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The Free Software Foundation keeps a list of free books available -- please submit your books to them by emailing <free-books@gnu.org> I'm also going to see if we can start listing books with other licenses on the Creative Commons site.

The Free Software Foundation keeps a list of free books available -- please submit your books to them by emailing <free-books@gnu.org> I'm also going to see if we can start listing books with other licenses on the Creative Commons site.

Unless GPL stands for "GNU General Public License" (which is an acceptable acronym (and probably the only time Stallman hasn't demanded a GNU-slash in front...)), in which case, it is recursive...

What you're talking about is the reason for the Lesser General Public License.

Also of note, the XForms book I'm writing for O'Reilly will be published under the GFDL.

Before publication, the text-in-progress is also available, but under a somewhat more restrictive license, at http://dubinko.info/writing/xforms/.

This policy at O'Reilly dates back to at least May 2002, when I signed the contract.

.micah

Wikipedia is a collaborative Wiki project to produce a free and complete encyclopedia in every language. The project started in January 2001 and is already working on 97179 articles in the English version, with more being added and improved all the time. Anyone can edit any article right now, without even having to log in.

The content of Wikipedia is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that it is free and will remain so forever.

That's a peculiar point of view, since the only thing the GPL does (and it does it very thoroughly) is require that the code and ALL DERIVATIONS remain out there and accessible in a practical sense. That is ALL that is being required. It, and anything you do with it, cannot be bottled up. All the things done with it must remain not merely accessible but AVAILABLE.

Yes, there's just one basic requirement. Now, a requirement, restriction, licensing term, whatever you want to call it, is why it is not free is the sense of public domain. Free software imposes its own sense of copyright, but it is still copyright, and they will sue you for infringing on it. I only understood this when I realize copyleft is just a politicized synonym for copyright.

See GNU license. (" To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights." -- mild doublespeak, no? To protect your freedom we must limit it by requiring you to acquiesce to this license.) Notice that the document invokes that hoary old term "copyright" more than a dozen times.

I'm not critizing free software -- really I think it's quite clever, inspired even -- but I believe it is merely a form of licensed software with really liberal "fair use" provisions. The copyright's holder's right to force you to comply persists throughout, so I think the political pitch is slightly misleading. I don't think it's some gross violation of freedom, but then neither is "closed" software -- if you don't like it, write your own "free" or even (gasp) public domain software. :)

On Error GoTo Hell

Or in general

GoTo ConsideredHarmful

GNU has a whole page with (more or less) funny variable names

Yes, I said they're identical, you said they're not. Only one of us is right, and it's me.

If Qualcomm were to offer a Linux port of Eudora, I'd be hard pressed to think of a reason not to switch to a Linux desktop. I've tried Evolution; it's too much like Outlook. Eudora isn't perfect (in particular, I need more sophisticated filtering abilities), but I've been using it for ten years, so only something spectacularly more powerful would make me switch. (I've only used two email programs in my life, the first was unix Berkeley mail, the second was Eudora.)

The only other application I use constantly is bbedit, but I suppose I could learn to love vim or emacs. Web browsing is already handled quite well by Mozilla and its derivatives.

I'm ready, even eager, to switch, as soon as the software is ready. Until then, MacOS X.

why not gimp? gimp does amazing things, you know...

or do you just mean "don't use gimp to edit animations". in which case, you are correct. if you had to, you could use the MPEG plugins and the animation pack to do what you need to. but the animation pack is obscenely clumsy, and the MPEG plugin seems to work almost never. (YMMV)

HOWEVER, PLEASE NOTE: fFilmGimp is on the prowl!!!!!!
http://www.gnu.org/directory/vid/misc/FilmGimp.htm l
sorry about the caps, but really really really, it looks incredible. i havent used it yet (no need, really) but it basically uses the gimp structure to work with a different kind of fFile, essentially.

also, the gimp-win lists have been barraged with promos about fFilmGimp coming to win32. it should be arriving any day now. you know, in case you like that sort of thing.

These never were the goals, and they will never be the goals. Posting articles like this makes it look like this is some kind of war, which it is not. Who the hell cares if M$ owns the desktop? The point is not to be #1, it is to make good, free (as in speech) software, for the sake of making it. It is an artistic endeavor, not a business endeavor, or haven't you all even looked at gnu.org? As long as there are artists, there will be an audience that wants to see what is being created. And, beyond that, there is the joy of creating. All of this talk of an OS battle completely misses the point.

B

The recommendation to avoid Macs is particularly bizarre considering that Macs are widely used in the graphic design and animation industries and that the most common programs used for computer illustration, photo-manipulation, and editing, are available with identical feature sets for both Mac and PC (All the adobe apps especially).

The recommendation to avoid Linux is strange since many of the high-end graphics houses that do work for film are heading towards using Linux and other free Unix-like systems, and not just for the render farm. Familiarity with Unix systems will not hurt anyone who wants to work in computer-graphics for film, it's definitely a proficiency to place prominently on the CV.

The Gimp may not be optimal for use in print design due to the lack of cmyk and lab color models (due to patent issues?), but it's been great for those doing film and web work for some time. The ease with which gimp can be scripted using perl and other programming/scripting languages is amazing.

That's my two cents. My dollar is that artistry and graphic design sense exist independent of platform and application choices. Work with what you've got. The first episode of South Park was made with construction paper, Paul Rand and Saul Bass were doing amazing designs (of the sort programs like Adobe Illustrator are often used to make) long before the personal computer existed. Use actualy physical tools or choose a platform that lets you concentrate on the art and not on futzing with the operating system. If that means Windows, Mac, or Linux to you, go for it.

While it is a little scary to have the proverbial 10,000th pounded gorilla coming after you, I think we should be happy that we're starting to make the fat cats at Micro$oft nervous.

In the past, Linux has been mostly ignored by Evil Bill and company. It made sense. Like *BSD these days, we had such a small install base that we didn't really pose much of a threat. But in the past year or two, Linux has really started to explode. It's popping up on servers, PDAs, hell, even cash registers. Suddenly, we're a force to be reckoned with.

What we need to do now is strike while the iron's hot and go for the kill. We've got them running scared, and I think one final push is all it will take to bury Windows forever, another tombstone on the side of the fabled Information Superhighway. I plan to do my part by open sourcing all of my non-sensitive projects and donating a token amount to the FSF each year. I encourage others to do more.

Just use Reiser4 in Linux and develop plugin (yes! filesystem plugin) with that functionality.

Or it can be done with Hurd's extensible FS translators.

Then make really small C library to interoperate with new open()/write() semantics. Or even make it into glibc.

Anyone can use new features then. No need to be tied to KDE libs or part of Gnome (if/when it's ported).

The GPL doesn't contain the word "link" or anything like it. Take a look. It's only mentioned once very briefly in an epilogue recommending how the GPL should be applied to new software.

Read it here!!

As the GPL license grants an unusual high level of rights to its licencesees (right to redistribute, change,...), the conditions under which these rights are granted are very stricly to be followed.

Section 2b clearly states:You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

This clearly means you cannot link your proprietary program to a GPLed library as it is including a part of the Program. SO MISTER LAWER IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG!

But, on the other hand, one can for example make out of a GPLed program a GPLed version which has a plugin architecture or allows some kind of communication with another program which is not GPLed.
Then a company can make a proprietary plugin to be used with this GPLed plugin-aware program. The combination of the two can then be distributed, and the goals of the capitalist company reached. But it is very important that the plugin-addition to the GPLed program is released under the GPL to not violate the GPL.

Clearly they have to be completely seperate code bases.

As a reminder for the new kids: this is why the choice of Linus to not allow proprietary kernel modules is a personal kernel-maintainer policy and not something automatically delivered by the GPL. Personally, I think it was a great decision which annoyed quiet a few companies (something which hardly ever hurts)

You are free (GPL) however to branch of the regular kernel tree with a seperate one who does allow proprietary kernel modules. But the success of your move will not be very likely (unless you're a maybe a company such as Microsoft).

Am I afraid of such a potential Microsoft Linux? Nah, it would make life a lot more simple and be a big step forward for the spread and adoption of Open Source software. I just hope that some of you guys wouldn't act too emotionally irrational, I guess it's a natural move.
Even Apple has a UNIX kernel these days! Why does MS always have to be the last to adopt great technologies?

"But we should not listen to these temptations..."

Although you would think I cut and pasted this out of a transcript from a church, I did not. Find it
here.

It's from this paragraph specifically:

"But we should not listen to these temptations, because we can achieve much more if we stand together. We free software developers should support one another. By releasing libraries that are limited to free software only, we can help each other's free software packages outdo the proprietary alternatives. The whole free software movement will have more popularity, because free software as a whole will stack up better against the competition."

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

--

On subject though, I am a diverse person and believe everything should be licensed in an appropriate manner, and that should be up to the author entirely(which, thankfully, it is). Yes, Proprietary Developers have money with which to develop, you know, big, faceless corporations do, smaller companies who can only eek out $1000 for a project do not have all of the money to re-implement these things. If there are FREE solutions that they can use, then there are. GPL is not FREE in the sense of FREE, but in the sense of FREE with Restrictions.

Mind you, I believe in GPL'ed software. I believe there is software that should be GPL'ed and should stay that way. But I don't call it free, it's Free With Restrictions.

I believe in Free Software, I believe in Commercial Software. I prefer free software, but sometimes when it's taken 100's of people 1000's of hours to create a large, complex program, that they should eat. If the use a Free library, then they should get paid a little less, but I still think they should eat.

Check these out:

GNU FAQ

FSF Endorses New GPL+Webservices License

The primary indication of whether a new program is a derivative work is whether the source code of the original program was used, modified, translated or otherwise changed in any way to create the new program. If not, then I would argue that it is not a derivative work.

For an interesting read of why usage constituting a derivative work would be important to free software (and is part of the GPL) read Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library from gnu.org.

I myself have written popular Java libraries that I license under the GPL (not the LGPL) because I want to encourage free software development.

If you wanted to make a movie, and in your movie you had another movie playing in the background on a tv on the set, do you think you should have the right to distribute your movie containing somebody else's movie? (Ignoring fair use such as parody) I don't think you should be able to.

The article seems to be written to allay fears of business leaders that they occur legal risk by using open source software. The article does not offer good advice. I would recommend, that if you were to use open source software in closed source, look for a license that specifically allows you to do so (such as the LGPL) rather than relying on an untested definition of derivative work.

To see how rapidly GNU's alternative to the Linux kernel is moving along, look at the Initial GNU HURD announcent in 1991 and the last announcement. Note the following phrase in the last announcement:"Popular PC devices are generally supported." What a fantastic 12 years it has been for GNU!

To see how rapidly GNU's alternative to the Linux kernel is moving along, look at the Initial GNU HURD announcent in 1991 and the last announcement. Note the following phrase in the last announcement:"Popular PC devices are generally supported." What a fantastic 12 years it has been for GNU!

Quite simply, keep all your text in a seperate file which can be compiled completely seperately from the rest of your project. The goes for Dialogs, Menus, and Labels. This primarily makes it easier to allow users to switch from one language to another.

This is called a "message catalog", by the way. It's the easiest way for almost any program to support internationalization ("I18N" = "I" + 18 letters + "N".)

On most commercial UNIX systems, the preferred library is catgets(). On Linux (GNU) systems, the preferred library is gettext(). In the FreeDOS Project we wrote an implementation of catgets(), called Cats, because it turns out to be quite easy to write. There's also another library for FreeDOS called MSGLIB that does the same thing.

What it all comes down to is containing all your strings that would be printed by the program in the "message catalog". The catgets() or gettext() is just a method to retrieve the string you want from the catalog that represents what the current language setting is (the LANG env variable under UNIX.) catgets() references each catalog by a number, and each string in the catalog by a "set" number and a "message" number, so you have three points of identification. gettext() is more complicated, and searches all open catalogs based on the untranslated string.

Since I've supported I18N using catgets() in my programs, it's been really easy to keep my Free software / open source programs up to date because volunteers from around the world will email me the message catalog for my programs, translated into their language. I just add the catalog to my distribution, and that's all I have to do to support the new language.

Of course, you also have to keep in mind the locale (monetary symbols, "." or "," as "decimal point", ...) and character set. :-)

Oh, and supporting double-byte character sets (Chinese, ...) is different.

-jh

Congratulations, you have just reinvented (a small part of) GNU gettext package! Seriously, why not just use existing and much better solutions? ... you don't have any licensing issues

GNU gettext is licensed under the viral GNU General Public License, which precludes its use in proprietary software or in free software under a GPL incompatible license. I don't know whether or not gettext provides an exception (couldn't find it in two minutes on Google without actually downloading the entire package), and even then, I'm not sure that even the GPL with the exception used in the Guile and libgnat licenses would be compatible with some viral but not "free" licenses such as the APSL.

To use gettext (Free Softare, of course).
http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/

Yes, it's *nix. Doesn't work on Windows. But didn't expect open source programmer to use Windows at the first place.

if you're not familiar yet with the good gnus [gnu.org], you may want to first acquire a browser [mozilla.org] that doesn't: begin to eXPloit you, &/or, "redirect" you, to the FraUDuleNT pourtolls of the stock markup hostage ransom scam liesense peddlers.

no phony DOWts any more?

ucann go over to father william's "free" hostdead session, if you knead this FraUDuleNT /.charade to .continue. you KNOW what to do, robbIE? @40?

if you're not familiar yet with the good gnus, you may want to first acquire a browser that doesn't: begin to eXPloit you, &/or, "redirect" you, to the FraUDuleNT pourtolls of the stock markup hostage ransom scam liesense peddlers.

no phony DOWts any more?

ucann go over to father william's "free" hostdead session, if you knead this FraUDuleNT /.charade to .continue. you KNOW what to do, robbIE? @40?

if you're not familiar yet with the good gnus, you may want to first acquire a browser that doesn't: begin to eXPloit you, &/or, "redirect" you, to the FraUDuleNT pourtolls of the stock markup hostage ransom scam liesense peddlers.

no phony DOWts any more?

ucann go over to father william's "free" hostdead session, if you knead this FraUDuleNT /.charade to .continue. you KNOW what to do, robbIE? @40?

1. http://www.gtk.org/tutorial/ch-introduction.html
2. http://www.gnu.org

This reminds me of another heavily fragmented software community.

Who is Linux's worst enemy?

Well, I do a lot of graphics editing, including resizing and thumbnailing images from digital cameras.

Welcome to the porn biz... :)

for i in *.jpg; do convert -resize 128x128 $i thumbnail/$i; done;

...where Bash and ImageMagick are your main advantage over the competition.

(Using Perl and Image::Magick is the Next Level of being a Porn Wizard.)

You'll want to read this page : http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc-3.2/c++-abi.ht ml

So, it's again the looks that matters. You are paying for the looks. Linux with KDE is truly free (GPL) and looks much better than anything else.

Actual support from the company who makes it? Patches in less than 6 months from time-of-discovery?

Huh? SIX MONTHS?! You think that's good support? Most free software will be patched the day the fault is discovered.

A wide variety of software while not having to always deal with the random software offerings from the OSS commnuity? Availablity of programs by Adobe, Macromedia and Microsoft on a non-Microsoft system

And once again you end up paying through your nose and help making these rich companies even richer at the cost of freedom.

You're probably one of those watercooling little buttdarts

I suppose you meant that as an insult, but I am, in fact, into overclocking and case modding. I like to get my hands dirty so that I could actually know how my computer has been put together, how it works and how I can replace faulty components. How about you? What if something breaks in your precious Mac? Can you fix it yourself, or do you have to ship it for repairs and cough up some hard currency again?

I hope they don't hire you as their defense attorney! You don't appear to know American law, either, or what malicious prosecution even is, and how you read it into these facts is impossible to imagine.

You missed the point of the article and my post: supposedly they've been selling millions of under-the-table CD's in addition to millions more to legit companies.

Google does not do grep, if you know what it is, it's about as far from it as a keyword-searcher can be. You wasted time repeating another post. Remarkably I was looking for references to it in English so I searched for its name in English. Because I don't speak Spanish. Which I said. So I searched for "Mekong Group." In English. And the Mekong connotation has nothing to do with what anyonw is "trouble" about. It's a connotation, get it?

Hope that clears up the details. Sorry to have confused you.

It's called "Open Source", a few of you may have heard of it.

There's a big group that controls a bunch of it called GNU -- they're wacky and pronounce the 'g' in GNU.

There's even a open source kernel called "Linux" started by some European guy. He works for some other company that does processors but spends a lot of time on the Linux thing.

Anyways, just wanted to point some folks at some other volunteer possibilities..

(although I recognize that the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software)

Read the OSI's Open Source Definition or, better yet, the original Open Source Definition Version 1.0, published in 1998, when the Open Source Initiative was founded.

Then, after you read the Open Source Definition 1.0, read The Debian Free Software Guidelines.

Now, keep in mind, that The Debian Project was officially founded in 1993. The creation of Debian was sponsored by the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project, before the Software in the Public Interest organization was formed. Debian is the only GNU/Linux distribution, which correctly use the operating system name "GNU/Linux," while all other GNU/Linux distributions refuse to give any due credit to The GNU Project, for some reason.

Now you should have some idea why "the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software."

And you should probably also have idea why so many people get so angry when most of the world is talking about Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds as the only heroes in the community -- Eric Raymond, who started the Open Source Movement and OSI in 1998 (never minding Richard Stallman who started the Free Software Movement and FSF in 1985), and Linus Torvalds, who wrote the whole operating system in 1991 (never minding, again, Richard Stallman, who started The GNU Project in 1983). See this recent farce, as an example on what I am talking about.

The facts are, that Linus Torvalds took an 8 years old operating system project, which only lacked the finished kernel, wrote a kernel and published the whole operating system (GNU system plus his own kernel) as "Linux." In my opinion, this operating system should be called simply "GNU," however Richard Stallman and the FSF wish to give both projects equal credit (for not equal work, mind you) calling the whole operating system "GNU/Linux." Still, most of the people call it just "Linux," refusing to mention GNU at all, for reasons which are beyond me. The same strange attitude we can observe with "Open Source Software" and The Open Source Initiative vs. "Free Software" and The Free Software Foundation.

Why is that so important? For a good example, see the "Linux" definition from this recent Sony Press Release from December 18, 2002:

"Linux: a Unix compatible open source operating system created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, then a graduate student at the University of Helsinki."

Now I think it should be obvious for everyone. Keep in mind that I am talking about Sony here. This is the misinformation, which most of the people outside the community will take as truth. And when anyone will start to wonder why this software was started in the first place, she will go to Linus Torvalds and OSI's explainations, because she will not even know about the GNU and The Free Software Philosophy.

I think that the "Open Source Linux OS" vs. "Free Software GNU/Linux OS" schism is very harmful to the community at large, because the people outside of the hacker subculture have not only no idea who in fact has done which work, but they also have no idea why, which is much more important.

The real reason is freedom, but when people think that they use a "Linux OS," which was written by Linus Torvalds as an "open source software," which was invented by Eric Raymond, then they will never know that it is all about freedom at all. So, they are happy with proprietary device drivers, the very same thing which made Richard Stallman start The GNU Project in the first place.

This post will probably get moderated down, as most of Slashdot users unfortunately represent the let's-never-mention-GNU attitude of the young Internet community today. Of course, at the same time, some other post will get moderated up as +5 Funny, because it says GNU/this GNU/that -- yes, very funny indeed, especially after repeating this idiotic joke million times a week, not even stopping to think why it is important to talk about freedom, as the main motivation behind The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement at large...

Sad. Very sad.

(although I recognize that the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software)

Read the OSI's Open Source Definition or, better yet, the original Open Source Definition Version 1.0, published in 1998, when the Open Source Initiative was founded.

Then, after you read the Open Source Definition 1.0, read The Debian Free Software Guidelines.

Now, keep in mind, that The Debian Project was officially founded in 1993. The creation of Debian was sponsored by the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project, before the Software in the Public Interest organization was formed. Debian is the only GNU/Linux distribution, which correctly use the operating system name "GNU/Linux," while all other GNU/Linux distributions refuse to give any due credit to The GNU Project, for some reason.

Now you should have some idea why "the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software."

And you should probably also have idea why so many people get so angry when most of the world is talking about Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds as the only heroes in the community -- Eric Raymond, who started the Open Source Movement and OSI in 1998 (never minding Richard Stallman who started the Free Software Movement and FSF in 1985), and Linus Torvalds, who wrote the whole operating system in 1991 (never minding, again, Richard Stallman, who started The GNU Project in 1983). See this recent farce, as an example on what I am talking about.

The facts are, that Linus Torvalds took an 8 years old operating system project, which only lacked the finished kernel, wrote a kernel and published the whole operating system (GNU system plus his own kernel) as "Linux." In my opinion, this operating system should be called simply "GNU," however Richard Stallman and the FSF wish to give both projects equal credit (for not equal work, mind you) calling the whole operating system "GNU/Linux." Still, most of the people call it just "Linux," refusing to mention GNU at all, for reasons which are beyond me. The same strange attitude we can observe with "Open Source Software" and The Open Source Initiative vs. "Free Software" and The Free Software Foundation.

Why is that so important? For a good example, see the "Linux" definition from this recent Sony Press Release from December 18, 2002:

"Linux: a Unix compatible open source operating system created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, then a graduate student at the University of Helsinki."

Now I think it should be obvious for everyone. Keep in mind that I am talking about Sony here. This is the misinformation, which most of the people outside the community will take as truth. And when anyone will start to wonder why this software was started in the first place, she will go to Linus Torvalds and OSI's explainations, because she will not even know about the GNU and The Free Software Philosophy.

I think that the "Open Source Linux OS" vs. "Free Software GNU/Linux OS" schism is very harmful to the community at large, because the people outside of the hacker subculture have not only no idea who in fact has done which work, but they also have no idea why, which is much more important.

The real reason is freedom, but when people think that they use a "Linux OS," which was written by Linus Torvalds as an "open source software," which was invented by Eric Raymond, then they will never know that it is all about freedom at all. So, they are happy with proprietary device drivers, the very same thing which made Richard Stallman start The GNU Project in the first place.

This post will probably get moderated down, as most of Slashdot users unfortunately represent the let's-never-mention-GNU attitude of the young Internet community today. Of course, at the same time, some other post will get moderated up as +5 Funny, because it says GNU/this GNU/that -- yes, very funny indeed, especially after repeating this idiotic joke million times a week, not even stopping to think why it is important to talk about freedom, as the main motivation behind The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement at large...

Sad. Very sad.

(although I recognize that the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software)

Read the OSI's Open Source Definition or, better yet, the original Open Source Definition Version 1.0, published in 1998, when the Open Source Initiative was founded.

Then, after you read the Open Source Definition 1.0, read The Debian Free Software Guidelines.

Now, keep in mind, that The Debian Project was officially founded in 1993. The creation of Debian was sponsored by the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project, before the Software in the Public Interest organization was formed. Debian is the only GNU/Linux distribution, which correctly use the operating system name "GNU/Linux," while all other GNU/Linux distributions refuse to give any due credit to The GNU Project, for some reason.

Now you should have some idea why "the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software."

And you should probably also have idea why so many people get so angry when most of the world is talking about Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds as the only heroes in the community -- Eric Raymond, who started the Open Source Movement and OSI in 1998 (never minding Richard Stallman who started the Free Software Movement and FSF in 1985), and Linus Torvalds, who wrote the whole operating system in 1991 (never minding, again, Richard Stallman, who started The GNU Project in 1983). See this recent farce, as an example on what I am talking about.

The facts are, that Linus Torvalds took an 8 years old operating system project, which only lacked the finished kernel, wrote a kernel and published the whole operating system (GNU system plus his own kernel) as "Linux." In my opinion, this operating system should be called simply "GNU," however Richard Stallman and the FSF wish to give both projects equal credit (for not equal work, mind you) calling the whole operating system "GNU/Linux." Still, most of the people call it just "Linux," refusing to mention GNU at all, for reasons which are beyond me. The same strange attitude we can observe with "Open Source Software" and The Open Source Initiative vs. "Free Software" and The Free Software Foundation.

Why is that so important? For a good example, see the "Linux" definition from this recent Sony Press Release from December 18, 2002:

"Linux: a Unix compatible open source operating system created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, then a graduate student at the University of Helsinki."

Now I think it should be obvious for everyone. Keep in mind that I am talking about Sony here. This is the misinformation, which most of the people outside the community will take as truth. And when anyone will start to wonder why this software was started in the first place, she will go to Linus Torvalds and OSI's explainations, because she will not even know about the GNU and The Free Software Philosophy.

I think that the "Open Source Linux OS" vs. "Free Software GNU/Linux OS" schism is very harmful to the community at large, because the people outside of the hacker subculture have not only no idea who in fact has done which work, but they also have no idea why, which is much more important.

The real reason is freedom, but when people think that they use a "Linux OS," which was written by Linus Torvalds as an "open source software," which was invented by Eric Raymond, then they will never know that it is all about freedom at all. So, they are happy with proprietary device drivers, the very same thing which made Richard Stallman start The GNU Project in the first place.

This post will probably get moderated down, as most of Slashdot users unfortunately represent the let's-never-mention-GNU attitude of the young Internet community today. Of course, at the same time, some other post will get moderated up as +5 Funny, because it says GNU/this GNU/that -- yes, very funny indeed, especially after repeating this idiotic joke million times a week, not even stopping to think why it is important to talk about freedom, as the main motivation behind The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement at large...

Sad. Very sad.

Returns: "not found"

Methinks you _don't_ understand it.

t_t_b

Maybe not against the spirit of open source, but definitely against the spirit of free software. Granted, there is no clause in the GPL that requires you to offer documentation for free, but Stallman's Right to Read essay makes everything clear that such an NDA on the documentation is not in the spirit of the GPL.

Stallman has been talking about this for some time. Although he's talking about free software and not open source software, the idea is the same.

It isnt a MIPS.
Its a CRIS

Unfortunately you cannot legally use GPLed components with SWT-linked programs. As someone has already pointed out, the CPL that Eclipse/SWT uses is incompatible with the GPL. This completely defeats the idea of having a 100% free environment using GCJ. I hope IBM will follow the Mozilla example and double license Eclipse (or at least the SWT parts) under the CPL and LGPL.

It is incredible that you can speak of enjoying free software and curse RMS in the same breath.

This statement is heresy ONLY if you believe Free Software and RMS are synonymous. I believe they are not. Free Software existed well before RMS, and will exist well after he is gone. He only "created" Free Software if you accept his conceit that Free Software is only software that follows his definitions of Free. I do not. He has contributed a lot to this world, but didn't invent the world. Many people don't realize that The Cathedral and the Bazaar wasn't necessarily contrasting the development styles of commercial software vs. free software, but different styles of development within Free Software itself, and the RMS driven gcc was the example of the "closed" Cathedral. Because of the lack of innovation in gcc, especially around the time ANSI C++ came out and it needed large changes, folks forked gcc into egcs, a more "bazaar" style development model, that eventually became the offical gcc. Or are you saying Eric Raymond has nothing to say on the topic of Free Software because he differs with RMS?

Or if this was a troll, nevermind.

Could one, for instance, now compile a Java program using the SWT library to a native binary using GCJ, so it could be run without using a JVM?

Yes.

SWT takes a middle ground between the extremes of AWT and Swing, and abandons a sacred cow of Sun's- the idea that the same binary must run on all platforms without any modifications. This attitude has really been an albatross around Java's neck and is the reason everyone thinks that Java applications have to be cheesy- because Sun demands that they must be equally cheesy everywhere!

AWT takes the approach that ALL widgets are drawn by the native layer. This isn't a bad idea, except that if no native widget is available (like a slider, or tree), AWT refuses to improvise one at the Java level. This is why there are no sliders or trees in AWT, even on platforms like Windows where native widgets for both are present, because there's some platform out there somewhere that doesn't have them. Maybe AIX or something, who knows. AWT is strictly lowest-common-denominator and that's why everyone hates it.

People bitched and moaned. So Sun went straight to the opposite extreme with Swing, which refuses to even consider the native widgets. Instead, it uses Java level methods to draw pictures of them to fool you. This means that Swing can offer you a "pluggable look and feel", so you can have Motif buttons on Windows, or "Metal" buttons on the Mac! Except nobody cares. Microsoft promptly kicked Swing in the nuts by introducing skins with XP, so it becomes obvious what is really Windows and what is pretending to look like Windows but can't keep up. And Swing suffers greatly from the second system effect- it's overengineered as hell. A Hello World in Swing gobbles up 20 MB of overhead- mostly classes loading and initializing themselves. In fact, Swing is why AWT is still alive. AWT sucks, but you can run a program that lasts for more than a couple minutes with it. Writing stable applications with Swing is a real art. (It is in AWT too, but only because Sun has pretty much left AWT flapping in the wind with minimal improvements, maintenance, or bug fixes. Since Swing came along, AWT has been treated like a red-headed stepchild by Sun.)

SWT is much more like AWT than Swing, except that it takes a practical middle ground- something Sun doesn't seem capable of doing at all! It offers you a nice set of native widgets. If a slider or a tree isn't available on some platform, they draw a picture of one for you. This might make sliders and trees look funny on platforms that lack sliders and trees, but you would expect things to look funny on those platforms. People using Windows (i.e. most of them) aren't bothered by any of this.

This sacrifices binary compatibility. Each platform has its own version of the SWT library. For example, there is a Windows specific swt.jar and a swt.dll that goes with it, and there is a Solaris version of swt.jar and a native swt.so library that it uses. Even though the libraries are implemented completely differently, the public interfaces are the same. So if you develop a program against the Windows version of the SWT library, you won't have any problem compiling against the Linux version. (Although I've heard that SWT blows on Linux, but that was a while ago and I don't know what the current state is.)

SWT doesn't abstract much away from you, unlike AWT, where you are separated from the low level GUI details by a leaky abstraction. In SWT you have to write the frigging event loop yourself! (Which is not a big deal- it's a while loop, usually two lines.) There are a few other gotchas, and you absolutely have to test a SWT program on all platforms you're releasing for, but in practical terms the same was always true for AWT because of the leakiness of its abstraction. SWT at least doesn't pretend that you don't have to worry about this stuff.

This means you have to compile and test a program three times before releasing it, once for Windows, once for Linux, once for Mac. This violates Sun's sacred cow of binary compatibility. But when you're releasing a Java application, you're going to make separate installers for each platform anyway, because you have to bundle a JVM for everybody. So it's not really a big deal, unless you're writing an applet- and applets went the way of the dodo long ago in no small part because of AWT and Swing!

With SWT, you can make really nice, professional looking programs. The layer between you and the OS is very thin (JNI). If your program looks silly or stupid, it's YOUR fault. When the user changes the skin in XP, your SWT programs will pick up the change right away. In fact, it isn't even obvious that you're not using C! You can write your stuff in Java and actually get away with it! So that's why I think SWT is the future (if there is any future left anymore) of Java on the client, and why I will be junking AWT/Swing completely when starting new projects.

For more info see the SWT FAQ. There is some GCJ and SWT info available here.

That's the whole problem, if there is a viable alternative then Microsoft will buy the company.

This is where GNU actually makes sense. Write a viable alternative using the GPL, and even if Microsoft buys out the company, the source will still be available for someone to download, compile, edit, and even start another company with.

Moderate down the appeaser who wrote the parent post. We the people who read Slashdot will not rest until Free Software has vanquished all the Micro$oft crap and freedom prevails.

You should take a look on GNUstep + 3DKit ...

GNUstep (url) is an OpenStep implementation. It aims to be multiplatform (even if for now it's mostly linux/bsd based... under Windows it's alpha state), and as Mac OS X is also an OpenStep implementation, it's really easy to write GNUstep apps and port them to Mac OS X (in fact most time you only have to create a new project in ProjectBuilder, add your files, redo you nib with InterfaceBuilder, and voila, it's done). Take a look at GNUMail for an example of a GNUstep/MacOSX program.

Big advantage of GNUstep is the OpenStep framework (Foundation and AppKit), which is really powerfull and easy to use, along with RAD GUI builder (Gorm on GNUstep, InterfaceBuilder on Cocoa); You could program in Objective C or Java (But Objective C is nicer imho), or even in ruby/smalltalk .. ;)

It should be easy to add scripting to your application with StepTalk (url) and AppTalk (url), and 3DKit is a framework for creating 3D Scenes (url) ...

If you want some tutorials, check this site

For your GUI, take a look at GNUstep. It supports Linux, the BSDs, Solaris and Windows and is (pretty much) compatible with Cocoa.

For your 3D graphic stuff, take a look at the GNU 3DKit.

The review talks about the issues with trying to partition a hard drive to install linux. I suppose most people would reformat and repartition to do this, but not having a real install CD, or not wanting to reinstall is a big downer.

So I would like to just remind everyone of Parted, the GNU partition utility. It can create, resize, move, and delete most filesystems. The notable exception is NTFS. If you follow that link there's a nice chart that shows exactly what Parted can do with each filesystem.

So if your Windows is on a FAT partition, parted can resize it such that you don't have to reformat, much like Partition Magic, but it's of course free. And, you don't need a working Linux system to install it, there are bootable floppy images available for download. It's main drawback is the user interface, but if you read the Docs first you should be able to do most simple operations without really understanding the details.