Apparently TomTom and Microsoft have promised not to sue each other for the next five years. The settlement came soon after TomTom countersued and joined forces with the open source movement.
I can’t decide if I like this or not.
Recently, I bought a new computer. It’s the modern kind, with a dual-core, 64-bit, processor, an Nvidia graphics card, a huge SATA drive, and everything else I could think of when placing the order. And of course, I installed the amd64 Debian GNU/Linux distribution, envisioning fast and trouble-free computing using my favourite Linux distribution.
Well, so I thought. Then I started putting all those small support programs in place, from Flash to Skype, and realised that none of them would install. See, they are 32-bit, made for 32-bit operating systems, and there are no 64-bit versions for Linux available.
Why is this?
Mind you, it is possible to run most of these in “32-bit mode”, using 32-bit libraries, but you also need a steady supply of Aspirins and such, because it takes a lot of extra work, tinkering, and cursing.
If a piece of software was truly open source and free, as in “free speech” (as opposed to “free beer”), someone would immediately rectify this by compiling a 64-bit binary for others to use. And if that binary had problems, someone else would come along and fix that, often in a matter of days, not to mention adding features and fixing bugs in the original.
As many Linux users will testify, this works extremely well. Me, I’ve been using open source for years now, professionally and privately, and have experienced significantly less downtime than many of my colleagues and friends stuck with commercial software, often from that large Redmond manufacturer, in spite of the fact that my Linux variant is Debian’s development branch, codenamed Sid (named after the kid from Toy Story who liked to break toys).
Yet the makers of those small bits and pieces of software that many of us rely on, software that some insist are “free”, will not provide the large 64-bit Linux user base with 64-bit binaries, or make available the source code so others can provide us with that service.
Why? And what’s free about these programs, anyway, when you can’t do what you want to with them?
Long time no blog. Shocking as it may seem, I’ve not blogged since September. I’m sure you’ve all missed me.
Anyway, here’s why I blogged today. To put it simply, the Mozilla Foundation uses a trademarked Firefox logo that Debian team cannot distribute with its upcoming Etch release of the Debian OS, and therefore decided to rename the browser Iceweasel. The current license (of the logo) does not allow the reselling of software that includes the Firefox logo, so the renaming was the only option available to the Debian team if they wanted to distribute the browser. (For those of you not in the know, Debian is free software, and you can do whatever you want with the OS, including reselling it for a hefty sum of money.)
Unfortunately, Debian’s taking a lot of heat for the move. The decision to let Debian remain free and untainted by non-free licenses is called anything from “lame” to “disruptive”, and people are arguing that Debian’s strict license policy is hurting the open source movement since Firefox is its flagship product, soon to run on every desktop there is. And the policy is supposedly extra dangerous now, when Microsoft finally decided to upgrade Internet Explorer.
Unfortunately, people are missing the point. This is what open source really is about. The whole development model is about the freedom to do whatever you want with the software, including reselling it. It’s the “free” part that enables fast development, quick and efficient bug tracking, and new versions as fast as you can type apt-get.
Don’t let the open source ideals get lost because of some stupid image that will be changed and forgotten in a few version bumps, anyway.