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Wow. What a lame argument, "If GCC didn't exist, BSD wouldn't be where it is today, and you can't say otherwise because otherwise didn't happen!"

The simple fact of open source isn't what gets built, it's the spirit behind it - a spirit that exists without some fat bearded douche bag writing PART of a compiler (which isn't JUST WRITTEN BY RMS, IT'S WRITTEN BY MANY MANY OTHER PEOPLE TO REACH IT'S CURRENT, USEFUL FORM!!! Jeebus people). That spirit would move other people to develop their own compiler, much like the anti-GPL spirit in the BSD community has fostered increasing support for TenDRA. So, to answer your question, what is the greatest contribution to open source? Motivation to write open source software. If GCC didn't exist, that motivation would push coders to develop a different free compiler. To say otherwise is to speak with dogmatic blinders.

It's not as though RMS is the only one who can start a compiler and get it to attain self-sustaining momentum. Any good college CS program involves a class in compilers. A compiler is not some great mystery of comptuers, it just takes a lot of work to get one that works well enough for production use. Once TenDRA becomes stable and feature-rich enough to be used in production, BSD wills switch over to it in droves.

Creation \Cre*a"tion\ (kr?-A"sh?n), n. [L. creatio: cf. F.
cr?ation. See Create.]
1. The act of creating or causing to exist. ...
2. That which is created; that which is produced or caused to
exist, as the world or some original work of art or of the
imagination; nature. ...

As for the rest, as I said before the GPL FAQ gives the correct answerss:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGP LToolsForNF

Creation \Cre*a"tion\ (kr?-A"sh?n), n. [L. creatio: cf. F.
cr?ation. See Create.]
1. The act of creating or causing to exist. ...
2. That which is created; that which is produced or caused to
exist, as the world or some original work of art or of the
imagination; nature. ...

As for the rest, as I said before the GPL FAQ gives the correct answerss:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGP LToolsForNF

Creation \Cre*a"tion\ (kr?-A"sh?n), n. [L. creatio: cf. F.
cr?ation. See Create.]
1. The act of creating or causing to exist. ...
2. That which is created; that which is produced or caused to
exist, as the world or some original work of art or of the
imagination; nature. ...

As for the rest, as I said before the GPL FAQ gives the correct answerss:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGP LToolsForNF

This is true, although 3b says "Accompany it with a written offer ... to give any third party ... a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code".

It sounds as though the the original troll^W poster doesn't want to have to give the source to anyone outside the company.

(It's also possible that I've misinterpreted this and it actually means that the offer is made only to the receivers, but they could ask the distributor to give the source to a third party. Any thoughts?)

Matt

To save anyone else looking it up, the GPL is here.

So what is stopping them from removing the copyright notices?

Well, that's it then. Since my hobbist software development budget is approximately zero - I'm going to have to give up on Windows Mobile development. [emphasis added]

As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid? Is this fair? ... One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft. Bill Gates, An Open Letter to Hobbyists, February 3, 1976.

It has been thirty and you still can't realize that you are non grata? Your patience is unbelievable but why won't you just get over it and go somewhere else where people actually want you? Crazy idea, isn't it?

octave is not even nearly at the level Matlab is... nothing is. it is quite annoying that they have such a dominant product and noone has an alternative. its still pretty damn good though.

maths packages are something which OSS are just years behind unfortunately. matlab is the only real option for numerical stuff and mathematica the only real option for symbolic (maple is for classrooms, not the workplace).

on the numerics front, you are right there is octave. there are also some GPL C libraries such as matpack and GSL which are pretty good if you are writing a project to be released using the GPL and you take the time to learn the workings of the functions. but then, most problems you don't want to have to write a program to solve an ODE! matlab can do that in minutes whereas it could take a day in GSL. these OSS libraries have great documentation, an important thing for a numerics library.

on the symbolic front, OSS sucks. there is maxima and no documentation beyond introductions. no decent GUI exists and i found myself using the terminal mode. its about a decade behind maple or mathematica.

i have heard rumours that axiom will be good, but i seriously doubt it. and to be honest, i kinda like knowing that mathematica is used by so many people and is very well bug tested. the results may never be checked by a human, so you gotta trust your computer!

octave is not even nearly at the level Matlab is... nothing is. it is quite annoying that they have such a dominant product and noone has an alternative. its still pretty damn good though.

maths packages are something which OSS are just years behind unfortunately. matlab is the only real option for numerical stuff and mathematica the only real option for symbolic (maple is for classrooms, not the workplace).

on the numerics front, you are right there is octave. there are also some GPL C libraries such as matpack and GSL which are pretty good if you are writing a project to be released using the GPL and you take the time to learn the workings of the functions. but then, most problems you don't want to have to write a program to solve an ODE! matlab can do that in minutes whereas it could take a day in GSL. these OSS libraries have great documentation, an important thing for a numerics library.

on the symbolic front, OSS sucks. there is maxima and no documentation beyond introductions. no decent GUI exists and i found myself using the terminal mode. its about a decade behind maple or mathematica.

i have heard rumours that axiom will be good, but i seriously doubt it. and to be honest, i kinda like knowing that mathematica is used by so many people and is very well bug tested. the results may never be checked by a human, so you gotta trust your computer!

Ah well, yeah. I've thought about doing that once or twice.

But I've clicked the I agree button on Matlab's license. Worse, I've signed the NDA to see what's coming in the next release. I wouldn't want to put the Octave project at risk.

There are times I think people need to look beyond Richard M. Stallman's views on software and take his other political views seriously as well.

Eh, trackerless P2P won't aid IP theft much.

"IP theft"? How can you "steal" an IPv4 address? Do you mean "source address spoofing"? If you mean "copyright infringement, patent infringement, trademark infringement, trade secret infringement, or right of publicity infringement", then please be more specific.

The thing that would really blow the lid off would be an anonymous, fast, and simple to use P2P system.

There are tradeoffs in any engineering problem. Good, fast, and cheap: pick two.

I can already tell that the comments to this article might get confusing. In the interest of clarity, please use the abbreviation "IP" to refer only to Internet Protocol and its addressing scheme, not to copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and rights of publicity.

If I create a wonderful painting, do you have a right to view it if I don't want you to?

You have a natural right to keep it private, to exhibit it only in places where photography has been banned on the private property. You have an artificial right but not a natural right to "have your cake and eat it too" by distributing the work in copies to the public while retaining legal control over reproduction.

The problem here is that there are no natural rights to view or consume intellectual property.

Please do not use the confusing term "intellectual property" when discussing sensitive moral issues. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and rights of publicity are more different than they are alike, and they have different moral tradeoffs. For instance, the holder of a patent on a mathematical algorithm has an artificial right but not a natural right to prohibit other people from independently reinventing and reimplementing the invention, while the owner of copyright in a computer program does not.

The blank-media 'tax' is indeed a fee for permitting the private copy of IPed stuff, the result is divided among the SGAE itself and the companies with which they have an agreement. As it is indeed a tax on IP, there are also evading payment of all those whose IP is being used and are 'unknown' to the SGAE.

Anything sent over the Internet is "IPed", as the Internet uses Internet Protocol, or IP for short. What did you mean? If you meant the confusing term "intellectual property", which conflates copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and rights of publicity, then does this recordable media tax grant immunity from patent and trade secret liability incurred as part of private copying?

"Richard Stallman reported that OSS is the way to go"

Now, that would be news.

Am I the only one reminded of The Right to Read, by Richard Stallman?

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

Only 57 years left until the Tycho Uprising.

Seriously, it's amazing how low would those Indian engineers sink in order to get their mess of pottage. I guess, 65 years ago Rajit Gadh would probably be working in Germany for a system of tagging Jews with RFID tags.

Disgusting. I wonder why corporate whores like Katie Dean never ask these "researchers" if they are not ashamed to look in the mirror. The world makes me sick. Now please excuse me while I go read something by Richard Stallman and listen to Chomsky's lectures.

Piracy is a confusing word you should avoid. The title of the story should read, "Software Sharing To Increase as the Internet Grows." Doesn't sound as bad, does it?

cAos web site is running on a non free CMS called Rife. Before [or after] you mod me a troll, look at the number of mature free alternatives CMS stystems out there.

Of course you know that he wrote emacs (it's not a clone of anything).

Oh, and gcc.

"to him BSD is not free"

Yes it is, FSF lists the BSD licence as a free software license. Tho the original version has certain "flaws" that renders it incompatible with the GNU GPL.

"What has Stallman done that's original thought"

He like STARTED the whole free software movement, enough said imo.

And of course he's a saint ;)
http://www.gnu.org/people/saintignucius.jpg

You emphasized the wrong part. I'll emphasize what a hypothetical Microsoft Linux distribution would rely on:

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

For a "plain English" explanation of the practical implications of this, see the "mere aggregation" section of the FSF's GNU GPL FAQ.

The amusing part about this is that the whole tirade against Java in OOo is nothing but a farce. A quick check of the 2.0 code finds almost nothing that violates these "concessions"[...]

BTW, Mr. Stallman. How's Hurd coming along?

The Hurd is real software that works Right Now. It is not a research project or a proposal. You don't have to wait at all before you can start using and developing it.

Better to help fund or contribute work toward the programming of PSPP, a free software replacement for SPSS. The questioner did ask specifically about free software.

This is what I've installed for my mother for her to work on her typing and it has help a bunch. It's ncurses based and there are also binaries available for different OSs.

At least according to Andy Tanenbaum who said on 30 Jan 92

5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5.

Where is Hurd today? from GNU

support for character devices (like sound cards) and other hardware is mostly missing.

And as far as running free GNU on their SPARCStation?

Currently, the Hurd runs on IA32 machines.

We also know about the superiority of the NT Microkernel.

Actually, early versions of Linux had their own C library, explicitly written for Linux.

It wasn't until glibc 2.0 came out in the late 1990s that people started switching to GNU Libc. If you look at the glibc webpage, it is copyright 1996 - 2004... What do you think Linux used before 1996?

So, to be a little bit technical, Linux used to be not just a kernel, but a kernel, C library, and boot loader. Since then 2 of those have been replaced by externally developed tools.

As an aside, there are a few more userland programs that might be considered part of "linux", including: module-init-tools, iptables, hotplugd, udev, etc. These are not GNU tools, and were explicitly written to extend the Linux kernel.

I'm trying to see where you lose rights as a programmer with the GPL existing. Trying and failing.

You could conceivably lose the privilege of incorporating another person's source code into a proprietary application if that person chose to release it under the GPL rather than under, say, the BSD license.

Of course, it was never your right to use anyone else's code whatsoever. Such a right would imply a lack of the right to license and control your source code as you see fit.

I must note that there's no such thing as the "free software police", and what GPL enforcement there is will certainly be much more forgiving than the enforcement if you rebrand and sell a proprietary application.

See how Eben Moglen describes his enforcement tactics.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html

"Whether it is compatible with the GNU GPL. (This means you can combine a module which was released under that license with a GPL-covered module to make one larger program.)"

You can combine two projects under different licenses into a single product, and have parts under the GPL, and other parts not under the GPL.

Now, I don't know who you're talking to, but I think I'll trust the people, who actually wrote the GPL.

Right, because any idiot can clearly see that Harmony has nothing to gain from gcj or GNU Classpath.

Right, because any idiot can clearly see that Harmony has nothing to gain from gcj or GNU Classpath.

It's all marketing bullshit to make people think it's a Good Thing(tm). In fact, it's a horrible thing and should be referred to instead as Digital Restrictions Management...

Classpath permits commercial use via GPL special exception. As such, Harmony is useless project. Support Classpath, GCJ and Kaffe instead.

And the Apache Software License, version 2.0 is not one of them. Thus, an aggregation of GPL and ASL software can not be distributed under the terms of either license. Thus, they are completely incompatible.

It isn't distributed under a free software license. Pretty simple. Any free software written for Java that makes use of features present in Sun's distribution but not in GCJ/Classpath is not truly free, since it depends on proprietary software to run.

See The Java Trap.

GCJ http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ has working code. The Apache guys just have a proposal with some box diagram and some "blessing". Ho, ho, ho, which one is more useful when it comes to writing a Java program?

Why on earth can't the Apache guys bend over and support GCJ (with code, not with words)? It looks as if Harmony is more an ego me-too thing, than anything else.

Only that it is no news at all. Others have code (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/), Apache Harmony has just a proposal. Why not support real programmers instead of this paper tiger?

The "mere aggregation" clause in the GPL is intended to allow unrelated software to be distributed together, which is quite clear if you read the entire sentence it is found in:

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

The problem is defining what "another work not based on the Program" means. It is unclear in your example whether or not your program is based on the program it executes or not... this is a difficult concept that has yet to be decided by case law.

The FSF's interpretation of this is available here.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggre gation says: --- "Mere aggregation of two programs means putting them side by side on the same CD-ROM or hard disk. We use this term in the case where they are separate programs, not parts of a single program. In this case, if one of the programs is covered by the GPL, it has no effect on the other program.

Combining two modules means connecting them together so that they form a single larger program. ... What constitutes combining two parts into one program? ... We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged).... pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program." ---

The given examples are probably meant to be separate programs invoking each other by exec, and with no complex internal data structures passed, so a distribution that contained both would be a mere aggregation.

There is a continuum of possibilities for mere aggregation versus "parts of a single program". For cases close to the border, which side applies would have to be decided by negotiation or by a court.

What does "GPL" stand for?
"GPL" stands for "General Public License". The most widespread such license is the GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL for short. This can be further shortened to "GPL", when it is understood that the GNU GPL is the one intended.

That doesn't sound like GPL-compliance to me. From the GPL:

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.

A larger media conglomerate fulfilling their end of the bargain?

Are they though? I don't care to RTFA to find out, but doesn't this:

You cannot create a working DISH 921 DVR software build without the additional proprietary code.

... go directly against this:

You have a GPL'ed program that I'd like to link with my code to build a proprietary program. Does the fact that I link with your program mean I have to GPL my program?

Yes.

I thought this was what the LGPL was created to allow people to do.

Actually, GPL is the General Public License.

Not directly related, but this reminds me of RMS's story The Right To Read for some reason.

Maybe if Free Software advocates starting making Free Software arguments instead of "cost saving" arguments we'd actually get somewhere. For an example of how different a Free Software argument is to an Open Source one, read Richard Stallman's "Why schools should use exclusively Free Software" paper. There's some good truths in there that can and should be presented to educators.

The impact of this legislation has limited technological impact (see why below). It is, however, going to have a market impact (economic) as well as a regulatory/policy impact (future restrictions easier to put in place without due oversight).

Technologically, imnsho, this legislation isn't going to stop anything. Zip, zilch, nada. This is just muscle flexing. This is to stop general idiotic consumers from recording their shows on their own so that they have to buy the Season 1 DVD when it comes out. How great is our Fascist state--federal airwaves and they are putting in regulations limiting the utility to end consumers.

Remember, this was prompted by a flag, not a DRM, although such legislation would likely make DRM of broadcasts easier. That's the policy/regulatory problem that we should be scared of.

But technologically, there are many cards on the market presently in use that ignore the broadcast flag. Those are legal.

Cards that in the future will not ignore the flag will likely be easily hacked, since the flag will likely be a little firmware or software routine that hackers will just gut and list their accomplishment online for all to see.

Further, projects such as the GNU Radio HDTV decoder (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/images/hdtv- samples.html) already exist. So unless they are going to start screwing people from buying off the shelf lab equipment, even more documentation will arise online for people to roll their own tuner.

Go after this legislation because it's a bad idea. Not because of a black market, but because (1) it opens the door to future restrictions, particularly DRM, and (2) is indicative of future restrictions on free or open media and hardware, similar to how attacks on the GPL have come from proprietary software companies (DRM backing companies may/will try to outlaw non-DRM'd digital media).

In this thread, CNet is spinning the topic to focus on the open source movement, not the free software movement. There are differences between the movements and, while members of them work together in practical projects, the two movements are quite different philosophically. One of those differences has to do with discussing freedoms at all (the open source movement was designed not to discuss freedom, but the free software movement focuses on it) and another difference in practice concerns the preservation of freedoms in derivative works (the open source movement makes no difference between what the free software movement calls "copylefted" and "non-copylefted" licenses).

And here I though Free Software was about choice.

Please do cite where you would get this misinformation, because it has never been true and for a very good reason: "choice" is a way to railroad someone into losing their freedom. The free software movement is about giving all computer users the freedom to share and modify computer software. Choice is an argument that might appear to tend toward that end, but is actually quite different.

Some time ago, three graphical web browsers were the most popular web browsers around: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera. Since there are at least two browsers in the set, choice is satisified. But software freedom is not satisfied at all because all of those browsers are proprietary software; none of these programs give you all of the freedoms of free software.

Today, Firefox is increasingly popular, but it is being pitched by the Mozilla Foundation on this weaker argument of "choice". Software freedom is a better argument which goes unmentioned by the Mozilla Foundation because they choose to follow the open source movement. The advantage to them is that if they ever want to make Firefox into a non-free browser, they can do so without altering their argument on why one should choose Firefox. Free software advocates, however, would lose interest in Firefox if it became non-free.

Acording to the FSF, the Unisys patent already expired, but the IBM patent will expire at 2006-8-11.

If you don't like any of the above, run LINUX.

Why would you suggest that somebody only run a kernel as opposed to a complete operating system?
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html
I would recommend GNU/Linux instead.

NO, this is not MS flexing its monopoly powers. It is perfectly normal to have different products with different feature sets at different prices. You can see it in other software (Light versions, vs Pro versions etc.) and in other markets. How many different versions of a specific brand of fridge can you buy? You want more features, you pay more.

Your argument is wrong. I can understand the rational for less features and thus less cost, but that isn't what they're doing. Microslop is deliberately adding new malicious code to their system.

Taking away useful code is a lot different from adding negative code.

This situation is yet another example of why proprietary software should be avoided. It's time for the software users of the world to rise up and overthrow the hoarders who try to dominate us, control our lives, and divide us against each other.

People of planet earth, demand the four freedoms of free software!

• The freedom to do what you want.
• The freedom to help yourself.
• The freedom to help your friends.
• The freedom to help your community.

Long live freedom and cooperation!

Philosophy of the GNU Project
Audio Recordings about the Philosophy of the GNU Project

If you don't like any of the above, run LINUX.

Why would you suggest that somebody only run a kernel as opposed to a complete operating system?
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html
I would recommend GNU/Linux instead.

NO, this is not MS flexing its monopoly powers. It is perfectly normal to have different products with different feature sets at different prices. You can see it in other software (Light versions, vs Pro versions etc.) and in other markets. How many different versions of a specific brand of fridge can you buy? You want more features, you pay more.

Your argument is wrong. I can understand the rational for less features and thus less cost, but that isn't what they're doing. Microslop is deliberately adding new malicious code to their system.

Taking away useful code is a lot different from adding negative code.

This situation is yet another example of why proprietary software should be avoided. It's time for the software users of the world to rise up and overthrow the hoarders who try to dominate us, control our lives, and divide us against each other.

People of planet earth, demand the four freedoms of free software!

• The freedom to do what you want.
• The freedom to help yourself.
• The freedom to help your friends.
• The freedom to help your community.

Long live freedom and cooperation!

Philosophy of the GNU Project
Audio Recordings about the Philosophy of the GNU Project