions, one that would become near the windows xp level (like, commerce and all), and then all they made was closed, and u had to buy it etc.

It would be like, all other versions of linux would be totally crap in comparisment :P

Ow wait.. Its still up to the rest of the world for linux to become big anyways, drivers and apps must support it aye.. Lol iam just babbling!
the linux kernel is protected by the GPL... what you are saying would be impossible i think.

[lordhaworth]

With the way that a distro like ubuntu is maintained by a community i dont think it would be really that possible for it to become private and have people charged for it, simply because it would lose the wealth of people willing to contribute to its growth

[BigSilly]

Well, the thing iam worried about is, u know its open etc, but, what if like, a uber pro team of devs just suddenly made their own version of linux, one that outclassed every other linux versions, one that would become near the windows xp level (like, commerce and all), and then all they made was closed, and u had to buy it etc.

Heh, well as soon as Linux gets anything like Windows XP quality, I'm off! :D

Still, it's a great original question from you, and one that has my concerns too.

[3ra]

Heh, well as soon as Linux gets anything like Windows XP quality, I'm off! :D

Still, it's a great original question from you, and one that has my concerns too.


Heh neeeveer, dont want xp quality in mah linux! :P But yea, its a question worth thinking over, but prolly wont happen :)

[Delever]

There is always GNU kernel, which was started... (looks at wikipedia) ... hum ... some time ago.

[F1y3r3]

Heh, well as soon as Linux gets anything like Windows XP quality, I'm off! :D
Windows XP quality? Maybe I'm just unlucky, but whenever I boot into Windows XP or Vista I end up with a broken system after an hour or even sooner :lolflag:
I don't care if it's free or not, as long as it's open source and it works. Although if Linux became popular I'd probably move to something else.

[zipperback]

Well, the thing iam worried about is, u know its open etc, but, what if like, a uber pro team of devs just suddenly made their own version of linux, one that outclassed every other linux versions, one that would become near the windows xp level (like, commerce and all), and then all they made was closed, and u had to buy it etc.


The GPL prevents someone from creating a closed version Linux.

Here is a link to the GPL v2 which is the License that Linux is released under.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Once something is open source under the GPL it stays open source.






It would be like, all other versions of linux would be totally crap in comparisment :P


Highly doubtful that this would ever happen.






Ow wait.. Its still up to the rest of the world for linux to become big anyways, drivers and apps must support it aye.. Lol iam just babbling!

Linux is already big.

There are thousands of applications that already run on Linux, and you can run Windows applications using Wine, or one of the forks of it if you need to do that as well.

There is very little that Linux cannot do, when you compare it against other operating systems.

- zipperback
:popcorn:

[lyceum]

In capitalist USia you don't buy things. Things buy you!

You still have not answered my question. What does USia mean? Is it a place in your mind or are you trying to make fun of the USA or what? I am lost here as to why you keep saying USia. That makes no sense to me at all.

[BigSilly]

You still have not answered my question. What does USia mean? Is it a place in your mind or are you trying to make fun of the USA or what? I am lost here as to why you keep saying USia. That makes no sense to me at all.

Relax, it's just a bit of fun is all. I think it's a reference to 1984 by Orwell, but I can't be sure. Like Oceania, yeah?

[Ozor Mox]

Well, the thing iam worried about is, u know its open etc, but, what if like, a uber pro team of devs just suddenly made their own version of linux, one that outclassed every other linux versions, one that would become near the windows xp level (like, commerce and all), and then all they made was closed, and u had to buy it etc.

It would be like, all other versions of linux would be totally crap in comparisment :P

Ow wait.. Its still up to the rest of the world for linux to become big anyways, drivers and apps must support it aye.. Lol iam just babbling!

Three reasons why this could never happen:

1. The GPL prevents people who don't own the copyright to the software from making a closed source version of it.

2. The copyright holder does have the right to change the licence to closed source, but people would just fork the last open source version of it and continue development (like the XFree86/Xorg example)...and at any rate, Linux has thousands of contributors who are, I presume, all copyright holders and all would need to agree to a licence change.

3. A "uber pro team" of developers, no matter how "uber" they were, I am 99% sure would not be able to compete with the thousands of contributors to the open source version of Linux that would continue.

Tangent alert!

Since Linux has thousands of contributors and, by my understanding, many copyright holders...how could anyone make the decision to change from GPLv2 to GPLv3? Or do a set few people have copyright control over Linux? With GNU projects I believe the FSF has copyright don't they?

[Keyper7]

Not *completely* on topic, but here's a quick personal thought.

I personally care about freedom, not about price. If Canonical turns Ubuntu into a perfect operating system that God himself would use and compatible with each and every hardware in this green earth, I'd be more than happy to pay a few bucks for it, as long as it stays free (as in freedom) and open-source.

Of course, I'm talking about reasonable prices for nice packaging and support included (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8888563&st=ubuntu&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1211587312374), not gargantuan prices that only enterprises can handle (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/index.html).

[lyceum]

Relax, it's just a bit of fun is all. I think it's a reference to 1984 by Orwell, but I can't be sure. Like Oceania, yeah?

I am relaxed, just :confused: by something I don't get. :)