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I wasn't aware of the tool "parted". However, their info page says that, while it can read HFS partitions, it is not one of the format types that it can resize. Unless the tool on the CD is newer than the documentation, I think it's no-go.

If you've successfully used this tool on an HFS partition, I would be sure interested to know.

Yep, got me there. I didn't consider a product maybe 0.1% of people used.

KDE was 1996 and GNOME was 1997.

Some people disagree with you.

Or, if you want to start counting from project announcements and beta releases, we should be able to go back to 1993ish for Windows 95.

I first used a taskbar with CDE, well before 1995.

Well, it must have been some custom-made release of CDE, because CDE doesn't have a Windows 95-like taskbar - now or in 1995.

It has a panel you can use to quick launch applications and switch between virtual desktops, but this is not a taskbar like Windows 95's. It sort of equates to the Start Menu.

Your vision of Linux history is tainted because you only saw a small part of it.

Ah, no. My version of Linux history is relevant because I saw most of it but only commented on the part of it 99.9% of people would have experienced. If you consider CDE in 1995 to be a major part of Linux history, you obviously kept to different circles than me.

Even so, Windows 95 was (and remains) a better GUI than CDE.

I would like to purchase one (1) subpoena against oneclicksubpoena.com with regard to violation of US Patent# 5,960,411.

Sincerely,
amazon.com

I wonder why CVS, and not something more advanced, like Arch or Subversion? Especially since he outright complains about common limitations in CVS, like moving files and dealing with directories at all. If he's hoping, as he says, "for a better replacement some day", why not see what the present has to offer?

I mean, that's not to say that alternative systems are perfect, either. I'm going through the process of learning arch now. There's a learning curve, but not nearly as big as it's made out to be. Still, using something else (almost anything else) would probably help on things like the merging issues, especially since he mentions that sometimes it's a pain keeping things in sync between three of his machines.

Actually, as some people say, "What makes GNU so great is that there are so many distros I can choose Debian from." I think it makes sense. From every GNU distro (RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, Caldera---you name it) Debian is the only one which is truely kernel-independent, the only one with social contract making it free as in freedom and the only one not Intel-centric, so in other words, if there is any single distro which is better than any one else, it can be only Debian. I'm proud to say that once again I can fully agree which Bruce Perens.

Three questions:

1. How many software packages does the OSI provide?

2. How many packages does the FSF provide?

3. What are the three most popular "Open Source" licenses? (You may find that the FSF's list of Free Software licenses influences your interpretation of the implications of your answer.)

From a certain point of view, everything a person does has a political component. This includes endeavoring to be apolitical.

-Peter

they even encoded it in ogg.

Perhaps you should read this.

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

Wrong. If someone uses your BSD-licensed code in their own proprietary product, this still doesn't give them more rights than other users of this code.

As was already pointed out earlier in this discussion, you own the rights to the BSD-licensed code, just as you do on GPLed code. Just because someone else incorporates it in their products doesn't give them _more_ rights than other users. And, as long as you don't steal from their proprietary extensions, they won't prevail in court should they sue you here.

The BSD style licenses are just a Bad Idea for open source.

Well, what about the BSDs themselves, Apache, and a lot of other code released under BSD-licenses? Are they suffering just from being released under a non-GPL license?

With all due respect, there's a lot of FUD thrown at BSD-style licenses, just as there is FUD thrown at the GPL. I just didn't expect so much anti BSD-license FUD from open source advocates, considering that the FSF lists BSD-style license as legitimate way to designate free software: Various Licenses and Comments about Them.

We are free to choose whatever license scheme we want, and personally, I'm not an opponent to GPL at all. It just happens, that in the case this discussion was all about, sometimes GPL or even LGPL is incompatible with legal requirements of companies that developed software under another license before.

The downside of strongly suggesting companies that are willing to go open source to use GPL, is that most potential contributors will shy away from this step. I'm glad that they can choose among many licensing schemes, so that we can get more free software on the long run. And, please, BSD-licensed software is just as Free as GPLed software (see link above).

Yes, that's exactly the point. But why should I disclose the code if I were prevented from using the community's work? Isn't the main reason for the original submitter to let others participate in enhancing code [so that they can use it?]

"Let others participate in enhancing code"?

You make it sound like there are hordes of hackers saying, "Gee, I just love debugging for its own sake. I'd love to spend time helping you debug your latest releases. If you'll let me play, I'll gladly let you use my work!"

Uh, no. This is an exchange. We both agree to share. Why should I work on your code? I'm scratching my itches, not yours. If you play nice and share, I might start to feel some of your itches. (Insert social disease joke here.) Releasing part of a work, with the intention to pull my changes back into your proprietary code later, is not sharing very nicely, and I'm probably not going to get a sympathy itch.

BSD-style licensing helps tremendously here! You may release a library under BSD, and use it in your own closed-source programs which are bound by the NDAs...Of course, LGPL-ing the library would be acceptable in this case. But not everything is a library.

And of course, the LGPL can be applied to things other than libraries (thus the name change from "Library" to "Lesser"). And it's very common to use the GPL with some specific exemption allowing linking the GPLed work with some other non-GPLed piece of code. So BSD-style doesn't buy you anything.

All this is very tricky, and for most companies who plan to open source their code, quite dangerous.

It's neither tricky nor dangerous. (At least no more so than any other copyright issues, including those that come up in completely proprietary works.) The GPL is easy to understand and follow. But the amount of FUD that has been kicked up about it over the past few years is amazing.

How can people say BSD [freebsd.org] [freebsd.org] is dying when it has a mascot [freebsd.org] [freebsd.org] like this?! Linux [debian.org] [debian.org] needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks [hope-2000.org] [hope-2000.org] and gorgeous babes [hope-2000.org] [hope-2000.org] that BSD [openbsd.org] [openbsd.org] has to offer!

You just can't take Linux [redhat.com] [redhat.com] seriously when its fronted by losers [nylug.org] [nylug.org] like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux [suse.com] [suse.com] groupies need to find some sexy girls like her [hope-2000.org] [hope-2000.org]! I mean just look at this girl [madchat.org] [madchat.org]! Doesn't she [madchat.org] [madchat.org] excite you? I know this little hottie [madchat.org] [madchat.org] puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox [spilth.org] [spilth.org]. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy [spilth.org] [spilth.org] little minx [spilth.org] [spilth.org]. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass [dis.org] [dis.org]?!

With sexy chicks [minions.com] [minions.com] like the lovely Ceren [dis.org] [dis.org] you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD [netbsd.org] [netbsd.org] if she [dis.org] [dis.org] told you to? Come on, you must admit she [cdslash.net] [cdslash.net] is better than an overweight penguin [tamu.edu] [tamu.edu] or a gay looking goat [gnu.org] [gnu.org]! Don't you wish you could get one of these [drexel.edu] [drexel.edu]? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close [dis.org] [dis.org] to such a divine beauty [czarina.org] [czarina.org]!

Join the campaign for more cute [madchat.org] [madchat.org] open source babes [madchat.org] [madchat.org] today!

How can people say BSD [freebsd.org] [freebsd.org] is dying when it has a mascot [freebsd.org] [freebsd.org] like this?! Linux [debian.org] [debian.org] needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks [hope-2000.org] [hope-2000.org] and gorgeous babes [hope-2000.org] [hope-2000.org] that BSD [openbsd.org] [openbsd.org] has to offer!

You just can't take Linux [redhat.com] [redhat.com] seriously when its fronted by losers [nylug.org] [nylug.org] like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux [suse.com] [suse.com] groupies need to find some sexy girls like her [hope-2000.org] [hope-2000.org]! I mean just look at this girl [madchat.org] [madchat.org]! Doesn't she [madchat.org] [madchat.org] excite you? I know this little hottie [madchat.org] [madchat.org] puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox [spilth.org] [spilth.org]. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy [spilth.org] [spilth.org] little minx [spilth.org] [spilth.org]. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass [dis.org] [dis.org]?!

With sexy chicks [minions.com] [minions.com] like the lovely Ceren [dis.org] [dis.org] you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD [netbsd.org] [netbsd.org] if she [dis.org] [dis.org] told you to? Come on, you must admit she [cdslash.net] [cdslash.net] is better than an overweight penguin [tamu.edu] [tamu.edu] or a gay looking goat [gnu.org] [gnu.org]! Don't you wish you could get one of these [drexel.edu] [drexel.edu]? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close [dis.org] [dis.org] to such a divine beauty [czarina.org] [czarina.org]!

Join the campaign for more cute [madchat.org] [madchat.org] open source babes [madchat.org] [madchat.org] today!

How can people say BSD [freebsd.org] is dying when it has a mascot [freebsd.org] like this?! Linux [debian.org] needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks [hope-2000.org] and gorgeous babes [hope-2000.org] that BSD [openbsd.org] has to offer!

You just can't take Linux [redhat.com] seriously when its fronted by losers [nylug.org] like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux [suse.com] groupies need to find some sexy girls like her [hope-2000.org]! I mean just look at this girl [madchat.org]! Doesn't she [madchat.org] excite you? I know this little hottie [madchat.org] puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox [spilth.org]. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy [spilth.org] little minx [spilth.org]. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass [dis.org]?!

With sexy chicks [minions.com] like the lovely Ceren [dis.org] you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD [netbsd.org] if she [dis.org] told you to? Come on, you must admit she [cdslash.net] is better than an overweight penguin [tamu.edu] or a gay looking goat [gnu.org]! Don't you wish you could get one of these [drexel.edu]? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close [dis.org] to such a divine beauty [czarina.org]!

Join the campaign for more cute [madchat.org] open source babes [madchat.org] today!

Talking with you is like arguing that the sky is not running red with blood. There's really no point talking with someone who can't understand the evidence in front of his eyes- and precious little way for me to convince you otherwise. But I'll give it one more try. If you know any sane people (especially nice would be an English teacher or law enforcer), show them this thread and they'll agree that you're wrong.

No. Copyright law covers making copies.

100% false. Copyright law doesn't actually cover copying. But, it covers both "reproduction" and "distributing copies" of a copyrighted work. Distribution is illegal.

The copying and distribution happen at the uploader's end.

No, the copying and distribution happens at both ends. And position is irrelevant; whose "end" it took place at doesn't matter. The question is, who made the copy? The copy was made by some software, but software can't be blamed. The person who operated that software can. And who instructed the software to make a copy? The person who issued a download request.

Let's take this very slowly. Copyright law, as I've just pointed out, covers both reproduction (making a copy) and distribution of a copy. Now, what does it mean to "copy"? Let's perform an experiment:

Go to the File menu in the upper-left of this window, and go down to Save. Type "slashdot.htm" in the little box, and push OK. Do you see what you just did? You made a copy of a file. Here's another experiment for you- see if you can go to ftp.gnu.org and take a copy of welcome.msg. (Right click on it, and push Save...)

Do you see what's going on here? By interacting with remote Web/FTP servers, you are making copies. Other people have set up software which allows you to make copies, but they are not doing the copying themselves.

If you performed those experiments, I dare you to lay palm on a holy book and swear on your honor: "I never made a copy of welcome.msg. This file on my harddrive; this local copy of data from ftp.gnu.org; I didn't make it! There is a copy on my computer, but I never copied it"

If you can't understand how flat-out wrong that statement is, there's no real hope for you.

Over time, the business rules/knowledge might be turn out to be the most valuable asset, leading others to make a GNUe module for your vertical market.

Likely? Honestly not. Though I'd check with them just in case there might be a match.

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

I would not want my charity to be used by a company to make their $$.

I wouldn't mind if someone distributed the data for a fee, but anything they distributed I would want complete access to as well including the ability to share it and modify it; this is one of the reasons why I like the GNU General Public License for computer programs. Like the Free Software Foundation (who wrote the license), I am also interested in building a commons with anyone who will help, including businesses, but I don't want to help those who keep their published improvements from me. It will take me some time to consider how well the GNU GPL applies to mapping data.

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

gnu.org, duh.

My point is that people are morally obligated to share the source code - and anything else that would not be diminished by the act of sharing - that they create.

Not sharing is a form of theft. Our obligations to help our fellow human beings take precedence over any claimed right to exploit one another for financial gain. It would help you and not harm me to give you a copy of a work I have already created. It would not help you if I refused. I am obliged to help you as far as I can do without harming myself, therefore I must honour your request.

See also here {choice quote: "Software hoarding is one form of our general willingness to disregard the welfare of society for personal gain"} and here {choice quote: "A choice of masters is not freedom".}

My point is that people are morally obligated to share the source code - and anything else that would not be diminished by the act of sharing - that they create.

Not sharing is a form of theft. Our obligations to help our fellow human beings take precedence over any claimed right to exploit one another for financial gain. It would help you and not harm me to give you a copy of a work I have already created. It would not help you if I refused. I am obliged to help you as far as I can do without harming myself, therefore I must honour your request.

See also here {choice quote: "Software hoarding is one form of our general willingness to disregard the welfare of society for personal gain"} and here {choice quote: "A choice of masters is not freedom".}

"Personally, I was hoping that the matirx and the humans were ALL the creation of an advanced AI program at MIT"

Why just hope, when you can contribute?

So is it just not possible for a group of Free Software programmers to be non-political?

Of course it is not possible since Free Software is a political movement in the first place and has been so since at least 1984. That is actualy the reason of the recent community fork in 1998. What you are looking for is Open Source.

"The license is Free as in FSF. Don't worry about it."

The GPL lists free software licenses, if you want to check their opinion on a license. Cougaar isn't listed.

The open source initiative also lists licenses which qualify to be called Free Software. Cougaar isn't listed.

Is Cougaar using one of the listed licenses, or has it been sent to GNU for analysis?

A broadcast flag is meaningless given that there are a number of solutions that already ignore it. I happen to have three such systems:

1. Samsung SIR-T150 ATSC receiver, not known to recognize broadcast flag or de-rez component analog outputs.

2. MyHD MDP-100 ATSC receiver card, not known to recognize broadcast flag or de-rez component analog outputs.

3. HD-2000 Linux Only ATSC receiver card, with source code, which does not recognize broadcast flag, and can be reprogrammed to ignore it.

And of course there's GNU Radio, a software only system to receiving, processing, and decoding digital television (and other kinds of) broadcasts, which can ignore the broadcast flag.

The only way a broadcast flag will be useful is if the FCC, the MPAA, and our in-the-pocket politicians take the next logical step: make ignoring it illegal.

It's not about it not being GPL. The Yast license does not classify as a free license at all, and that for a very fundamental reason.

The Yast license can only be considered liberal if you ignore the hundreds of truly free licenses out there in the free software world that SuSE could have chosen but did not.

[Redhat] have actually put a lot of manpower into products that have been released into the public domain free of charge.

No they haven't. They've put a lot of manpower into products that have been released as Free/Open Source Software. There's a big difference. Try reading GNU's information on the subject.

Yes, according to the GPL (look here)

But I don't know the QPL policy about this.

Go check the GPL FAQ at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html.

Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?
The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization.

Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?
Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.

Your post's a troll, and I only reply because I fear you might be truely, well, screwed on this. Don't believe FUD, find out yourself. Yeah, and your lawyers suck.

Yeah, second; ext2 doesn't need defrag. It takes care of fragmentation itself. That's why it isn't there. It's a bit awkward to have to run such tools on Windows, isn't it? I'd say you're mistaken with token ring too, but I'm not sure about that ;).

Your backwards explanation is a good example of how the phrase "intellectual property" has worked to muddle people's understanding of copyright and patent law.

Whatever you think you know about copyright law probably isn't true about patent law--they cover different things, the power one gains lasts for different amounts of time, they are acquired in different ways, they cost different amounts of money to acquire, they also cost different amounts of money to keep. What little they have in common pales in comparison to how much they differ. Copyrights and patents can even conflict--the power you would gain as a copyright holder if you wrote an MP3 player to distribute your program as you saw fit, would be trumped by Thomson's patent on MP3.

There's the python-based, db-independent work done by Gnu Enterprise and its small business section Gnue Small Business. Applications and docs are at a very early stage, the RAD tools seem to work.

It is specifically NOT GPL compatible. It is Free Software though. Check the GNU site for information about the status of the license.
Check Here

The real problem hindering Compiere developement is the choice of the MPL

The Mozilla was relicensed :
why-relicensing

I have written to Janke about allowing me to use the database schema under a GPL Dual Licensed Product with MPL. I dont know what to make of his answer, do you think he understood the question?

LICENSE MAIL

That would be the best thing for Compiere'S Future.

mike

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her ! I mean just look at this girl ! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox . As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx . I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass ?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat ! Don't you wish you could get one of these ? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine
Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

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.

• Who is a "third party" (recipient? their recipient? anyone other than FSF?)
• What does enforcement responsibility cover? (active checking? passive replying? forwarding?)
• Can someone elect to be "responsible"?

Now, I'm not a Mac person, I've never used any of these applications. However, there are several things to remember. First, in this case, the author of iTerm is the only person who can demand the source be released. You cannont enforce someone elses copyrights. So the copyright holders of iTerm are the only people with a leg to stand on in actually getting the source coughed up.

Are A and B being distributed together as part of a larger work? If A and B are part of a larger work and are being distributed together then when A is distributed as part of the whole, it must be GPL'ed, otherwise the author of A is in violation of copyright law. (Section 2, the paragraph after the bullet points).

Are A and B being distributed together in aggregate, as opposed to being combined into a larger work. (This is in the gnu.org FAQ on the GPL.

Next, the commonly acknowledged meaning of a derivative work is generally that the two binaries share the same address space while running (that is, they are linked either statically or dynamically together at some point).

Now, I'm not a Mac person, I've never used any of these applications. However, there are several things to remember. First, in this case, the author of iTerm is the only person who can demand the source be released. You cannont enforce someone elses copyrights. So the copyright holders of iTerm are the only people with a leg to stand on in actually getting the source coughed up.

Are A and B being distributed together as part of a larger work? If A and B are part of a larger work and are being distributed together then when A is distributed as part of the whole, it must be GPL'ed, otherwise the author of A is in violation of copyright law. (Section 2, the paragraph after the bullet points).

Are A and B being distributed together in aggregate, as opposed to being combined into a larger work. (This is in the gnu.org FAQ on the GPL.

Next, the commonly acknowledged meaning of a derivative work is generally that the two binaries share the same address space while running (that is, they are linked either statically or dynamically together at some point).

Don't rely on someone else to keep your computer secure. Take steps yourself.

That's why I find free software to be superior to non-free software. With non-free software you must "rely on someone else to keep your computer secure" because only one person or organization has the source code and the legal authority to improve the software. If a program is Free Software for me, I get to choose how much time am I willing to spend developing the skill to improve my software to suit my needs. It doesn't matter to society how much of that freedom I leverage, what matters is that I have the freedom. But I want that freedom for everyone else too. I benefit from more people having these freedoms because I benefit when those people leverage those freedoms in clever ways.

This is also where I somewhat part with the Open Source movement. On the one hand, I'm glad for all the attention they've helped bring to Free Software licenses (particularly the GNU GPL), but on the other hand I (as a user) want the freedom to share and modify software. I'm not against businesses having the freedoms of Free Software, but I don't want to tailor my message for them or pitch chiefly to them. The GNU project tells about an interesting episode in their their essay on the difference between Free Software and Open Source:

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.

stratjakt wrote:

No, you don't need perfect code. Linux has no "perfect code". If it did, Linus et al would be finished and have moved on to other things.

Nothing is perfect, so arguing about our need for perfection seems to me to be a moot point. I think we need a system to give as many people the freedoms to inspect, share, and modify software so software can meet people's needs. The proprietary model of software development and distribution does not give us these freedoms.

Don't rely on someone else to keep your computer secure. Take steps yourself.

That's why I find free software to be superior to non-free software. With non-free software you must "rely on someone else to keep your computer secure" because only one person or organization has the source code and the legal authority to improve the software. If a program is Free Software for me, I get to choose how much time am I willing to spend developing the skill to improve my software to suit my needs. It doesn't matter to society how much of that freedom I leverage, what matters is that I have the freedom. But I want that freedom for everyone else too. I benefit from more people having these freedoms because I benefit when those people leverage those freedoms in clever ways.

This is also where I somewhat part with the Open Source movement. On the one hand, I'm glad for all the attention they've helped bring to Free Software licenses (particularly the GNU GPL), but on the other hand I (as a user) want the freedom to share and modify software. I'm not against businesses having the freedoms of Free Software, but I don't want to tailor my message for them or pitch chiefly to them. The GNU project tells about an interesting episode in their their essay on the difference between Free Software and Open Source:

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.

stratjakt wrote:

No, you don't need perfect code. Linux has no "perfect code". If it did, Linus et al would be finished and have moved on to other things.

Nothing is perfect, so arguing about our need for perfection seems to me to be a moot point. I think we need a system to give as many people the freedoms to inspect, share, and modify software so software can meet people's needs. The proprietary model of software development and distribution does not give us these freedoms.

Why should an idea "get old"? Surely the ideals behind Free Software, insofar as their ground assumptions remain true, are timeless? You either agree with them, or you don't.

What you mean to say is that you have grown tired of these ideals.

Personally, I still feel as strongly about the FS ideals as when I first read GNU's philosophy documents. If they didn't stick to these ideals, the whole fabric of the FS community would disintegrate.

I wonder how you can grow tired of them though, especially if you have woody installed. Do you not see that woody is a direct result of these ideals, that facilitate the development of a system that provides such freedoms, not only in the liberal sense, but also in terms of providing new opportunities to those who, in the 'real' world suffer inequal opportunities. If it weren't for the availability of a completely free system based upon open standards that is guaranteed to remain Free, the only way to ensure that digital media remain accessible would be to constantly legislate to make people use open formats, and of course every day we see why FS people are so right when companies implement more proprietary schemes that deny access.

A firm committment to FS ideals, and a management structure carefully scrutinised by a collection of computer scientists, philosophers, psychologists and whoever else looks after Debian is absolutely the best thing a distribution community could hope for.

An article on CNet news.com suggests that "Open Source" is catching on in China.

Now, how many people live in China? Computerworld has an article on how Red Flag GNU/Linux which I think is widely used in China, is now going international.

A majority of people might be stupid for a short period of time, but I don't think the majority of people will be stupid in the majority of time, at least not when it comes to wasting money for nothing. Now I know that some will argue that you get some value from Windows, I wont deny that, if they think they get value, they *get* value, either imagined value, real value or both. My point being that whatever you can do with any commercial program, you can do with (potential) free software, and you can do it freely!

--
/Spam .

If you want to compete with Free Software, the only way you can truly compete is at the cost of use level.

From the accounts I've read so far, this sounds to me like a setup to fail--they're not talking about competing with Free Software at all, they're talking about competing with Open Source. And as we all know, Open Source doesn't speak to the same concerns as Free Software. "Free Software" talks to all computer users about the freedoms to share and modify software (essentially a social movement) while "Open Source" doesn't talk about software freedom. Instead, "Open Source" talks chiefly to businesses about faster, cheaper, and less buggy software development (essentially a development methodology).

If you only talk about the cost of this or that you ignore the salient freedoms that make Free Software more attractive over non-free software. I would never want to trade in my freedom of leveraging a world of skilled developers for the cost of buying into a monopoly (as all proprietary software is). I also place a high value on being able to run the same system on many different computers simply by installing another copy of that system. I wouldn't be as effective doing my business without the freedoms to share and modify software. I can't help but wonder what set of factors this study will consider since, from what I've seen so far, they appear to place no value on software freedom. I look forward to reading the completed study.

AllDirect has the same book for $18.57, with no patent-supporting nastiness.

One thing I've noticed about most of those elite pricks who praise simple text-editors as the "only" way to do HTML is that their websites are usually OSS or bio sites that have no color schemes (just black text on white background), one or two pages, no tables, and a few links scattered around. Mostly, their content is just paragraphs of text, and as a whole, the site is very generic and ugly. Have you seen www.gnu.org? People's obsession with simplicity and non-bloat (no doubt stemming from their obsessive Microsoft hatred) have made them produce sites that are uglier than crusted dog shit. For the most part, programmers and hackers are not good artistic designers, and it shows, and I think that's why it's taken so long for us to get a visual tool like this--the stupid "l33t" attitudes have kept it away.

If you're doing a heavy graphics-intensive site for a professional company in which things need to be perfectly aligned, graphics need to match, and you're using a visual template you created for all 20 of your pages, you'd be a complete idiot to continue your elite attitude about a freakin' text editor.

Sometimes, the immature attitudes I see in this community amaze me. No professionalism at all...is it also bad to use visual editors when you design GTK or QT dialogs? When you're drawing pictures in GIMP (real people write those pixels using assembly routines)? Should OpenOffice not show you its formatting visually, instead just giving you its internal formatting codes and letting you have at it?

I don't get the animosity towards WYSIWYG HTML editors when the philosophy is embraced everywhere else. Why are HTML editors the target for that misinformed attitude? It's not like HTML is l33t knowledge that deserves an award or anything. And all the visual editors let you edit the code directly anyway. "I use vim!" I don't really care. Give me a tool that lets me do more than freakin' ugly www.gnu.org without wasting time wading through code when I could be--heaven forbid--designing visually.

One thing I've noticed about most of those elite pricks who praise simple text-editors as the "only" way to do HTML is that their websites are usually OSS or bio sites that have no color schemes (just black text on white background), one or two pages, no tables, and a few links scattered around. Mostly, their content is just paragraphs of text, and as a whole, the site is very generic and ugly. Have you seen www.gnu.org? People's obsession with simplicity and non-bloat (no doubt stemming from their obsessive Microsoft hatred) have made them produce sites that are uglier than crusted dog shit. For the most part, programmers and hackers are not good artistic designers, and it shows, and I think that's why it's taken so long for us to get a visual tool like this--the stupid "l33t" attitudes have kept it away.

If you're doing a heavy graphics-intensive site for a professional company in which things need to be perfectly aligned, graphics need to match, and you're using a visual template you created for all 20 of your pages, you'd be a complete idiot to continue your elite attitude about a freakin' text editor.

Sometimes, the immature attitudes I see in this community amaze me. No professionalism at all...is it also bad to use visual editors when you design GTK or QT dialogs? When you're drawing pictures in GIMP (real people write those pixels using assembly routines)? Should OpenOffice not show you its formatting visually, instead just giving you its internal formatting codes and letting you have at it?

I don't get the animosity towards WYSIWYG HTML editors when the philosophy is embraced everywhere else. Why are HTML editors the target for that misinformed attitude? It's not like HTML is l33t knowledge that deserves an award or anything. And all the visual editors let you edit the code directly anyway. "I use vim!" I don't really care. Give me a tool that lets me do more than freakin' ugly www.gnu.org without wasting time wading through code when I could be--heaven forbid--designing visually.

Folks, all that we've worked for and on these last couple of decades is being fiercely threatened. The rights and freedoms that RMS and the FSF have sought to protect are the targets. The SCO thing may seem outlandish, but this is the U.S. legal system we're talking about, anything can/does happen. The heavies are loaded for bear - the MSFT meat puppets like Darl McBride know they have a shot at destroying our community, to guarantee the survival of the proprietary "way" as the dominant mode of business in IT.

Think I'm just ranting? Perhaps. But have you noticed how much good press the monolithic vaporware Longhorn is soaking up? Have you read stories by people in power (who don't get "it") talking about how the whole Unix/Linux process is too complicated to succeed long-term?

Still, I hate the logo itself. I look at it and I don't feel anything. I haven't played Life since I had a DOS-only computer and downloaded a version from my local BBS. :-)

Certainly, there needs to be a more democratic process for this, but there is room for such a thing. We (the Open Source'ers, the Free Software'ers, the BSD'ers, the Perl'ers, etc.) are all comrades-in-arms these days.

On the funnier side, can you image Stallman learning French, ...

He already can! From this web page: "Dr. Stallman speaks English and French fluently, and can deliver speeches in either language. He can also speak in Spanish if he has sufficient time in a hispanic milieu to remember forgotten words before the speech."

The GPL is a truly revolutionary license, it is *designed*, as SCO says, to reduce the financial value of proprietary software. Yes, GPL software is freer than public domain, in the sense that the source code can never be taken proprietary (other than by the original author) and redistributed. - I disagree on two counts. First, any reduction in value of any proprietary software is purely coincidential and is not a goal of GPL. Secondly, I just reread GPL v.2. definition, and it is clear that even the original author of the Program cannot make it proprietary:

last paragraph of the Preamble: Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

Paragraph 6 of the GPL v.2.: 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.