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I've been using perl pretty much constantly since the Pink Camel, and believe me, Perl 5 is an extremely good language for quick scripting things. That's what it was designed for. Sure, you can do big projects in it, but it's not exactly ideal. Recently I've started using Ruby as well, and I intend to move my department over to it instead of wasting time with Perl 6.

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

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

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

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

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

Perl 6 will be nice, but I'm guessing it will be the end of Perl. It can't do what it wants to do whilst still being based upon a nasty mess. There are now other options, which provide all of Perl's power and none of the mess. Sorry, but *BSD^H^H^H^H Perl is dying.

I think you should reserve judgement until there is an implementation. Otherwise sweeping statements like 'perl6 won't make development any faster' are pretty hard to justify or to disprove.

By all means attack perl5, or dismiss perl6 as vapourware.

FWIW, the huge ugly monster that is Mozilla seems to have turned out rather well in the end - it just took far too long to get there. It's not perfect, but it has succeeded in its own aims (be a portable web browser suited for everyday use).

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

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

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

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

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

Perl 6 will be nice, but I'm guessing it will be the end of Perl. It can't do what it wants to do whilst still being based upon a nasty mess. There are now other options, which provide all of Perl's power and none of the mess. Sorry, but *BSD^H^H^H^H Perl is dying.

Note that section 2 does NOT say modification at the source code level. Simply distributing binaries or RPMs is sufficient as that was not its original form. If you read section 2.3, you'll see that distributing object code explicitly counts as a modification that subjects you to the conditions of items 1 and 2, including 2b.

Read section 2b which requires them to licence what they ship in its entirety under the GPL in order to distribute it.

It would be PSB, Posix Standard Base, not as humourous but a lot more functional.

The system calls in particular seem to be preponderantly a matter of documentation. AFAIK, upwardly compatible extensions aren't an issue at all, eliminating another dozen or so issues. The remainder seem to be trivial enough (e.g. returning EISDIR vs EPERM when rm is aimed at a directory) that they could easily be a kernel config (or even runtime) option.

It would be relatively trivial to add /sysfs/posix/* for the documented features to allow you to set stuff like "gets(): yes/warn/signal" on the fly. If you did this per-process you could have your LSB and POSIX too. (-:

The utilities? Well, there's always the POSIXLY_CORRECT and _POSIX2_VERSION envars. The utilities can be knocked over one at a time based on that, and the stuff in glibc like leading zeros can make decisions based on it (I would cache detection of the envars once on process startup lest this become slow).

What I want to know is: does this Open Group document represent an unofficial/tactful offer to POSIX-certify a version of Linux, presuming compliance?

Speaking as a very small part of the GCC team, I am very happy with a lot of the work Apple is now contributing: they have a sizable compiler team now and are contributing all that work back. Some of Apple's team are long-time gcc hackers, others are well-known C++ gurus, who can work almost full time on free software thanks to Apple picking up their paycheck.

In particular, gcc 3.4 will have precompiled headers (this work was contributed by Apple).

Even if not, GNU has helpfully published a version of "Hello, World!" that uses autoconf, so it's quite easy to work around incompatibilities if the GPL isn't a problem for your project. It doesn't seem to be actively maintained at the moment, however, the current version 2.1.1 is over a year old.

once again, lame technologies seek to imitate what the One True Editor has been able to do for years.

next!

Everytime I read this kind of statements where the term "intellectual property" is used to cover almost everything, I wish more people would have read and understood this.

To quote the core of that page:
"Since these laws [copyright, patents, trademarks etc.] are so different, the term ``intellectual property'' is an invitation to simplistic thinking. It leads people to focus on the meager common aspect of these disparate laws, which is that they establish monopolies that can be bought and sold, and ignore their substance--the different restrictions they place on the public and the different consequences that result. At that broad level, you can't even see the specific public policy issues raised by copyright law, or the different issues raised by patent law, or any of the others. Thus, any opinion about ``intellectual property'' is almost surely foolish."

Ever notice how Slashdot stories often have far too many links? Since the front page doesn't get the little [slashot.org]-style URL warnings, I'm always afraid of being linked to a certain .cx site or a disturbing picture of a girl... spewing.... something... This article was pretty good, though. it didn't link to easy-to-find pages like Google, Yahoo, IBM, Microsoft, etc.

Oh well, Slashdot, you are my friend!

I got a better idea.

How 'bout we just work for free?

If you want to know what the problem with DRM is then you should read this story by one of the leading minds of the GPL/GNU, Richard Stallman:

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

It's an article in which reading is outlawed, made possible by Microsoft's DRM, and corporations' ideas of what copyright should be.

He also has many other essays too.

GNU HURD is the kernel for the GNU operating system. It is always 10 years from completion ;)

I should probably say that it is *a* kernel for the GNU operating sysem, the other being Linux. But, the GNU folks wanted to use HURD, not Linux. Some of them actually run it.

I admire their stoicism.

yeh, lets do that, and make sure that no one ever does anything illegal with someone elses computer.

here's a little story along those lines

Hurd at Linux Tag 2003

Hope to see more.

Various Licenses [both free and non-free]

Google Directory [Software >> Licensing]

I personally have no experiance, or legal expertise. However, I'd say, to figure out your borders of open/closed source... If your code will run without the business software you're writing, then it's officially open source framework. It's it's "extra" and related to that business software, then that code is closed source. Just an idea. Good luck!

Make the big-wig business people listen to this

No, but then there's the gnu. :-)

All digital music is henceforth be copylefted according to the terms of the General Public License. Each digital music file is its own source and may be edited with common audio software. Any copylefted music file is and any derivative file of the original or any derivative is by terms of the GPL also copylefted and free to be modified and redistributed.

• Note 1: By terms of the GPL, a verbatim copy of the GPL must be included with each distribution of the software -- let's say in the ID3 comment field (pretend it fits).
• Note 2: The original copyright holder still may put restrictions on the original copyrighted work, but once set free, the copylefted work and any derivatives can not have its usage, modification, or redistribution in any way restricted.
• Note 3: The original copyright holder's original creative work are still protected under trademark, trade secret, and/or patent law. The digital copy is not the original work and is not protected or restricted by such laws, but instead is protected by copyright law according to the terms of the end user license agreement, in this case the GPL.

Opera is free software too Einstein. You can download the free banner supported version...

I meant Free Software, Einstein. Free as in speech, not free as in beer.

The groups aims sound familiar. Oh yeah, there a lot like my LUG's mission statement:

The Baton Rouge Linux User Group's (BRLUG) mission is to advocate the use of Linux both in the home and the enterprise, to support the existing base of Linux users in the city of Baton Rouge, and to have a great time. In addition, we encourage our members to use the LUG as a platform for forming both non-profit and for-profit organizations to better establish Linux within the community. As such, we welcome both business and hobbyists discussions at our meetings and on our mailing list.

The name is a little fancier than "User's Group", but that's what they are doing. Similar things can be found:

• Casting a shadow on Microsoft
• Deep in the heart of Texas.
• In New York City
• Moscow
• Shanghai
• and most likely, where you live. Neat, huh?

What you have to realize is that all of these groups are fighting SCO everyday. Everyday, millions of free software users voice their opinion of the SCO's ownership of Unix, the Linux kernel and everything. Don't you hear them? Neither do SCO's accountants. Microsoft is about the only company that's bought into this extortion. The people who know, think SCO is full of bull and don't waste much time on it.

Reasonable opinions have been delivered by the Open Software Initiative, the Free Software Foundation, Linus Torvalds and the German court system. The local LUG would be happy to talk to you about this, and their mailing lists are amazingly free of Astroturf. Not even Microsoft can buy enough fake roots to cover all the LUGs in the world. It's nice to hear from this OSV, whether you call it a LUG, marketing, advocacy and focus group, or friend of the court.

...or the HURD!

When Richard Stallman received the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds award, he said, "This is like Luke Skywalker winning the Han Solo award." The Apache Group, EFF, and other parties have contributed more towards the "Open Source" movement than the FSF. I view the FSF as an outspoken critic of other peoples success bitter at a lack of their own.

I mentioned Eben Moglen, not RMS. I don't know why you are railing against RMS here. But since you're now trying to change the subject and talk about RMS winning that award, I'll offer that he was right. Linus Torvalds contributed a piece of the puzzle--a good piece, a needed piece, but not the framework by which the rest of the pieces had been collected for years before Torvalds arrived on the scene.

The FSF was never a part of the Open Source movement, they began the Free Software movement over a decade before the Open Source movement came along.

If either organization (FSF or OSI) is bitter about the other's success, it is probably OSI being bitter about the FSF's success. After all, the GNU General Public License is the most widely-used license in both movements. The GPL sets the terms of the debate in many cases. The OSI had no part in writing the GNU GPL. The FSF and RMS identified what is important to continue to make and distribute software freely (and with insights that continue to be valuable today--the ongoing Bitkeeper thread, for example). It is the FSF who, in the GPL, skillfully used copyright law to defend our interests instead of letting us continue to be unequal players in someone else's license (like the APSL which the OSI puts their stamp of approval on and the FSF considers non-free). The FSF is grateful that the Open Source movement has brought so many people to using the GNU GPL and other Free Software licenses, but the FSF warns against licenses that don't defend all of the community's interests. Meanwhile some notable members in the Open Source movement offer vicious words (and I'm not the first person to notice this).

When Richard Stallman received the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds award, he said, "This is like Luke Skywalker winning the Han Solo award." The Apache Group, EFF, and other parties have contributed more towards the "Open Source" movement than the FSF. I view the FSF as an outspoken critic of other peoples success bitter at a lack of their own.

I mentioned Eben Moglen, not RMS. I don't know why you are railing against RMS here. But since you're now trying to change the subject and talk about RMS winning that award, I'll offer that he was right. Linus Torvalds contributed a piece of the puzzle--a good piece, a needed piece, but not the framework by which the rest of the pieces had been collected for years before Torvalds arrived on the scene.

The FSF was never a part of the Open Source movement, they began the Free Software movement over a decade before the Open Source movement came along.

If either organization (FSF or OSI) is bitter about the other's success, it is probably OSI being bitter about the FSF's success. After all, the GNU General Public License is the most widely-used license in both movements. The GPL sets the terms of the debate in many cases. The OSI had no part in writing the GNU GPL. The FSF and RMS identified what is important to continue to make and distribute software freely (and with insights that continue to be valuable today--the ongoing Bitkeeper thread, for example). It is the FSF who, in the GPL, skillfully used copyright law to defend our interests instead of letting us continue to be unequal players in someone else's license (like the APSL which the OSI puts their stamp of approval on and the FSF considers non-free). The FSF is grateful that the Open Source movement has brought so many people to using the GNU GPL and other Free Software licenses, but the FSF warns against licenses that don't defend all of the community's interests. Meanwhile some notable members in the Open Source movement offer vicious words (and I'm not the first person to notice this).

Something like this eh?

Don't forget the Free Software Song... :^)

I would really hate any company to read this, and think that SCO has any legal ground vs. the linux community whatsoever, so I will repost my message, from yesterday, here to clarify SCO's idiocy:
Here, is where I think SCOs major flaw in their argument is, the GPL circa Jan 28, 1999 explicitly states in its preamble:
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
Refer to way back machine: http://web.archive.org/web/19990128195748/www.gnu. org/copyleft/gpl.html

And seeing as how SCO has been distributing Linux which had their code in the kernel. They have thusly, knowingly or not, distributed their rights, to the GPLd code in question, to the public. Because, of the statement above. Or if you want to hear it straight from GNU's statement:
...
Moreover, there are straightforward legal reasons why SCO's assertions concerning claims against the kernel or other free software are likely to fail. As to its trade secret claims, which are the only claims actually made in the lawsuit against IBM, there remains the simple fact that SCO has for years distributed copies of the kernel, Linux, as part of GNU/Linux free software systems. Those systems were distributed by SCO in full compliance with GPL, and therefore included complete source code. So SCO itself has continuously published, as part of its regular business, the material which it claims includes its trade secrets. There is simply no legal basis on which SCO can claim trade secret liability in others for material it widely and commercially published itself under a license that specifically permitted unrestricted copying and distribution.
...

Of course, first they would have to find a client who bought one of these worthless pieces of paper:-)

Linux is the only free OS? What about FreeBSD and GNU's Hurd krnel?

I've read what your tools are about, however I don't feel like it's something people MUST have unlike bc.
I guess bc is less handy, but it does a great job and has always been enough for command line computations.

If anything, I want to see X11 incorporate more network saavy features... not remove them. It would be nice, for instance, to park X11 sessions and applications, much like screen allows you to multiplex terminals. (There are apps like xmove and others, but none of them are reliable enough yet to withstand X server reboots.) I'd also like to see more RDP-ish functionality (Microsoft's RDP protocal lets you carry sound and printer connections over the network as well). And more flexiblity when working with different screen depths and other resources would be nice too.

Getting back to your point... a frequent piece of design advice is to "optimize the common case". Yes, cutting out network independence does help performance for the common case, but consider: for many, network independence is a must-have feature. It provides all sorts of flexibility with different hardware arrangements and usage models. Thin-client protocals like VNC are nice, but they don't cut it for serious, extended use. And the DirectFB X server isn't going to provide a whole lot of network independence if developers are targeting DirectFB.

The true promise of network independence is only now being realized: it opens up new avenues, even for users who have been content with the "single PC, single desktop" model. It would be a shame to lose the network conveniences provided by X now that we have computers fast enough to host it. :-)

Yes, it would be nice to optimize the common case, but cutting network independence is the wrong way to do it: ideally, the client librarys should be able to choose b/t listening on the network and connecting via shared memory (if X doesn't already have an extension for that [Xshm?]). This choice should be done by the library so that all apps written for X11 are network-capable by default. If the programmer knows they are doing something intensive, then they should be able to do something special to insist on a non-networked app, but this should be the exception and not the rule (and I think X11 has extensions for this too [DRI? xv?]).

Yes, they are in breach of contract. Licenses are contracts.

The FSF, and Eben Moglen (chief counsel of the FSF), who wrote the GNU GPL and deal with GPL cases all the time disagree with you.

And "IP infringment (copyright)" is wrong--the phrase "intellectual property" doesn't just refer to copyright. It's a mish-mash of copyright, patent, trademark, and a host of other areas of law that aren't always compatible. Again, the FSF disagrees with you here.

You see the common thread there, "contract" -- in the terms of "Licensing Contract".

The GNU GPL does not use the word "contract". There is another lawyer's analysis of this which illustrates the logic the FSF uses to show why they don't need a contract (and often don't have one anyhow) to accomplish what the GPL sets out to accomplish. The paper has some problems, but it is quite interesting as well. It also suggests a reason why it is valuable to purchase Free Software rather than getting it at no charge.

Yes, they are in breach of contract. Licenses are contracts.

The FSF, and Eben Moglen (chief counsel of the FSF), who wrote the GNU GPL and deal with GPL cases all the time disagree with you.

And "IP infringment (copyright)" is wrong--the phrase "intellectual property" doesn't just refer to copyright. It's a mish-mash of copyright, patent, trademark, and a host of other areas of law that aren't always compatible. Again, the FSF disagrees with you here.

You see the common thread there, "contract" -- in the terms of "Licensing Contract".

The GNU GPL does not use the word "contract". There is another lawyer's analysis of this which illustrates the logic the FSF uses to show why they don't need a contract (and often don't have one anyhow) to accomplish what the GPL sets out to accomplish. The paper has some problems, but it is quite interesting as well. It also suggests a reason why it is valuable to purchase Free Software rather than getting it at no charge.

Here, is where I think SCOs major flaw in their argument is, the GPL circa Jan 28, 1999 explicitly states in its preamble:
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
Refer to way back machine: http://web.archive.org/web/19990128195748/www.gnu. org/copyleft/gpl.html

And seeing as how SCO has been distributing Linux which had their code in the kernel. They have thusly, knowingly or not, distributed their rights, to the GPLd code in question, to the public. Because, of the statement above. Or if you want to hear it straight from GNU's statement:
...
Moreover, there are straightforward legal reasons why SCO's assertions concerning claims against the kernel or other free software are likely to fail. As to its trade secret claims, which are the only claims actually made in the lawsuit against IBM, there remains the simple fact that SCO has for years distributed copies of the kernel, Linux, as part of GNU/Linux free software systems. Those systems were distributed by SCO in full compliance with GPL, and therefore included complete source code. So SCO itself has continuously published, as part of its regular business, the material which it claims includes its trade secrets. There is simply no legal basis on which SCO can claim trade secret liability in others for material it widely and commercially published itself under a license that specifically permitted unrestricted copying and distribution.
...

Roland Piquepaille: "This column details the special constraints applying to the design of these applications: special interfaces, lack of power and memory, and interoperability between heterogeneous networks. In this longer column, you'll find a selection of stories, including links, abstracts and illustrations."

TRANSLATION:
"I am a shameless karma-whore and copyright violator... OK, I'm just dancing around what I really mean: thief! This column [IT'S MY BLOG! AGAIN! DID I FOOL YOU THIS TIME?] details the special constraints applying to the design of these applications: special interfaces, lack of power and memory, and interoperability between heterogeneous networks. I STOLE all of it directly from the articles -- that's right, I plagiarized it as if it was my own work and added no value or original thought. In this longer column [MY BLOG YET AGAIN! DID I FOOL YOU THIS TIME?], you'll find a selection of stories, including links, abstracts and illustrations. All of that is stolen, too! The images, the text... copyright infringement is what I do best! Then I post it to Slashdot to build myself up as a technology pundit!

Somehow, I don't think the first part of "Liberte, egalite, fraternite" meant freedom to steal intellectual content that isn't yours. It's free as in speech, not free as in beer. As this poster (whose highlighting/linking of the issues has inspired me to do the same) pointed out, plagiarism and copyright infringement are serious matters that end up hurting us all. Rule one of trying to become an authority on anything is not to deceive, steal or otherwise break laws. Doing so ensures you have no credibility.

OH, THE HUMANITY! ;)

(I joke, but it really is a serious issue.)

GNU HURD maybe? Of course, they maintain it's not production ready, but this might just be the impetus it needs to finally become so.

I smell a large divestment of stock by SCO upper brass now that the stock is as high as it is likely to get.

As a backup plan, HURD is coming along nicely...

It is also handy for keeping old versions around in case you need to roll back upgrades.

It's kind of hard to describe, the link above should make things clearer. Or just try it.

I haven't purchased a Wi-Fi card. Wi-Fi is a great idea, but frankly to me it is only a stop gap measure. What I am waiting for, and will probably continue to wait for, is software driven radio. It's all well and good to have linux support for existing technology, but frankly I'd like something to come out on linux or a BSD that has to have windows drivers created, rather then vica-versa, something so bold, inventive, and paradigm shifting that it can't be ignored. To me, the GNU radio project looks like a good candidate.

Really? I thought Microsoft had patents that kept free software from writing to NTFS. Well, certian version of NTFS at least. here is a cluefull letter about NTFS and installs. I imagine that parted is state of the free art, and that M$ can make their crap a pain in the ass at any time.

If YOU fuck up Windows (Blaming Microsoft is easier, but fact is, Windows is most often mangled by incompetent users doing stuff they shouldn't be doing.) then it is YOUR responsibility to have made proper backups of the full HD with Linux already installed. Same thing applies when it is NOT your fault, your data is still your responsibility

The only fault a user has when dealing with Microsoft software is the fact that they decided to use Microsoft. It is impossible for a Microsoft user to take proper precations and make up for the ill will and malice Microsoft has for them. Data loss is NEVER the user's fault. Where do you get off telling us that we should not be putting an alternate OS onto our computers? What other "stuff" shouldn't we be doing? Fold up your "blame the user" FUD till it's all sharp corners and stick it up your ass.

Actually, IBM appears to be devoting some time to working on GCC support for PPC. In particular, they are working on auto-vectorization (i.e., you write scalar code and it gets turned into Alti.., er, VMX code).

No. But it really doesn't matter.

I read both articles and I dont think it is an ARM. I wouldnt be suprised if they did write their own ISA. They have been working with IBM on the micrcores for the playstation 3 and writing a nice low power ISA with MM instructions seems quite likely to me. There are many tools to easily adapt compilers and debuggers to any instrcution sey you like. I suspect it is actually multiple core and controlibly speculative. That way you simply dont waste power but get reasonable performance.

Believe it or not, the American laws, the DMCA included, and the American Courts interpretation of those laws does not apply to the rest of world yet. Bush may eventually change that with his army, but for the time being, as Allan says, "reverse engineering for interoperability" is legal is most civilised countries (and even in some not-so-civilised ones).

And FSF usually puts its money where RMS mouth is. Take Savannah, for instance. An open SourceForge clone (product, hosting, free public machines, support, all included).

The more I read, the more I value the efforts of the GNU project and the FSF. At the very least, GNU/FSF offers a wedge against crap like this.

If you find value in the work of the GNU project and FSF, please consider offering your support in the form of your

1. time/talents,
2. money,
3. or both.

My-my-my-my (U can't touch us)
SCO tries to bill me so hard
Makes me say, "Oh my Lord, thank you for blessing me
With a mind to think about the O from SC"
It feels good
When you know you're right
A superdope winner in a court fight
And SCO knows as much
And they'd just get beat-uh!
U can't touch us

I told you homeboys
U can't touch us
Yeah, that's how we livin' and you know
U can't touch us
Look in the GPL, man
U can't touch us
Yo, let me bust the funky code
U can't touch us

Stop! RICO time!

(With some apologies to MC Hammer, but mostly to the people who read this.)

"What people tend to forget is that there are gatekeepers in the open-source community, too," he said. "It's not a free-for-all. On every one of the open-source projects, there are two or three people who are the gatekeepers. And you have to make a pretty good case, accurate and technically astute, to get them to allow changes. That's how it should be."

Here, he confuses the way that people are free to chose what software they would run with what Microsoft choses to give their customers. Anyone who thinks for more than an instant will realize that Microsoft choices are made for completely different reasons free software projects make their decisions and even more different from the reasons free software users might modify code themselves a thing the Microsoft user can not do, yet.

Face it, no one is going to learn about free software from rags like InfromationWeek, Byte, ComputerShopper or anything that makes it's money advertising M$ on pulp. You learn about free software by getting Red Hat, Debian, Suse or what have you and running it.

Microsoft will never go free because it's run on the priciples outlined here. The same threats are repeated again and again, but it does not work.

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.

c. If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one.

Did you miss the Java thing over the last few days?

Did you miss the update?

Or did you read the posts like this one?

Yes clarification is needed. Too many people miss the fact that the GPL (and copyright in general) governs distribution.

As in "You may not distribute GPLed binaries without supplying the source code to those binaries to recipients who request them, and you may not distribute binaries that incorporate GPLed code under any license that does not guarantee the rights guaranteed by the GPL."

As far as licenses are concerned, it is rather uncomplicated, but it allows few loopholes, which is probably where the confusion comes from. But compare the language in the GPL and another popularlicense and I'm sure you'll agree that the GPL language is much more plain.

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works.