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If you've never read it, I recommend The Right to Read, written by RMS in 1997. I read it when it was published and thought he was being his usual extremist self, and that stuff like he describes would never happen. Unfortunately, it looks like he was being prophetic.

I believe it's just the opposite - people accepted that software vendors have exclusive rights over their products and figured out that they no only may, but actually do impose unreasonable restrictions over the software. The only solution was (or rather is) to rewrite said software from scratch and license it in a way that protects the user.

Certainly that used to be accepted, and free software was invented to find another route. However, having seen what has been done and is being done with free software, the rules are changing (de facto if not de jure yet), and I no longer believe that we need to accept that software vendors can or should have exclusive rights to impose any restriction they choose - worse when enforced by technical restrictions, naturally, but otherwise no different in principle.

Weird - yes, outrageous - I don't know. First, the analogy is not very good, because you own your car, but you do not own your software - you license it from the developer. Unless such contract violates the law, there is no force that will stop the car dealer to require you to agree with it before you purchase the vehicle.

It comes back to what I said above, which is that I no longer accept the premise that vendors may impose absolutely any restriction on how I use their product, any more than I would for a tangible product, nor that a "license" is a legitimate "product" that can be sold or we need accept. A copy, a single, individual, transferrable, resellable copy (no more than that) which I can own and do with as I wish (just like a particular copy of a book or a music CD), is a different matter, and one for which there's quite a bit more precedent than the current attempt by all kinds of publisher to "license" everything with non-negotiatable, restrictive and technically enforced conditions.

Given that, I have no problem with the idea of using legislation to back that up, and it's perfectly normal to have consumer legislation that limits vendors, especially with intangible products, such as financial services. What a good idea that would be for software sales and content publishing! In the meantime, there are a few obvious ways to break the acceptance that has become far too much taken for granted that these practices are valid, reasonable, even naturally right, for vendors to use. Some of these ways might be:

• Use and advocate free software. Simple, cheap, legal, and every new free software user makes it more difficult to impose unfair and restrictive "licenses"

• Make "fair use" of products, such as copying music for the car, or transferring software from a retired machine, even if that means breaking copy-protection to do so, and irrespective of unfair and one-sided "license" conditions. NB: you see that last falls well short of commercial copying, for example, or even Napster-style indiscriminate file-sharing, and may be legal or illegal depending on jurisdiction

• Educate people, especially new free software users who have taken the first steps to a different basis for publishing such material, about why this is important, and why we need the right to read, for example:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-rea d.html

You get the drift...

How long until printers have DRM? How long until old-style printing press will be declared illegal? The Right to Read

even if you were able to copy the physical documents onto an iPod, they'd be completely useless to you outside the organization

Unless your iPod is connected to a spy camera inside your glasses. Ye cannae stop the analog hole!

and only by talking to the RMS server (located internally) can they be unlocked.

Speaking of RMS, he wrote an article and a story about this very issue.

even if you were able to copy the physical documents onto an iPod, they'd be completely useless to you outside the organization

Unless your iPod is connected to a spy camera inside your glasses. Ye cannae stop the analog hole!

and only by talking to the RMS server (located internally) can they be unlocked.

Speaking of RMS, he wrote an article and a story about this very issue.

Richard Stallman calls it Treacherous Computing

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

'Nuff said

I was quite depressed reading an article like this, it seems we're on the slippery slope to all sorts of mischief, slowly as you say. eg1 eg2

Then again, we can always rely on organisations getting too greedy too quickly. If software piracy is greatly reduced (how many people have actually paid $600 for Photoshop to edit a couple of wedding photos?) this may mean a mass migration to F/OSS software, which could represent too large a userbase for vendor lock-in to be a viable prospect.
When Microsoft brought in Product Activation for Windows and Office how much of the savings on piracy was fed back to customers in the form of lower prices? (clue, the answer is negative!)

Wow, and I thought The Right to Read was a little too tinfoil-hat for me with the tracking who reads a document part.

Guess that shows how naive I am. This is really scary.

The Road to Tycho

This reminds me of RMS's paper on The Right to Read.

He warned us long ago. Of course, even now the masses will fail to be alarmed. "It's only a demo." Etc. "Boil 'em slow, they'll never know." Oh well.

I don't understand this attitude, where people think that they are fucking entitled to pirate music, movies, software, or whatever. They actually get offended when you tell them that it's immoral!>

Christ. It's fairly simple. We simply do not believe it is fair for other people to limit our use of electrons (software) in our possession.

It's not hard to understand. If you disagree, say so; don't try and make out that this arguement is not understandable - it's simpler than yours.

If you're still not getting it, look at the GNU reasoning behind why all software should be free. You're free to disagree, but please don't pretend like this belief is unreasonable.

I take it you are dead happy to see basically zero progress in software from now on.
What a twat.

Are you even listening?

The claim is not that creation is not necessary, but that the incentive to create is not necessary.

In other words, creation will continue to exist long after copyright. Can you get that through your head or will you continue to argue against a strawman?

Ofcourse we all know that without copyright, there would be no software at all.

Surprised there is so little quality statistical software that will run natively on Linux. I know there's R and PSPP, but I'd really like to see SPSS or even Statistica on Linux.

There are plenty of manufacturers that sell PCs and Laptops that are already loaded with GNU/Linux, KDE, and lots of other useful Free & Open Source Software applications.

There's absolutely no reason to buy computers or accessories from the major manufacturers that stuff Treatcherous Computing, Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and M$ Winblows down your throat.

Immature Chief Process Innovation Officers (CPIO)?! Somebody needs a time out.

GNU's Gnash (GPL flashplayer) is being actively developed!

See http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

already slashdotted.

Maybe this will work.

But really, the programs suggested have reasonable alternates that I know of (minus autoCAD, since I haven't used that since college).

Photoshop -- gimp
itunes -- there are multiple, but i'm still content with xmms
flash -- HTML web pages. i'm not the only one browsing with flashblock on, for good reason
dreamweaver -- vi & emacs -- nuf said

This has little or nothing to do with MySQL.

Why is Berkeley DB so popular? Because the folks there had the foresight to envision a need for a lightweight embedded transactional database engine. That was in the past. The only thing that really matters to any forward looking business, and that includes Oracle, is the future. What has Sleepycat been up to? A lightweight embedded XML database: DB XML. MySQL is not a threat, because the whole premise of what they are doing will soon be an anachronism. The current center of the IT universe is OASIS. Guess what kind of technology you need to play in that space? XML databases.

The F/OSS community is now left with only two real contenders: eXist and maybe QEXO. Both need stinkin' java. Neither does XML Schema validation. DB XML was the F/OSS communities most advanced native XML database. And Oracle just bought it.

This is a huge setback for F/OSS. If you don't understand the importance of distributed XML applications, you're just not going to understand this. If you do, you should be crying.

Sure, at face value this is about getting kids under control for the benefit of the Copyright holders. But, so long as the education is accurate, can you think of a better thing than a population who understands copyright law, what a mess has been made of it, and how crippling the status quo is? Anything that serves to inform is good.

The MPAA has (rather unsuccessfully) held classes in high schools across the US (such as one they had about a year or two ago in Urbana, Illinois) ostensibly aimed at teaching the students about American copyright law. It was reported in the local paper (the News-Gazette) at the time. Their view, like yours below, was dangerously myopic and factually incorrect. The kids in Urbana saw through it and asked tough questions which the corporate representative couldn't answer.

Knowing how close representatives are to their corporate funders, I strongly suspect that any state program will be no different in California.

Regardless of what people's personal opinions are on p2p file sharing, the fact is that it is against copyright law. Should it be? Well, only people who understand the issue can intelligently consider that. So bring on the truth.

No, it's not blanketly "against copyright law". But it's so nice of you to dismiss the value of others opinions on the matter while asserting your own incorrect one.

In the US, distributing copies of any copyrighted work depends on the license under which the work is distributed. Under some licenses, legal distribution can occur. I can legally share copies of any Free Software program I want. I can share copies of any work not under copyright—works in the public domain. I can share copies of my own copyrighted works. And the mechanism I use to do this is immaterial (be it a "p2p" program or something else).

You've compiled the source code yourself. Quite possibly with GCC, itself compiled beforehand after reviewing the code, to ensure that the compiler you use to compile the source you're reviewed doesn't add in anything funny...

A few other things from the article that need correcting: 1) not web 'scramblers' but web 'scammers' :-) and 2) The number 100 was a joke, I meant a number much larger than that but we don't talk about the number of machines that we release. For more info about our open source efforts and to see the code that we've released, see Code.Google.com

Chris

The trusted computing group is a group of the big and heavy hitters in the industry, they have collaborated on this technology, and have made it quite robust in functionality.

A primary function of the tpm is the setup of a transitive trust mechanism, whereby in an enterprise a central policy mechanism can be setup and enforced, signing all computer operations and file system objects. This functionality also provides for remote auditing and administration.

Please see my unaccepted post

It's true that the era of trusted platforms is quickly coming upon us. After much controversy the Trusted Computing Group has posted its specifications for the whole world to review. Many of our industry's analysts, artists, and commentators have both supported and denounced the technology in equal measure.

After a complete review of the literature, it is my understanding that many excellent uses are proposed for the technology. As a network integrator and consulting system administrator I'm particularly excited about the remote management capabilities that the specification calls for, and the ability to lock the hardware, software and ensure that documents created in a business stay in the business without the appropriate trust level. The transitive trust nature of the TPM will allow me to set up group policies and enforce them in ways I've never experienced. Truly industrial grade tech.

As a slashdot reader, concerned with my privacy, I was pleased to note that the specification repeatedly called for privacy protection settings, including allowing the owner full control of the module. This is particularly good for home users who may not need these features enabled, particularly the remote auditing and administration functionality. In truth, the specification is quite balanced.

My question to slashdot readers is in light of this very balanced specification, which protects all stakeholders. Is it okay that Apple is currently implementing TPM in their new iMacs and Macbooks, and not documenting it in their system specifications ? Furthermore, is it also okay that they've failed to provide home users with the appropriate tools to monitor the trust mechanism and disable the module if it's not necessary?

Okay, that's two questions, but 'the third time's the charm' Is it okay that the specification describes remote auditing and administration capabilities, and I can't even see if that's enabled?

This world is going so ass bent sideways and the hackers are the new revolutionaries.... HOLY FUCK every scifi book has just become a reality.

Then I remember that it's all just TV and movies.

I object to you using the word 'steal'

When I cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else eats it, because then I cannot eat it. His action hurts me exactly as much as it benefits him; only one of us can eat the spaghetti, so the question is, which? The smallest distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.

(Why software should not have owners, RMS, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html)

(paraphrase of the next paragraph of the same text) When someone views a TV broadcast, it doesn't hurt anyone else (but see also below)--it doesn't take away their ability to view (or not view) the same program.

Also, we shouldn't encourage paying for viewing proprietry broadcasts, since we then reward the people who take away our freedom.

I'm sorry that the closest-to-neutral term I can come up with is 'unlawful [action]'--some people might misconstrue that one is saying that because it's against the law, it's wrong. This is not true: the law doesn't define what is right and wrong; what is right and wrong defines--or at least should define--the law, which is a mere instrument to achieve justice. Of course, it's only succeeds some of the time (I suggest you view "The Devil's Advocate"--of course without rewarding anyone for taking away your freedom to copy it--or, if you can, recall the first and last ~10 minutes).

RMS objects to the word `content' on http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html (I avoid using the word--I use the words data and/or information instead--but I don't feel strongly about its use).

I object to the term `protect': the information being broadcast isn't hurt from being viewed, and neither is the broadcaster. True, they may be unable to make money by their current business model, but as a--to some extent--advocate of the free market, I don't give a damn; if they can only make money by unjustly opressing their customers, they shouldn't be able to make money.

Also, no, the law doesn't define what's just/right/ethically accetable; au contraire, what is right, just and ethically acceptable defines what the laws is (or at least that's the way it ought to be), as I already mentioned.

---

You'll probably think I'm some sort of RMS/GNU/FSF/GCC/TLA fanboy, and to some extent rightly so--I do agree with most (but not all[1]) of RMS's values and conclusions. You, ebooher, will probably get your opinion of me lowered due to me being such a nitpicker, and I'll probably get modded -1 for some reason, but I think these points have to be made.

Footnotes:

1. I'm disagree with his conclusions in `why GNU su doesn't support the `wheel' group' (http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html _node/coreutils_149.html)--I think that wheel has an ethically legitimate use: to make sure that if anyone exploits a program running as `nobody', they can't become root. I haven't made up my mind as to whether exercising control over the machines you own (specifically over your users except yourself) is wrong, but that is--for the purpose of my counterargument--irrelevant: any ethically legitimate uses of anything shouldn't be prevented, and thus one shouldn't do blanket prevention of some object that has at least one legitimate use.

Specifically, I think it's ok for su to support wheel. RMS doesn't.

I object to you using the word 'steal'

When I cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else eats it, because then I cannot eat it. His action hurts me exactly as much as it benefits him; only one of us can eat the spaghetti, so the question is, which? The smallest distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.

(Why software should not have owners, RMS, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html)

(paraphrase of the next paragraph of the same text) When someone views a TV broadcast, it doesn't hurt anyone else (but see also below)--it doesn't take away their ability to view (or not view) the same program.

Also, we shouldn't encourage paying for viewing proprietry broadcasts, since we then reward the people who take away our freedom.

I'm sorry that the closest-to-neutral term I can come up with is 'unlawful [action]'--some people might misconstrue that one is saying that because it's against the law, it's wrong. This is not true: the law doesn't define what is right and wrong; what is right and wrong defines--or at least should define--the law, which is a mere instrument to achieve justice. Of course, it's only succeeds some of the time (I suggest you view "The Devil's Advocate"--of course without rewarding anyone for taking away your freedom to copy it--or, if you can, recall the first and last ~10 minutes).

RMS objects to the word `content' on http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html (I avoid using the word--I use the words data and/or information instead--but I don't feel strongly about its use).

I object to the term `protect': the information being broadcast isn't hurt from being viewed, and neither is the broadcaster. True, they may be unable to make money by their current business model, but as a--to some extent--advocate of the free market, I don't give a damn; if they can only make money by unjustly opressing their customers, they shouldn't be able to make money.

Also, no, the law doesn't define what's just/right/ethically accetable; au contraire, what is right, just and ethically acceptable defines what the laws is (or at least that's the way it ought to be), as I already mentioned.

---

You'll probably think I'm some sort of RMS/GNU/FSF/GCC/TLA fanboy, and to some extent rightly so--I do agree with most (but not all[1]) of RMS's values and conclusions. You, ebooher, will probably get your opinion of me lowered due to me being such a nitpicker, and I'll probably get modded -1 for some reason, but I think these points have to be made.

Footnotes:

1. I'm disagree with his conclusions in `why GNU su doesn't support the `wheel' group' (http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html _node/coreutils_149.html)--I think that wheel has an ethically legitimate use: to make sure that if anyone exploits a program running as `nobody', they can't become root. I haven't made up my mind as to whether exercising control over the machines you own (specifically over your users except yourself) is wrong, but that is--for the purpose of my counterargument--irrelevant: any ethically legitimate uses of anything shouldn't be prevented, and thus one shouldn't do blanket prevention of some object that has at least one legitimate use.

Specifically, I think it's ok for su to support wheel. RMS doesn't.

I object to you using the word 'steal'

When I cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else eats it, because then I cannot eat it. His action hurts me exactly as much as it benefits him; only one of us can eat the spaghetti, so the question is, which? The smallest distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.

(Why software should not have owners, RMS, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html)

(paraphrase of the next paragraph of the same text) When someone views a TV broadcast, it doesn't hurt anyone else (but see also below)--it doesn't take away their ability to view (or not view) the same program.

Also, we shouldn't encourage paying for viewing proprietry broadcasts, since we then reward the people who take away our freedom.

I'm sorry that the closest-to-neutral term I can come up with is 'unlawful [action]'--some people might misconstrue that one is saying that because it's against the law, it's wrong. This is not true: the law doesn't define what is right and wrong; what is right and wrong defines--or at least should define--the law, which is a mere instrument to achieve justice. Of course, it's only succeeds some of the time (I suggest you view "The Devil's Advocate"--of course without rewarding anyone for taking away your freedom to copy it--or, if you can, recall the first and last ~10 minutes).

RMS objects to the word `content' on http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html (I avoid using the word--I use the words data and/or information instead--but I don't feel strongly about its use).

I object to the term `protect': the information being broadcast isn't hurt from being viewed, and neither is the broadcaster. True, they may be unable to make money by their current business model, but as a--to some extent--advocate of the free market, I don't give a damn; if they can only make money by unjustly opressing their customers, they shouldn't be able to make money.

Also, no, the law doesn't define what's just/right/ethically accetable; au contraire, what is right, just and ethically acceptable defines what the laws is (or at least that's the way it ought to be), as I already mentioned.

---

You'll probably think I'm some sort of RMS/GNU/FSF/GCC/TLA fanboy, and to some extent rightly so--I do agree with most (but not all[1]) of RMS's values and conclusions. You, ebooher, will probably get your opinion of me lowered due to me being such a nitpicker, and I'll probably get modded -1 for some reason, but I think these points have to be made.

Footnotes:

1. I'm disagree with his conclusions in `why GNU su doesn't support the `wheel' group' (http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html _node/coreutils_149.html)--I think that wheel has an ethically legitimate use: to make sure that if anyone exploits a program running as `nobody', they can't become root. I haven't made up my mind as to whether exercising control over the machines you own (specifically over your users except yourself) is wrong, but that is--for the purpose of my counterargument--irrelevant: any ethically legitimate uses of anything shouldn't be prevented, and thus one shouldn't do blanket prevention of some object that has at least one legitimate use.

Specifically, I think it's ok for su to support wheel. RMS doesn't.

it's called find
And yes, there's a windows port

I think you're missing the point of the GPL slightly. The "viral" (Microsoft's term) nature of the GPL isn't an "issue" to be "fixed"; it's the main point of the GPL. It's the essence of the principle of copyleft. People license their software under the GPL because they specifically want that property of the license.

Linus's "quid pro quo" explanation describes it pretty well. In short: I'm willing to share with you if you're willing to share with me. If you don't want to share your code, then I don't want to share mine with you. The alternative, you taking the code that I worked hard to write and making a closed product out of it without contributing anything in return, is something that many developers don't want, and that's why they choose to distribute their code with a GPL-style copyleft license rather than a BSD-style license.

I'm just interested as to what the big deal with Java is. When I first heard of it, the cross platform ability sounded amazing. And it looks similar to C. But it's not. At least in my experience it has been slower and just no 'fun' to code with, not sure how to quantify that feeling exactly.

I'm curious why you'd rather code in C++ than Java? For me, moving to Java from C++ was a real relief. No more worrying about low-level memory management issues for the most part, I could focus on the problem domain. For me, coding in Java is very straightforward, and MUCH more productive than coding in C++.

I've found the performance issues to be minimal, and in some cases I've gotten C-like performance using gcj.

All that said, you may want to check out D. It's another C-based OO language, but it is high performance and probably what C++ should really have been.

What "at your option" language?

RTFGPL:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version .

It is in the section titled How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

The license strictly forbids changing the license document of which the above section is part:

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

By adding his own preamble stating that the Linux kernel is covered only by GPL v2, Linus has changed the license document and therefore an argument can be made that Linus has violated the terms of the GNU GPL.

What "at your option" language?

RTFGPL:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version .

It is in the section titled How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

The license strictly forbids changing the license document of which the above section is part:

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

By adding his own preamble stating that the Linux kernel is covered only by GPL v2, Linus has changed the license document and therefore an argument can be made that Linus has violated the terms of the GNU GPL.

These provisions, like the provisions in GPLv2, are designed to protect the "four freedoms" that the FSF espouses, namely:

• The freedom to run the program.
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
• The freedom to redistribute copies.
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

Since anti-owner access controls (DRM) restrict at least one or more of these freedoms, they are disallowed.

The parent says: The kernel is GPL2 without the "or a later version" wording.

But the GPL says:

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

GPL FAQ

Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license?

You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar).

If you want to use our preamble in a modified license, please write to for permission. For this purpose we would want to check the actual license requirements to see if we approve of them.

Although we will not raise legal objections to your making a modified license in this way, we hope you will think twice and not do it. Such a modified license is almost certainly incompatible with the GNU GPL, and that incompatibility blocks useful combinations of modules. The mere proliferation of different free software licenses is a burden in and of itself.

So by removing the or (at your option) any later version, is Linux still entiled to call its license the GPL? Although, in fact Linus did not remove the or later clause, he simply added the following disclaimer at the top of the COPYING file in the top of the src tree:

Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.

Which to me implies that anyone who wants to can fork the entire kernel, relicense it under GPL v3 and re-release it since the terms of the GPL v2 under which linux is currently licensed does include the any later version. You would not need any contributor's permission to do so since they have already granted that permission under the terms of the GPL v2 (since Linus cannot change the GPL v2 w/out FSF permission). You would not be able to call it Linux w/out Linus' permission, however, since that is a trademarked term.

Damn, trying to play lawyer is almost as much fun as programming. Probably pays better, too.

Don't tell me you can't use Linux for DRM software if you can use Linux in a child porn video lab.

This is not a straw man. GNU has in the past rejected all moral embargos on the use of free software. See their condemnation of the Hacktivismo license, which prevents the software being used by authoritarian governments and spyware makers:

Because it restricts what jobs people can use the software for, and restricts in substantive ways what jobs modified versions of the program can do, it is not a free software license.

If we were ever going to make an exception to our principles of free software, here would be the place to do it.

As for restricting the use of the software by governments that violate human rights, this is likely to be ineffective. There are many other programs they can use. Also, at least under US law, a copyright-based source license can't restrict use of the program; such a restriction is not enforcible anyway. Meanwhile, they can simply decide they are exempt from the restrictions.

So why is DRM a greater crime than the rest of these? Is not DRM a "use of the program"? Won't companies that make DRM be unwilling to use open-source modules anyway - or at least not re-release the source?

I really think that here is an example of the GNU's political fight (DRM and software patents are evil) outweighing their moral fight (restrictions on software are evil).

... from the IBM P.R. department with the title: "IBM urges Sun to give up OpenOffice control"

The truth is that if a high enough percentage of the OpenOffice.org people wanted to break up with Sun nobody could stop them - they could just FORK. But wait ... more than half of the OpenOffice.org developers are Sun EMPLOYEES! So how could _OpenOffice.org_ want "Sun Microsystems to give up control over the OpenOffice productivity suite, and donate the intellectual property to an independent not-for-profit foundation" (quote from the article)? And what developer would consciously use a term like intellectual property in the first place?

Here's a list of sites that sell DRM-free music by independent artists:

UseFree.org/drm

Songbird works with most if not all of these sites, and thus makes it easier than ever to break our dependency on RIAA's music and the cancerous DRM technology that it is pushing.

Novell was initially reluctant to release this code -- after all, they didn't have to because the X11 license doesn't contain any forced sharing, copyleft provisions. The Open Source community had to complain loudly before Novell decided it didn't want to risk losing support from independent developers. One reason they might have wanted to keep the modifications closed was to make a big splash for the release of the Novell Linux Desktop. Another possible reason is that Ximian (and Nat Friedman, who was Ximian's CEO before Ximian was bought by Novell) that long tried to undermine KDE, the Free Desktop System that currently has a slight edge in terms of popularity. By keeping the source closed, they would have prevented KDE developers from incorporating XGL into their windowing system, leaving KDE slightly behind Gnome in terms of eyecandy for a period of time.

If you are saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox, you must be trolling.

You can demonstrate the memory use problem quickly by loading and closing the following large web page into multiple Firefox tabs a few times: http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html. To see the memory and CPU percentage used in Windows, right-click on the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab.This demonstrates one aspect of the bug, but is not representative of big occuring in normal use, since that web page is huge.

...does it seem reasonable that opening 3 tabs showing the same 4 megabyte HTML file should require 200 Megabytes? Why is it that Opera has no problems of this nature?

The trolling that you're doing is not saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox. It's about two programs that do nearly the same thing in the same situation, then claiming one has serious stability problems, while the other exhibits no problems of that nature. As others point out, they cannot reproduce any sort of problem in Firefox with your demonstration.

If you ever do figure out how to demonstrate some serious problem in Firefox, be sure to let us know, and we can help get it fixed. Until then, no amount of ranting is going to help; it's likely to just get you ignored.

That's right (regarding the GPL). The GPL guarantees that the code will remain free to be run, copied, distributed, studied, changed and improved (quoth the definition of free software). It is perfectly alright to charge for the software, but the buyers don't have to pay royalties or anything if they decide to resell it or otherwise redistribute as they see fit.

While not GPL, Apple has released much of the source code under APSL.

It is official -- Netcraft confirms: FSF is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered FSF community when IDC confirmed that the FSF's mindshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all computer users. Coming on the heels of a recent announcement from Linus Torvalds, which plainly states that the Linux kernel will NOT be moving to GPLv3, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The FSF is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by founder Richard Stallman's hairstyle and rambling GNU/Everything Communist anti-developers'-rights "I'm-right-and-you're-stupid" commentary.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the FSF's future. The hand writing is on the wall: the FSF faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the FSF because the FSF is dying. Things are looking very bad for the FSF. As many of us are already aware, the FSF continues to lose mindshare. In a recent poll on Slashdot, 97% of computer users preferred Microsoft to the FSF in terms of both ideals and the quality of their flagship products.

The GNU operating system is the most endangered of all the FSF's projects, having lost 93% of its core developers. Unable to convince users to use GNU's own "Hurd" kernel, the FSF has made several desperate attempts to capture mindshare by riding Linux's coattails. The aforementioned sudden (although not unexpected) denouncement of the GPLv3 by Linus Torvalds only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt, the FSF is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

FSF founder RMS states that there are almost 7000 remaining GNU users. How many of those use Emacs? Let's see. Consider the bell-shaped curve of an IQ distribution graph. At best, Emacs users universally score two standard deviations below the mean, which means that they make up approximately 2% of any given sample. Therefore, there are 140 Emacs users left in the world. A recent article showed that GCC usage is declining among truly free operating systems in favor of ICC or even SDCC. There's GNU and Emacs, what else does the FSF produce aside from hot air?

Due to the troubles of the GNU operating system, abysmal adoption rates and so on, the GNU folks gave up on improving their code and instead began to concentrate on marketing their beta-quality OS. Theirs is just another unfinished open source project with a poorly designed interface and a lot of ideological baggage. It's no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to Microsoft.

All major surveys show that the FSF has steadily declined in mindshare. The FSF is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the FSF is to survive at all it will be among juvenile political dilettante dabblers. The FSF continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. People just don't want to hear their message anymore. For all practical purposes, the FSF is dead.

Fact: The FSF is dying

It is official -- Netcraft confirms: FSF is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered FSF community when IDC confirmed that the FSF's mindshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all computer users. Coming on the heels of a recent announcement from Linus Torvalds, which plainly states that the Linux kernel will NOT be moving to GPLv3, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The FSF is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by founder Richard Stallman's hairstyle and rambling GNU/Everything Communist anti-developers'-rights "I'm-right-and-you're-stupid" commentary.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the FSF's future. The hand writing is on the wall: the FSF faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the FSF because the FSF is dying. Things are looking very bad for the FSF. As many of us are already aware, the FSF continues to lose mindshare. In a recent poll on Slashdot, 97% of computer users preferred Microsoft to the FSF in terms of both ideals and the quality of their flagship products.

The GNU operating system is the most endangered of all the FSF's projects, having lost 93% of its core developers. Unable to convince users to use GNU's own "Hurd" kernel, the FSF has made several desperate attempts to capture mindshare by riding Linux's coattails. The aforementioned sudden (although not unexpected) denouncement of the GPLv3 by Linus Torvalds only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt, the FSF is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

FSF founder RMS states that there are almost 7000 remaining GNU users. How many of those use Emacs? Let's see. Consider the bell-shaped curve of an IQ distribution graph. At best, Emacs users universally score two standard deviations below the mean, which means that they make up approximately 2% of any given sample. Therefore, there are 140 Emacs users left in the world. A recent article showed that GCC usage is declining among truly free operating systems in favor of ICC or even SDCC. There's GNU and Emacs, what else does the FSF produce aside from hot air?

Due to the troubles of the GNU operating system, abysmal adoption rates and so on, the GNU folks gave up on improving their code and instead began to concentrate on marketing their beta-quality OS. Theirs is just another unfinished open source project with a poorly designed interface and a lot of ideological baggage. It's no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to Microsoft.

All major surveys show that the FSF has steadily declined in mindshare. The FSF is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the FSF is to survive at all it will be among juvenile political dilettante dabblers. The FSF continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. People just don't want to hear their message anymore. For all practical purposes, the FSF is dead.

Fact: The FSF is dying

It is official -- Netcraft confirms: FSF is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered FSF community when IDC confirmed that the FSF's mindshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all computer users. Coming on the heels of a recent announcement from Linus Torvalds, which plainly states that the Linux kernel will NOT be moving to GPLv3, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The FSF is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by founder Richard Stallman's hairstyle and rambling GNU/Everything Communist anti-developers'-rights "I'm-right-and-you're-stupid" commentary.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the FSF's future. The hand writing is on the wall: the FSF faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the FSF because the FSF is dying. Things are looking very bad for the FSF. As many of us are already aware, the FSF continues to lose mindshare. In a recent poll on Slashdot, 97% of computer users preferred Microsoft to the FSF in terms of both ideals and the quality of their flagship products.

The GNU operating system is the most endangered of all the FSF's projects, having lost 93% of its core developers. Unable to convince users to use GNU's own "Hurd" kernel, the FSF has made several desperate attempts to capture mindshare by riding Linux's coattails. The aforementioned sudden (although not unexpected) denouncement of the GPLv3 by Linus Torvalds only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt, the FSF is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

FSF founder RMS states that there are almost 7000 remaining GNU users. How many of those use Emacs? Let's see. Consider the bell-shaped curve of an IQ distribution graph. At best, Emacs users universally score two standard deviations below the mean, which means that they make up approximately 2% of any given sample. Therefore, there are 140 Emacs users left in the world. A recent article showed that GCC usage is declining among truly free operating systems in favor of ICC or even SDCC. There's GNU and Emacs, what else does the FSF produce aside from hot air?

Due to the troubles of the GNU operating system, abysmal adoption rates and so on, the GNU folks gave up on improving their code and instead began to concentrate on marketing their beta-quality OS. Theirs is just another unfinished open source project with a poorly designed interface and a lot of ideological baggage. It's no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to Microsoft.

All major surveys show that the FSF has steadily declined in mindshare. The FSF is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the FSF is to survive at all it will be among juvenile political dilettante dabblers. The FSF continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. People just don't want to hear their message anymore. For all practical purposes, the FSF is dead.

Fact: The FSF is dying

I like the GPL and use it for software, but it's just not right for things like text. For instance, I can use my GPL-given right to revise and extend Richard Stallman's text to read:

And from the /. article summary: "He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works." RMS would never recommend that, there exists the GNU Free Documentation License for documents, and this is most likely what RMS would recommend.

And in fact, actually reading the article gives you this RMS quote: "However, [the GPL's] requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don't recommend using it for manuals, or for novels." I too believe Stallman is misguided in this particular instance, but don't put words in his mouth, he has a hard enough time getting his foot in there.

I'd love to hear from anyone who can recommend test coverage tools for C

You want gcc with "-fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage", then you can use gcov/ggcov/lcov to produce usable output. See Vstr and And-httpd for examples.

You can demonstrate the memory use problem quickly by loading and closing the following large web page into multiple Firefox tabs a few times: http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html. To see the memory and CPU percentage used in Windows, right-click on the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab.This demonstrates one aspect of the bug, but is not representative of big occuring in normal use, since that web page is huge.

And, for the record, I'm not seeing the crashes or CPU problems, either.

Ed is the standard text editor!

Standard != Best (as much as it should be, it just ain't necessarily so)