Sun's COO Distorts Free In Free Software

sebFlyte writes "Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's COO and president, said at JavaOne that 'the most important initial in free and open source software, to me, if you want to reach the broadest marketplace in the world there's one price that works for everyone, and that's free". As you can imagine, this interpretation of 'free' in terms of software has angered a few people somewhat, including Richard Stallman..." From the article: "The free software movement stands for 'free' as in freedom. The open source campaign doesn't present freedom as an ethical issue, but it still formulates its criteria in terms of what users are permitted to do,"

The one thing that matters

I thought the most important definition of free was free as in beer.

Re:The one thing that matters

He said what his opinion on the most important thing about F/OSS and what he thinks most people like about F/OSS is the price, which is free.

I'm sorry... but he's right. Do you think that most of the people are adopting open source software because it's better? No, they're doing it because it saves cost in the majority of cases. Look at that story submitted just a few below this one. If software came out that was very restrictive but cheaper with a lower tco and a complete win-win-out-of-the-box-market-penetrating-razzle-d azzle whatever people would jump on it. For people that build ON free software, freedom matters more, for people that build WITH free software, price matters more. In the corporate world, most people build WITH free software. This is the market that Sun's COO is addressing.

Just have a look at this article [zdnet.co.uk] that says:

The majority of Java developers that Builder UK spoke to at the JavaOne conference on Tuesday were not concerned whether or not Sun made its implementation of Java available under an open source licence.

This is just another story people are using to bash Sun. Just like the whole JDS thing. Sun made a lot of moves to try and push a linux desktop. They went a little bit with it even though everyone was bashing them for it. Then they woke up and realized... The corporate world isn't ready for linux on the desktop yet. Boo em when they're trying to push linux on the desktop and then Boo em when they stop.

Richard Stallman angry?

It cannot be!

Re:Richard Stallman angry?

It cannot be!

Maybe someone needs to give him a free beer?

He's NEVER just angry!

He's GNU/Angry!

New name for free as in freedom or free as in beer

Lets end all these issues by calling OUR definition of free by a different word. Take their power away.

Suggestions?

Re:New name for free as in freedom or free as in b

Richard Stallman nominates GNU/Free.

Re:New name for free as in freedom or free as in b

Let's call it "libre."

No, wait. That makes us sound pedantic, petty, and grouchy enough that we need to start co-opting other languages' words to set ourselves apart from the crowd.

"Libre" it is.

Re:New name for free as in freedom or free as in b

I suggest we use "gay". Here's a good slogan:

"SOFTWARE FREEDOM IS GAY!"

That way, the gay software movement can encourage people to make their software gay, too. When people ask you what you do, you can say "I'm a gay software developer".

Come on, it would be funny. Let's start a petition.

Re:New name for free as in freedom or free as in b

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

New name for free as in freedom GAY?

You mean, as in GAY Ain't Younix (or GAY Ain't Yours)? It's a little "redneck" for me, but otherwise okay.

Idiots.

Look, you can't just go out and define a word to mean whatever you want. Free means freedom and costless depending on the context, wether you're talking about software not. Getting upset that someone used the word 'free' to mean 'no cost' while talking about software is simply idiotic. Its one thing to educate people, but its an entirely diffrent thing to try to own a word, especialy one thats been around for centuries. Words can have more then one meaning.

Idiots like ESR tried to do this with "hacker", to mean only what they wanted it to mean so that they could call themselves "hackers".

Re:Idiots.

Idiots like ESR tried to do this with "hacker", to mean only what they wanted it to mean so that they could call themselves "hackers".

You do realise that it was the crackers who wanted to be called 'hackers.'

RMS trying to get his name in the paper...

Wookey, a Debian developer, shared Stallman's view and accused Schwartz of deliberately twisting the definition to justify not releasing Java as open source.

If anything, he probably did it because a large percetange of the population (and especially the business world) don't care to understand "free" in any terms other than money.

Free Software (as RMS believes) is something that is way too radical for most businessmen. I'm sure that Schwartz was just trying to interact with his audience on their level.

Yes, it's wrong and yes it negates all the crazy stuff RMS has talked about over the years but I really don't think it was meant to hide or purposefully deceive anyone. Then again, RMS wouldn't have anything to get his name in the news about then, would he?

He is quite right

Many open source projects are mimics of commercially available software. They were adopted because they were free for the most part - not because the source code was available. Very few people and companies customize the software or utilize the source code in any way.

Re:He is quite right

Curious, that's precisely why we use it. We run pretty much all RedHat derivative stuff (either a version we purchased, or a one of the rebuilds). I use the source fairly frequently to track down bugs. I apply small bug fixes to problems I run into. I know we have a machine we have patched: xpdf, ghostscript and apache on.

I have patched various machines with little kernel fixes (adding PCI_ID's to support the i810 chipset).

I've used the source when someone posted error messages to various mailings lists to see what section of the kernel was generating certain errors to troubleshoot the problem.

I've added lines of code to e2fsck and mount to support new functionality I wanted to simplify my problems.

I could run Solaris, but when I have a problem, I can't track it down. I can't read the source to see how critical an area the bug is or if there is a way to work around it. I can't ask the author's of the code if they can fix it by e-mailing them directly.

I know that the plural of annecdote isn't data. However, a lot of technical people I know feel the same way. We aren't the majority of people. However most sysadmin's I know would much prefer to have the source, even if they are never going to edit, or re-compile it. A lot of the people who support the users would much prefer they used open source. I'm a developer not an SA, but I play an SA from time to time.

I'm happier as a user if I am using free software, if only because I'm not beholden to the keeper of the secret source to provide me with a fix. If I feel like it, I can pay someone else to do it, or I can investigate the problem myself. If it is important enough, I'll fix it.

Kirby

Actually....

Id hazard a guess that for 99% of the people who take advantage of the 'free software' movement do so precisely because its zero purchase cost, not because it gives them freedom of code. Seriously, how many people using apache do so because of the open codebase as opposed to the fact that they got an enterprise level web server for zero cost? MySQL? Perl? Linux? How many people that you recommend a GPLed application to dabble with the code? How many would have paid for that software instead of using something else?

Re:Actually....

Id hazard a guess that for 99% of the people who take advantage of the 'free software' movement do so precisely because its zero purchase cost

...and they get better software because the other 1% does use their freedom.

Heh...

Sun's president Jonathan Schwartz has angered some in the free software community by appearing to misrepresent what open source is.

Somehow, I'm thinking Stallman has just found something new to be furious about...! Ingrid, better check your email!

By the way, did the article leave out thefirst name of "Wookey, a Debian developer", did I somehow miss it or is that ZD's idea of a source?

His opinion

He didn't distort the definition. He just stated what he admitted was his own opinion on what the most important part of free software is.

From TFA:
Now just to relay my bias, if you had to ask me what's the most important initial in free and open source software, to me, if you want to reach the broadest marketplace in the world there's one price that works for everyone, and that's free...

So?

Somehow I just don't care.
Sun may be shooting themselves in the foot by refusing to join the FOSS movement. Simply offering software for free is obviously not good enough; they need to make it totally accessible for it to meet its potential.
But this doesn't matter, really. If Sun decides that they're going to keep their toys to theirselves, the FOSS community will come up with something to rival it. It happened with lots of other programs, and now we have OpenOffice, Linux, MonoDevelop, Audacity, PDFCreator, GiMP, Blender, Firefox, 7-Zip, and more. It can happen with Java, too.
Regardless of the fact that the new alternatives would no doubt mimic Java, the fact that their source would be universally available would give them an edge over the original.

It annoyed me, too.

I was lucky enough to go to JavaOne, and was sitting in the room as he said this, and it indeed annoyed me.

Politics aside, Richard Stallman makes a very clear distinction between Open Source software and Free software. When people refer to FOSS (Free Open Source Software), they have added BOTH "free" AND "open source" to their acronym - this is to make a clear distinction between software that is merely open source, and software that is both free (as in speech) and open source.

Sure, free means "free of charge" as well as "free speech". I wouldn't dare argue that one definition is more valid than another.

But in the context of "FOSS" or "F/OSS" or even "FLOSS" (Free/Libre Open Source Software), the whole reason to add "Free" to the more traditional "OSS" was to convey "Free as in speech."

Why does it matter? I think Sun wants to confuse the community, and make people think that they are on a bandwagon that they *are not on*. I think Jonathan Schwartz knows what the "free" in FOSS means, and intentionally misused it to make people think that he was really buying into FOSS, when in fact, he hasn't, at least with respect to the the JVM and class files. This is the exact reason Apache Harmony was created.

If this doesn't make sense, try downloading the "Free" Sun JDK from anywhere other than java.sun.com. Try getting it to come bundled with a Linux distribution. You can't do these things, because it *isn't* free, they just don't make you pay for it (at least, for now).

The only other point I want to make is that the "free beer" definition buys you something right *now* - the ability to download the Sun JDK without them charging you for it. If you're getting it without paying, what's the big deal? The big deal is that tomorrow, they *could* start charging for it. And then you can only run as long as it takes for you to need some new feature, or support for new hardware or a new OS. Then you pay.

If it were really free, you don't just get it now, but you also get a guarantee that it will always be available free in some form, as long as people need it and are willing to work on it. And really, that is a big difference.

Er, actually, no. Ask a dictionary.

free (adj.) [etymonline.com]

O.E. freo "free, exempt from, not in bondage," also "noble, joyful," from P.Gmc. *frijaz (cf. M.H.G. vri, Ger. frei, Du. vrij, Goth. freis "free"), from PIE *prijos "dear, beloved" (cf. Skt. priyah "own, dear, beloved," priyate "loves;" O.C.S. prijati "to help," prijatelji "friend;" Welsh rhydd "free"). The adv. is from O.E. freon, freogan "to free, love." The primary sense seems to have been "beloved, friend, to love;" which in some languages (notably Gmc. and Celtic) developed also a sense of "free," perhaps from the terms "beloved" or "friend" being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves, cf. L. liberi, meaning both "free" and "children"). Cf. Goth. frijon "to love;" O.E. freod "affection, friendship," friga "love," friðu "peace;" O.N. friðr, Ger. Friede "peace;" O.E. freo "wife;" O.N. Frigg "wife of Odin," lit. "beloved" or "loving;" M.L.G. vrien "to take to wife, Du. vrijen, Ger. freien "to woo." Sense of "given without cost" is 1585, from notion of "free of cost." Of nations, "not subject to foreign rule or to despotism," it is recorded from 1375. Freedman "manumitted slave" first recorded 1601. Colloquial freeloader first recorded 1930s; free fall is from 1919, originally of parachutists; free-hand is from 1862; free-thinker is from 1692. Freebie dates back to 1942 as freeby, perhaps as early as 1900. Free-for-all "mass brawl" (in which anyone may participate) first recorded 1881. Freebase (n. and v.) in ref. to cocaine first recorded 1980.

Re:define free

Not that I particularly care, but since you're being such an arse about it...

According to the OED, "Free" as in freedom dates back to around 900 AD and was first used to describe persons living in a household by bonds of kinship rather than slavery. By about 1300 AD, it was specifically applied to ideas of personal liberties. "Free" as in free-of-charge dates to just before 1500 AD.

Check the dictionary before you rant, please.

Re:free as in beer?

RMS has spent most of his life at a college, and many of the people he works with are students or workers at the college. For students, beer is a very common item to get for free (ie at a party), yet it has enough value that they are willing to pay for it when free beer is not available.