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Here's an anecdote from Richard Stallman.

At a trade show in late 1998, dedicated to the operating system often referred to as ``Linux'', the featured speaker was an executive from a prominent software company. He was probably invited on account of his company's decision to ``support'' that system. Unfortunately, their form of ``support'' consists of releasing non-free software that works with the system--in other words, using our community as a market but not contributing to it.

He said, ``There is no way we will make our product open source, but perhaps we will make it `internal' open source. If we allow our customer support staff to have access to the source code, they could fix bugs for the customers, and we could provide a better product and better service.'' (This is not an exact quote, as I did not write his words down, but it gets the gist.)

People in the audience afterward told me, ``He just doesn't get the point.'' But is that so? Which point did he not get?

He did not miss the point of the Open Source movement. That movement does not say users should have freedom, only that allowing more people to look at the source code and help improve it makes for faster and better development. The executive grasped that point completely; unwilling to carry out that approach in full, users included, he was considering implementing it partially, within the company.

The point that he missed is the point that ``open source'' was designed not to raise: the point that users deserve freedom.

Spreading the idea of freedom is a big job--it needs your help. That's why we stick to the term ``free software'' in the GNU Project, so we can help do that job. If you feel that freedom and community are important for their own sake--not just for the convenience they bring--please join us in using the term ``free software''.

• They stop people from "pirating" Windows, Office, etc.
• They're pushing the media industry to use their Windows Media DRM, which would get them free money (royalties) for the next 100 years or so
• They keep people locked-in to Windows, simply by not supporting any other platforms

• Treacherous Computing automatically kills Free Software, instantly removing their biggest and most dangerous competition

• They stop people from "pirating" Windows, Office, etc.
• They're pushing the media industry to use their Windows Media DRM, which would get them free money (royalties) for the next 100 years or so
• They keep people locked-in to Windows, simply by not supporting any other platforms

• Treacherous Computing automatically kills Free Software, instantly removing their biggest and most dangerous competition

Try Emacs (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html), it supports both reading mail (http://my.gnus.org/), reading news (also http://my.gnus.org/) and surfing internet(http://www.gnu.org/software/w3/).
(And you could even edit your files with it :-)

Try Emacs (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html), it supports both reading mail (http://my.gnus.org/), reading news (also http://my.gnus.org/) and surfing internet(http://www.gnu.org/software/w3/).
(And you could even edit your files with it :-)

Historically, the FSF has always aimed for compliance more than anything else. As Eben Moglen, chief counsel for the FSF and the main guy in charge of enforcing the GPL for FSF-copyright software writes:

In approximately a decade of enforcing the GPL, I have never insisted on payment of damages to the Foundation for violation of the license, and I have rarely required public admission of wrongdoing. Our position has always been that compliance with the license, and security for future good behavior, are the most important goals. We have done everything to make it easy for violators to comply, and we have offered oblivion with respect to past faults.

The FSF has always worked with the goal of furthering the cause of software freedom. If Moglen and Stallman won a judgment that caused a recall of the hardware and damages paid, it might be a victory in the courts for them, but a net loss for free software, as nobody would get to see the changes that had to be made to get the devices to work. On the other hand, making them comply with the license and promise to be good, as you have put it, has always been their policy, as it has the effect of strengthening software freedom.

By the way, there's a Korean translation of the page...

Historically, the FSF has always aimed for compliance more than anything else. As Eben Moglen, chief counsel for the FSF and the main guy in charge of enforcing the GPL for FSF-copyright software writes:

In approximately a decade of enforcing the GPL, I have never insisted on payment of damages to the Foundation for violation of the license, and I have rarely required public admission of wrongdoing. Our position has always been that compliance with the license, and security for future good behavior, are the most important goals. We have done everything to make it easy for violators to comply, and we have offered oblivion with respect to past faults.

The FSF has always worked with the goal of furthering the cause of software freedom. If Moglen and Stallman won a judgment that caused a recall of the hardware and damages paid, it might be a victory in the courts for them, but a net loss for free software, as nobody would get to see the changes that had to be made to get the devices to work. On the other hand, making them comply with the license and promise to be good, as you have put it, has always been their policy, as it has the effect of strengthening software freedom.

By the way, there's a Korean translation of the page...

When I was a 2nd year student we weren't this sort of stuff, makes me wish I went to Stanford.

You really don't need to go to some high-ranked CS university to do cool projects. I hear a lot of people on Slashdot griping about how they couldn't go to MIT/CMU/Stanford/CalTech/whatever. Okay, maybe you get some good lectures and have some bright people handy to work with, but that's really a drop in the bucket compared to what you choose to do yourself. If you read about the things you're interested in, work on some projects, you *will* know far more than the people that went to Ivy League U and didn't do anything themselves -- just went to class and read enough content to get their grades. You have powerful, inexpensive computers easily available. You have free high-quality development software (if you don't have Valgrind and gcc on your computer, you're really missing out). You have an Internet's worth of excellent resources available, along with research papers on every neat thing you can think of free for the downloading. You don't need a professor or a boss to say "okay, write me a Foobar" to write a Foobar -- as a matter of fact, if you're writing a Foobar for yourself, it's probably going to be a better Foobar than if you're writing it because someone else is making you do so. Same goes for reading an algorithms book or a research paper.

Plus, if you don't want to tackle a whole game, choose something that you *do* like doing -- AI, graphics, sound engine, networking -- and pick a random existing open-source project and put your ideas into it. Then you have a nice end result that you can show off to people ("That game you're playing? Yeah, I'm one of the authors"), you have encouragement to keep going (because it isn't just a lone you -- you get feedback when you do something cool), and if you want a good practical excuse, you have a resume item that shows that not only do you have the ability to work with people to produce neat things -- but you've done so simply because you like making neat things. Also, it's *fun* to add a new feature to a game and then play using said feature with the rest of the dev team.

Remember that Woz never got his college degree (well, until a few years ago, when he decided to go back and get it). He built cool things because he liked making cool things, not because someone in a suit told him to make something cool. The same's true of an awful lot of techie folks out there -- school is a convenient tool, but it's much less important than going out and actively learning about things, and the fact that your uni has "State" in its name doesn't have a heck of a lot to do with what you learn. Sure, your professor will assign a bunch of books to read, but you can write that final paper without learning all that much, and certainly with big gaps in what you know. On the other hand, you can read all you want about just about anything I can think of on that Internet-connected computer in front of you.

Universities enforce a lower bound on your knowledge at graduation. They have nothing to do with setting a ceiling.

I still don't understand why the source distribution is compulsory in the way that it is. I would argue, and I'm sure others have, that from a purely "end-user" perspective, including the source code is both confusing and superfluous.

With the GPL, source distribution isn't compulsory. You really should read it. End users don't care about source code and they probably would never ask for it.

In fact, if you're not redistributing someone elses' work, but instead have released your own software under a GPL redistribution license, nobody can redistribute your software unless they have the source code, and you are completely free to decide whether or not you're going to give anyone your source code.

However, once you do give someone the license and ability to redistribute your software to the satisfaction of the GPL, anyone they redistribute your software to automatically gets those same rights.

In this case, Linux isn't your software. It isn't GP2X's software either. They are redistributing it, and as a result, need to provide that written offer. It seems like people want to take them up on it- presumably those that have received the binary, and these people are entitled to do it!

Firstly, if nothing is released publicly, how the hell is anybody meant to know that you've made changes, and secondly, it's the distribution that is the ket issue. Don't distribute binaries created from modified sources, no need to distribute changes. Cannot say fairer than that.

Anyway, as others have pointed out, the source code is available. There's no story here.

Sigh. If you have time to read Slashdot, you have time to read the GPL.

Lesson 1a: Read the unofficial Korean translation.

The GPL is enforced like any other copyright and derives it's power from the same copyright laws used by some people to strip you of the four software freedoms.

From what I've read, contact is made with the suspected violator. Most violations are not intentional and everyone is made happy right away. If not, you have to do what other publishers do. This is how the FSF does it.

The free software foundation has plenty of good advice. Just Google for "gpl violation site:fsf.org" You will be taken to:

• A primer site on violations, which importantly notes that only the copyright holder can enforce their license. From this it can be inferred that an individual lapse in GPL enforcement is not globally fatal to the GPL.
• Information on how to avoid problems.
• A link to the compliance lab which provides consulting and information services.

There would not be any confusion over the issue if there were not for a massive propaganda effort by people who prefer their power and wealth to your freedom.

The GPL is enforced like any other copyright and derives it's power from the same copyright laws used by some people to strip you of the four software freedoms.

From what I've read, contact is made with the suspected violator. Most violations are not intentional and everyone is made happy right away. If not, you have to do what other publishers do. This is how the FSF does it.

The free software foundation has plenty of good advice. Just Google for "gpl violation site:fsf.org" You will be taken to:

• A primer site on violations, which importantly notes that only the copyright holder can enforce their license. From this it can be inferred that an individual lapse in GPL enforcement is not globally fatal to the GPL.
• Information on how to avoid problems.
• A link to the compliance lab which provides consulting and information services.

There would not be any confusion over the issue if there were not for a massive propaganda effort by people who prefer their power and wealth to your freedom.

Lesson 1: Read the GPL.

license-violation@gnu.org

Anyway it looks like a translation of this page which mentions the same email address, so why not just email them there in English?

license-violation@gnu.org

Anyway it looks like a translation of this page which mentions the same email address, so why not just email them there in English?

license-violation@gnu.org

Anyway it looks like a translation of this page which mentions the same email address, so why not just email them there in English?

Buy one then ask for the source. Include a copy of the GPL to back up your claim. Maybe GNU Korea can help.

So, basically, South Korea or China is the ideal when it comes to GPL, since FSF doesn't believe in ownership of software, and neither do these guys

See Electric Fence and your documentation for debugging malloc.

But will Sony allow me to borrow it from a friend?

I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one that thinks wget is fantastic.

One util that I'll add that you might like is http://www.gnu.org/software/wdiff/wdiff.html">GNU wdiff - a diff that's word-based instead of line-based. Great.

Oh, and don't worry about insulting Emacs. It'll still be there when you grow out of vim ;-p

1. Slackware Linux. Still the best after all this time.
2. OpenBSD. Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out there trying to get you.
3. OpenSSH. Because you just can't use plain text telnet anymore.
4. Rsync. Just because.
5. GNU Screen. Triple your terminal productivity. Now with minty-fresh taste!
6. GNU Wget. Because you have better thing to do than watch over a download.
7. Vim.Because Emacs is for losers.
8. Nmap. Look at 'OpenBSD' above.
9. IPTables. Lock that machine down, admin boy.
10. pf. I said, lock that machine down , admin boy!

1. Slackware Linux. Still the best after all this time.
2. OpenBSD. Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out there trying to get you.
3. OpenSSH. Because you just can't use plain text telnet anymore.
4. Rsync. Just because.
5. GNU Screen. Triple your terminal productivity. Now with minty-fresh taste!
6. GNU Wget. Because you have better thing to do than watch over a download.
7. Vim.Because Emacs is for losers.
8. Nmap. Look at 'OpenBSD' above.
9. IPTables. Lock that machine down, admin boy.
10. pf. I said, lock that machine down , admin boy!

That was my first thought as well. With new technologies like GNU software radio, the lines between "rebroadcasting" and "using" can become blurred.

I definitely have the right to use anything within the confines of my house. But, if I setup an antenna and let my neighbors connect their radios to it, am I "rebroadcasting"? If I setup a GNU radio box and send the (undecoded) signals out over the internet, am I "rebroadcasting"? What if I only send them to myself?

And, more importantly, why should radio and TV stations really give a damn anyways? Their services are supported by ad-revenue. If anything, I'm only helping to increase their viewership by rebroadcasting.

I certainly have enough old code laying around to parse enough different config files. There are three advantages to XML. The first is that it is text-based, so you can write it from any programming language that can write text to files, or your favorite text editor. That doesn't set it apart from any other text file format. The second is that there are lots of libraries and tools for dealing with it in any programing language. You don't have to write, debug and maintain tools to parse it. The third is only an advantage if you use it right. That is, the tags and attributes document what your data is. If you do it wrong, your data can end up looking like sloppy ASN.1 littered with angle brackets.

FYI, you can do it also with GRUB. The -r syntax seems convenient; with GRUB it's not so simple. However, it appears to be very flexible; you can specify a whole chain of kernel images to try...

But anyway it's right there in the documentation:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html# Making-your-system-robust

Note: This applies to the earlier license used for Plan 9. The current license of Plan 9 does qualify as free software (and also as open source). So this article's specific example is of historical relevance only. Nonetheless, the general point remains valid.

default=0
timeout=8
splashimage=(hd2,0)/boot/gru b/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu

I highly encourage everyone to listen to a speech given by Richard Stallman on Software Patents.

I know RMS may not be too popular because of his stern disposition, but I find that he chooses his words very carefully and is very articulate. Note that he does reference "Society" quite often and many people mis-understand him because of this. To actually get where he is "coming from" you may want to read the first section of "Common Sense".

"LILO has a _very_ open license, but it does not meet RMS's strict and unyeilding requirements."

Huh? Please back that up with a source. As far as I can tell, LILO is distributed under the 3-clause BSD license which is listed under http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLC ompatibleLicenses as perfectly acceptable license.
I don't know where the myth came up that onloy GPL software is acceptable for either Stallman or the FSF. If that was true, they couldn't use X11, Apache and a lot of other stuff.

Take a look at OpenBSD. Once you understand the UNIX philosophy, using it is a breeze. Combine a bells-and-whistles shell like bash with a terminal multiplexer like screen and you have a powerful and elegant user environment. And your investment in time will pay you back double.

We've replaced half of our servers at this point-- very little new hardware required. The new machines stay up longer, they require less maintenance, and they work the way you expect them to. They aren't susceptable to viruses. When they finish running nightly jobs, they email me reports, even if the programs aren't designed to do so because I have the control. Need new functionality with your app? Usually piping the output to some other built-in utility gets the job done. None of our users know the difference; they still use Outlook to check email, use file and print servers. What they don't know is that most of these services aren't running on a MS platform anymore. But MY job is a lot easier. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Obviously, I don't know what you spend your time doing, and if you say you don't have the time, then maybe you really don't. But I've heard this same argument before, from admins at my company who work in different offices, and you just sound just like them. They just can't be bothered. Too bad. I'm not working nearly as hard. Remember the Perl motto: "The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris."

Take a look at OpenBSD. Once you understand the UNIX philosophy, using it is a breeze. Combine a bells-and-whistles shell like bash with a terminal multiplexer like screen and you have a powerful and elegant user environment. And your investment in time will pay you back double.

We've replaced half of our servers at this point-- very little new hardware required. The new machines stay up longer, they require less maintenance, and they work the way you expect them to. They aren't susceptable to viruses. When they finish running nightly jobs, they email me reports, even if the programs aren't designed to do so because I have the control. Need new functionality with your app? Usually piping the output to some other built-in utility gets the job done. None of our users know the difference; they still use Outlook to check email, use file and print servers. What they don't know is that most of these services aren't running on a MS platform anymore. But MY job is a lot easier. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Obviously, I don't know what you spend your time doing, and if you say you don't have the time, then maybe you really don't. But I've heard this same argument before, from admins at my company who work in different offices, and you just sound just like them. They just can't be bothered. Too bad. I'm not working nearly as hard. Remember the Perl motto: "The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris."

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

Can you publish politically dissenting views?

Not if you want to keep your job

Can you openly criticize the government?

nope

Are you allowed to practice any religion you want without punitive recourse?

My (non)religious views allow abortion, gay/group marriage, assisted suicide and stem cell therapy. I hear some folks are being prosecuted or assaulted for trying to do these things.

Are you executed for being in possession of mind-altering drugs?

Killing someone is not the only way to destroy a life. A lengthy prison term and/or prison rape will do.

Can you freely travel to most parts of the world?

Sure, that's because most parts of the world, including China, make it easier to get a visa than US.

Can you read any publication in print or the web without gettign thrown in prison?

You got to be kidding!

I've already got Linux and it's awesome. It's going to be EVEN MORE AWESOME when Vista finally ships...

Uh, yeah, did you? Read this too, if you reread it and still don't see what I'm talking about.

Will someone with a really innovative idea open source it from the beginning?

• Freenet
• The World Wide Web: both the Web server...
• ... and of course the Web Browser, too.
• Up to the moment, there's Wiki
• And if you go back far enough in history, there's that computerised psychoanalyst that's generally not used exceptby middle aged computer scientists. I can't remember it's name, but it has a built in editor, too.

So nothing very significant, no.

Yes, if you are doing dumb things, it's only right to be consistently stupid. You would not want to ban cellphones with cameras while allowing ordinary cameras would you? Pass it by the Homeland Security Office if you have to think about it long. If IM is what you consider your new IP threat, you proably need to reconsider what's important to your company and why.

Such shenanigans only make sense when you believe in intellectual property and treat the creators of such property like criminals. If your entire business relies of a few secrets that could sneak out the door, you have a sorry business. If you do have secrets you need to keep but employees you can't trust to keep them, there is something wrong with the way you hire and treat your employees. The idea of network "security" through port blocking is so laughable the company in question must be using a M$ desktop. If your company has such sorry software, you probably flunk the other tests of dumb company and your life is miserable.

Stupidity is self punishing.

Qt started out with a commercial license for all platforms and a GPL license for Linux. Criticism of the use of Qt for the KDE project is what started the GNOME project and their use of GTK. Many loud and annoying voices claimed that it was wrong to rely on Trolltech to develop Qt and that if Trolltech was sold or if their business failed, then the GPL version of Qt could no longer be available.

You missed a vital part of the history.

The original Qt was not under the GPL, it was under a license that was not free software and was not open source. Thus to use KDE, a user had to give up their freedom and use Qt. GNOME was started for this reason. If Qt had been available under a free software license on free platforms at that time, GNOME would not have been started.

If I use Qt to build a UI for my application, I can licence my app however I darn well please. I only need to include the GPL as an additional license for the Qt portion of my app.

When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library, the combination of the two is legally speaking a combined work, a derivative of the original library. The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General Public License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with the library.

An application to balance my check book is not in any way, shape, or form derrived from Qt.

QT should be the preferred GUI toolkit of the FSF, the LGPL is the *LESSER* GPL ( http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html ) and the FSF advocates using the GPL even on libraries ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html ). So any FSF sponsored projects should be converting now.

QT should be the preferred GUI toolkit of the FSF, the LGPL is the *LESSER* GPL ( http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html ) and the FSF advocates using the GPL even on libraries ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html ). So any FSF sponsored projects should be converting now.

But when Qt is using GPL, suddenly the GNU zealots turn around and say, hey that's bad, you can't write proprietary software with it!

I don't think "GNU zealots" would say that. As you correctly point out, Free Software advocates prefer the GPL to LGPL in almost all cases (this link has more information). Now, years ago the Free Software Foundation recommended against use of QT, because back then it was only available under a non-free license. Now that QT is 100% free software (and even better, under the GPL) there's no reason to avoid it.

Personally, I think QT, MySQL, BerkeleyDB and others are setting a good example. To a Free software developer, they're just another GPL-compatible software library ready for reuse. To a proprietary software developer, they're just another piece of software that has to be licensed commercially. From QT's perspective, they get testing/improvements/fixes/more free software from Free software developers, and licensing fees from proprietary software developers. Everyone wins.

Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

I just hate the GNU zealots. Qt just can't win can they. The entire GNU project is founded on the idea that proprietary software is bad (Stallman even wrote an essay on why you shouldn't use the LGPL, and renamed the first L from "Library" to "Lesser" to discourage use). But when Qt is using GPL, suddenly the GNU zealots turn around and say, hey that's bad, you can't write proprietary software with it! In fact Qt has the perfect business model -- if you want to write proprietary software, you buy a license from them and give them some revenue (as lots of people do), and if you want to write free software, it's all yours. The GNU supporters should be holding Qt up as an example.

Anyway... let people choose the toolkits based on their merits. Plenty of people seem to be choosing both. (Mozilla=GTK+, Opera=Qt. Acrobat Reader=GTK+, Scribus=Qt. Etc.) But I dislike disingenuous articles like the present developerworks article which pretends that GTK+ is the only toolkit that exists. Everyone knows Qt exists too -- if you believe GTK+ is better, explain why, but don't sweep the discussion under the carpet.

C#, for all of the claims of performance, is a a JIT based interpretive language. Ditto Java.

C#, for all of the claims of performance, is a a JIT based compiled language. Ditto Java.

C# is a compiled language, as is Java. You can't call something that's "JIT" compiled "interpreted". It isn't. It's compiled. It's distributed in semi-compiled form, and (with most, if not all, current implementations) stored on the user's PC as semi-compiled, but it's actually fully compiled before the CPU runs it.

Neither language's performance problems, in any case, have anything to do with byte-code intermediate representations. The major problem is that Java (especially, I can't speak for C#) is distributed in a form that effectively means the entire thing has to be linked at run-time. That's slow, and means most Java programs have a painfully slow start-up time. Once running, they pretty much all run at a decent speed, and the benchmarks, repeated ad-nausium, generally show comparable performance to C++, largely because automatic garbage collection is fractionally more efficient than malloc() based manual memory management.

The slow start-up times though have done a lot to discredit anything connected with Java, be it JIT, byte-code, platform independence, or C#. But let's be clear why the problem exists - it has nothing to do with the fact that Java and .NET apps are distributed using platform independent byte-codes.

Bear in mind, also, that nothing stops you from compiling your Java program from the get-go right to assembler, distributing the code as a platform specific, machine code, fully linked executable. Nothing at all.

so.. you run wget http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/wget/wget-1.10.2.tar.gz ?

Instead of getting nowhere by going through the same discussion (that is, whether filesharing is legal, illegal or something between) again and again, I think we should bring up the question if information should be public property; this seems pretty much the debate in the Internet age. RMS has had some arguments for free software in his essay. The text may (!!) make some sense when you replace the word 'software' with 'music' (though a piece of music isn't something that evolves continuously). Of course the music creators want credit for their work, so what about a Creative Commons license for every piece of music? Why couldn't it work?