Closed vs Open Source as Fast As Possible

Is open source they way of the future for software?

[cediddi]

linus, please record a video about linux, just once, please.

[SamNorrell]

Linus is incorrect in this video. Open source software does not have to be given to users for no cost.

[ElbadriEgyption]

Well not all Open-source softwares are free of charge for instance RedHat Enterprise is not free at all. imho open-source usually refers to free as in freedom and not free of charge

[Mehrunes]

Techquickie request: What the heck does a CPU cache do?

[NikolajLepka]

Some open source software is paid for though.. I mean the developers need food on the table. The big difference is that the software code is freely available to everyone who wants to use it.

I'm glad you point out the difference between Free and Open software.

The GPLv3 (GNU Public Licence version 3) is actually terrible for businesses because of some of the restrictions it imposes onto its users. It's great for small businesses who want their stuff to get out there, but the one big gotcha with GPL is that *it forces you to share the modifications under the same licence*. This is bad because you can't use the modifications for say software used internally in your company and nowhere else, sofware you may or may not want to get leaked.
The BSD licence on the other hand doesn't give a shit, you can re-distribute the software with a proprietary licence if you so desire. This is why Apple and Sony can sell their own modified versions of the BSD operating system (PlayStation, OSX, iOS) under a proprietary licence *keeping the rights to their own changes*. So while BSD on its own is FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), Apple's and Sony's variants are not, and that's totally fine.
Using the BSD licence over the GPL ensures that you can distribute your software as far and wide as you want *so long as you don't take credit for the parts you didn't change*.

The main major advantage of FOSS is the community aspect of it. If you have one small core of developers you have shit you need to make in time, and things sometimes get overlooked, which leads to bugs that may or may not get fixed later.
While having a big sprawling community of eager programmers that *constantly* go through and make sure the code is of the very highest quality, you don't get the mess of buggy code that doesn't work properly for months on end because the developers either don't care or don't have time to fix it. If the product's community is big enough, someone will always care.

[IgnoreSolutions]

Personally I like to release my code under some form of open source license. I learned programming mostly by reading other people's source code, so I feel like I'm sort of giving back by doing this.

[IlDeimos]

I believe everything should be Open Source, besides military software. Because when something is open source, the public then can contribute to the project to make it better and better. It's the reason why the Android and Linux Operating systems have come so far so fast. And why Mac and iOS has been the same for years because Apple doesn't believe in open source.

Your explanation is wrong. I will mention two very clear errors:

1) Neither "Free Software" as defined by the Free Software Foundation nor Open Source as defined by the Open Source Initiative require the software to be free of charge. On the contrary, both explicitly state that commercialization / sale is a right which cannot be taken - if you were forbidden to sell it, it would be neither Free Software nor Open Source.

There are well-known examples of open-source software which is sold. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is one such example.

Of course, the problem is that once you sell it once, you cannot possibly prevent the buyer from offering it for free. Red Hat works around it by keeping the code open-source but their binaries proprietary. You can recompile all of it and distribute it for free to others, sure, and that's what Scientific Linux and CentOS do, but you would not have Red Hat's brandies and warranties.

2) "Closed-source" is not the opposite of "Open Source". That happens because Open Source is a formal definition with 10 requirements. Closed source however is an informal expression which can mean anything and at face value could mean just that the code is not available. So you could have something which is not closed source (because the code is available somehow) but also not Open Source (because it does not allow modification or redistribution without permission).

[SonariNeiracchen]

"You cannot make people pay for something that was designed to be free."
-Sam Flynn (TRON Legacy)

[notkenji]

Linus doesn't seem to understand Open Source/Free Software that much.

[pavelexpertov]

Thumbs up for making distinction between free and opensorurce, some people don't get that unfortunately :S

[CapsAdmin]

People keep pointing out that GPL forces you to share modifications as if it's a flaw in the license but it's actually intended. The free software people _don't want_ proprietary consumer software to exist because they think it's bad for society as whole. This is to prevent companies from taking free software and turning it into proprietary software.

To make a hardware analogy: Imagine if we lived in a world where most desktop computers were usually rented proprietary computers with AMD CPUs that would be either illegal, strongly discouraged or very difficult to modify. Intel doesn't want to contribute to this market because they think it's bad for society (I'm assuming you guys don't want to live in a world like this). The reason they think it's bad is these computers are often used to spy on users, put people in jail because they tried to modify it, discourages tinkering and programming ETC. So they take a strong stance by having a license on their CPUs that makes it illegal for companies to make prebuilt rented computers with them.

[thezcamaroman]

Copyleft...I like that. Let's make a movement.

[Gamelovers]

every time I watched Linus's Tech quickie's I always realize how dirty my screen is ...

[layndr]

Next: Server side and client side explained, pls

[chaquator]

you guys think linus speaks quickly?
turn up the speed to 2x,
watch a little bit,
turn it back to normal,
and really see how SLOWLY he speaks

[lovasz]

I got tired of pirating Microsoft office so i eventually bought it.

[epicKiipa]

There are some errors in here. Closed source software does not have to be proprietary, and open source software can be proprietary. For a project to be open source (or "free"/"libre" as Richard Stallman loves to call it) you have to be able to study, modify, and redistribute the source code. That requires you to have access to the source code, of course. However there are NO requirements on price, so "free" software (please let this saying die, and just say open source) should not be confused as free as in beer, but "free as in freedom".

So, closed source software should not be confused with proprietary. "Free software" is not the same as gratis software. Free software is equal to open source software (but saying that makes Richard Stallman and his followers angry).

[kostapoumpouridis]

On Linux the open source AMD is better then the Catalyst(closed).

[jerobarraco]

haha, this time the sponsorship was actually related to the topic.
very good topic, i hope you can expand.