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Because some computer users are Theives.

Because some computer users are Theives.

What's next, encrypted books, newspapers, and magazines?

Stallman seemed to think so, eight years ago.

As I've said before in this thread, free does not equal gratis. It is completely ok to sell free software. You have a valid point, though. A computer game would be hard to make using the "open source developing method", collaboration might not work in a "piece of art". The GPL says nothing about the developing model, though.

(When using the GPL) you are totally free to sell your software and not to publish it. Look at the GPL, does it have a clause that says "you must release everything that is under the GPL!"? No. Stallman himself says in the interview that developing software that is not released to the general public is morally right.

Yes, Stallman is a radical, but we need radicals to achieve important stuff (the founders of the U.S of A were quite radical at the time).

Why RMS calls non-free software antisocial has more to do with how it defines how people relate with each other. "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.", as says their definition of free software. In writing nonfree software you discourage all those positive actions.

Bill Gates, in not divulging the source code, prevents users from doing many things with Windows that otherwise would be technically possible and beneficial. And the manhunts done in the name of combatting piracy are all quite antisocial in my book. Since when was sharing a good thing a bad thing?

Colonel Sanders' recipes being secret hardly has such an influence to the society.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

This thread won't be of much help to you because it chiefly concerns the free software movement, not the open source movement. There is a difference. If you're interested to learn more about the free software movement, you should consult the philosophy directory on gnu.org as the interview pointed to.

Did it ever occur to you that people work on proprietary software to make money, because they like to buy all sorts of things that require money, and they don't see software as a movement, but rather as "stuff" that runs on a computer? The main issue the people you cannot understand have is you try to equate the 1's and 0's of binary software with the issues involving civil rights or religious freedom or democracy. They're not the same. Software is just a "thing" that people use. The others are real issues that are important to fight and die for. One really sounds like a loser when one tries to elevate software to that level. I know the first thought in *MY* mind is "Why don't you find a REAL cause instead of pretending you have a valid crusade with this free software business"?

Everything is just "stuff"; programs are just "stuff" than run on a computer and books are just "stuff" that are spewed out by a printing press. Would you call me a crackpot for equating the 'A's 'B's and 'C's of the printed page with civil liberties?

The question of civil liberties is never about the "stuff", because it's just "stuff". The question arises when humans decide what they're going to allow other humans to do with the stuff. When you're allowed to have a printing press, but restricted in what you can print with it or in whether you can change how it operates, that is a civil rights issue.

The computer is the printing press of our time. It has been made abundantly clear that certain forces wish to take as much control of this society-changing invention out of the people's hands and into their hands as possible. All the speculative warnings about where non-free software is taking us is coming frighteningly close to reality. The only reason this may fail is because some people started to treat this like a civil rights issue ten, twenty years ago and now a system that respects your rights exists.

Nobody has had to fight and die for these rights; thank God. That doesn't make it a non-issue. And I guarantee you I would fight and die for them just like I would fight against a person who said a printing press was just "stuff".

Its like trying to make a moral issue out of wearing white shoes after labor day.

Yeah, that's ridiculous, because shoes are just stuff! By the way, I'm the government and if you wear white shoes after labor day you'll be imprisoned and/or shot. Have a nice day.

Here he is, trying to legislate what we call Linux ("That's GNU-slash-Linux"), as if he owned it.

Please do provide specific examples of where RMS is "trying to legislate" what some call "Linux", and be sure to point out how RMS is not merely requesting something which people are free to dismiss or reject.

One of the things you have to give up, if you develop open-source (or free, or whatever) software, is the right to be credited as you'd wish.

That's not true. One does not need to give up getting credit for one's work when one writes or distributes free software. In fact, the most widely used free software license (the GNU GPL) requires all copies to carry an appropriate copyright notice.

I fail to see where RMS has "been eclipsed" because I don't see anyone involved with the open source movement championing software freedom squarely and without reservation. The people I see talking about software freedom in this way all come from the FSF--Eben Moglen and Brad Kuhn, to name a couple people I've heard speak on the subject recently.

Finally, you and the grandparent post got the name wrong--the name of the movement RMS started is not "open source". It's called the free software movement. It seems fair to call the movement by the name the founder of the movement gave it, no?

Here he is, trying to legislate what we call Linux ("That's GNU-slash-Linux"), as if he owned it.

Please do provide specific examples of where RMS is "trying to legislate" what some call "Linux", and be sure to point out how RMS is not merely requesting something which people are free to dismiss or reject.

One of the things you have to give up, if you develop open-source (or free, or whatever) software, is the right to be credited as you'd wish.

That's not true. One does not need to give up getting credit for one's work when one writes or distributes free software. In fact, the most widely used free software license (the GNU GPL) requires all copies to carry an appropriate copyright notice.

I fail to see where RMS has "been eclipsed" because I don't see anyone involved with the open source movement championing software freedom squarely and without reservation. The people I see talking about software freedom in this way all come from the FSF--Eben Moglen and Brad Kuhn, to name a couple people I've heard speak on the subject recently.

Finally, you and the grandparent post got the name wrong--the name of the movement RMS started is not "open source". It's called the free software movement. It seems fair to call the movement by the name the founder of the movement gave it, no?

Earlier revisions of the APSL were non-free, but Apple changed it to make version 2.0 of the APSL a free software license. The APSLv2.0 is now a GPL-incompatible free software license.

If you're looking for a specific essay, read Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source". It is the best essay I've seen on the differences between the two movements including the practical aspects of why "Open Source" is no replacement for "Free Software" either in name or in meaning. This essay is highly underrated.

Well, this is linked to from the project front page, plus there's the MAINTAINERS file in the top of the source tree (although that lists the active maintainers and their responsibilities, not everybody-at-any-time-ever). Yah, Mark's one of them.

GCC isn't like the Linux kernel, where the development teams are formed around cults of personalities, and /.ers eagerly congregate to hear the heated flame wars between their favorites. :-) The GCC people are way milder, way less vitriolic, and as a result, don't make the tabloid news.

The inflammatory statements made on LKML concern stuff like DRM and proprietary drivers and things about which more Linux users actually care (or even understand). Inflammatory statements on the GCC list are of the kind which only arouse the ire of other compiler geeks. We can almost get into fistfights at the annual summit over whether a combined CSE and DCE pass should be done even when optimization is off ("the Laffer curve argues for-" "bah, users shouldn't notice!"), but nobody on /. will care. *grin*

Darwin is licensed under the Apple Public Source License (APSL), which is a non-free license in Stallman's opinion.

The current revision of the Apple license is considered "free" by Stallman. The info is on this page. Both versions of the license are on the page. Version 2 of the license is listed under GPL-Incompatible, Free Software Licenses. Version 1.x of the APSL is listed under Non-Free Software Licenses.

Darwin is now licensed under the APSL version 2 which according to Stallman is a GPL-incompatible free software license. Richard also provides a more detailed opinion.

Darwin is now licensed under the APSL version 2 which according to Stallman is a GPL-incompatible free software license. Richard also provides a more detailed opinion.

In no particular order:

- RMS was useful at one time but he should now leave serious persons do the real work.
- RMS is too extreme
- RMS is a crackpot
- RMS is a communist
- RMS is a dirty hippy that smells bad
- GNU/Linux is childish/idotic/ego-driven
- The GPL is not free/ viral etc...

I just wish for once all the idiots who will inevitably spout their mouth would just shut up.

Richard Stallman has consistently proved he was a true visionnary. He forsaw the problems with software and copyright law 20 years ago and devised an extremely clever answer : the GPL.

Not only that but he gave us great software to work with. Some he wrote himself (GCC, GDB, Emacs), some he inspired others to write.

He warned us many times when few would listen. About the importance of protecting freedom. About the importance of tracking copyright ownership. About software patents. About the right to read. Every time he's been criticized, ridiculed or dismissed as a lunatic and every time he was right.

It is time to recognize Richard Stallman's place in history as a great modern philosopher.

So I, for one, would like to thank deeply RMS for dedicating his life to our freedom. For standing tall when no one else would.

Live long, RMS, and never give up.

Copylefting is a mixed bag. On one hand it forces (Forcing != "Free as in speech") users of GPL code into GPL'ing their contributions, while on the other hand it scares them away for fear the code they invested money in developing is opened up, a mental barrier they're not always keen on crossing.
Sometimes this seems moral (if you fixed a bug in open source, share it and let everyone benefit) whereas sometimes it doesn't (Should I legally have to open-source 2 million lines of closed code of a product with a unique business advantage for using an MD5 routine that was under GPL? Not very attractive, nor very free (AsInSpeech) )

What this iRiver issue speaks of is very scary, as it makes the GPL even scarier for the corporate market decision-makers (who control the big bucks yet who don't always share our techie affinity for Free/Open stuff), and makes a lot of MS FUD come true.

GPL applies its "viral" nature (i.e. license "spreads" to your work if you use anything that has it) once you either incorporate GPL source or link against GPL libraries.

LGPL is more convenient, as it applies its viral nature to source code alone, not linked libraries, so if you want to "contain" what your closed-source company needs to share and yet use open source, you use LGPL libraries or wrap LGPL code in your own library and open-source that library. The rest of the product is not subject to opening that way.

What this article implies is that by running under a GPL kernel with the GPL'd multipurpose busybox binary, all software on the OS immediately becomes GPL. Whoa. Going there is BAD BAD BAD.
That's exactly that silver bullet the MS-FUD department is looking so desperately for.

IANAL, but does GPL provide for this? If so, it's even less attaractive to the business environment than the way MS FUD lawyers described the "viral nature" of GPL to date.

I'm having trouble finding convenient, simple tools that promote the fundamental tenets of programming, allowing newbies to jump in and see immediate results, without getting bogged down in corporate-centric APIs. It seems nowadays most programmers end up spending more time learning the development environment (and thus being confined to specific platforms) than core, transferrable programming knowledge. I'd like to ask my fellow Slashdot dwellers what tools, languages and approaches they have used to help introduce new people to programming?

At the risk of sounding like a plug, you may be interested in GNU Robots. You write a program for a little robot, and set him loose in a maze. The robot must use only its program to be able to detect and pick up items (food adds to your energy, and prizes add to your score) while avoiding baddies that can do damage to you. Disclaimer: I wrote the original version of GNU Robots, but it's been in someone else's hands since 2000.

The robot programming language is in Scheme. The robot primitives are fairly easy to use, so if you help your child understand how to use the primitives and then gloss over the "tail recursion" concept (think of it like GOTO) then your child will be ready to write GNU Robots programs within a short time, and can watch his or her own robot start to navigate the maze.

As your child becomes more familiar with Scheme, he or she can write more complex GNU Robots programs. For example, the robot could keep track of where it's been, so it doesn't need to rescan an area it's been to before.

Just an idea.

Keynote can make a dent in PowerPoint because presentation files are traded relatively rarely. For spreadsheets and (for want of a better term) Word documents, interchange is essential. Perception is reality, and if someone can't read a Word doc because you made it with something other than MS Word, it is your fault. If it's because of screwups between Office XP, 2004, 2001, 2000, or '97, both parties can safely blame MS. Otherwise, the 'nonconformist' takes the blame. Everyone here should know by now that no one wants to hear how they shouldn't be using Word documentns. Users want it simple and to just work. 100% Word compatibility is impossible--at best, you're spending all your resources chasing a moving target. At worst, you're doing a bad job and no one will use your product.

And remember kids, for every mom and dad you get to start using Open Office, there are a thousand companies with a thousand employees each who will continue to buy MS Office. Overthrowing the market leader is possible but it gets more and more difficult every year. There are orders of magnitude more Excel users today than there were Lotus 1-2-3 users.

Personally, I think Adobe really missed the boat. They should have made a word processor based on PDF. The full version of Acrobat can edit text, so they should have made something--even as simple as MS WordPad--where PDF was the native format. Since everyone and their brother can read PDFs (and they hold their formatting even better than Word docs) they could have distributed a $50-$100 PDF editor--nothing more than Acrobat Reader and Wordpad--that would have ate MS's lunch. Think about it--anyone with a free tool that they already have can read your documents on any platform, and anyone with an inexpensive editor can make and save changes in the native format. Could've been great.

As far as I know, the more useful tools out there do things like restructure your written code for readability or automagically generate documentation from specially formatted comments.

Granted, I haven't checked on what other automagic source massagers do in a while, but I would imagine that there are none that do what you're describing to the point of being actually useful. What's useful falls into a few basic categories, namely WHY did this get written, and WHO do I blame for this crap, anyway. the first being generally more useful than the second, unless you're playing the cover-your-ass game. Most modern IDE's will try to fill in the second for you in header blocks or string definition files, but considering how hard it can be to go back to uncommented code a few weeks later and figure out what the hell you were thinking, I seriously doubt that anyone's got software that allows the computer to figure that out for you.

Just my .013 Euro...

-You don't get a "real" IP address. It's a 10.x.x.x address going through a NAT. Be sure that any firewalls or admin tools can cope with that.

-Given the odd screen size and intermittent connectivity, screen will become your best friend.

My setup: T-Mobile w/ "Unlimited Internet", Nokia 3660, Palm Zire 72 (bluetooth to phone).

I've used both the Symbian PuTTY port and various palm SSH apps. They work, but there are some significant problems:

-Latency is huge (I've seen over 2000ms). You'd better type it correctly the first time.

-Input is difficult, particularly when you need non-alphanumberic characters (pipe, braces, escape, control characters). You'll want to figure this out before you need it.

-For the above reasons, you may want to think about something with a small keyboard. Still, remember that the little keyboard is still going to be short on keys. Figure out how to enter the "missing" characters.

-You don't get a "real" IP address. It's a 10.x.x.x address going through a NAT. Be sure that any firewalls or admin tools can cope with that.

-The battery drain for this is pretty significant. I get about two hours total use. That's fine for quick fixes, but you won't want to stay logged in to watch an hours-long database rebuild.

-Given the odd screen size and intermittent connectivity, screen will become your best friend.

I use o2s basic online deal with my laptop. Its evil bad and wrong but I then use Corkscrew to tunnel through their proxy. Its not great (times out after 10mins [1]) but the deal I have has lots of free access, and it keeps me connected when i'm away for a real connection.

I've also used proxytunnel not sure which I prefer.

[1] Fine when using GNU Screen on the remote system

There is a rather better article on the subject of IPV6 adoption at InternetWeek, but that article is now four years old.

As for the specific information in the article,
"IPv6 provides billions more IP addresses" - I think the reporter is a bit confused about all these large numbers. IPv6 provides billions of TIMES more addresses. More even than that in fact; 2 to the power 128 is 79228162514264337593543950336 times greater than 2 to the power 32. (This calculation was brought to you by GNU bc)

"It was created and deployed in response to ... especially as Web use in Asia rises sharply." - The author has fallen for the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. In any case, the beginning of the development of IPv6 occurred significantly before the extensive takeup of Internet technologies in Asia.

As other people have already mentioned (including in the reader comments below the article - I would have contributed but see no point in "registering" with CNET), goodness knows where the journalist got their figure of "257 nodes". They should perhaps take the time to either check their notes or cross-check the information their sources are giving them.

Something the author failed to point out is that it is not only Asian countries that have been working with IPV6. There has been significant piloting in most countries that make use of the Internet. This means that there are IPV6 over IPv4 tunneling facilities that work therse days, meaning that it is not necessary for countries up upgrade everything to IPv6 in order for their businesses to trade with China, no matter what the article implies.

Still the fact remains that it might be more useful for me to donate my money to Loki. I greatly fear the society that *AA wants, and while this is horrible, like the grandparent said, my donation might make a greater difference if I give it to Loki.

Or, what's of greatest use to the living, free mp3s or a few less dead? Again, I can't donate to every worthwhile cause, and since I expect more to care about the Sri Lanka issue than copyright, I believe my donation to Loki will be more worthwhile.

Remember, it's better to cure a disease than to treat it. By reasoning that any donation that doesn't save a life isn't as useful as one that does, you totally ignore the quality of life.

Where would we be today if we had used all the resources of society to prevent people from dying Or perhaps the fact that you see this on TV make it more important than any of the other catastrophies in the world? If so, well thank god they don't report more from Africa.

You can also make and print barcodes in *nix using opensource software too.
Ex:
http://www.gnu.org/software/barcode/barcode.html
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/barcode.h tm

Ideas flow From Other Ideas.
Nothing is Truly New.
Popper States that the Scientific Method is one of revoking and revising previous ideas.
That is how Progress is Made in All Disciplines.
Science, Programming, Art.
Feudalising Ideas by making Ideas Property, ring fences them with law - ideas stemming from that idea now are illegal to have, or cost to implement by paying a liscense fee for that technology.
If the Property Rights assigned to Ideas takes a long time to ( or never ) expires then you have a pyramid of taxes paid to Rights Holders to use that technology.
It exists today, a portion of the cost of many commodities is patent liscencing fees.
It slows the development of soft technologies as well: look at how GIF stalled the InterWeb, how proprietry formats stop the Interoperability and Interconnectedness of the Internet or even just information flowing from one office to another. Until recently everyone pretty much had to ( to stay within the law ) pay a tax for the right to Operate their Hardware - many people still choose to.
But patents expire Copright expires less now than it did and this means that whole areas of the Hilbert Space of Ideas are cut off legally until the Intellectual Property Revokes to the Public Domain.
This is why Universities are Publically Funded so they Discover and Publish Things making them Forever Public Domain.
The Science of Culture, that Dark Art of Creative Endevour must be freed from Feudalism. We Must be allowed to have certain ideas, deal with our local cultural environment as we feel we need to.
We need to Be able To Mash up Music, Sample it, Modify The Mona Lisa, Write Fan Fiction, Draw Cartoons containing Mickey Mouse do what we want.
And Tech. is an Art according to Steve Jobs, he made his hackers sign the Original Apple Mac Case Die Press.
Access to Information and the Ability to Use it and Create Derivative Works is a necesssary Human Right if we want to make progress.
Information is a lot more valuable than mere money.
"Copyright was mean to encourage artists to release into the public domain, that is why we gave up some rights to copy. That no longer applies."
"People who risk Federal Jail to let others have access to stuff for free are heroes."
Bring on the Free Market - End Information Ring Fencing, destroy the economy of scarcity gravy training Feudal Overlords.
Mash it Up Big Time.
Creative Commons W00t"
To Quote RMS http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html :"
If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.
"
- Anonymous COward & Proud of It.

No, the only silence is website reply latency. If you wait for a while, you'll hear the obvious response: stop being a victim of corporate propaganda, and go learn how copyright is for YOU, not them.

That's where the confusion lies for many people, and ironically, why the term "open source" is no more clear than "free software". "Free software" can be cleared up quite quickly, and this problem chiefly occurs in English, not other languages which don't use the same term to mean zero cost and liberty. But for "open source", it's a different story. To most people, if pressed for a definition, "open source" would mean something like "you can see the source code" despite this being considerably less than what "open source" really means and despite this being refuted by the first sentence in the introduction section of the open source definition.

As the FSF points out:

That obvious meaning for ``open source'' is not the meaning that its advocates intend. The result is that most people misunderstand what those advocates are advocating. Here is how writer Neal Stephenson defined ``open source'':

Linux is ``open source'' software meaning, simply, that anyone can get copies of its source code files.

I don't think he deliberately sought to reject or dispute the ``official'' definition. I think he simply applied the conventions of the English language to come up with a meaning for the term. The state of Kansas published a similar definition:

Make use of open-source software (OSS). OSS is software for which the source code is freely and publicly available, though the specific licensing agreements vary as to what one is allowed to do with that code.

Of course, the open source people have tried to deal with this by publishing a precise definition for the term, just as we have done for ``free software.''

But the explanation for ``free software'' is simple--a person who has grasped the idea of ``free speech, not free beer'' will not get it wrong again. There is no such succinct way to explain the official meaning of ``open source'' and show clearly why the natural definition is the wrong one.

Being part of the "closed group" isn't clearing things up either. Continue in the same essay further down, and you'll find an example where RMS heard how "open source" is being interpreted and misinterpreted (the executive and the audience member, respectively):

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

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

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

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

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

That's where the confusion lies for many people, and ironically, why the term "open source" is no more clear than "free software". "Free software" can be cleared up quite quickly, and this problem chiefly occurs in English, not other languages which don't use the same term to mean zero cost and liberty. But for "open source", it's a different story. To most people, if pressed for a definition, "open source" would mean something like "you can see the source code" despite this being considerably less than what "open source" really means and despite this being refuted by the first sentence in the introduction section of the open source definition.

As the FSF points out:

That obvious meaning for ``open source'' is not the meaning that its advocates intend. The result is that most people misunderstand what those advocates are advocating. Here is how writer Neal Stephenson defined ``open source'':

Linux is ``open source'' software meaning, simply, that anyone can get copies of its source code files.

I don't think he deliberately sought to reject or dispute the ``official'' definition. I think he simply applied the conventions of the English language to come up with a meaning for the term. The state of Kansas published a similar definition:

Make use of open-source software (OSS). OSS is software for which the source code is freely and publicly available, though the specific licensing agreements vary as to what one is allowed to do with that code.

Of course, the open source people have tried to deal with this by publishing a precise definition for the term, just as we have done for ``free software.''

But the explanation for ``free software'' is simple--a person who has grasped the idea of ``free speech, not free beer'' will not get it wrong again. There is no such succinct way to explain the official meaning of ``open source'' and show clearly why the natural definition is the wrong one.

Being part of the "closed group" isn't clearing things up either. Continue in the same essay further down, and you'll find an example where RMS heard how "open source" is being interpreted and misinterpreted (the executive and the audience member, respectively):

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

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

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

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

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

If anyone else is interested in what getopt is gnu usage and example

[Pentium 4 scheduling in GCC]

I think it does have at least something rudimentary in that department

This was a bug.

Without a package manager, it's practically impossible to remove a program; even with a package manager, you can't even determine how big a given package is! (if you know how to with Portage, I'd like to know).

If the program in question was originally installed with a package manager, why would you try to remove it without using the package manager? If you are installing from source, on the other hand, I think what you are looking for is GNU stow. With stow, you install a program (say it's called foo) like this:

• cd foo-0.0.1 && ./configure && make
• sudo make prefix=/usr/local/stow/foo-0.0.1 install
• cd /usr/local/stow && sudo stow foo-0.0.1

All that the "stow foo" step does is create symlinks from the normal dirs in /usr/local into the foo subdirectory, so you don't need to fuss with $PATH, $LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc. to run the program. Upgrading or uninstalling foo later becomes trivial because all you have to do is run "stow -D" on the subdirectory (to remove the symlinks), recursively delete it, and (if desired) repeat the above set of commands to install the new version of foo. And to find the installed size: du -sk /usr/local/stow/foo-0.0.1

A better filesystem layout (perhaps the way MacOSX, GoboLinux or RoX does it) would make package managers obsolete.

Not true: in addition to file layout (which is arguably the easiest job for a package manager to handle), they deal with dependencies, post-installation setup scripts, config file handling, etc.

"Isn't "Mail List King" the sort of software used by SPAMers to send out their lovely gifts that we all enjoy receiving?"

"This doesn't make Mohammed right in any sense, but IF (and apologies if I misunderstand) Nigel is tied to the wonderous world of SPAM, it seems a little hypocritical to be high and mighty about taking somebody down this way...."

Sigh.

"I can't say I feel too sorry about a bunch of Pakistani punks giving the developer of spammer software a hard time."

According to you, the Free Software Foundation develops spammer software.

Also, how do you explain the fact that most companies with an online presence seem to offer people to sign up for newsletters or mailing lists for news on their products? They all use mailing list software.

And why on earth would a spammer develop mainly software completely unrelated to spam, and then a single piece of software which could be abused by spammers?

By your logic, anyone who develops something which can be abused deserve to be ripped off. I find that to be a rather stupid and ignorant attitude, to be honest.

Also read my longer comment on the stupidity in accusing him of being a spammer or having anything to do with spam.

"Yeah, this will be used by small mom-n-pop spammers... the ones that send 100k emails from their Cox/Comcast business connections. This kind of software is not used by serious spammers, but it's still spam, and it's still wrong, and I still have the fact that I have to dedicate and my ISP has to dedicate so many resources to try to reduce the problem."

Why would small time spammers pay for mailing list software, when they can get it for free from the Free Software Foundation?

This guy has one piece of mailing list software, in addition to several other software packages that have got nothing to do with spam. He probably wrote the mailing list software to use it for his own customers at first, and then figured that he might as well sell it to others too.

Most companies today use mailing lists to send out newsletters to customers. It's completely legitimate. When the MailList King product page even talks about "double opt-in confirmations", then that should tell you something.

Stop it now, OK? Just stop it.

"If you read my comment below you will see that MailList King is not spamming software"

Maybe the Slashdot editors could post an update explaining that the screenshot on your site is of the scammer's site, and that mailing lists are actually used a lot by non-spammers? Even the Free Software Foundation has its Mailman mailing list software.

I feel sorry for you, in a way... You've become another "victim" of Slashdot, or at least some of its readers, that don't bother to pay attention before commenting on things.

"it's hard to feel sorry for a guy that tailors to this kind of market. I'm sure this MailingList King software could be used for real legit mailing lists, but the fact that it was listed on a site that sold spam lists and other spam software and has some spam features, leads me to believe this is mainly intended for small time spammers."

Or are you saying that the Free Software Foundation thrives on spam?

Can't you see how silly your own comments sound? I hate spam as much as anyone else. I have flamed people on Slashdot who defend spammers on numerous occasions! But your comments are just completely ridiculous.

"I've been asked to do some contracting for a ticket broker that used one of these programs along with a program to find email addresses from different searches on google. There are literarly hundreds of pieces of software that do this exact thing with exactly one thing in mind... spamming."

Sigh. I am at a loss for words here. How can I explain to you how silly you sound? I can't, and I'm having problems not flaming you like I would flame people who defend spam.

"it's hard to feel sorry for a guy that tailors to this kind of market. I'm sure this MailingList King software could be used for real legit mailing lists, but the fact that it was listed on a site that sold spam lists and other spam software and has some spam features, leads me to believe this is mainly intended for small time spammers."

Or are you saying that the Free Software Foundation thrives on spam?

Can't you see how silly your own comments sound? I hate spam as much as anyone else. I have flamed people on Slashdot who defend spammers on numerous occasions! But your comments are just completely ridiculous.

"I've been asked to do some contracting for a ticket broker that used one of these programs along with a program to find email addresses from different searches on google. There are literarly hundreds of pieces of software that do this exact thing with exactly one thing in mind... spamming."

Sigh. I am at a loss for words here. How can I explain to you how silly you sound? I can't, and I'm having problems not flaming you like I would flame people who defend spam.

MailList King is a piece of mailing list software, you know, the kind where you can set up a mailing list for discussion, or use it to send information to your customers. He explains it clearly on his site! Sure, you can probably use it for spam, but that's not the author's fault is it? If MailList King is spamming software, then GNU Mailman from GNU.ORG is too. Can you all see how ridiculous all this spam talk sounds?

If you people had actually bothered to visit the page and read the text, you would have known that the screenshot is of the scammer's site. Yes, those bulk e-mail programs, e-mail addresses for sale, and so on, are all completely unrelated to the author of MailList King software, apart from his program and the content of his site being ripped off by a spammer/scammer (it seems that the scammer has just renamed the software, but he still has the text from the actuall MailList King page on his site).

As far as I can tell, all the evidence so far clearly shows that the MailList King author is not a spammer or involved in such activities. Until someone posts evidence to the contrary, I suggest that you all stop shouting about spammers when the only spammer here is the guy who ripped off Xecute's software. Seriously, people.

One thing I'm disappointed about, though, is that he didn't follow up on this. The site clearly belongs to a spammer, and he rips off other people's sites and software, making money from spamming and scamming. As mentioned above, he simply renamed the mailing list software, but the product page on the scammer's site still shows text taken directly from the original page.

I would have hoped that this spammer/scammer could have been nailed down and kicked off the 'net. Perhaps someone else can pick it up from here and track down the scammer to put an end to his online adventure?

You misunderstand what the free software movement is all about. Spend some time reading the philosophy of the GNU project. Consider listening to an audio recording of Stallman speaking instead of the reading the essays, I didn't really understand his views until I listened instead of reading.

Evolution is licensed under the GNU General Public License, by far the most famous FREE SOFTWARE license. See the file COPYING in the evolution source code Evolution IS FREE SOFTWARE.

I've got some surprises for you. Members of the free software movement (including RMS) consider it perfectly ethical for Novell to only include patches that suite their business goals. We would even consider it ethical if Novell didn't accept any patches and didn't even post evolution on their website. Plus, it's perfectly acceptable for Novell to sell copies of Evolution to customers as free software.

Why? The belief of the free software movement is that any person with a copy of software should have the fundamental freedoms of free software. Technically this means that even software developed in-house and never shared with the world is also free software, as such an organization has all the free software freedoms (and more) because it's their code. This is how most programmers make a living, and we do not think it's wrong that their code never is released publicly.

The fact that so much free software is shared through the internet, and that most of these projects have an open development process is irrelevant to the goals of the free software movement, these just happen to be positive consequences of allowing people to share and modify. The free software movement preceded the age of internet access being widely available and the discovery that online collaboration of extremely large software teams could produce good work.

Sorry that they didn't like your patches. Guess what, life is tough. Even Eric Raymond has faced that kind of rejection, an elaborate patch he wrote to the Linux build process was declined from inclusion.

Have you read the file HACKING in the evolution source code? It provides guidance on what they're looking for.

Don't give up. Remember, you are just one fish in a big pond. Evolution is a BIG project. If you're not super confident about your programing ability and online social skills, consider hacking a smaller project to build such skills.

Evolution is free software, you can fork it if you absolutely can't find a way to have your changes included. Perhaps there are other people willing to join you. Perhaps a fork with a different development methodology already exists.

Your fork may even become so good that it overtakes the original program. Sometimes the developers of the original will even see the light and bless your fork as the new official program. This famously happened with the GNU compiler collection a few years ago. (gcc) Believe it or not, the FSF is capable of admitting when they're wrong!

You misunderstand what the free software movement is all about. Spend some time reading the philosophy of the GNU project. Consider listening to an audio recording of Stallman speaking instead of the reading the essays, I didn't really understand his views until I listened instead of reading.

Evolution is licensed under the GNU General Public License, by far the most famous FREE SOFTWARE license. See the file COPYING in the evolution source code Evolution IS FREE SOFTWARE.

I've got some surprises for you. Members of the free software movement (including RMS) consider it perfectly ethical for Novell to only include patches that suite their business goals. We would even consider it ethical if Novell didn't accept any patches and didn't even post evolution on their website. Plus, it's perfectly acceptable for Novell to sell copies of Evolution to customers as free software.

Why? The belief of the free software movement is that any person with a copy of software should have the fundamental freedoms of free software. Technically this means that even software developed in-house and never shared with the world is also free software, as such an organization has all the free software freedoms (and more) because it's their code. This is how most programmers make a living, and we do not think it's wrong that their code never is released publicly.

The fact that so much free software is shared through the internet, and that most of these projects have an open development process is irrelevant to the goals of the free software movement, these just happen to be positive consequences of allowing people to share and modify. The free software movement preceded the age of internet access being widely available and the discovery that online collaboration of extremely large software teams could produce good work.

Sorry that they didn't like your patches. Guess what, life is tough. Even Eric Raymond has faced that kind of rejection, an elaborate patch he wrote to the Linux build process was declined from inclusion.

Have you read the file HACKING in the evolution source code? It provides guidance on what they're looking for.

Don't give up. Remember, you are just one fish in a big pond. Evolution is a BIG project. If you're not super confident about your programing ability and online social skills, consider hacking a smaller project to build such skills.

Evolution is free software, you can fork it if you absolutely can't find a way to have your changes included. Perhaps there are other people willing to join you. Perhaps a fork with a different development methodology already exists.

Your fork may even become so good that it overtakes the original program. Sometimes the developers of the original will even see the light and bless your fork as the new official program. This famously happened with the GNU compiler collection a few years ago. (gcc) Believe it or not, the FSF is capable of admitting when they're wrong!

BSD license is open source...Yet the original code can still be "Open Source" just not "Free Software".

Not correct. The BSD licence is a free software licence and is GPL-compatible. It is not a copyleft licence.

Copyleft licences - like the GPL - go beyond free software licences in that they require that you pass onto others the same freedoms that you enjoy w.r.t the software.

AFAIK, gcc 4.0 will include support for this. See the -fmudflap option in the gcc manual.

Sounds like exactly what stow does.

• Freedom 0) The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
• Freedom 1) The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
• Freedom 2) The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
• Freedom 3) The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

• Freedom 0) The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
• Freedom 1) The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
• Freedom 2) The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
• Freedom 3) The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

You might be interested in Stow. The idea is to install each program in its own directory then create symlinks in /usr/(local/)?(bin|lib|share|whatever)/. When you want to remove a package, just remove its directory then remove broken symlinks.