Slashdot Mirror

Unfortunately, this promise covers only part of what is needed to implement .NET. This is fairly typical Microsoft behavior IMO. The form of what they appear to be offering is quite acceptable. Unfortunately, the substance is not. Much like their publication of APIs and other specs: at first glance they often appear impressive and even comprehensive, but just a little digging reveals just enough bugs, omissions, and errors to make the whole thing useless.

Well, there is the Free Software Foundation. Perhaps you've heard of them?

It is approved by both the OSI and, obviously, the FSF. Are you trolling?

GFDL (with those "invariant sections") also came from the FSF, is that "Free" too?

It is perfectly reasonable to not agree with how the FSF chooses to define things.

"This is a free software, copyleft license. Its terms effectively consist of the terms of GPLv3, with an additional paragraph in section 13 to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network to receive the source for that program. We recommend that developers consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network." http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

The AGPL isn't a Free licence.

Sure it is. You can get it here, doesn't cost a thing except the time to read 33kB of text, and we all know (your) time is worthless.

The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works, specifically designed to ensure cooperation with the community in the case of network server software.

Wrong. Straight from the GNU:s mouth:

"The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license [...]"

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html

what.

It is approved by both the OSI and, obviously, the FSF. Are you trolling?

Does it include gcc? That's the biggest thing Gnu has given us, but there are many others.

There's no point in having a free unix without the unix tools.

How generous. As I really won't need Helvetica privately and have licensed access to it at work, please choose a charitable organization of your liking, maybe the FSF, Debian, or Médecins Sans Frontières :)

Did you click on that link I gave you of GNU software? Here it is again: http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/. People talk about GNU as being a set of tools or utilties don't seem comprehend what an immense suite of software GNU really is. Even if you don't want to call the operating system "Linux", at least acknowledge that GNU is a very substantial part of what "Linux" is. The GNU project started before Linux even existed, and it's sad that it's success or failure has been ridiculed or trivialized based on their inability to produce a workable kernel. On the contrary, GNU has been enormously successful, but no one really knows what it is.

The GNU project has one aim, and one aim only: an entirely free (as in freedom) operating system. It sounds simple enough, yet the world would be a much different place if that wasn't the case. Because of GNU, I feel that this goal is very much a strong part of what "Linux", the OS if you prefer to call it that, is all about, and the basic model that most distributions follow today. Very few distro's include only free software, but there's a conscious effort to separate out the free components from the proprietary ones, using rules that are very close to the GNU definition for free software. While a lot of the free software projects have become more diffuse in ideology, even a lot of the GNU projects, I think within each project you'll find a substantial contributor that still believes in keeping software free.

I just hope that this is enough to keep GNU/Linux free. So, ultimately, that's why I prefer the term "GNU/Linux". Freedom is that something special that makes it different from the rest of the software world where users are no different than cattle to be milked for profit.

So, I can see myself becoming more accepting of calling the system just "Linux", but not out of apathy, or even a rejection, of what GNU is about. And really, a lot of businesses, and a lot of foolish people wanting to become more "business-friendly", really hate GNU and it's aim because they find it inconvenient. Yes, maybe it is more difficult to extract a profit from your users while treating them fairly. Guess what? Who cares! Not our concern.

GNU/Everything

You're right.

Just call it GNU to avoid this sort of confusion.

I'm serious. Just remember that GNU was there first, and the whole point of the GNU project was to write a free OS. And most of the software that you use on a GNU/Linux system is GNU software (not Linux software). GNU software, by definition, is software meant to be part of the GNU system. You can't say that about Apache, or Ruby, or X.org. Of course, there are parts of the GNU system that aren't GNU software but are free so that GNU can rely upon it.

Linux without GNU is a sad state, a kernel without an operating system. And GNU without Linux is a system that doesn't run. So GNU/Linux, at least, makes sense. Of course, you *could* run a Linux system without any GNU software at all. If you want to do that, just to make a point, go for it, and that wouldn't be a GNU variant. And you can even have some GNU software on your machine, if the your computer doesn't rely too much on GNU software, just like running gcc windows doesn't make windows a variant of GNU.

But why aren't more people doing that? Where is this mythical Linux operating system, in the wild? It's because Linux is simply an incomplete operating system without GNU. Therefore, GNU/Linux it is.

(Of course, I'm talking about a general purpose operating system. Chrome OS, isn't a GNU system, but I don't see anyone calling Chrome OS "Linux" either, just because it uses the Linux kernel. Nor does anyone call Mac OS X "Darwin". The Palm Pre OS isn't a GNU system, but no one calls it a Linux distribution. An OS is more than just the kernel folks, get over it!)

We need to start using the Afero Gpl v3 license, in every pice of software that could be used in the internet. Starting by the Linux kernel ASAP.

It's the only way to stop being used by big companies (they call-it 'cloud computing', what a joke!)

BSD is not free. It is merely open.

Gee. You might want to inform the FSF then. They say very clearly that *BSD's are Free Software.

You seem to think that only GPL software is Free software. This is not true. Not even the FSF believes or says that. Read their list of Free Software licenses.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses

Until you are cognizent of this item, we can't even have a discussion, because your entire belief system is a lie.

Oh you lovable scamp. Indeed he did not invent the internet - which is why I did not say he did. :)

The software he personally wrote is also unimportant - which is why I didn't mention it.

But... this doesn't have much to do with the internet?

You have to introduce me to your dealer. :D

You can't go 5 seconds on the net without hitting free software. How many webservers run linux? How many routers, firewalls, and load balancers, for that matter?

Your first google search... bzzt. Google uses free software heavily.

The top 10 websites by traffic? Guess how many use GPL software in the stack. Just guess. Come on. Show of hands, who uses MySQL? Heck, for the new fangled folks, who uses Ruby on Rails?

This goes beyond the internet, man. The goddamned NSA uses Linux. Yes. RMS' work has contributed to the safety and security of the United States, FWIW. :)

You should take another look at what the FSF has in their directory. Just, give the page a while to load, OK? It's big.

http://directory.fsf.org/all/

Emacs? Screw Emacs! What would the world be like with GCC? Without glibc? What about if Perl just disappeared? What if wikipedia and all the sites based on mediawiki disappeared? And over half of sourceforge? And on and on and on...

And the funny thing is, the individual projects and products are almost beside the point.

What would the world be like if we didn't have the collaboration that happens in free software projects? We can't even count how many technical achievements were only possible this way, when everyone feels safe contributing, knowing that their work will not be taken and exploited by others who will not give back to the community.

Why is it that virtually none of the proprietary unices still survive? Why is it that BSD's marketshare is miniscule compared to Linux?

I'll give you a hint, it's not because of whose command line argument styles were better and it's not Linus' winning personality. :)

Richard Stallman over the years has made it his goal to encourage and promote the creation of free software alternatives of commercial products, patented or not.

RMS decided to clone Unix when he started his GNU project. This was at a time when ATT might have hold patents on the technology:

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

Microsoft has been vocal about their patent portfolio, but the danger of patents extends beyond anyone that is vocal.

As we saw with SCO, a company that is desperate for revenue will start taping into whatever they have at their disposal. SCO lost market share and tried to capitalize on the Unix IP.

The same can easily happen to any software company today that owns patents and finds itself in financial trouble. They will either try to license their patents or sell the patents for a third party to buy.

SGI was in such situation in 2002/2003 when they sold their OpenGL patent portfolio to Microsoft which now owns the OpenGL patents.

Smaller companies go out of business constantly and sell their patents as a last resort or as part of the bankruptcy proceedings (Chapter 12) that force a company to sell their assets to pay their debt.

Today the FSF is requesting clones for a number of technologies as can be seen here:

http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html

As the FSF becomes more irrelevant, their list of tasks becomes more irrelevant as well. Most of the work is now driven by external communities and there has not been a need for RMS to push for free implementations of key pieces of software as he did in the past.

Or they sponsor projects like GNUstep that would violate Apple/Nextstep patents as much as Mono would violate Microsoft patents. The only difference being that Apple is more litigious than Microsoft. It is part of their culture.

julesh slightly mis-spoke: you can compile it yourself, but you can't sign the resulting binaries and the hardware won't run them. The Free Software Foundation's interpretation of the GPL is that Atari would have to release the signing key so that you can run your own modified binaries.

Doesn't this show that scummvm is the best scumm emulator out there, what are the advantages of re-licensing to lgpl? To me it seams like a bad idea, give why not lgpl a read, particularly

we can achieve much more if we stand together. We free software developers should support one another. By releasing libraries that are limited to free software only, we can help each other's free software packages outdo the proprietary alternatives. The whole free software movement will have more popularity, because free software as a whole will stack up better against the competition.

It will always be unlikely that closed SDKs are going to allow code to be released (to protect the API), while GPL guarantees that homebrew ports stay 100% open. It is also unlikely that developers will want people to be aware they are using scummvm because (they will think) it may increase piracy, as people will take the game data and play the games elsewhere (they can do this if it runs on a scumm emulator anyway, but corporate boss's don't always follow logic).

Obviously this is just my humble opinion as I've not contributed to scummvm but please be weary of opening yourself up to proprietary (scummvm+evil console closed code) offshoots, especially if there is little benefit.

So is the FSF, but that alone is not reason to disregard it.

How does Free go about breaking this lock-in? I know for me if it wasn't for entertainment software I would be all over GNU. Wine steps in and fills that void somewhat but currently does not have enough compatibility to bring me over to the good side. I like Linux, I want to use it, but my games don't play in it and thats the only thing that keeps a closed OS on my desktop.

You do it by buying a Playstation or Xbox360 or Wii, and play your games there - and watch your movies there. Use your PC for personal computing and skip the "entertainment" stuff.

I'm prefacing this with the fact that I ran Linux as my only OS for a year (SuSE 9) then I switched back to Microsoft. Linux and GNU are a superior development process - inclusive and plural - but Microsoft right now has the superior ecosystem.

And as far as Windows having the "superior ecosystem"? I don't think so. There's lots of stuff broken in Windows and other Microsoft products. OpenOffice.org Ninja often runs benchmarks against Microsoft and Free. Bad Vista has a list of lots of things that are wrong, but as this is from the FSF, the angle is mostly about freedoms. Or check out Linuxinexile for things that just don't work "right" under Windows, compared to Linux:

• Windows boots slower than Linux (although it's better since XP)
• Windows printing stops if you switch to another app
• Windows "favorite links" makes login slow
• Windows can't open multiple files at once (specifically, different extensions)
• (the list goes on) ...

Doesn't sound like a "superior ecosystem" to me. But hey, to each his own, I guess.

Perhaps, but this activity is the kind of thing Apple used as reason to not allow users their software freedom with their own phone. Around the time of the iPhone's introduction Steve Jobs told Newsweek:

"You don't want your phone to be an open platform," meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. "You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."

Leaving one to wonder about that other network called the Internet. Even when viewed only from a security standpoint, this was a tall order to fill. It appears that Apple has failed to fill it.

The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some, especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

Finally I think that you are one of free as in beer .. and free as in free code guys :P

You are free to re-distribute the code to anyone and everyone, but this doesn't oblige the distributors you got it from (who might be the original authors, and who might have charged you for the software) to do so themselves. Their only responsibility is to you. Here's a relevant FAQ entry directly from the FSF:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLRequireAvailabilityToPublic

'If I distribute GPL'd software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?

        No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.'

Look at the Open Source Definition and compare that with the Free Software Definition. I'm using the definitions from OSI and the FSF because, for all intents and purposes, I think that they have a reasonable claim on defining the corresponding term.

There are some licenses that are OSI-certified but not Free Software Licenses (according to the FSF). These include:

* The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3
* The Reciprocal Public License

I'm also a bit wary of this part of the OSD:

The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.

So that's saying that a license could be Open Source and not allow the distribution of patched files? That seems like a bizarre restriction. Their explanation doesn't really sell me:

Rationale: Encouraging lots of improvement is a good thing, but users have a right to know who is responsible for the software they are using. Authors and maintainers have reciprocal right to know what they're being asked to support and protect their reputations.

Accordingly, an open-source license must guarantee that source be readily available, but may require that it be distributed as pristine base sources plus patches. In this way, "unofficial" changes can be made available but readily distinguished from the base source.

The problems with this is that "distribution" can mean any conveyance. So that could mean that to install a program under such a license on a system, you might be required to patch and then compile the code on the actual device. Woe betide anyone who distributes code cross-compiled for a very low power handheld device that doesn't have much in the way of dev tools or system resources. Forget about checking your patched files into a publicly-accessible repository. And if you want to have a web viewer to look at the code, you better be using client-side javascript to do the patching or face the prospect of being in violation of "distribution" laws when you send a pre-patched filed across the Intertubes from your server to the user's browser.

It makes perfect sense to say "If you change this, you can't use our official name for it." I mean, if you bought a can of vegetarian beans and mixed in beef fat, you couldn't just turn around and sell it with the original packaging as you'd be misrepresenting the product. Similarly, if you take the MediaWiki codebase and mix in a few lines of your own code you can't tell people it's stock MediaWiki code. You can tell people that it's based on that codebase, or that you've only change 10 lines, or any other factual statement, but you can't misrepresent the item.

A much more sane rule (which is perhaps still too restrictive for Free Software) would be to request that distributors of modified code offer people the ability to see the diffs as well as the final (changed) code. That way you could take any code and change it and distribute it, but if a user asked for it, you'd need to show them the diffs between what you got from upstream and the changes you made. This would be especially important if the upstream distribution point disappears. For most FOSS projects today, people are using distributed version control like Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, etc... , so anyone can trivially get the diffs by just checking out the repo and looking at the patches.

The FSF is also looking for such a system (as long as it's Free Software). I don't know if Affero GPL is required, although it is probably preferred.

This excludes anything Outlook-touching, so that's an area of non-overlap. Solution is to wean the org off Outlook, if necessary. Not easy for some.

Given what Brett Smith said about Cisco's trail of infringements spanning 5 years, I'd say you don't have your facts straight and Cisco probably was willfully infringing. I find it hard to reconcile the following description with some kind of series of accidents:

As we always do in violation cases, we began a process of working with Cisco to help them understand their obligations under our licenses, and how they could come into compliance. Early on it seemed likely that we could resolve the issues without any fuss.

While we were working on that case, though, new reports came in. Other Cisco products were not in full compliance either. We started talking to the company about those as well--and that's how a five-years-running game of Whack-a-Mole began. New issues were regularly discovered before we could finish addressing the old ones.

During this entire time, Cisco has never been in full compliance with our licenses. At first glance, the situation might look good. It's not difficult to find "source code" on the Linksys site. But you only have to dig a little deeper to find the problems. Those source code downloads are often incomplete or out-of-date. Cisco also provides written offers for source, but we regularly hear about requests going unfulfilled.

Despite our best efforts, Cisco seems unwilling to take the steps that are necessary to come into compliance and stay in compliance. We asked them to notify customers about previous violations and inform them about how they can now obtain complete source code; they have refused to do this, along with the other reasonable demands we have made to consider this case settled. The FSF has put in too many hours helping the company fix the numerous mistakes it's made over the years. Cisco needs to take responsibility for its own license compliance.

Er... what? How would that be free software?

RMS's opinion on the change.

RMS actually thinks it's a good idea :-)

RMS thinks it's a good idea.

Or as Richard Stallman says, "Don't buy from ATI, enemy of your freedom"...

Linksys always intended to release the code. By and large, they already have. If you follow all the way to the original complaint, it's all about modified GNU tools, not any core router components that Linksys might want to keep secret. Also, they usually would release the source, only they made a lot of mistakes in the process. They'd release the source late, release the wrong version of the source, or forget to include all the necessary tools to build the source, etc.

Even though in most cases Linksys did eventually come into compliance with the GPL, the FSF got tired of having to hold Linksys' feet to the fire. Now the idea is that Linksys will have an internal watchdog instead who will ensure that releases are compliant with the GPL the first time around.

And kudos to Cisco for supporting the GPL in the end, even if a few hard-headed managers had to get larted.

I wouldn't be so quick to hand out these kudos; the non-compliance can return. This, I suspect, is why Cisco needs a Free Software Director who regularly reports back to the FSF. As the FSF's Compliance Engineer Brett Smith pointed out in 2008, "Despite our best efforts, Cisco seems unwilling to take the steps that are necessary to come into compliance and stay in compliance." (emphasis mine). Smith wrote that 5 years after the FSF learned that Cisco was not complying with the GPL and the FSF had been getting nowhere with its attempt to silently get Cisco to comply—what Smith called "a five-years-running game of Whack-a-Mole". Cisco and the FSF recently arrived at their agreement. It will take years to convince the public that Cisco is compliant and will remain compliant with those that treat Cisco so nicely as to share their work in whole with Cisco. "The end" you refer to is nowhere near here. Good will to correct wrongdoing on this scale takes time to sow.

Whenever we talk about the work we do to handle violations, we say over and over again that getting compliance with the licenses is always our top priority.

This cannot be said enough, particularly amongst a crowd that discusses the latest goings-on with the corporate media lobbyists they (justifiably) hate: Unlike the major corporate media copyright holders, the FSF sues and gets license compliance which is what they're really after. You'll notice that the FSF isn't seeking to bankrupt Cisco (even while recognizing that corporations aren't people). This is a far cry from what the MPAA, RIAA, and other corporate copyright holders pursue with the public—economic domination.

And, as I've said before, violating the GPL is not like violating other licenses and here's another way in which that is the case: GPLv3 has language which makes the situation better for violators who correct their behavior. As the plain language guide to the GPL explains, under GPLv2 a violator had to beg the copyright holder to have their rights under the GPL restored because those rights vanished instantly and permanently upon license violation. Under GPLv3 section 8 violators catch a break: "if you violate the license, you'll get your rights back once you stop the violation, unless a copyright holder contacts you within 60 days. After you receive such a notice, you can have your rights fully restored if you're a first-time violator and correct the violation within 30 days.". Other free software licenses have no similarly forgiving language; it appears that under the new BSD license if one violates any of the 3 conditions listed in the license one loses permission to "[redistribute] and use [the covered program] in source and binary forms" because the violator reverts to the default state of copyright: no permission to copy, share, or modify.

Whenever we talk about the work we do to handle violations, we say over and over again that getting compliance with the licenses is always our top priority.

This cannot be said enough, particularly amongst a crowd that discusses the latest goings-on with the corporate media lobbyists they (justifiably) hate: Unlike the major corporate media copyright holders, the FSF sues and gets license compliance which is what they're really after. You'll notice that the FSF isn't seeking to bankrupt Cisco (even while recognizing that corporations aren't people). This is a far cry from what the MPAA, RIAA, and other corporate copyright holders pursue with the public—economic domination.

And, as I've said before, violating the GPL is not like violating other licenses and here's another way in which that is the case: GPLv3 has language which makes the situation better for violators who correct their behavior. As the plain language guide to the GPL explains, under GPLv2 a violator had to beg the copyright holder to have their rights under the GPL restored because those rights vanished instantly and permanently upon license violation. Under GPLv3 section 8 violators catch a break: "if you violate the license, you'll get your rights back once you stop the violation, unless a copyright holder contacts you within 60 days. After you receive such a notice, you can have your rights fully restored if you're a first-time violator and correct the violation within 30 days.". Other free software licenses have no similarly forgiving language; it appears that under the new BSD license if one violates any of the 3 conditions listed in the license one loses permission to "[redistribute] and use [the covered program] in source and binary forms" because the violator reverts to the default state of copyright: no permission to copy, share, or modify.

More on this theme from the perspective of open vs. proprietary technology:

http://groups.google.com/group/virgle/msg/de1a99ede7e0e615?

== what have funding policies in automotive intelligence wrought? ===

Consider again the self-driving cars mentioned earlier which now cruise
some streets in small numbers. The software "intelligence" doing the
driving was primarily developed by public money given to universities,
which generally own the copyrights and patents as the contractors.
Obviously there are related scientific publications, but in practice
these fail to do justice to the complexity of such systems. The truest
physical representation of the knowledge learned by such work is the
codebase plus email discussions of it (plus what developers carry in
their heads).

We are about to see the emergence of companies licensing that publicly
funded software and selling modified versions of such software as
proprietary products. There will eventually be hundreds or thousands of
paid automotive software engineers working on such software no matter
how it is funded, because there will be great value in having such
self-driving vehicles given the result of America's horrendous urban
planning policies leaving the car as generally the most efficient means
of transport in the suburb. The question is, will the results of the
work be open for inspection and contribution by the public? Essentially,
will those engineers and their employers be "owners" of the software, or
will they instead be "stewards" of a larger free and open community
development process?

Open source software is typically eventually of much higher quality
http://www.fsf.org/software/reliability.html
and reliability because more eyes look over the code for problems and
more voices contribute to adding innovative solutions. About 35,000
Americans are killed every year in driving fatalities, and hundreds of
thousands more are seriously injured. Should the software that keeps
people safe on roads, and which has already been created primarily with
public funds, not also be kept under continuous public scrutiny?

Without concerted action, such software will likely be kept proprietary
because that will be more profitable sooner to the people who get in
early, and will fit into conventional expectations of business as usual.
It will likely end up being available for inspection and testing at best
to a few government employees under non-disclosure agreements. We are
talking about an entire publicly funded infrastructure about to
disappear from the public radar screen. There is something deeply wrong
here.

And while it is true many planes like the 757 can fly themselves already
for most of their journey, and their software is probably mostly
proprietary, the software involved in driving is potentially far more
complex as it requires visual recognition of cues in a more complex
environment full of many more unpredictable agents operating on much
faster timescales. Also, automotive intelligence will touch all of our
lives on a daily basis, where as aircraft intelligence can be generally
avoided in daily life.

Decisions on how this public intellectual property related to automotive
intelligence will be handled will affect the health and safety of every
American and later everyone in any developed country. Either way, the
automotive software engineers and their employers will do well
financially (for example, one might still buy a Volvo because their
software engineers are better and they do more thorough testing of
configurations). But which way will the public be better off:
* totally dependent on proprietary intelligences under the hoods of
their cars which they have no way of understanding, or instead
* with ways to verify what those intell

...Free Software Project Number 3. This is just an illustration of why alternatives are so desperately needed.

Friends don't let friends use skype.

...Free Software Project Number 3. This is just an illustration of why alternatives are so desperately needed.

Friends don't let friends use skype.

I ran Ubuntu Jaunty/Ibex on over 20 different kinds of PC's/Laptops and had the basic Desktop with sound running in less than 5 minutes using a USB-flash disk.

All the scanners and printers connected to the computers were detected and useable without issues. Canon, Benq, Epson and HP all worked.

For your information, the USB-flash disk has built-in support for any language you can imagine.

With regards to fonts, not only does Linux X/Server support any font that windows has, but also all the MAC fonts.
Is this critic even aware there is a Linux fonteditor capable of editing any of these kinds of fonts? It's called fonteditor.

The critic has gripes with sound. He should buy another sound card that supports Linux.

I'm not a gamer, but the kids I know love Ceferino, Ri-Li, Lbreakout, pyracerz, pydance and tuxpuck.
They all have sound. There's a Linux guitar hero out there, but the machines I test this on are all older and have no 3D cards. That said the glut 3d emulation api did allow me to check it out but it was dead slow. The sound was working though.

With regards to openoffice being slow, he's talking about the startup time. Once it's up, the openoffice gui is responsive. Please disregard any criticism he may have with this.

With regards to networking, this guy is off-base. Linux networking capability is second-to-none. That's why it's in most of the world's phones and routers.

Hard-core Linux advocates don't want "Proprietary Windows Applications" running on Linux. They want "Open-Source Applications" running on Windows and Linux. Wine is a niche market for hard-core Windows Users. SMB/Samba is for hard-core Windows Users. I am not a hard-core Windows user/Microserf like this critic. Why use SAMBA, when you can use scp/mount/nfs? I'm a Linux Advocate. If it isn't open-source, I'm not using it. That includes FLASH.

Nothing constructive from this guy. Move on.

One other mention. This guy places more emphasis on what Linux doesn't do. He should rather have mentioned the potential of what Linux will give all of its users: Real "Digital Freedom" to do whatever you want with the hardware that you buy. This essentially is part of the "Do-it(whatever-you-can-imagine-"it"-to-be)-yourself" trend. For better descriptions, please see http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/

The GPL is enforced via copyright law.

"Developers that use the GNU GPL protect your rights with two steps: (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it."

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html

Violating the GPL is exactly the same as violating copyright, since the methods of enforcement are the same in each case: copyright law. It doesn't matter what the award is (money, source code, spaghetti, or whatever).

Although the proposed treaty's title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines), what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope, and in particular, will deal with new tools targeting "Internet distribution and information technology".

http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/acta/

What I don't understand about *BSD is why it isn't getting the kind of uptake in embedded systems that Linux is. It's technically as good, and comes with a lot less licensing risk. There is a lot less variation in interpretation of the BSD license than there is of GPL.

You don't run the risk of obeying, but still getting massively bitched at for not obeying the "spirit" of the license (think Tivo).

You don't have to worry with BSD about exactly how the code you wrote interfaces to the BSD code--no metaphysical discussion over whether a dynamically loaded kernel module is different from a dynamically loaded user space application from a licensing point of view.

No issues with using BSD code in a device that requires a subscription to work. According to the FSF, you can't use GPL code in a device that requires a subscription to operate. That raises some alarms for Linux use in cell phones, and in cable boxes and DVRs that are tied to specific cable or satellite companies.

I would expect the above risks, and others I haven't listed, even if in some cases remote, would be scary enough to the cell phone companies, the set-top box makers, the router makers, and so on, to create quite a bit of demand for an embedded *BSD.

Read the complaint. Don't do the stupid obvious license violations alleged in the complaint. Then you'll be fine.

Nobody violates a Free Software / Open Source license for a smart reason. Cisco hasn't got their compliance act together.

This leads us to the only part of the GPL that I think is in any way legally questionable (IANAL). I'm not sure it is entirely legally clear if the copyright holder is allowed to revoke the GPL licensing terms or not, no matter what is said in the license.

No, they can't. The FSF has already stated that if the public has had the right to use the program under the GPL that it can't be revoked.

Can the developer of a program who distributed it under the GPL later license it to another party for exclusive use?
No, because the public already has the right to use the program under the GPL, and this right cannot be withdrawn.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanDeveloperThirdParty

Sumatra PDF Do I want to trust something that comes from "blog.kowalczyk.info"?

Oh, I don't know.. Depends whether you trust FSF then. Trust hierarchy:
http://www.fsf.org/
http://www.fsfeurope.org/
http://pdfreaders.org/
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/index.html

You surely won't find problem discovering the links between those sites, as it took me no more than two minutes.

For what it's worth, I use SumatraPDF for my LaTeX writings, as it's extremely small and fast, and renders some images better than Adobe Reader.

The FSF is not a neutral friend of the Court. Rather, FSF is an organization dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs, classic intellectual property, much like the sound recordings at issue in this case. See http://ww.fsf.org./

To that end, FSF opposes the recording industry's enforcement efforts.

That couldn't be further from the truth. We, the supporters of the GPL, want OUR OWN works to be freely redistributable, and when changes are made, to have those changes returned to the community. OUR OWN WORK! WE DO NOT STEAL! Sorry for shouting.

I do not speak for the FSF.

Not really. FSF created the GPL to use copyright to enable it to specify the terms to keep code open and free. If there were no such thing as copyright, there would be no need for the GPL in the eyes of the FSF (or, at least, in its founder's eyes). I think it's pretty safe to say RMS would agree that he has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights." Actually, he'd probably be more likely to not say that, but to turn it around on you and accuse you of having an "open and virulent bias against freedom"... Here's an excerpt from the summary of his upcoming speech in Austin:

Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.

Stallman would, if he had his way, abolish copyright as we know it and replace it with a system that forbids closed source and gives users rights to modify and share source code. This really isn't the same thing as what we call "copyright." But this is unlikely to happen, so the GPL uses copyright law against itself to try to guarantee some of those things for code that is GPL licensed.

I happen to know that code rather well, and it's all there, at least for the routers.

b) Defendant was again distributing a new version of QuickVPN without providing correspond-
      ing source code;
c) Defendant was distributing executable copies of GCC, Binutils, and GDB in conjunction
      with the Firmware for several of its products (including the WAP440N, WMA11B, WVC54G,
      WVC54GC, WRV200, WAG300N, and EFG120/EFG250) without providing the correspond-
      ing source code to these Programs.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/complaint-2008-12-11.pdf

The system is GNU+Linux, since Linux is just the kernel. You can find software for DVD related work listed in the Free Software directory at: http://directory.fsf.org/ Improving the support for DVD reading on GNU/Linux is a useful thing to do.

I found this some time ago:

    http://directory.fsf.org/project/cveyetracker/

which is apparently abandoned. But only 4 years ago :).