J
Jiri Baum
Joe Jansen:
> Nokia sells their phones to Cingulair, Verizon, and other service
> providers who then give them away to the consumer, binding the
> consumer into a contract in the process that insures that they will
> more than recoup their losses. The problem is that there is no
> "middleman" as it were in the Linux software deal. The software
> developers sell directly to the user.
Sure there are middlemen - they're called integrators. The only difference will be that instead of buying software from the Nokia-equivalent, they'll d/l it off the net.
Every non-trivial project needs an integrator; they are where the bulk of the programming and other work is being done, anyway. Whether the
integration is done in-house or outsourced, the work needs to be done, will be paid for, and the people who do it will have bread on the table.
The only people worse off for it will be the Nokia-equivalent, if they don't manage to ride it somehow, but relatively few people work for them
anyway (perhaps 5%).
|------------------------------------------------(begin sidetrack)-----|
... [Railroad Tycoon II from Loki] ...
> some of their other releases not only had rampant piracy, but people
> would hack their code to make themselves invincible during tournament
> play.
That's poor protocol design, of course: security shouldn't depend on the good behaviour of the client software. It's also poor sportsmanship
|------------------------------------------------(end sidetrack)-------|
> IBM and HP both use Linux to sell their hardware. No secret here.
...
> No problem releasing this under GPL, since not many people have a use
> for an AS/400 operating system without the AS/400.
Much the same can be said for PLC programming (and other accessory) s/w: not many people have a use for it without the PLC.
> IA people, like most end users, want it for free.
So, then, what's the problem with it being free?
> As I tried to point out however, an open protocol is the only one that
> Linux can get. Are _you_ going to pony up the licensing fee for DH+?
One way to avoid this is to put the licensed stuff into the specialist interface card that most of the protocols need anyway. I'm not sure
about DH+ in particular, but certainly ASi, CANopen, ControlNet, DeviceNet, Interbus, ModBus+, PROFIBUS and Sercos can be handled this
way quite satisfactorily, and probably most others.
The firmware in the card then translates between the proprietary external protocol on the one hand, and the freely extendable, anhanceable and redistributable software on the other.
[about IBM]
> If making Linux better than Windows means people buy an AS/400 instead
> of an HP machine, or a roomful of little NT boxes, you can bet that
> they will improve Linux just enough to maximize this benefit.
And that's all anyone asks in the open-source world: improve the public pool of software just enough to maximise the benefit to you.
Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools
> Nokia sells their phones to Cingulair, Verizon, and other service
> providers who then give them away to the consumer, binding the
> consumer into a contract in the process that insures that they will
> more than recoup their losses. The problem is that there is no
> "middleman" as it were in the Linux software deal. The software
> developers sell directly to the user.
Sure there are middlemen - they're called integrators. The only difference will be that instead of buying software from the Nokia-equivalent, they'll d/l it off the net.
Every non-trivial project needs an integrator; they are where the bulk of the programming and other work is being done, anyway. Whether the
integration is done in-house or outsourced, the work needs to be done, will be paid for, and the people who do it will have bread on the table.
The only people worse off for it will be the Nokia-equivalent, if they don't manage to ride it somehow, but relatively few people work for them
anyway (perhaps 5%).
|------------------------------------------------(begin sidetrack)-----|
... [Railroad Tycoon II from Loki] ...
> some of their other releases not only had rampant piracy, but people
> would hack their code to make themselves invincible during tournament
> play.
That's poor protocol design, of course: security shouldn't depend on the good behaviour of the client software. It's also poor sportsmanship
|------------------------------------------------(end sidetrack)-------|
> IBM and HP both use Linux to sell their hardware. No secret here.
...
> No problem releasing this under GPL, since not many people have a use
> for an AS/400 operating system without the AS/400.
Much the same can be said for PLC programming (and other accessory) s/w: not many people have a use for it without the PLC.
> IA people, like most end users, want it for free.
So, then, what's the problem with it being free?
> As I tried to point out however, an open protocol is the only one that
> Linux can get. Are _you_ going to pony up the licensing fee for DH+?
One way to avoid this is to put the licensed stuff into the specialist interface card that most of the protocols need anyway. I'm not sure
about DH+ in particular, but certainly ASi, CANopen, ControlNet, DeviceNet, Interbus, ModBus+, PROFIBUS and Sercos can be handled this
way quite satisfactorily, and probably most others.
The firmware in the card then translates between the proprietary external protocol on the one hand, and the freely extendable, anhanceable and redistributable software on the other.
[about IBM]
> If making Linux better than Windows means people buy an AS/400 instead
> of an HP machine, or a roomful of little NT boxes, you can bet that
> they will improve Linux just enough to maximize this benefit.
And that's all anyone asks in the open-source world: improve the public pool of software just enough to maximise the benefit to you.
Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools