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go out and buy a SONY PS3/2/1.

they need your support in order to implement new DRM technologies and pay for expensive lawyers to C&D not-for-profit software authors.

and not to forget those 2 other ****suckers. NINTENDO and MICROSOFT.

keep up the battle. maybe one day in the distant future, they will let you BUY products from them, instead of renting. and maybe they'll even let you own your own compiler and gasp!, let you write your own unauthorized software.

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

keep laughing at him you goddamn shills, then you can present your ID cards for every single thing you do in the future. it all starts here.

there is NO good DRM.

where do YOU want to go today?

So far we have the following on the boycott list:
1. SCO
2. Microsoft XP Professional Edition(Home is ok *wink*)
3. Java (read "The Java Trap")
4. French Products (no real valid reason)
5. Plextor (see above article)

Its all tainted at this point, unless you make your own.

Man, if half of what you are saying comes true then it really confirms RMS's analysis (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html and many others) of the situation from long ago. A few years ago at GE it always seemed that Jack Welch would take absurdly radical positions in order to pull the organization in a certain direction. Five years later his previously-crazy views were mainstream. RMS seems to have a similar knack.

Mr. Stallman's science fiction short story isn't the only depiction of what could happen in a full "Trusted" Computing paradigm. I linked to it as an accessible description of the consequences of Treacherous Computing. Here are some more factual descriptions: #1 #2 #3. Please read them and compare TCG's platform as described to what could enable the situation depicted in the story.

I realize some people on slashdot just hate drm, but there are others who think it is a perfectly valid system, as long as any of my rights are not affected.

Problem is that your rights most likely will be affected. See "The Right to Read" by Richard Stallman.

Selling Free Software

It doesn't look like RMS is opposed to making money off software, nor making money off free software.

He's saying "software should be Free", not saying "software should be free", eh?

How can I locate the clause that forbids "extra requirements"?

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

In the page with comments about various licenses you can compare what it says about the Original BSD License (free, incompatible with the GPL) and the Modified BSD License (free, compatible with the GPL). The difference between these two was an "obnoxious advertising clause", much like the one in the Microsoft Patent License.

How can I locate the clause that forbids "extra requirements"?

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

In the page with comments about various licenses you can compare what it says about the Original BSD License (free, incompatible with the GPL) and the Modified BSD License (free, compatible with the GPL). The difference between these two was an "obnoxious advertising clause", much like the one in the Microsoft Patent License.

You say that like it's a good thing(!)

"Internet Explorer's architecture made this app fairly easy to build." as testament to the browser?

No; for some pretty obvious reasons: one obvious one being, you exclude anyone not using that particular browser. I thought everyone realised that was a Bad Thing - or maybe you haven't been one of those people who can't use their online bank because the bank decided to arbitrarily depend on IE. One can only hope that accessibility laws will put an end to such stupidities.

It's not surprising that both browser products have memory leaks. However one could reflect deeply on the differences in responsibility and approaches to remediation. In Firefox's case - being open source - you have complete transparency; you can file a bug on it, check the bug db, or even fix it yourself (don't laugh). In M$'s case, all you can do is kiss your money goodbye and hope they fix it "one day".

The same goes for all the rest of their system, too. It is not always obvious what a disturbing abdication of rights using a closed system is. A friend recently told me of a Visual $tudio crash triggered by a few \b backspace characters in a print statement. Not such a big deal, I thought at the time; but I found myself reflecting on his story later. Eventually the true horror of the situation sank in, which is that we have to completely trust the ability and goodwill of the vendor to deal with any and all issues in their O/S. That is no small responsibility and there is not much evidence that M$ is capable of fulfilling their end of the bargain. I would postulate, after RMS of course, that no closed and proprietary system on the scale of M$ products can be adequately maintained by one vendor. And of course maintenance becomes irrelevant when major "rewrites" are involved, such as have been prescribed by Longhr0n to fix W1ndows' fundamental ills (ref Spolsky on rewrites, Things You Should Never Do).

The thought that one has no recourse and indeed not even any way to inspect the system one uses (livelihood, etc), is deeply, deeply disturbing, and I again have to thank RMS for pointing out long ago what a dead-end that is, and for putting in place viable alternatives.

Organizations on "our side" can be just as misguided in their support of copyright law as anyone else. That said, however, they're using the current laws of society to pursue a goal (free software) as best they can. Changing copyright law might help us all reach that goal more quickly, but they have to work within today's legal framework if they want to get results today

large changes to a system that has been in place for at least 100 years take time. It seems the FSF, although humourous at times is starting to get just as bad as the MPAA.

If you think that's incorrect, go ahead and explain why. How exactly does having a copy of a song on your hard drive harm anyone any more than not having that copy on your hard drive, given that you aren't paying any money whether it's there or not

well, if it's a copyrighted song, program, or movie, it hurts the original creator. Sharing commerical works devalues that work over time. (think of what happens to the value of the dollar if it is well known that 99% of all money used is counterfeit). Just because something can be copied easily doesn't mean its value is 0.

It's just human nature. If someone has a choice between something that's free and something that costs money, they will choose free.

I could say the same thing about software under the GNU. Who does it hurt when I use it in a commerical application (without releasing the source?). The original sourcecode is still there to use for free. The free software police thinks differently, however.

Quote from gnu.org:

(...) please don't confuse the public by using the name ``Linux'' ambiguously. Linux is the kernel, one of the essential major components of the system. The system as a whole is more or less the GNU system, with Linux added. When you're talking about this combination, please call it ``GNU/Linux''.

Whole text can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

The FSF has known about the problem of knowing who holds the copyright for many years. That's part of why they ask that authors assign copyright to them. This ensures that they have standing to enforce the license for the software for which they're responsible. Only the copyright holder or his assignee can enforce the license.

TFA says:

... the defending party could argue that the copyright appears to belong to the Free Software Foundation, according to Guibault.

"The only name that appears on the licence is the Free Software Foundation -- they appear to be the licensor,"

So, yes, we need to know who that copyright holder is, yes, we've known this for years, yes, it's covered where it should be, rather than where the author of that article chose to look and yes, the author is stupid, stupid, stupid.

How stupid? Here's RMS's take on it, from TFA:

"If free software licenses are not valid in the Netherlands, copyright law still applies, so the result could be that no one is allowed to distribute or change free software there. However, the FSF will continue to respect everyone's right to do so," said Stallman.

"Whatever happens in the Netherlands, it won't be a disaster for free software in general. If the Netherlands has put something foolish in its laws, it will just have to fix their laws to do the right thing," Stallman added.

Then to point out the even greater boneheadedness of this story, let's say that EvilMegaCorp went to court and said "oh, we didn't think you owned this copyright, we thought the FSF did" and the judge agreed, the FSF would be in court the next day saying "no, we didn't write it, we wrote the license, but if you'd like to name us as the author of the software we'll gladly defend the copyright on it."

So STFU and get back to teaching students how to swindle./p

Then to point out the even greater boneheadedness of this story, let's say that EvilMegaCorp went to court and said "oh, we didn't think you owned this copyright, we thought the FSF did" and the judge agreed, the FSF would be in court the next day saying "no, we didn't write it, we wrote the license, but if you'd like to name us as the author of the software we'll gladly defend the copyright on it."

So STFU and get back to teaching students how to swindle./p

Then to point out the even greater boneheadedness of this story, let's say that EvilMegaCorp went to court and said "oh, we didn't think you owned this copyright, we thought the FSF did" and the judge agreed, the FSF would be in court the next day saying "no, we didn't write it, we wrote the license, but if you'd like to name us as the author of the software we'll gladly defend the copyright on it."

So STFU and get back to teaching students how to swindle./p

// rantyblog! v1.0
// Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004 (My Real Name)

// 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.

// (etc.)

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.

// rantyblog! v1.0
// Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004 (My Real Name)

// 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.

// (etc.)

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.

No one is forcing you to use Free / Open Source Software. I am sorry you are so threatened by customers stepping up and solving their own problems instead of giving their hard earned money to vendors that do not provide good products, do not listen to their customers and then feel threatened when the 'Open Source Community' commodifies their products. Guess who the 'Open Source Community' is, Rob? IT'S THE FARKING CUSTOMERS!!!

They are using Free / Open Source Software and spending time instead of money. Guess what? They are finding that it costs less and the vendors that should have been providing solutions were metering out features and bug fixes like crumbs to the hungry to extract the highest cost / benefit for their own bottom line. So if they want to play in the market now, they can play by our rules:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/

DaGoodBoy

Oops -- I linked to a mirror, instead of to the original. Perhaps not the worst mistake to make, but unintentional nonetheless.

Then to point out the even greater boneheadedness of this story, let's say that EvilMegaCorp went to court and said "oh, we didn't think you owned this copyright, we thought the FSF did" and the judge agreed, the FSF would be in court the next day saying "no, we didn't write it, we wrote the license, but if you'd like to name us as the author of the software we'll gladly defend the copyright on it."

So STFU and get back to teaching students how to swindle.

...because your computer does not belong to you anymore. It is Microsoft's property now.

Unless you install GNU/Linux!

Oh wait... but an Intel rep confirmed the 945 would help implement Microsoft's DRM at a chip level! AMD all the way!

Even Free Software, which is driven by philosophy, isn't at all related to Communism.

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

Look for "Software Tax" towards the end. While open source in general is not driven by Communist ideals, I do wonder about RMS himself. Even the the GPL shows this, where "GPL compatibility" means the resulting code is only GPL. It's the great assimilation license--the GPL community takes ownership of it. This leaves programmers to wonder whether being GPL compatible is really a good thing, because it could open a whole set of issues that might not be desireable.

Calm down; the post you replied to was full of shit. GPL 3 is aiming at better patent clauses and the web services arena where someone uses GPL software on a web server with a web interface and thus doesn't have to release code changes because they technically aren't distributing.

Requiring payment even from for-profit uses of GPL software goes against freedoms 1 and 2. RMS is nothing if not consistent, and he has never expressed dismay at people making money off of free software before.

I bet GNU Hello better than your hello world.

Sure, GCC, and system-programming stuff is very platform specific. OTOH, we already have GCC for a whole buch of "minority platforms". Are you suggesting to just drop this ?!

Well after a quick look at the faq page , it might not be that simple

We might both be wrong and the reasonable time apearsd to be indefinate. I guess there might be other interpretations on what the GPL actualy means but what thye claim it to mean sounds alful restricting. It actualy starts sounding scary when reading the faq pages and all the restrictions there are. No wonder there is a big argument about using the GPL.

I think adoption and development would be more excelerated if some of these restrictions could be lifted. I'm talking about linking and using plugings and the such. The wording in the faqs even bash developing on a single platform. This was actualy an eye opening read. I can see now were alot of the propriatary verses opensource squableing comes from.

You could at least honor the man and his work by reading what he actually wrote about the issue and his reasons.

Then address his arguments, and if you think you are so right, try to destroy them. But fuck off with these stupid strawmans that you picked up on /.

RMS:
"It is possible to write good free software without thinking of GNU; much good work has been done in the name of Linux also."
"

Ed? Ha! I laugh at Ed! Ed source code in "BF"

No, I'm not going to give you a lecture on why Vi is better. But one editor rules them all.

Ed: your Lord and Master

If that's so, I wonder what would happen if any of their employees donated to the Free Software Foundation just to yank their chain...

It happens almost every year. Search these pages for the word "Microsoft":

If that's so, I wonder what would happen if any of their employees donated to the Free Software Foundation just to yank their chain...

It happens almost every year. Search these pages for the word "Microsoft":

If that's so, I wonder what would happen if any of their employees donated to the Free Software Foundation just to yank their chain...

It happens almost every year. Search these pages for the word "Microsoft":

If that's so, I wonder what would happen if any of their employees donated to the Free Software Foundation just to yank their chain...

It happens almost every year. Search these pages for the word "Microsoft":

If that's so, I wonder what would happen if any of their employees donated to the Free Software Foundation just to yank their chain...

It happens almost every year. Search these pages for the word "Microsoft":

I agree completely: it's either armed revolution or intellectual serfdom. However, I really don't want it to have to come to that. So what can we do about it, aside from stockpiling weapons?

What we need to do is figure out how to get people to understand, and in order to do that we need to be more visible, because the masses ignore everyone but the Republicrats and Democans. I think our only (political) hope is to organize a coalition between the Greens, Libertarians, ACLU, EFF, FSF, DownhillBattle, and anyone else who sees the danger coming (e.g. Slashdot geeks). We need to get out of our basements and onto some soapboxes. Maybe we can publish and distribute pamphlets of The Right to Read or something, I don't know.

When the U.S. Constitution was drafted, the idea that authors were entitled to a copyright monopoly was proposed -- and rejected. The founders of our country adopted a different premise, that copyright is not a natural right of authors, but an artificial concession made to them for the sake of progress.

...

This fundamental decision explains why copyright is not required by the Constitution, only permitted as an option -- and why it is supposed to last for "limited times." If copyright were a natural right, something that authors have because they deserve it, nothing could justify terminating this right after a certain period of time, any more than everyone's house should become public property after a certain lapse of time from its construction.

I have read about the topic. (You might disagree with my sources, though) ; )

Alright -- so the technology can be used in a good way, too. But it was still primarily designed for the benefit of the cartel, and there's still a private key that you're not allowed to know. I think the danger greatly outweighs any possible benefit.

Umm, actually, you are the one who has the terms mixed up. Free Software (note the capitalization) is, by definition, free as in speech. Open Source software is not the same, and makes a few concessions to allow businesses an easier time at making money (in addition to being a more business friendly term). Finally, free software (again, note the capitalization) is simply free as in beer, and does not (normally) show you the source code.

i am maintaining a port of GNU emacs (which is written in C at its core) to VMS, and am interested in learning about the bug you mentioned.

is the bug report (and more interestingly, the 50-line piece of C code that demonstrates the bug) posted anywhere public? (do you have a link handy?) thanks.

back on topic: i wonder if emacs is considered "enterprise software".

i am maintaining a port of GNU emacs (which is written in C at its core) to VMS, and am interested in learning about the bug you mentioned.

is the bug report (and more interestingly, the 50-line piece of C code that demonstrates the bug) posted anywhere public? (do you have a link handy?) thanks.

back on topic: i wonder if emacs is considered "enterprise software".

Gosh, I wish someone had told the FSF. They wrote the license and apparently their interpretation is wrong according to you.

Personally, I think Intel has pretty much lost control of the enthusiast segment. The majority of enthusiasts look for value and performance when it comes to hardware and quite honestly, the Intel platform definitely doesn't have any "value" attached to it.

From the performance numbers published on numerous online publications, Intel has lost the Dual-Core War. The only competing factor that Intel has right now is the possibility to keep their prices low enough to attract those with strict budget. And before I end this column, I would like to forward a special note to Intel: Please make sure your next generation of processors isn't as atrocious as the Prescott, as AMD is making you look pretty silly right now.

The most uncooperative company is Intel, which has started a sham "open source" BIOS project. The software consists of all the unimportant parts of a BIOS, without the hard parts. It won't run, and doesn't bring us any closer to a BIOS that does run. It is just a distraction. By contrast, AMD cooperates pretty well.

You can help our campaign by buying AMD CPU chips and not buying Intel, and by publishing statements about what you are doing. Likewise, buy motherboards that support Free BIOS. See http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/supportlinuxbios.html for info on which companies cooperate and which models and motherboards are supported.

When you do this, tell your friends and your coworkers. And please tell us, too -- please write to bios@gnu.org to tell us that you have chosen what to buy because it supports a free BIOS.

Sure most have one or two innovative features, but what applications in the OS world are really innovative, especially from an end user perspective?

Certainly not desktop environments, servers, remote shells, anonymizing (or swarming) networks, or compilers.

Because all of those things are just replacements for commercial applications, and did nothing new.

You just did, every single one of them (except possibly Apollo which I've never heard of) has contributed changes to GCC. The fact that they have properietary compilers as well really proves nothing. Meanwhile, go look at the length of the contributors page.

This doesn't apply to all GPL'd programs everywhere, but only to the GPL'd program which they distribute, and only if it includes the particular patent in question. That is, if they distribute the kernel, but not kde, they can't enforce the patent against the kernel, but could enforce the same patent against kde (assuming that kde violated the same hypothetical patent).

The pertinent portion of the GPL says:

For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

In fact, if Nokia distributes the kernel but little else that is GPL'd, I think we've found the reason for this peculiar action. I'll bet that the kernel they distribute comes from a source which is best described like this:

"Linux Kernel" means any version of the Linux kernel which (i) is released as "stable version", (ii) is licensed under the "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 for the Linux operating system" and (iii) has been published by the Kernel.org Organization, Inc on its Linux Kernel Archive website at www.kernel.org.

This is hardly new nor interesting. There are plenty of programs that work with the iPod other than iTunes. Behold just a few:

- Anapod Explorer

- PodUtils

- GTKpod

- GNUpod

And rhythmbox, for example, offers nice integration of music management and iPod operability -- if that's what is supposed to have made this newsworthy.

First off, it's the "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE", not the "Gnu Protective License". This mistake casts doubt on your knowledge of the subjects which you are discussing.

Aside from the fact that ext2 doesn't need to be defragmented in the first place ( https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-D ecember/msg04120.html ) - which makes yours an understandable mistake, considering that you are used to working with a system as horribly untidy as Windows - there are indeed tools for doing just that ( http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2.html ).

Second, you need only make code changes available if the binaries are distributed - your lawyers are obviously not doing their job properly. Perhaps you hired divorce lawyers instead of ones trained in IP law? ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt ) Aside from the fact that you don't have to in the first place, sharing your alterations with those who provided you the original source is still nothing more than a nice thing to do - If you put your changes in, and your competition does the same, then who comes out ahead?

If your lawyers were competent, they would realize that the GPL does not require that program output - such as a program compiled by GCC - be open sourced. ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt ) It would appear that you are getting your information on linux and open source from Microsoft's propaganda campaign. Do you feel stupid for expecting the truth about linux from a competing vendor?

Microsoft's "Shared Source" license is one of the most draconian pieces of trash I'ce ever seen, and the GPL is Linux's strength. As for your mistaken claim that no companies use linux, I would like to cite some examples:

IBM and their linux initiative
Sony chose linux as the OS of choice for the PS2 AND PS3
Pixar uses Linux for it's rendering clusters
Chrysler is using Linux to simulate vehicle crashs
Linksys routers run Linux

Should I continue to cite examples from the endless string of major companies that rely on linux for matters critical to their very survival?

You, my good man, are both misinformed and completely lacking in a desire to learn the truth.

First off, it's the "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE", not the "Gnu Protective License". This mistake casts doubt on your knowledge of the subjects which you are discussing.

Aside from the fact that ext2 doesn't need to be defragmented in the first place ( https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-D ecember/msg04120.html ) - which makes yours an understandable mistake, considering that you are used to working with a system as horribly untidy as Windows - there are indeed tools for doing just that ( http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2.html ).

Second, you need only make code changes available if the binaries are distributed - your lawyers are obviously not doing their job properly. Perhaps you hired divorce lawyers instead of ones trained in IP law? ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt ) Aside from the fact that you don't have to in the first place, sharing your alterations with those who provided you the original source is still nothing more than a nice thing to do - If you put your changes in, and your competition does the same, then who comes out ahead?

If your lawyers were competent, they would realize that the GPL does not require that program output - such as a program compiled by GCC - be open sourced. ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt ) It would appear that you are getting your information on linux and open source from Microsoft's propaganda campaign. Do you feel stupid for expecting the truth about linux from a competing vendor?

Microsoft's "Shared Source" license is one of the most draconian pieces of trash I'ce ever seen, and the GPL is Linux's strength. As for your mistaken claim that no companies use linux, I would like to cite some examples:

IBM and their linux initiative
Sony chose linux as the OS of choice for the PS2 AND PS3
Pixar uses Linux for it's rendering clusters
Chrysler is using Linux to simulate vehicle crashs
Linksys routers run Linux

Should I continue to cite examples from the endless string of major companies that rely on linux for matters critical to their very survival?

You, my good man, are both misinformed and completely lacking in a desire to learn the truth.

Guess what? If you use Qt the way you use GCC or emacs--as a part of your build environment--then Qt is free. For example, if you build an internal map editor for your arcade game and use Qt, Qt is free.

Contrariwise--if you use GCC or emacs the way people tend to use Qt, and link against them, then you fall under the GPL and have to ship source. And people have done just that--made special versions of GCC (Apple), or special versions of emacs.

So the situations are exactly comparable. Furthermore, the FSF explicitly encourages developers to use the GPL for their libraries, in order to give more of an advantage to free software. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html