Slashdot Mirror

Funny.... I've had reliable keyword recognition since way back in '95 via my P133 and IBM via voice on OS/2 and the Mwave dsp addon board. Keyword isn't that big of a deal (relatively that is) if your selected vocabulary is relatively small. Keyword voice recognition is an almost solved problem and is used often from automated phone systems with amazing accuracy given poor signal quality. The automated collect call system's come to mind as a simple example. I have seen more complicated systems in work which are currently in research and some of the toolkits are open sourced if I'm not mistaken (would have to check to be sure)

As for difficulty.... that's not difficult at all seeing that the goal of the project is to ultimately provide that functionality.

from they're website
"IS-136, IS-95, GSM
A complete cell phone implementation"

All some interested party has to do is take they're freely available cell phone friendly code when it comes up make some modifications so that the signal is piped through a keyword recognizer instead of the speakers and poof... Its not as hard as you claim when sooo many people are willing to give you what you need.

"It would cost a lot more than $14K to do this over 100 channels."

As for cost, first of all I was using fictitious numbers as I stated... but seeing that you've brought up cost as unrealistic... I'll bring more realistic number and now overestimate. First, the paper associated with the article states that a dual 2Ghz machine could handle upto 32 GMS channels.. so.. lets see... lets say it costs $100 (which is probably being conservative) in Radio shack hardware to make the hardware to support 1 channel seeing that they say it only requires fairly inexpensive hardware... that's 3200 for 32 channels. Now add an overpriced Dell dual CPU server @ 3,444. now to get 96 channels it would cost you $19,932. Now, the average person could dig up a dual machine for less than 2000 with similar spec (minus scsi)... so realistically.... It be more like $15,600 which isn't that far off from my original $14k fictitious guess.

"Now targeted scanning could be a problem, but then maybe I can get my freaking cellular provider to turn on basic GSM encryption (phone supports it but none of the cell sites in the US do AFAIK)."

Unfortunately encryption won't end up being much of a stopping stone. It however will probably be the hardest part to deal with. There's a couple of ways that could be thwarted. 1. with so many distributed system for encryption breaking, a brute force could be used, not elegant... but hey... it works... 2. social engineering could be used to gain access to the information... Its certainly not the first time that a provider's phone password has popped up on the net. 3. if the original purpose of the system trickles down to the cellphone/pda... then you could simply walk up to your service provider and ask them to set it up, and voila you know have the encryption key.

I could keep circumventing different ideas all night.... And that's what's scary... cell phone scanners currently exist but are really pricey. Adding the cost of one sc

The reason is quite simple. As a Free Software follower, I don't want to use any software which doesn't give the freedoms/rights I want for myself and everyone else.

In less abstract terms: I don't want to agree to Reals license agreements or use their software, because it doesn't allow to do the things I should be allowed to do: study how it works, make changes to it and distribute derivative works (I would need the source code, and permission to use it for this to be possible). If you hang on a while I'll post another reply with some extracts from some of the EULAs.

I frequently get bashed here at slashdot for saying such things, but if don't have any control over the software (i.e. it's proprietary and/or non-free), then I don't want to use it -- no matter how good it is. If you want to know some of the reasons why non-free software is bad then go read up on GNU's philosophy section. Even if you find you don't agree with the GNU philosophy, you should know about it, because any GNU/Linux system (including Libranet) is build on and with GNU tools (and a lot of other of course, GNU should'nt be getting all the credit).

The reason is quite simple. As a Free Software follower, I don't want to use any software which doesn't give the freedoms/rights I want for myself and everyone else.

In less abstract terms: I don't want to agree to Reals license agreements or use their software, because it doesn't allow to do the things I should be allowed to do: study how it works, make changes to it and distribute derivative works (I would need the source code, and permission to use it for this to be possible). If you hang on a while I'll post another reply with some extracts from some of the EULAs.

I frequently get bashed here at slashdot for saying such things, but if don't have any control over the software (i.e. it's proprietary and/or non-free), then I don't want to use it -- no matter how good it is. If you want to know some of the reasons why non-free software is bad then go read up on GNU's philosophy section. Even if you find you don't agree with the GNU philosophy, you should know about it, because any GNU/Linux system (including Libranet) is build on and with GNU tools (and a lot of other of course, GNU should'nt be getting all the credit).

Search enterprise linux.com has a four part series on open source support that might help.

For well known software just call it "industry standard software". This would include things like EMACS, CVS, GNUmake, gcc, Apache. Tell the management you would suggest using the Industry Standard Apache web server, or the Industry standard revision control tool CVS.

You could list examples of companies that use these tools already. You can get some examples of current corporate users at the home pages, or by e-mailing the support team. Concentrate on listing Fortune 500 companies, your company's competitors, and well regarded high tech companies.

Good Luck in your effort!

Search enterprise linux.com has a four part series on open source support that might help.

For well known software just call it "industry standard software". This would include things like EMACS, CVS, GNUmake, gcc, Apache. Tell the management you would suggest using the Industry Standard Apache web server, or the Industry standard revision control tool CVS.

You could list examples of companies that use these tools already. You can get some examples of current corporate users at the home pages, or by e-mailing the support team. Concentrate on listing Fortune 500 companies, your company's competitors, and well regarded high tech companies.

Good Luck in your effort!

Search enterprise linux.com has a four part series on open source support that might help.

For well known software just call it "industry standard software". This would include things like EMACS, CVS, GNUmake, gcc, Apache. Tell the management you would suggest using the Industry Standard Apache web server, or the Industry standard revision control tool CVS.

You could list examples of companies that use these tools already. You can get some examples of current corporate users at the home pages, or by e-mailing the support team. Concentrate on listing Fortune 500 companies, your company's competitors, and well regarded high tech companies.

Good Luck in your effort!

It's fun to snipe, of course, and it's nice to feel some kind of safety/security in the fact that they've been very late on many things and/or delivered with bugs.

Sorry, I didn't read the article and just skimmed the headline. Could someone tell me if the story is supposed to be about this or this?

I propose RMS's Free Software Song

It's the only thing in the universe that's more annoying than hampster dancing music.

Well, maybe annoying is not the word. Perhaps gut-wretching?

First, this is not good if he wins, because someone could sue a GPL author for the same kind of deal.

NO WARRANTY

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

And as usual, both groups think the other is giving open source a bad name. (not trolling, just my observation).

RMS is nothing to do with Open Source Software: he's an advocate for Free Software, and you can read why here.

The difference is more than just semantics. Even if you support OSS, it's important to be aware of the distinction between Free and Open Source.

If you think computers should play better go (and know what you talk of), consider helping Gnu Go

Bayonne is by far the most mature telephony server out there, having been in existence as ACS long before even asterisk was a twinkle in kram's eye. Best of all, it's hardware independent, unlike either asterisk or openpbx. It supports just about every CTI card line that supports linux. They just added both PBX support and H.323 support. SIP is not far off, and if you want to be able to script complex applications in no time flat, optionally dropping out to perl, python, or php for logic, Bayonne is unparalleled. Add to that direct mysql, postgres, support, text to speech support, internatilalization, and so on and so on...

IBM estimate that the value of being able to work without fear of patent claims is worth ten times as much to them as the value of the patents themselves.

The software industry in the U.S. was created without such burdens. Were software patentable 30 years ago, we would not have PCs built by competing suppliers, nor would we have a choice of PC operating systems other than that supplied by the hardware manufacturer.

Software patents are uniquely dangerous, as it is not the result of years of expensive research which is patented, rather it is a half-day's problem solving which grants a typical software patent, and thus prevents anyone else from solving the same problem by virtue of this "right of monopoly on an idea"

Patent offices cannot adequately review software patents, for the simple reason that much software literature is not published in journals. The source code to a 1970 operating system, for example, would not be considered suitable reading material for a patent examiner investigating a new patent in that area.

Currently, the patentability of software in the US has laid waste vast areas of research, in which companies dare not innovate for the fear of patent claims. It is not even theoretically possible to investigate all relevant patents before starting work, as patent applications are secret.

Free software is especially vulnerable to the destructive effects of patents, because free software cannot obtain a license from the patent-holder, even if the author wished to. Nearly every supporter of patents will assume that licensing patents is easy, cheap, and always on offer. These arguments do not apply whatever to free software, upon which much of European business depends.

Anyone who has the time to visit Luxembourg this thurday should do so, and I encourage anyone else to write to each of their MEPs by fax and by surface mail, informing these representatives of the economic damage they are being asked to perform by deceiptful organisations seeking to cripple European business.

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.

But if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the users, under the GPL.

Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program in certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether to release it is up to you.

Not Open Source, but free.

The phrase "free software", especially when used on Slashdot in the context of "free software community" or "free software subculture" as in sinergy's comment, typically refers to any program licensed to the public under terms that meet these four criteria, some of which require access to the program's source code. The set of programs covered under this definition almost completely mutually overlaps the set of programs covered by the Open Source Definition, which is descended from the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

In general, when somebody points out a fallacy to me (such as your "no true Scotsman" fallacy of definition), I go back and debug the argument. Let me express in more precise terms what I feel sinergy meant:

Given: Let a "free software license" be defined by the Free Software Definition published by the Free Software Foundation. Let a "free" program be a program published under a "free software license", and let a "proprietary" program be any other program. Let a "clone" of program A be another program B that closely reimplements the functionality of A. Problem: Find a "free" program in wide use that was not designed as a "clone" of an existing "proprietary" program.

It's not really a question whether you have to release the source code. That's a given for GPL code. The functional question is whether or not the source code includes the signing key (if you distribute a signed version). I believe that the answer to that (underlying) question is yes.

First of all we have to distinguish what we think source code is from what the GPL defines it as. In this case:

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

For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

Two things I'd add here:
1) This isn't charity. This is the "cost" of using other people's GPL code. The people who wrote the original code have to be able to use the results for free too.
2) You can talk to the copyright owners and possibly get an exception to the GPL for this. If they're sympathetic to your plight, they may be willing to grant such an exception.

Sounds like you really want screen. (Yes, it does split screen.

What's the difference between encap and GNU Stow? Quickly glancing at encap's web page they seem very similar.

Regardless, you might find the following bash alias useful:

alias ./configure='./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/$( echo `pwd` | sed -e s#.*/##g)'
(just replace "stow" with "encap", I guess :)

>But it is theft. It's taking something without the consent of the owner. That's stealing. We all learned that in grade school.

Allow me to inform you of the difference.

First of all, the definition of theft that would most apply to copyright violation requires removal of property.

When you copy something, the original author loses no property.

Next, and most importantly, the courts do not recognize theft as analogous to copyright violation.

Last, why not see that the FSF has to say about it?

Copyright Violation is only theft if you walk into a store and shoplift software. That way the owner loses property (his CDs) and you violate copyright (you have a CD of you aren't licensed to own). There may be other examples, but they all involve a loss of property. Downloading from KaZaa (for instance) doesn't count, unless the other user's data is deleted when you've downloaded it (the RIAA would, in fact, love data thieves if this is how it worked).

>Let's talk about "en masse" for a second. If EVERYBODY ignored the law, you MIGHT have an argument. (You'd still be wrong, but you'd have an argument.) But in this case, EVERYBODY is not ignoring the law. The vast majority of folks are law-abiding citizens who buy their music instead of stealing it.

??? Even my 60 year old dad is a pirate (borrowed CDs from friends at work and had me copy them for him prior to the Canadian CD levy). I honestly don't know a SINGLE person who hasn't broken copyright. Ever. Period. Even my insane teacher who would go on constantly about how copyright violation == theft, I'm almost 100% sure he was violating the license for novell netware.

You're going to have to show me a stronger case than "that's the way it is", because, as you can see, most people are like me, and know virtually nobody who hasn't violated copyright at some point.

>We have a word for groups like that: mob. If such a mob turns violent, we often refer to it as a riot. This situation isn't a riot to the extent that it's not violent. But it shares a lot of the properties of a riot: a group of people are collectively ignoring the rule of law, and by doing so in proximity to each other are reinforcing their will to lawlessness.

So, do we call fast drivers who have accidents a riot?

No, we don't. You make no sense.

>No normal person would consider throwing a brick through a window and stealing a TV.

No normal person would perform break and enter, tresspass, and robbery to get their music. I've not heard of a single case of piracy where a window was broken, never mind B&E + robbery. Can you find me a case? I can't find one.

>Generally speaking, the people who are stealing music would never in a million years consider breaking into a record store and hauling off a truckload of CD's.

I see, you can't. You're just spreading FUD.

>But the covertness of the act combined with the "everybody is doing it" perception makes it easier for otherwise normal people to get confused about what's right and what's wrong. It's the mob mentality distributed over the Internet. The present epidemic of piracy is the world's biggest and slowest looter riot.

Oh, so you're equating violent violations of the peace with piracy. Well, in that case, I suppose parking in a handicapped space is equivalent to sawing off someone's leg.

>Drunks drink because they're unable to stop. Are you saying that stealing music can be addictive? I'm not sure if I would agree with that, but it's an interesting idea.

Perhaps I am. It wasn't the best analogy, but piracy does tend to beget more piracy. Because wether you do it once or a million times, you're still liable for exactly the same amount of jail time. Not that this is a particularly effective way of stopping piracy or anything.

>Most people don't get into barfights because they understand the consequenc

Yeah. I was underwhelmed too.

I wonder, though. X10 cameras and 802.11b equipment do work on the same frequency. Would it be possible to write a program that would allow you to receive X10 data with a WiFi card? We've got the GNU Radio program that can receive HDTV signals and radio signals and so on. Perhaps that could be modified to grab X10 signals through your wifi card.

Mind you, it may be that the two technologies are too different to be easily adapted to one another. Sharing spectrum is only one factor to be considered, and a fairly small one at that. Any X10 geeks care to comment on the feasibility of receiving X10 signals with 802.11b hardware?

i dont understand why RMS would be angry at the KDE team at all now... they use the GPL (and so does the QT library, despite popular belief). whereas GTK+ (which GNOME is built on) uses the LGPL . it seems ironic that RMS would therefore support GNOME over KDE, when KDE use his 'favourite' licence...

also, there was no need for RMS to ask such a redundant question as "GNU/Linux or Linux?" to the team, he could have looked here ;-)

does anyone have a mirror of this story? the server has been totally slashdotted...

I've read a lot of bitter comments on this forum about the fact that java isn't an open technology. This hasn't mattered much to me because of their community process, and otherwise open attitude, and open off-shoot projects (STL, Struts, Tomcat, etc).

I'm not trolling here at all -- I wonder what the implications for Java could be in the face of a buyout. Obviously, that would depend in some part on the buyer. And there would always be the GNU foundations free implementations. OTOH, perhaps a buyout could actually prompt Java to be handed over to a standards board.

These are rumors though, and I can't recall ever hearing a merger/buyout rumor that actually panned out (maybe I just hear bad gossip, though), so I don't put a lot of beleif into this story. It's just speculation about what Sun might do in an x86's world .

I will say that it's interesting to me to see how it's usually not the case that the best technologies survive. However, when looked at from a natural selection viewpoint, one realizes that since the computing ecology is shifted towards MS products, the x86 architecure hardware has an advantage, even though it isn't the best.

Change the OS ecology, and x86 may not be the de facto architecure...

Could it be that freedom is a noun while free is an adjective?

It could well be that, I dont see a problem with it being a noun, We can have "Freedom Fries", so why not "Freedom Software" heh heh.

But it isn't for the sake of credit he wants GNU to be mentioned, it is to remind people of the free software ideals Linux alone does not represent

Has he said that? from what I remember him saying,
it was exactly the opposite of what you have said there, atleast when he first started with this way back the arguement of "educating users" has grown really, the FAQs and statements on the gnu webpages mention credits now and again.

I think its a bit of both, I agree mostly with his arguments, but as I said earlier, I think its just too late to change.

Did you read the link no_choice provided? The GNU/Linux meme has nothing to do with which apps are used. The GNU prefix is intended to convey the philosophical ideas behind the free software movement.

He just points out that the FSF actually does not recommend C but recommands against C++!

When you want to use a language that gets compiled and runs at high speed, the best language to use is C. Using another language is like using a non-standard feature: it will cause trouble for users.

I can't see the FSF recommending Java, since it hardly qualifies as "Free (...)"

Well, I do not know if they actually recommend it, but they do endorse it.

The GNU operating system is an unfinished product of the GNU project. Read the first paragraph at www.gnu.org. Redhat/Debian/Gentoo/Mandrake/whatever are also operating systems that chose to use tools from the GNU operating system, other projects, and the Linux kernel, to build their OS.

There are some misunderstandings that remain unaddressed in this thread. The followups, I'm glad to see, display an understanding of the issues described in the GNU/Linux FAQ. I hope to clear up the issues I spotted which remain. All spelling in the quotes is in context.

I thank Mr Stallman for creating all the gnu[sic] software and for his vision of having groups of people working with each other and sharing intellectual idea's[sic] freely. Linux and perhaps FreeBSD would not be without him.

That's great. I hope you'll understand he's asking people to use the name GNU to get a share of the credit he (and many other people) think the GNU/Linux operating system is due. There is a technical advantage to distinguishing between the kernal and the rest of the OS here as well--it helps people speak more clearly about what they wish to address and thus avoid confusion.

He rails agaisn't anything non gpl including X11 but uses it on his desktop.

Actually he objects to the use of non-free software. He has no quarrel with non-GPL licenses so long as they are Free Software licenses. RMS might believe the GPL is a superior Free Software license to other Free Software licenses, but that does not stop him from recommending the use of Free Software under a variety of non-GPL licenses.

XFree86 is one example: XFree86 is Free Software so RMS doesn't object to its use and development. He goes further than that, actually. He is on record encouraging people to contribute their time and effort to it even under its non-copylefted Free Software license (the MIT X11 license). Unfortunately I don't have a specific pointer to precisely where the question arises, but if you listen to the Q&A sections of the history of Free Software talks, you'll hear him tell a questioner why he recommends against making a GPL-covered fork of XFree86.

His dream of free software and a community of sharing is here and he should chill. He got his gnutopia with debian.

I attended a lecture on Halloween a couple of years ago at the University of Chicago in which he said he talked briefly about the differences between Debian's Free Software Guidelines and the set of licenses it deems acceptable and the FSF's definition of Free Software and the set of licenses it deems acceptable. There is overwhelmingly large overlap but the two are not the same. So, no, he didn't get precisely everything he wanted with Debian but that didn't stop the FSF from pitching in (money or resources, I've forgotten which it was) to help get Debian started. Perhaps when GNU/Hurd is ready for ordinary users to use some people will make a GNU distribution that includes only Free Software as defined by the FSF.

However there is a more important issue at stake here: The Free Software community is constantly under attack from those who seek to compete with Free Software by making Free Software illegal or impossible to use and share. Patents on algorithms used in computer software (so-called "software patents") and the recent so-called "Super-DMCA" bills (now laws in many states) sweeping the US are examples of how laws can trump what you can do in your home with standard-compliant equipment and software hooked up to lines you pay to use. I'm not sure exactly what "chill[ing]" would entail, but it sounds like you want him to let his guard down and believe he has accomplished his goal. Far from it.

Some of the most important hurdles the Free Software community has yet to jump are legalistic and require becoming informed and putting aside some political differences to work together and defeat well-organized monied interests. These are not problems we can solve with our clever coding talents alone. The software the community put together, the community the GNU GPL built (which I believe will be perhaps his most important legacy) require eternal vigilance and, in exchange, can grant us one of the best things in the world: freedom.

There are some misunderstandings that remain unaddressed in this thread. The followups, I'm glad to see, display an understanding of the issues described in the GNU/Linux FAQ. I hope to clear up the issues I spotted which remain. All spelling in the quotes is in context.

I thank Mr Stallman for creating all the gnu[sic] software and for his vision of having groups of people working with each other and sharing intellectual idea's[sic] freely. Linux and perhaps FreeBSD would not be without him.

That's great. I hope you'll understand he's asking people to use the name GNU to get a share of the credit he (and many other people) think the GNU/Linux operating system is due. There is a technical advantage to distinguishing between the kernal and the rest of the OS here as well--it helps people speak more clearly about what they wish to address and thus avoid confusion.

He rails agaisn't anything non gpl including X11 but uses it on his desktop.

Actually he objects to the use of non-free software. He has no quarrel with non-GPL licenses so long as they are Free Software licenses. RMS might believe the GPL is a superior Free Software license to other Free Software licenses, but that does not stop him from recommending the use of Free Software under a variety of non-GPL licenses.

XFree86 is one example: XFree86 is Free Software so RMS doesn't object to its use and development. He goes further than that, actually. He is on record encouraging people to contribute their time and effort to it even under its non-copylefted Free Software license (the MIT X11 license). Unfortunately I don't have a specific pointer to precisely where the question arises, but if you listen to the Q&A sections of the history of Free Software talks, you'll hear him tell a questioner why he recommends against making a GPL-covered fork of XFree86.

His dream of free software and a community of sharing is here and he should chill. He got his gnutopia with debian.

I attended a lecture on Halloween a couple of years ago at the University of Chicago in which he said he talked briefly about the differences between Debian's Free Software Guidelines and the set of licenses it deems acceptable and the FSF's definition of Free Software and the set of licenses it deems acceptable. There is overwhelmingly large overlap but the two are not the same. So, no, he didn't get precisely everything he wanted with Debian but that didn't stop the FSF from pitching in (money or resources, I've forgotten which it was) to help get Debian started. Perhaps when GNU/Hurd is ready for ordinary users to use some people will make a GNU distribution that includes only Free Software as defined by the FSF.

However there is a more important issue at stake here: The Free Software community is constantly under attack from those who seek to compete with Free Software by making Free Software illegal or impossible to use and share. Patents on algorithms used in computer software (so-called "software patents") and the recent so-called "Super-DMCA" bills (now laws in many states) sweeping the US are examples of how laws can trump what you can do in your home with standard-compliant equipment and software hooked up to lines you pay to use. I'm not sure exactly what "chill[ing]" would entail, but it sounds like you want him to let his guard down and believe he has accomplished his goal. Far from it.

Some of the most important hurdles the Free Software community has yet to jump are legalistic and require becoming informed and putting aside some political differences to work together and defeat well-organized monied interests. These are not problems we can solve with our clever coding talents alone. The software the community put together, the community the GNU GPL built (which I believe will be perhaps his most important legacy) require eternal vigilance and, in exchange, can grant us one of the best things in the world: freedom.

It's great that this meeting took place. Since KDE is now 100% Free Software there is no reason for any serious contention.

I have no relationship with RMS or the Free Software Foundation, but I would like to respond (perhaps preemptively) to some of the common anti-RMS flames that inevitably come up in any discussion involving RMS.

Anti-RMS argument #1) "I don't like RMS because he says GNU/Linux instead of Linux."

It may be quixotic of RMS to want this, but it is certainly not malicious, and he has presented solid ethical and practical reasons for his argument. Essentially, by including GNU, we give acknowlegement to the philosophy of freedom behind the OS, not just to the individual who provided leadership in creating one important part of it, the kernel.

This angers some people because they feel he is "telling them what to do." He's not telling you, he's ASKING you, and he has provided good ethical arguments supporting his position. If you disagree, fine, but don't say that he's "telling you what to do." He's not.

Others feel he is slighting Linus Torvolds... this is hardly the case, RMS always gives Linus high praise for his leadership in creating the Linux kernel. In the unlikely event that everyone did start saying "GNU/Linux," Linus would still be the only person (that I know of) whose name is the basis of the name of a major OS.

Anti RMS argument #2) "RMS is too much of an idealist / extemeist"

Anti RMS argument #3) "RMS is too biased towards the GPL, other free software licences are just as good." OR "the GPL isn't as free as some other licences", etc.

Anti RMS argument #4) "GNU/Hurd is so late, it will never get working, blah blah blah."

Yes, eveyone knows GNU/Hurd is late... so what? Nobody's suffering waiting for it, they can use the Linux kernel. This is part of the beauty of Free Software. We don't need to wait for a central authority to create tools we need... we can get them from other people or do it ourselves.

* * * *

I think that the more you understand the issues involved, the more you understand how critical it is to be aware of the PHILOSOPHY behind free software, not just the "coolness" of it. The main purpose of free software is to help us remain free, not just to be good practical tools or to save us a few dollars (though these are also important).

I have met many people in person who express a negative view of RMS and/or the GPL. Most of the time, once they learn about the issues involved, the majority change their views. I implore anyone who feels negativly about RMS to at least read about the FSF philosophy.

It's great that this meeting took place. Since KDE is now 100% Free Software there is no reason for any serious contention.

I have no relationship with RMS or the Free Software Foundation, but I would like to respond (perhaps preemptively) to some of the common anti-RMS flames that inevitably come up in any discussion involving RMS.

Anti-RMS argument #1) "I don't like RMS because he says GNU/Linux instead of Linux."

It may be quixotic of RMS to want this, but it is certainly not malicious, and he has presented solid ethical and practical reasons for his argument. Essentially, by including GNU, we give acknowlegement to the philosophy of freedom behind the OS, not just to the individual who provided leadership in creating one important part of it, the kernel.

This angers some people because they feel he is "telling them what to do." He's not telling you, he's ASKING you, and he has provided good ethical arguments supporting his position. If you disagree, fine, but don't say that he's "telling you what to do." He's not.

Others feel he is slighting Linus Torvolds... this is hardly the case, RMS always gives Linus high praise for his leadership in creating the Linux kernel. In the unlikely event that everyone did start saying "GNU/Linux," Linus would still be the only person (that I know of) whose name is the basis of the name of a major OS.

Anti RMS argument #2) "RMS is too much of an idealist / extemeist"

Anti RMS argument #3) "RMS is too biased towards the GPL, other free software licences are just as good." OR "the GPL isn't as free as some other licences", etc.

Anti RMS argument #4) "GNU/Hurd is so late, it will never get working, blah blah blah."

Yes, eveyone knows GNU/Hurd is late... so what? Nobody's suffering waiting for it, they can use the Linux kernel. This is part of the beauty of Free Software. We don't need to wait for a central authority to create tools we need... we can get them from other people or do it ourselves.

* * * *

I think that the more you understand the issues involved, the more you understand how critical it is to be aware of the PHILOSOPHY behind free software, not just the "coolness" of it. The main purpose of free software is to help us remain free, not just to be good practical tools or to save us a few dollars (though these are also important).

I have met many people in person who express a negative view of RMS and/or the GPL. Most of the time, once they learn about the issues involved, the majority change their views. I implore anyone who feels negativly about RMS to at least read about the FSF philosophy.

The original GNU-system kernel was Alix (eponymous of one of RMS's past girlfriends).

Alix was chased away by the HURD (CM Mach) which was in turn vanquished our charming hero Linux . . . (meanwhile, Alix lies asleep, imprisoned in the dark tower as the HURD patiently plots its revenge).

--TRR

I believe that Richard Stallman wrote most of the original GNU C compiler, although it was derived partly from a portable optimizer from a 1978 Univeristy of Arizona research project.

"GNU `diff' was written by Mike Haertel, David Hayes, Richard Stallman, Len Tower, and Paul Eggert."

"GNU Make was written by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath."

"Richard Stallman was the original author of GDB, and of many other GNU programs."

Speaking for myself, I certainly wouldn't want to slap such a clause to anything I wrote. First, I think the egoboo factor is totally overstated. For instance, I wrote a small vocab building app called gretools. I wrote it to scratch a personal itch: to help me with my gre preparation. Ego satisfaction had nothing to do with it. I released it only as an afterthought. Second, what's the point of having J. Random user being being forced to see your name? If you want to build a reputation as a programmer, you would want to build up that reputation with other programmers, which is what you get currenty because your name is in the source. In suspect, most users could consider it as unwanted ads/annoyance. We're trying to get people to use OSS by removing annoyances (like popup blocking), introducing our own forms of annoyance is self defeating. Third, Reiser specifically wants political statements irremovable and visible to users. This is bad. Being free means creating software without trying to impose your idealogy on others. There are practical problems too. You are unnecessarily limiting your user base. If, for instance, your political message included praise for the Falun Gong, it could well lead to any distro that includes your package being banned in the PRC, because you made your statement irremovable. I wonder how many programmers would choose to adopt such a license. Fourth, OSS companies are trying hard to stay afloat and make some money. The better these companies survive, the better your chances of becoming/staying gainfully employed coding Free software. Give them a chance. Don't view them as capitalist evil and impede them from establishing a brand.

That's just my opinion. You are free to pick your license.

It seems history, even short term history repeats itself. This was tried in the past by the BSD license and was taken out because it is way too onerous. The problems with requiring such credit are well enumerated by the Free Software Foundation in the essay entitled "The BSD License Problem".

On the surface, it sounds like a good idea until you consider what it means to give prominent credit to all the major people who are involved with a piece of software. The larger a project is the larger the number of active participants. More importantly when a project gets large enough it acquires dependencies that provide significant functionality which also are as deserving of credit as the original application developers.

For example I built a news aggregator that is an now a source code available project on GotDotNet that has 70 developers signed up with about a dozen having been active in one shape or the other. There are also dependencies on three external libraries that also provide significant functionality. If this was a commercial product exactly how feasible would it be for me to give prominence to everyone who provided significant value to the application? What metric would I use?

For example Microsoft can buy Apple (perhaps not monopoly wise) and cripple the BSD kernel so Apple users can only play DRM'ed WMA's.

Unless they've changed things recently, Apple uses a Mach kernel for OS X (at the bottom of the page under the heading "Core OS"), not a BSD kernel.

This is of course theoretical, but KHTML (for KDE Konqueror) has had code back from Apple, due to GPL. I seriously doubt they had provided their changes if KHTML was BSD-licensed.

Actually, the libraries that Apple used from KDE (KHTML and KJS) are covered under the LGPL. The LGPL being a little bit different than the GPL, this has two implications: (1) Apple is not obliged to send any code back KDE's way; and (2) it is what keeps Apple from having to distribute the source code to Safari (the whole static-dynamic linkage issue aside). If the KDE libraries had been covered by the GPL apple most likely would have had to distribute the code to Safari, and I suspect this was one of the reasons Apple selected the KDE libraries over competing libraries from Mozilla.

For example Microsoft can buy Apple (perhaps not monopoly wise) and cripple the BSD kernel so Apple users can only play DRM'ed WMA's.

Unless they've changed things recently, Apple uses a Mach kernel for OS X (at the bottom of the page under the heading "Core OS"), not a BSD kernel.

This is of course theoretical, but KHTML (for KDE Konqueror) has had code back from Apple, due to GPL. I seriously doubt they had provided their changes if KHTML was BSD-licensed.

Actually, the libraries that Apple used from KDE (KHTML and KJS) are covered under the LGPL. The LGPL being a little bit different than the GPL, this has two implications: (1) Apple is not obliged to send any code back KDE's way; and (2) it is what keeps Apple from having to distribute the source code to Safari (the whole static-dynamic linkage issue aside). If the KDE libraries had been covered by the GPL apple most likely would have had to distribute the code to Safari, and I suspect this was one of the reasons Apple selected the KDE libraries over competing libraries from Mozilla.

Actually, it does. The GPL isn't a Copyright type, it's an End User License Agreement. It's contract made between the End User, and the Copyright owner.

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).

• TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

They're screwed, even IF someone stole the code it's now licenced to use under the GPL.
They can try to roast who leaked the code but once they re-distributed it, it's licensed...

If their code is secret, it means they could put whatever they want in there now and claim that it was there from the very beginning. Who knows when that particular piece of code was placed there. 20 years ago? Yesterday? Or just before they go to court to present the evidence?

Even the least clueful software company won't simply have a single corpus of code that gets modified over and over again, without keeping some sort of history. This is usually done with a source control system, like CVS.

Such a system allows an organisation to maintain an arbitrarily complete and detailed tree of its software development history. It is almost inconceivable that SCO have not done this. The history could be subpoenaed in court, and people who worked on the code could also be called to testify about the code base.

SCO could not use your argument as a get-out-of-jail-free-and-put-IBM-in-instead card.

Try your downloads here:

http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/steliteforce2/s te f2_sp_demo.exe.html

At least these links don't require registration and logins.

You should be able to put one of these links in wget or your favourite ftp client with a timed retry.

Fromt he wget documentation here.

`--tries=number'
Set number of retries to number. Specify 0 or `inf' for infinite retrying.

`--wait=seconds'
Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals. Use of this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the requests less frequent. Instead of in seconds, the time can be specified in minutes using the m suffix, in hours using h suffix, or in days using d suffix. Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.

Adi Gadwale.

Instead of seeing a NON-free version of Eiffel, I would like to se a free version.
There already is a free compiler for Eiffel, you can download it here.

Instead of seeing a NON-free version of Eiffel, I would like to se a free version.
There already is a free compiler for Eiffel, you can download it here.

Instead of seeing a NON-free version of Eiffel, I would like to se a free version.
There already is a free compiler for Eiffel, you can download it here.

Macs are best compared in price to pre-made PCs, not home built ones.
The main reason this is true is because Macs, like pre-built PCs, come with TONS of things that you may or may not want or need (But still pay for.)

If you build your own PC, you put in (and pay for) just what you want, and add the things you dont want later on when you want them, thus spreading the cost out over time so it doesnt appear to be the total it is (even so that total would be cheaper than buying a pre-made PC or a Mac)

As for my comments on linux on the desktop, I ran that way for about 2 years (not quite, but almost, and unfortunatly not much less) between when my sold off my first mac and I became overly pissed at windows 98.

I think Win98 and X11 is about the same level of 'nasty' as far as the experence goes, they just are both nasty in very different ways and for different reasons.

Unfortunatly Windows XP fixes alot of these (Of course it introduces all new problems that didnt exist in 98, but thats a different story)

On my Athlon XP 2100+ with a gig of ram and a radeon 8500 AIW AGP card, i can still see X11 drawing windows!
Like, i can watch the windows slowly form on screen.
It only takes a second or two, but christ, any other GUI OS can pretty much do that in under a 10th of a second.

I also like having things like a clipboard that uses the same commands in every program, instead of different clipboards in each program :P

Granted none of these problems are with Linux, they are all with X11 (Something I should have listed correctly in my first post) but X11 hasnt really come much closer to being a decent GUI envirnment since it was made, where as Windows and MacOS have been actually changing and getting better over all this time.

About the only change recently in XFree is the feature in 4.x that lets it auto-generate a config file for you that mostly works.
Windows and MacOS (Any anything else for that matter) can put stuff on my screen without me having to learn more about scanlines than i ever wanted to know :P
Granted XFree half fixed that (It still screws up more often than not on hardware older than 2 years) but its sad it took them almost 10 years to add that basic feature.

When i ran X11, after trying numerous window managers and envirnments like gnome/kde, i ended up using a WM called Ratpoison, which does for X11 what screen does to a terminal.

At that point i realized, the GUI was so horible to use I made it work text based and without the mouse for the most part.
(I made the GUI work like a non GUI, defeating the point of having the GUI in the first place)

My CDE experence was on older Sparc hardware, which if you have used, you will know why that is to be hated ;)

X11 doesnt run near these speeds on any machine ive tried it on, apples X11 included.

BTW WTF is FDL?

FDL is the GNU Free Documentation License. Although other similar licenses would be just as helpful.

ed

p.s., take all the advice about keeping away from the authorities to heart; you really don't want to be cultivating stupid conformity any more than you already must do for class, do you?