proprietary software

Steven A. Reisler explains his experience with GNU/Linux, and how he has completely freed his computing environment from proprietary software.

WFTL Bytes!: "This is WFTL Bytes!, your occasiodaily FOSS and Linux news show for Friday, November 14, 2008, with your host, Marcel Gagné.

In today's news, the economy just keeps on getting worse, proprietary software is really bad, making copyright into copywrong, Ubuntu gets ARMed, and the Sun goes down on a lot of jobs."

Linux couldn't be a *Desktop* Operating System without this software

A recent article caught my eye and turned it a nice shade of red. It discussed the — hardly new — idea that the future of software usage must involve a mixture of free and proprietary products — something the writer refers to as “mixed source”.

The piece was entitled “Mixed source - the best of both worlds” which may give you a clue why I disagree.

November 15, 2008 12:01 AM Virtualization has long been the realm of proprietary software, starting with IBM mainframes and more recently VMware becoming a $1.3 billion-a-year powerhouse around x86 computers.

Whereas the international community and the U.S. can doubtless survive and flourish in a multi-polar world, it's less clear that anyone can succeed in the long-term using proprietary operating systems as part of their society's foundation.

LinuxInsider: "Proprietary software might not be responsible for the economic downturn -- or is it? -- but it has set an unfortunate tone, writes columnist Jeremiah T.

Gray. Teaching children, especially in the developing world, that the Redmond Way is the only way sets a dangerous precedent."

Proprietary software might not be responsible for the economic downturn -- or is it? -- but it has set an unfortunate tone, writes columnist Jeremiah T. Gray.

The Open Road: "The interesting thing was that while the CTOs looked to open source as an inexpensive means of discovering and evaluating software, all seemed to believe that adding proprietary services or software was the right way to monetize it."

At a recent CTO gathering in New York I heard from a wide range of CTOs the same thing: they love open source, but they actually want open-source companies and projects to add proprietary technology to their offerings to require (justify) them to pay.

Who knew?