Myth 1: Open Source is free
Status: BUSTED
There is one open source license that means freedom. The so called MIT license. It is a paragraph that says do whatever the fuck you want with this code, but leave our names in the comments. It is 1 paragraph. It constitutes less than 1/2 of 1% of open source software projects in the wild.
Every other open source license is longer than the EULA found with windows. That enormous document spells out thousands of restrictions on using the source code of the software. No open source license requires the software offered to be free.
Myth 2: Open Source is a better alternative to copyright and IP laws
Status: BUSTED
That enormous open source license is possible because of copyright. Copyright laws allow the maker to institute those thousands of restrictions. Much of the code in open source is protected by patents. Open Source is OK with this, its supports generally are not because they are ignorant to this fact. Some licenses require royalty free rights on patents within the code, but this is very uncommon. The open source Webkit, made by Apple, is protected by hundreds of patents and about a dozen are actually released as royalty free.
Myth 3: Open Source is free
Status: BUSTED
Open Source does not mean free as in cost. It is perfectly valid to charge for open source software, and it happens all the time. Open source is not free as in freedom. There is a large document that restricts your freedom to use the code and the software known as an open source license.
And then there are the little known dirty tactics of Open Source. You may, with restriction, modify open source software. This hardly ever happens. The norm in the industry is to request new features from the maintainer of the software. The maintainers always charge the requestor for these new features and they withhold the feature until they are paid when they know they can get money for it. Why? If a company requests a feature they will need to pay someone for it no matter what. They can pay their employees or a contractor but paying the maintainer is usually more cost effective because they are most familiar with the code and can produce results more efficiently. Many Open Source projects are only partial implementations in order to milk this revenue stream.
Myth 4: Open Source is more secure
Status: BUSTED
For empirical evidence look at Firefox vs. Internet explorer. During the same 1 year period (this last year) Firefox has had 4 times more security exploits than Internet Explorer. You can look that shit up from any unbiased complete 3rd party security expert.
The concept that hundred, thousands or millions of coders can fix bugs and problems is true. But that isn't reality in practice. The maintainer of the project has the final say for code additions. This is 1-3 people on average and this is not their fulltime job. They cannot reasonably process and approve the code submissions from thousands of developers, so they don't because it is impossible.
Open source is a PR gimmick to get you to trust a development company. But it's practices and results model proprietary software on every level. Except for polish. Open Source apps are generally unfinished perpetual beta shit.
What a load of shit. 2 & 3 aren't myths, they were never true and no-one of any reasonable intelligence would think they were.
1 would depend heavily on the license as there are certain "free/open" licenses which are no more than anti-capitalist twaddle and there are other semi-free licenses which are basically look-don't-touch. All of the popular ones are certainly shorter than the Windows EULA.
4 is just a generalisation. Some are more secure, some aren't. As for the Firefox vs. IE statistics, I believe FF did have more security fixes, but they took a lot less time to fix major exploits that IE did for more trivial ones (This may be down to the policy of releasing them on Patch Tuesday, I don't know and quite frankly don't care).
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The zlib license is ever so slightly superior, as people don't have to figure out where the fuck to cram the license into their binary distribution, where it's pointless anyway.
--
This post is made available under the terms of the WTFPL (see below)
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, December 2004
Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar
14 rue de Plaisance, 75014 Paris, France
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
as the name is changed.
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
>>10
DO AS YOU WISH PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, December 2101
Copyright (C) 2004 Bill Cohevar
14 rue de Plaisance, 75014 Paris, France
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed.
DO AS YOU WISH PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU DO. JUST DO AS YOU WISH
Open source is a PR gimmick to get you to trust a development company.
The fact remains that open source is free information. You do not have to pay to see that information. When I've needed to learn how something works, I turn to an open source project that demonstrates the thing I'd like to learn. As a result, I've grown as a programmer. This is the purpose of free information and open source's biggest strength. It creates a community of shared knowledge, so that all programmers may stand on the shoulders. You've conveniently let that clause out of your Mythbusting.
I also had a problem with all of your myths. They seemed true, but I had a hard time finding the problem.
It is perfectly valid to charge for open source software, and it happens all the time.
Is there something wrong with programmers being able to make money without having the extra concern of hoarding their "secrets" from the public? One of my concerns about open source projects is whether or not they can sustain programmers as a primary source of income; according to your post, that isn't a concern. This sounds like good news to me?
Every other open source license is longer than the EULA found with windows. That enormous document spells out thousands of restrictions on using the source code of the software.
No open source license requires the software offered to be free.
So what? Which restrictions are there that are really going to limit your use? These could just as easily be restrictions that prevent people from using copyright law to close an open source project.
You may say that's a further restriction, and that you should be able to close a project if you'd like, as that's freedom. Sure, but isn't that the worst case scenario for your argument? Someone closes the software and then charges for it? So which would you rather have -- no restrictions, or restrictions that allow an open source project to stay open?
That enormous open source license is possible because of copyright.
Yes, because they're an implementation of U.S. Copyright law. You can think of it as a framework. And the "enormous document" is boilerplate that you don't have to rewrite with every project. Calling it "an alternative to copyright law" is ignorant of how an open source license works; why is this myth in your list when it's clearly nonsense?
Open Source is more secure
This claim isn't just about the potential added manpower for bug-finding. This is about the security that comes with knowing. In closed source code, you as the user would never know the nature of that bug. Additionally, you would never know if a program intends to phone home, or install additional software packages on your computer, or do other things to take advantage of your trust. With open source, you can see for yourself whether or not these things happen.
Bugs are necessarily obfuscated as they've eluded the programmers that unintentionally wrote them. So too might be malicious code hidden within an open source project. And it is possible that the average user of an open source project will never so much as glance at the code, and trust this program on reputation like they would any other. All these things do not supersede the point however: With open source, you have access to information. With closed source, you don't.
I'd much rather have access to information than not have access. Wouldn't you?
Software development is a sunk cost. Sunk cost does not affect price in a free market. Therefore the best way to reduce costs in software distribution is to use open source software.
A GAME
by Ala Hera, E.L., N.S.; RAYVILLE APPLE PANTHERS
SINK is played by Discordians and people of much ilk.
PURPOSE: To sink object or an object or a thing... in water or mud or anything you; can sink something in.
RULES: Sinking is allowd in any manner. To date, ten pound chunks of mud were used to sink a tobacco can. It is preferable to have a pit of water or a hole to drop things in. But rivers - bays - gulfs - I dare say even oceans can be used.
TURNS are taken thusly: who somever gets the junk up and in the air first.
DUTY: It shall be the duty of all persons playing "SINK" to help find more objects to sink, once; one object is sunk.
UPON SINKING: The sinked shall yell "I sank it!" or something equally as thoughtful.
NAMING OF OBJECTS is some times desirable. The object is named by the finder of such object and whoever sinks it can say for instance, "I sunk Columbus, Ohio!"
Oh hey, do you happen to have a link to the rules for discordian solitaire? I lost them some time ago and I've been wanting to play it with some friends.
>>24 UPON SINKING: The sager shall yell "I saged it!" or something equally as thoughtful.
Hopefully they don't forget to sage at this step or all is lost. But saging doesn't push things off any pages, so it's kind of moot.