Study and Survey about Free/Libre Software - FLOSS founded

[MJ Ray]

Jan Wildeboer <jan.wildeboer at gmx.de> wrote:
> * New: "Use of Open Source Software in Firms and Public Institutions: 
> Evidence from Germany, Sweden and UK", July 2002.
[...]
> Was FSF-Europe involved in this somehow? Just curious.

I think this is from the same group that posted details of a survey of
developers to this list earlier this year.  Beyond that, I am not aware of
any FSFE involvement in the project.  Given their bad definition of the term
"free software" as open source software that normally prohibits commercial
sale, I doubt FSFE have been involved.

That claim is repeated on page 12 in part 3 of this report and following
pages go even further, describing the GNU GPL as "not suited for use in
commercial software development as they make license fee-based revenue
models impossible" and repeating the bad "viral" allegation.  It even says:

  "The very strong "Copyleft" makes GPL not very business-friendly because
   any software company would have to reveal their software source code if
   they used parts of GPL software to develop it."

The bad assumptions here are rampant!  It seems to present that software
companies *should* hide their source from their customers; also, that if you
merely *use* GPL code to develop your software, then you must GPL yours. 
Both of these are dubious to say the least.

This research has limited value, starting from bad axioms such as those
above.  It makes interesting reading for its qualitative data, but take its
quantative results with a large dose of salt.  Unfortunately, because EU
funding is involved, they may carry weight.  How does this group think we
should try to seize the initiative?

Right, back to the code...
-- 
MJR ,----------------------------------------------------
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