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One of the goals of Perl 6 is to make non-trivial projects possible. That's good. The way it's being done is bad. Perl was once a lightweight, extremely flexible language. Now it's become a huge ugly monster. People wanted OO, so a nasty hack was bolted on top to allow some semblance of it. Now this nasty hack is being expanded. Sure, the code's different, but the basic form is the same. Kludge upon kludge upon kludge; I'd much rather have a nice, clean, pure language (and not one with loads of irritating whitespace thank you very much).

The same goes for the syntax. All the switching between $, @ and % is really irritating (ask a newbie how to get at the length of the keys array of a hash inside a hash, for example), and the changes proposed for 6 are just making this worse -- it seems that Larry, in his infinite wisdom, wants to prefix every data type with a different hard-to-type character. Perl was only designed for the three data types, and adding more is a mess.

Perl 6 is a complete rewrite, but it keeps all the mess which has accumulated over the previous versions. This is not good. Sure, my const int $var = 27; may look neat (in the same way that, say, Pascal does), but $var isn't entirely constant, or entirely an integer, it's just a hack which makes it sort of behave like one. The whole thing is an exercise in pseudo-computer science masturbation with little real purpose except to please the managers who dislike the one thing that makes Perl special.

On a similar note is regexes. I'm an avid fan of regular expressions simply because a nondeterministic finite automata is far more flexible than linear code. However, Larry must have been smoking that cheap $2 crack when he wrote this. Does he want Perl 6 to be flex or something?

I won't be going on to use 6. It's a nice idea, but it's completely unnecessary. It won't make large projects any easier to manage (the language is still, at heart, an almighty hack -- an impressive one, but still a hack). It won't make OO any cleaner. It won't make development any faster. To put it bluntly, Perl scripts will still look less beautiful than our friend Mr Goat.cx. I'd prefer to use a language which has always been pure synthesis of science and engineering, not some half-baked imposter.

Perl 6 will be nice, but I'm guessing it will be the end of Perl. It can't do what it wants to do whilst still being based upon a nasty mess. There are now other options, which provide all of Perl's power and none of the mess. Sorry, but *BSD^H^H^H^H Perl is dying. Larry is buggering it up the ass without lubricants, just like Shoeboy is doing to Larry's daughter.

Real Man use ed.

Because it's the standard text editor.

(And, yes, I do use it on occasion on Macs, when firing up MicroEMACS and using that would take too much time.)

/.ers, better embrace 'em!

These will soon be the only CPUs on the market that don't have treacherous computing extensions

Good thing Linux runs well on old/slow hardware...

In short, specify what the time offset usually is relative to UTC, how much yer DST shifts the time by, when it starts and ends (time/day/month). It is flexible enough to define "the nth {day of week} of the month" such as 1st Sunday, 2nd... or last. Wheeeeee! Updates will surely follow in a GNU libc update in the near future.

Here is the GNU definition:

``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.'' Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:


* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

funny you should mention letters of the alphabet...

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

it's coming to a world near you.

I glossed over some of the features, and reasons for them, so let me explain.

The 'md5sum' thing ensures that you're not relying on timestamps. Especially important if you're dealing with several machines that might not have their clocks synchronised perfectly. Furthermore, the 'signature' of any of the build nodes is the concatenation of the MD5s of all it's dependencies, PLUS the command lines to generate that node. Change ANY one of those, including changing any compiler flag, and the signature doesn't match, and the node gets rebuilt.

SCons does its own inherent dependency checking, and caches that, too, plus recording the signatures of all the files needed to generate that information. If any of THAT changes, it will re-get dependencies, and then use the result to determine if a node needs to be rebuilt. This, plus the previous part, makes 'make depend' unnecessary. SCons always gets it right, which cannot be said for Make, or (I think) even Ant... (We currently DO have problems with Ant after a 'cvs update'.). I'm pretty sure that you can make your '.depend' files depend on the files that were used to generate it, but the solution for that for Make (unsure for Ant), is UGLY. SCons handles it all automatically.

SCons also handles cross-platform builds. It's actively tested under *nix and Windows.

Really, if any product deserves to be called a 'category killer' for this category, it isn't Ant, it's SCons.

Regardless of whether or not that is true (I wouldn't swear by it), the point is not whether or not everyone can use the particular version of make I want them to use. It's whether or not the version of make they actually do use is compatible with my Makefile. That's why Java has Ant. That's why Ruby has Rake. That's why Perl has Module::Build. That's why more and more open-source software projects are realizing that make doesn't cut it. Just because you think that GNU make is superior to Solaris make (which behaves quite differently in many cases) doesn't mean that that a Solaris shop will easily convince their admin to install your version of make just because you have a personal preference.

You should read up about the limitations of make and compatability issues of different versions.

Your complaint belongs in the late 80s or so.

Your defense belongs in the late 90s or so :)

Exactly!
What we need is IBM's JVM to be open-sourced PLUS a finished GNU classpath.

If you take a look at the ChangeLog for GNU Classpath, you'll see a lot of work being done on javax.swing in recent weeks:

http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/classpath/ classpath/ChangeLog

If you want javax.swing.* to be complete, why not join in and make it happen?

Two partial solutions, one for RPM distributions (I suppose you could manage them with alien, but it gets kludgier and kludgier......).

http://www.gnu.org/software/sourceinstall/sourcein stall.html

Manages source packages for you. GUI, lets you click on and off all the possible configure/make options you could want (well, maybe not *all*, but more than I have ever used).

Then, there is Krpmbuilder, which is a wizard interface for building RPMS from source without spec files. Check http://krpmbuilder.sourceforge.net/

Seems pretty nice, you can put descriptions and the like, which might be useful if you are administering a bunch of computers and would like to add a package from source to your pile of systems. Presumably if you are a running a debian system, you could install RPM on debian, build RPM's with Krpmbuilder, convert back to deb using alien, and then manage that however you manage your computer labs or whatever.

None of these are ideal solutions, but they point in the right direction, and certainly anything that lets you get control over the various source packages scattered all over your system is a *good* thing.

Doesn't work without a .spec file.

I'm looking at http://www.gnu.org/software/sourceinstall/sourcein stall.html which helps somewhat, however.

Still not integrated with RPM, which is too bad. Be nice to get sourceinstall integrated with pseduo RPM packages somehow, so you can manage .tar.gz without spec files inside RPM

They should make launch.yahoo.com use valid HTML, just like all good music sites do.

"... how will the IT world handle this change?"

• Hurd (now with KDE)
• Haiku
• TUNES
• House
• Squeak

Is he [Dvorak] just dissing on CC or all open source licenses [...]

I certainly hope this is not the start of trying to give the open source movement more credit for work it did not do. Creative Commons licenses are not licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative and for good reason. CC licenses are not to be used for computer software. The Creative Commons organization lists the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL as licenses to consider for software. People on /. routinely cite the GPL as an "open source" license despite that:

• the Open Source Initiative merely lists the GNU GPL as an approved license. This is nothing compared to writing the license,
• the GNU GPL was written many years before the open source movement began and is therefore clearly independent of the open source movement,
• the GNU GPL talks about software freedom -- a different philosophy than the open source movement holds -- and the open source movement takes pains to avoid discussing software freedom,
• and the GNU GPL was written by the Free Software Foundation, not the Open Source Initiative. Richard Stallman, the GPL's chief author, takes every opportunity to clarify that he is not now nor has he ever been a member of the open source movement. He wishes people would stop lumping the FSF's work in with that of the open source movement.

Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation devised, in addition to some marvelous software, the GNU General Public License (GPL for short). Or the CopyLeft it is sometimes called.

It is quite a revolutionary document, using the "copyright" tool to to protect your right to use free software.

Unfortunately using copyright to protect free software is a lot like using a Jackal to guard the hens.

In fact, various inconveniences relating to this have resulted in modifications such as the LGPL (Library General Public License) and more recently the NPL (Netscape Public License)

I call these matters mere inconveniences, the real damage will occur when the Jackal's, (sorry, I mean lawyers), actually get to test the GPL in court for the first time.

Thus enter my version.

Its very simple.

Entirely consistent.

Completely unrestrictive.

Easy to apply.

The "No problem Bugroff" license is as follows...

The answer to any and every question relating to the copyright, patents, legal issues of Bugroff licensed software is....

Sure, No problem. Don't worry, be happy. Now bugger off.

All portions of this license are important..

• "Sure, no problem." Gives you complete freedom. I mean it. Utterly complete. A bit of a joke really. You have complete freedom anyway.
• "Don't worry, be happy." Apart from being good advice and a good song, it also says :- No matter what anyone else says or does, you still have complete freedom.
• Now bugger off. The only way to get rid of pushy Jackals is to ignore them and not feed them. The GPL is just begging somebody to take it to court. Can't you just see it. Exactly the same thing that happened when some twit (not Linus) registered Linux as his own personal trademark. People got upset, started a fund, and hired, off all ruddy things, a Jackal to try and defend the chicken! Who really benefits from this trademark / patent / copyright thing anyway? The lawyers. Who made it up in the first place? The lawyers.

OK so the last part of the license sounds a bit harsh, but seriously folks, if you are a :-

• Lawyer asking these legalese questions... You should go off and learn an honest trade that will actually contribute to life instead of draining it.
• Programmer asking these legalese questions... You have amazingly powerful tools in your hands and mind, use them to ask and answer the worthwhile questions of life, the universe and everything. Stop mucking about with such legal nonsense and get back to programming.
• User/reader asking these question... Don't worry. Go off and be happy. Have fun. Enjoy what has been created for you.

SubEtha's collaborative editing is cool, but I like other editors. Fortunately, you can also have collaborative editing in many other text editors.

DocSynch is a plugin for jEdit which used IRC for collaborative editing.

SangamPlugin adds collaborative editing to Eclipse.

Old school? Use VimSynch or Emacs or any text-mode editor with screen.

Okay, dinner, dishes, bathing kids: done.

Let me clarify a couple points.

"Most use 'intuition.' But this 'intuition' is generally nothing more than familiarity. And familiarity does not fix the current, demonstrable problems. "

The last line should have read "Familiarity is generally just the reuse of old paradigms, which reimplemented the same demonstrable problems."

The benchmarks showing OS X's problems are here. There are several articles on why Mach (and to some extent the original microkernal design) is poor at handling lots of things at once. Just go read up on microkernels and MACH. New microkernels are better at handling this. L4Ka::Pistachio is well known as it was chosen for the resurrected GNU HURD OS.

I would like to reiterate that I was a die in the wool, cut me I will bleed green, yellow, orange, red, purple, and blue IN THAT ORDER, M$ SUCKS, Mac Freakboy. Then I learned how we interact with computers, what our limits and abilities are, how to fix the current problems, and eventually just got pissed every time I use an interface. Which includes locks, cars, dishwashers, ad infinitum.

As a final thought I would like to interject that we design programs knowing the abilities of computers. To a large extent the best software is the one written by those that understand the fundamental things that are going on with every new thing we tackle in programming. Those who design with the fundamentals in mind get good results. Why are we borrowing from MS blindly? Who are known to screw up how they engineer interfaces from the start. We don't do that with any other major part of the OS unless _forced_. To the user the interface IS the operating system, the hardware, to a great extent it is wholly the computer.

A prudent approach, in my opinion, is to assume that you aren't allowed to dual-license contributions if you're the original author

You're entirely right that a lot of licenses should be really MPL-like, definitely not the GPL. This just shows the ignorance regarding the licenses. Law firms, ahoy!
What I meant was that dual-licensing is happening all over! Small projects wanna do it. Large projects do it. MySQL does it. AFAIK, the only big projects that are carefull are OO.org and the FSF. They demmand that you fill a paper form and snail-mail it giving up on your copyright.
I agree that that the prudent approach is that of not assuming you can dual-license, but a lot of people are assuming the contrary, either due to unfairness or ignorance (the hype and noise around GNU, Linux and the GPL).
People need to be conscious about what they're getting into if they contribute to a project. Is it serious? Or are they going to dual-license it and just say "thanks very much for your code", or simply turn it closed-source once they think it's good enough?
My point was that the BSD license levels the playing field for everybody. Either that or the LGPL. Projects like JBoss use the LGPL because they want the reciprocity that it provides. However, the FSF actively plays against the the LGPL and they renamed it to "Lesser GPL." This license is adequate for libraries, though.
I guess we can assume from this discussion that there are a lot more subtleties to licensing than people assume. Knee-jerk reactions defending the GPL just won't cut it.
I prefer the simple, time honoured, tributary to the hacker spirit, court-tested, pro free-software/pro-proprietary approach (the +/+ approach) - the BSD License The other licenses aren't as flexible, or as simple to work with, or as tested.

The new hand-written recursive descent parser added in 3.4 improved performance a fair bit (making 3.4 the fastest g++ version ever as of the release they claim). The performance for compiling without optimization was improved even more in 4.0. For Gentoo users and other OCD-level recompilers it might not matter, but it does help developers everywhere. This is what I would personally call the place where it matters, end users that obsess over recompiling stuff themselves for no reason can wait.

It is overall a general consensus among gcc developers that performance should be improved. Don't expect C-level compilation speeds from C++ though, it is a heavy language to compile by nature. This keeps getting worse with the increasing prevalence of extreme template metaprogramming libraries like Boost, to a great part in meaningless areas in a quest for performance that will never matter or materialize (I don't claim that Boost or template metaprogramming is a bad thing, just that people obsessivly use it in places where normal coding practices would do just as well except for imagined performance/purity issues).

The new hand-written recursive descent parser added in 3.4 improved performance a fair bit (making 3.4 the fastest g++ version ever as of the release they claim). The performance for compiling without optimization was improved even more in 4.0. For Gentoo users and other OCD-level recompilers it might not matter, but it does help developers everywhere. This is what I would personally call the place where it matters, end users that obsess over recompiling stuff themselves for no reason can wait.

It is overall a general consensus among gcc developers that performance should be improved. Don't expect C-level compilation speeds from C++ though, it is a heavy language to compile by nature. This keeps getting worse with the increasing prevalence of extreme template metaprogramming libraries like Boost, to a great part in meaningless areas in a quest for performance that will never matter or materialize (I don't claim that Boost or template metaprogramming is a bad thing, just that people obsessivly use it in places where normal coding practices would do just as well except for imagined performance/purity issues).

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html also explains this. I.e. that using the GPL for a unique library is preferred by the FSF *because* of the problems it causes for non-GPLed projects.

As time goes by I agree more and more with RMS regarding "free" software. This is just one more very strong reason to only use free software! http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html

So your choice isn't really between viewing this hi-def content as you wish or viewing it on a secure setup. It's a choice between content or no content.

``IF the package is on your distribution's list.''

Of course. But then, if you use Debian, it probably is. Even if it isn't, somebody may have made a package available outside of the distribution (MPlayer, for example). Failing that, if it's a larger application (the sort of thing you'd install on Windows; browsers, instant-messaging programs, office suites...), they probably distribute some kind of binary download that you can install on any distro. Or you can fetch the source and create a package yourself. Of course, that isn't very much what you would expect a desktop user to do. But with projects like GNU source installer, it may be a realistic option, or become one very soon.

``With windows applications, I can have a friend (who has broadband) download the program for me, or set up an all night download on my computer. With packages... I spend hours downloading the application, only to find that I need x number more packages to work properly.''

If you run apt-get -s install foo, it will tell you all the packages that are going to be downloaded to install foo. Then you just ask your friend to download these packages for you, copy them to your computer, install them, and all should be fine.

grub4all and vfd can help you do that. i actually constantly use this for bios updates on my machines

An interesting take, but I don't see any logic to support it, and I doubt you have even the most basic grasp of any flavor of economics. Software companies are competing with other software companies, not with pirates. You have absolutely no idea what the profit margins are on any "large scale production software" so please save the bullshit and stop implying any knowledge of the subject.

Ok. ra ra rara. Bunch of ad hominen. I did a a bit of it in my minor, I do infact have an idea what I'm on about.

So lets explain this a bit further. Music Companies *DO* infact compete with Software Bootleggers due to the fact a consumer (which classical economics presumes to be rational and therefore likely to optimise choices to maximise bang for buck) can chose between the "authorised" product or the "unauthorised" product. The two directly compete. Due to an increased supply of the product relative to a more stable demand (not *everyone* needs a cad program), the crossover point between the suply curve and the demand curve settles at a cheaper point and prices lower.

CD prices may not be a brilliant example , but lets even assume that, we see here http://banners.noticiasdot.com/termometro/boletine s/docs/consultoras/riaa/2002/riaa_CDValueStudy2002 .pdf That while there has been a modest price rise, relative to inflation, CD prices (as expected) have dropped. Now, lets take into the direct result of MP3 sharing, which is legal services such as itunes and emusic, and we see music now dropping dramatically in price. I can get a subscription to emusic and for $19.99 I get 90 MP3 downloads, all quite legal. (Not sure iTunes prices, they aint here in australia yet. I gather there a bit more expensive).

The Price fixing and the like has little to do with economics and everything to do with industry corruption. Thats why price fixing is considered pernicious, because it *distorts* the market away from consumer interests. Yes Bootlegging distorts the market, but it does so by pushing prices down.

Adam Smiths invisible hand rarely fails.

And yes, I am aware that the lower price offerings are partly to stem open source adoption. But Microsoft has also been adamant that its also motivated by high levels of Bootlegging in developing countries, including in government and industry (areas fairly compliant in the first world).

Finally, I'll refer you to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html.

Bootlegging is the more acurate term as oposed to piracy, because bootlegging refers to the manafacture of illicit goods (traditionally liquor) whereas Piracy tended to involve theft.

As have been pointed out by many , Bootlegging music and software can not be objectively called "Theft" because theft by its definition is an act of taking something that is yours and making it mine without your permission. If I take my CD of , say, Frank Zappa, or whatever, and copy it to my friend, nobody lost anything, but someone gained something. The music publisher still has precisely the same stock level and capital reserves. I still have my CD, but a friend now has a new copy of Hot rats to listen to.

The arguement that bootlegging is theft, *relies* on the arguement that unauthorised competition could be theft. And if you accept that arguement , then you have to accept that bootlegging is competition and thus under classical economics benificial to the consumer and I would suggest it could be also applied to Open Source. Infact that is precisely the scam the Software industry is trying to pull with patent laws where intellectual property (devised originally to protect small publishers from having books copied by large monopolists) is abstracted further into the idea of software itself.

I much prefer Stallmans idea of not calling it piracy , but rather "sharing with a friend".

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

GCJ ( http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ ) has the c++ library which implments the java API. I hope they can make it an independent library so that the java programmers can switch to c++ easily.

Check this link.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Remember some years ago when MS was pushing a reader for e-BOOKS that used DRM, MS Passport, and other nasties?
Now tell me that:
a) Linux on the laptops will be an alternative.
b) The e-Books/ material will be cheaper than the hard copy. (No evidence of that so far)
c) There will not be DRM encumbered readers and the e-material will not be copyright encumbered.
d) The teachers will not just buy one copy of the (copyrighted) e-Material and install it on 30 machines.
Without a commitment to Free (as in Freedom) infrastructure here, I see way more downside than upside.

Sprinkle on a little DRM and you have a whole new racke...eer, Industry! It's starting to sound like Stallman's The Right to Read is getting closer.

Though this is different from the classic "I accept".
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html#SEC3
2. c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

Of course I'm assuming that that VPNs, SSH can be supported. It would not surprise me in the least if the aircraft only supported http through some kind of proxy.

And that would stop stop me how exactly?

I am reminded that when I was reading Stallman's The Right To Read (linked from the recent Slashdot story Old-Fashioned DRM Protects Harry Potter Book), I wondered why it didn't include biometrics. That would have prevented the happy ending.

Having biometrics on my computer with a free / open source OS wouldn't be scary like having biometrics on my computer with a closed OS and hardware DRM, of course.

For public / institutional networks though, I can't help but wonder where it's going. But on the plus side, at least if big brother runs on Linux I won't worry so much about script kiddies stealing my identity.

You mean like the LGPL which is used by JBOSS?

clues are available here, free of charge: http://www.gnu.org/

Don't be put off by the somewhat tendentious write-up; the interview
itself is interesting, if brief. I think the case against "OSS" from a
purely business point of view is quite strong; but this doesn't worry
me, since I'm not in the business, and I prefer Free Software
anyway.

What are some of the implications?
1) They don't understand the motivation behind
open source and more specifically, free (GPL) software. As a marketing firm trying to sell product where's the money to be made here?

Answer: None. If there is no money to be made
from selling product, then why would you
waste time on it? (You have __got__ to see this
in market droid mode. This question doesn't make sense to ask from a technology point
of view, but Microsoft doesn't live in technology mode, they just visit and harvest from the technology world.)

It will detail the besieging of Irix, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and Unix and the ultimate demise of their parent companies.

IBM (AIX) and HP (HP-UX) aren't going to die b/c they're not selling so many copies of their *nix OS. Last I heard HP sells printers, computers, software and services and IBM sells services to everyone. Both sell Linux.

In the end there will be three operating systems, Linux, Windows, and an obscure novelty from Apple.

You're an idiot. Everyone knows that the OS of the future is GNU Hurd.

It's GNU/Linux you insensitive clod!

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

IMHO, projects under BSD license make people/companies more comfortable.

I, as well as other colleagues in my company, usually download, study, and customize the projects from Apache, such as Ant, maven, tomcat and so on. we have never concern the license issue, since we all have known projects on Apache are released under it's BSD-like license, anybody can use and change them with or without publishing their work under this license.

Meanwhile, the case when we met GPL was quite different. A few months ago, Company decided to use a open source database for internal project use. Nearly almost of colleagues proposed MySql as the favorite choice. Things were going on well until somebody studied Mysql's so-called dual-license. The folk said to us: we have to pay for it due to its license.

We argued about this issue for a long time, and with no result. Many days later, Manager talked about it in a routine meeting, then he said: "Silver, please make clear the price of MySql , and tell me; to me, if things is not certain, I will have to choose a safe way, that's it."

As the other reply to your post indicates, the Free-Software Foundation doesn't think programmers should have to work for free. Richard Stallman has indicated that no one should be forced to program! Programmers can and should be paid. Selling software is not the problem, it's the fact that the end user (who may have paid for the software or may have received it at no monetary cost) is not free to modify and distribute the program. Having the source code is necessary to exercise these freedoms. The Free/Libre Software movement is all about assuring these freedoms exist, not killing commercial interest in software. You can pay someone to write open source software for you, in which case the programmer gets fed, and your freedoms are maintained.

Neither the Free Software nor the Open Source movements try to fix the "problem" of selling software. You might want to read up on them.

I understand that some of you may only have heard of the open source movement. I'm grateful that you would consider using the GPL for your projects. However, the GNU General Public License (or GPL) predates the open source movement by many years by the founder of a movement with different goals than the open source movement. Therefore it is not fair or accurate to credit the GPL as an "open source license" merely because the Open Source Initiative (which started the open source movement) placed it on a list of approved licenses.

The GPL was written by Richard Stallman, most notably. Version 1 of the GPL was released in January 1989, and version 2 (the current version) in 1991. So, two major releases of what has come to be the most important and popular free software license were released well before the Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998. The OSI has yet to write a license that compares with the popularity or strength of the GPL.

The GPL speaks repeatedly about software freedom, not "open" anything, and for very good reasons. First, the term "open source" didn't exist when the two revisions of the GPL were written. But even if the OSI existed, the open source movement doesn't want to frame any issue in terms of software freedom because it gets in the way of addressing businesses, their chief audience. Talking about software freedom means talking about something beneficial to users, not addressing more efficient means of connecting cheap programming labor with businesses. Philosophically and historically, the FSF and OSI are not the same, nor are the free software and open source movements. Stallman and Eben Moglen, chief counsel for the FSF, confirm this in every speech they give and virtually every essay they write. The Free Software Foundation has published an essay describing the differences between the two movements and why they see the free software movement as better. To this list of differences I'd add that free software guarantees private derivatives, unlike the open source definition.

The upcoming GPL (version 3) in this regard because it will be the first version of the GPL where anyone from the OSI may have editorial say in. The final word (and framing of the issues surrounding the GPLv3) still comes down to Stallman and Eben Moglen.

Thus, with all of this history, I think it is fair to call the GPL a free software license, not an open source license. The GPL existed well before and independantly of anything to do with the open source movement and does not embody the values of the open source movement. I encourage you all to stop misleading people into giving the OSI and the open source movement an undeserved primacy.

This article sums up pretty well why copyleft is important over non-copyleft licenses like the BSD license.

"When it comes to defending the freedom of others, to lie down and do nothing is an act of weakness, not humility."

Actually, most companies don't care! (...) the BSD and GPL licenses are functionally equivalent.
They're functionally equivalent for now, but this is because you can develop code in-house using the GPL for your competitive advantage if you don't release them (GPL FAQ here).This is poised for change in version 3.0.
The reality of the GPL is that it is being widely deployed by companies dual-licensing. That is, they release GPLed code, often with shoddy documentation, and propose to you the alternative of opting for a proprietary licensing scheme.
My understanding of what this scheme means is that, in the end, you end up developing code for free for an enterprise that will license that code under a proprietary license. Exactly how these companies will disentangle GPL code contributions made by others and sell you a proprietary license is something I don't quite understand. Maybe there's a legal, untested, loophole. There's gotta be something, since so many software houses are doing it. Maybe the loophole is the above item of the FAQ above: the company apropriates GPL code and develops it in-house, but for a contractor.
Under the puported forthcoming changes in v 3.0, will you not be able to develop in-house code without giving back. This will push people who are clients of those software houses to two choices: either choose a pure proprietary license, no longer a twin tributary and heir of the GPL code, or the truly viral v. 3.0. You are back to square 1. But if you have the option of a truly viral license, why would you choose the proprietary one? This means both loose.
All this means the GPL is a confusing model. It lends itself to dual-licensing, something the BSD licese aborts by creation. There are no legal loopholes in the BSDL.

However, for big corporations, the reasoning is completely different. The GPL is a big thing for them, but not because of dual-licensing. By commoditizing the complements fo their products (i.e., what they really sell you is hardware , but it runs on Linux - a formulation first written by Joel Spolsky on the now-famous Strategy Letter V), they get garantees that the competitor won't simply incorporate changes. Also, it's a great scheme because it cuts down the cost of development, by getting contributions from the community. Please notice that, whenever, e,g, IBM sells software, it's under a proprietary license (e.g., WebSphere). Either that, or they sell per-seat licenses (e.g. RedHat).
For small independent software vendors, it takes away any competitive advantage you might otherwise aggregate to a client. This is a very important factor, because the BSD allows you to contribute and benefit from a free code base, and still use your software talent to your benefit. There are some real-world scenarios where the Human Factor may actually work against you (I'll come back to that bellow).

So you see, there's absolutely nothing to do with freedom when companies selling per-seat licenses and/or hardware defend the GPL. Don't believe their PR department, please.
Why do companies take BSD code and often don't give anything back. This has more to do with corporate culture. Linux is all about PR and evangelizing. The BSD people always were hackers, before everything else. They only cared about coding, maybe that was their mistake.
And finally, the last aspect I see regarding the GPL is the human factor. A very real world political one, but that's not so evident in the USA, because there's a stronger business culture there. But in my country (Brazil) the government often is the biggest contractor. I've seen the Free Software community be maneuvered by a government

Unless I've misunderstood you, you've got the facts wrong yourself. You claim: The GPL does not require that derivitive works be GPLed. and You can still use some other license for the derivitive code

If you distribute your derivative work, b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. [section 2b of the GPL]

Quote the GNU:

You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them.

http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html