[PVE-User] I thought Proxmox VE was free?

[Robert Brockway]

On Tue, 11 Oct 2011, obj at jltechinc.com wrote:

> Latest opinions there follows the below statements, they're ganging up on me
> and I'm tired of trying to help them understand:

It's worth considering that:

* A lot of people have no idea what they are talking about when it comes 
to FOSS.

* A lot of people have a vested interest in pushing non-FOSS solutions.

They said:

>       This doesn't counter the fact that if you run it in production
>       without paying them your support fee your in violation of their
>       licensing agreement despite the fact that their software is
>       based on GPL code and is open source.

Rubbish.  Can they explain CentOS and Scientific Linux? :)

>       Citrix charges a lot of money for XenServer, Apple charges a lot
>       for OS X despite both being based largely on open source
>       operating systems.

Wow this person needs to get a clue.  It's perfectly legitimate to sell 
software that is under many FOSS licenses.  The FOSS components continue 
to be freely redistributable.  OS X incorporates BSD licensed code which 
places minimal demands on redistribution.

Seriously, I don't think I've seen 'IT' people misunderstand FOSS this 
badly since the early 2000s.

I used to let things like this worry me but I don't anymore.  I learnt 
that a significant proportion of the human population are resistant to 
ideas that challenge their pre-conceived notions[1].

[1] A recent study I read about on livescience.com goes one further - it 
posits that some people come to believe their pre-conceived notions 
stronger in the face of counter-factual evidence.

My recommendation is to just suggest they educate themselves on FOSS as 
they are making factual errors and leave it at that.

Cheers,

Rob

-- 
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