Haz's BlogMore then just an average WordPress blog!

Wonderful quote from Linus Torvalds himself recently (found here):

How is life at the moment? Are you enjoying work at the Linux Foundation in Portland, Ore.?

I’m all happy with my life. The reason I come to Linux.conf.au is it is summer here and freezing in Portland. My job is the same, and I do the kernel and nobody tells me what to do and they pay me for it, which is just the way I like it.

Just goes to show you that despite everyone who tells you that Linux or Open-Source developers don’t get paid for their work – their wrong. You just have to have an interesting project that shows some future value, and you will get paid for your work. Just thought I’d get the myth clarified.

Well, I’ve been trying to look into it and this one quote is by far the best one I’ve seen on the matter (found here comment number 25):

Re: BUT..
by Xanthir, FCD – Apr 23rd, 2008 @ 1:11pm

Incorrect. The GPL states that you must release the source code to people you distribute the program to. If you never distribute it, you never have to share the source, and your improvements remain your own.

However, if you make an improvement to some GPLed code and then use that in your product that you sell, you *do* have to release the source code with it (along with your improvements). As noted by a previous respondent, that’s THE feature of GPL. GPL is a viral license that infects anything that touches it. The point is to eventually make virtually everything GPL, so that we return to the early state of computing where anyone could change any program they had to do what they wished.

This is why the Open-Source model is always overlooked! Everyone thinks, just because as part of the GPL you MUST release the source code, that Open-Sourced must be bad!

This is wrong and should be clarified to the media right now! Yes, you must release the code along with your compiled version, but that isn’t a bad thing. You only have to distribute the code to the audience that your distributing it to – I might be wrong on this statement though, but bare with me.

If, say, your creating some code for a business (bank) and by disclosing your work to the public could be a risk to people’s privacy (in this case money). Now, recreating the wheel is terrible. I know, I’ve tried to recreate code that’s already been out there for years and its hard work! Specially when doing it from scratch. Using the GPL as the licence, I could use Open-Source code, improve it and then sell my changes to the bank (but obviously provide my code with it). Since the program will not be used outside of the bank’s building, that code never needs to be released publicly – but any code that the bank doesn’t mind disclosing, could be sent out back to the community. For example I fixed a bug that people have been trying to work on for months, this could be then sent back and help the community forward.

Where do you see the bad side in this? If the bank later needs to adjust the code further, sure they could hire someone else – which could be bad – but aren’t they more likely going to trust the man who made it originally? Won’t his services, if they thought it was good enough, worth re-hiring for alterations? But on the other hand, it also means they can get a new set of eyes to improve their software further, and life would continue, bug fixes and code the bank again doesn’t mind disclosing could be sent back out to the community… etc… etc… life goes on, people are getting paid for their hard work, etc…

If someone thinks this is the wrong thinking towards the GPL, please do bring it to my attention, but as far as I’m aware this is what the GPL was made for, to make code viral and spread to everyone.

Edit:
Wow, I couldn’t of put this any better. It seems I am right in my thinking above. Read the quote found here, he uses references from the actual GPL licence website.

Edit, Edit:
Some news on a French police organisation that has switched from Windows to Linux (ubuntu no less).

– Everyday I like the Open-Source community more and more.
Haz