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As a previous poster said, albeit sarcastically, it seems odd that you've put up with Visual Basic with its numerous flaws and 'lock in' attitude for so many years you're now looking to bail out when the development platform your company has chosen has improved dramatically.

My personal opinion is that .NET is a great development environment. As a long standing C/C++/Java developer (I hate to admit to VB in public), it's taken me a very short time to get to grips with the Framework - the language you use is largely irrelevent, but I have to admit I went for C# - which is the major bulk of any learning effort required in getting up to speed with .NET

Other posters have also pointed out that there are Open Source efforts underway to port .NET to Linux (Mono and DotGNU

Make no mistake; the Redmond behemoth is not going to let .NET just curl up and die. If I were you, I'd use it as a stepping stone to your Open Source ideals. Ahh, how delicious is *that* irony?

If by "mainstream" he means dominant and common, Uncle Sam gave us the answer, illegal monopoly. Yep, if free software came installed on PCs right out of the box and enjoyed it's obvious price advantage, it would be dominant by now. There's nothing more difficult about maintaining a Linux box than an M$ infected computer that the end of anti-competitive practices would not prevent. New M$ junk won't even run on some of my computers. As someone else pointed out Apple has taken Open software and sold and supported it without any technical problems. We can also point to the fact that there are just as many, if not more happy Linux users as there are happy Mac users.

It's happening anyway. Despite the best efforts of the "entertainment" industry to push DRM, people are turning from M$. They are willing to put up with the possible inability to listen to new music formats (WMA) and watch digital movies for the sake of ownership of their computers and their information. That is mainstream! Joe sixpacks is not going to go for the $1,000 stereo that breaks every two years that is WinXP. If that's all Joe is interested in, he may abandon computers alltogether for set top boxes. The rest of the computer using population will continue to move towards free software for it's superior tool sets. It's so simple even a dumbass like me can see it.

What kind of graduate student would be asking questions like this and holding forth such eleitist attitutdes? Let's look at the page. Hint one, name of course, " New Product Development." Product? Oh Lord! He's a Mechanical Engineer like me. Here's some help, Prabhu,

• Front page does not comply with W3C or IEEE specs, so I can't read the buttons on your page. Try Bluefish.
  
• The differences between Open and Free software are a source of contention, but you can find a good opinion here.
  
• Don't Slashdot your page!
  
• When you need software for your Mechanical Engineering Project, hire someone with a BS in CS, or find a reputable consultant. If they mention M$, keep looking.
  

Good luck with your paper.

Actually, HURD stands for Hird of Unix Replacing Daemons. That being the point of the GNU's Not Unix OS. The various processes running on top of MACH simulate (or are meant to simulate) the POSIX/UNIX api we all know and love/hate. The cool thing if (when?) it matures is that it will allow things like mounting file-systems and other kernel-modulesque processes in userspace.

This is an attempt to clarify some issues. Correct me if I'm wrong, Darwin's histroy is complicated and I might be off here and there. In my opinion, the question if GNU-Darwin is Apple Darwin or not is the mirror image of asking if Linux with BSD toolchain instead of GNU toolchain is Linux or not. Darwin is an operating system developed by Apple, which serves as a basis for OS X.

Apple's Darwin distribution is a BSD flavor, with a kernel based on CMU Mach, and most of the utilities taken from FreeBSD. It is released under the APSL.

GNU-Darwin is a distribution of Darwin with some favorite GNU software ported to it, as well as the FreeBSD ports tree. It is not Free Software, as the Darwin part is APSL, and thus considered non-free by the FSF. Despite its name, its not a GNU package either. Nor is it GNU/Darwin, as that would imply that it is the GNU system on a Darwin kernel; AFAIK GNU-Darwin is a BSD system.

I don't know anything about OpenDarwin and am too lazy to go find out right now. Hopefully I have managed to enlightened some of you who were wondering what all this is.

This is an attempt to clarify some issues. Correct me if I'm wrong, Darwin's histroy is complicated and I might be off here and there. In my opinion, the question if GNU-Darwin is Apple Darwin or not is the mirror image of asking if Linux with BSD toolchain instead of GNU toolchain is Linux or not. Darwin is an operating system developed by Apple, which serves as a basis for OS X.

Apple's Darwin distribution is a BSD flavor, with a kernel based on CMU Mach, and most of the utilities taken from FreeBSD. It is released under the APSL.

GNU-Darwin is a distribution of Darwin with some favorite GNU software ported to it, as well as the FreeBSD ports tree. It is not Free Software, as the Darwin part is APSL, and thus considered non-free by the FSF. Despite its name, its not a GNU package either. Nor is it GNU/Darwin, as that would imply that it is the GNU system on a Darwin kernel; AFAIK GNU-Darwin is a BSD system.

I don't know anything about OpenDarwin and am too lazy to go find out right now. Hopefully I have managed to enlightened some of you who were wondering what all this is.

1. Apple's Darwin.
2. GNU Darwin, and
3. OpenDarwin.

Gee nice flame

Thanx, guess that's better than a "shabby" flame.

why is it that everybody else here seems to agree that one of the issues is theft?

Maybe because those who take the time to think about what they say have less time left over to hit the "submit" button?

So if copyright infringement in this case is not stealing, why is it not?

Because data is not the same thing as material goods. There are numerous dialogues on this topic. Here is one easy list to remember on a related topic. The gist is that having copied a peice of data, I have not in any way diminshed the original data. It is quite plain that copying a file off of your hard-drive is very different than taking a beer out of your fridge and drinking it. In drinking a beer I've lowered your beer count by one. In copying a file I diminish your data count by none.

Okay, so data is different than physical objects. But what does stealing mean?

----From dictionary.com----
v. stole, (stl) stolen, (stln) stealing, steals
v. tr.

1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2. To get or effect surreptitiously or artfully: steal a kiss; stole the ball from an opponent.
3. To move, carry, or place surreptitiously.
4. To draw attention unexpectedly in (an entertainment), especially by being the outstanding performer: The magician's assistant stole the show with her comic antics.
5. Baseball. To advance safely to (another base) during the delivery of a pitch, without the aid of a base hit, walk, passed ball, or wild pitch.
---------------------

Clearly sense 1 applies here, but in the case of copyright infringement what is owned by the copyright holder (exclusive right to authorize copies) is only partially subsumed. The infringer does not put their name on the registered copyright document and begin sueing others for infringement (that would be plaguerism, which is much closer to stealing), they merely disregard the exclusive granted right.

What *is* stealing?
1) Breaking, entering and leaving with physical goodies.
2) Credit card fraud.
3) Pretending to work on company time. (like posting to slashdot for instance)
4) Lieing on income tax returns.

What *isn't* stealing?
1) Trespassing. Land, has many characteristics in common with other physical property. And yet, occupying that land without permission is not considered stealing. It is trespassing. Stealing the land would require taking full ownership, not just partial unauthorized use.

Looking over this list, it's plain that copying data without permission (copyright infringement) is very different than other activity associated with "stealing". If anything it has more in common with trespassing, another activity that only affects part of a property right. But even trespassing deals in limited physical goods whereas copyright deals with unlimited logical goods.

Because of this and similar issues, copyright and property laws have very seperate paths of evolution. Even today, you would not go into court being unsure whether you were charged with stealing a physical good or infringing on another's right to copy.

This isn't to say copyright infringement is "okay" or that it is not a crime. Merely that it is not the same thing as stealing. It also doesn't imply that wielding teams of lawyers and a weighty judicial system against "joe sixpack" to squeeze more cash out of him is a morally agreeable or ethically defensible activity.

This is to say copyright infringement is not the same as stealing. It also implies the motivations of anyone pushing the infringement=stealing notion are suspect.

Be specific please.

You asked for it!

You know I hate to be the stick in the mud, but...

Damn has slashdot changed! A while back, slashdot was essentially a site that was a part of the free software community. Now, we have people giving advice to others about how to hoard software and keep code away from others. We have a site that posts questions ASKING for advice on how to take people's ability to share away from them, and a culture that almost believes that software is only useful insofar as you can make a buck off of it.

All of the so-called communist hippy free software "dogma" that a lot of people complain about on this site was the enabler of this site, this discussion, and most of the internet technology that makes it possible for us to communicate together here in this forum, but still people denigrate it with all of the typical ad-hominem nonsense, figuring that if a comment about RMS not washing his beard can be made to stick, it somehow invalidates 20 years of work by GNU.

There's a reason why the free software "dogma" (as people love to incorrectly label it) exists, and a lot of it culminates in avoiding situations that lead to discussions like this. "How best can we prevent our neighbor from sharing software? How best can we keep a stranglehold over the software?" It's actually kind of depressing.

Why not stand up for freedom?

You will retain copy rights to the program, and they will get the source code. Everyone wins!

> Of course if you actually want to write a
> program which *does* something it is probably
> not for you.

Take a look at mldonkey, a free edonkey2k client written in objective CAML.

Whereas these days you can go to a website plonk down $0 and walk out with a suitcase full of compilers.

Kidding aside, I'm curious about text editors for win32. Sure, there are quite a few (CrimsonEditor is my current favorite, with Source Edit close behind) but, like any good geek, I'm looking for The Best ;).

Ports of Emacs or Vi[m] to win32 don't interest me very much, primarily because I enjoy the hotkey conventions that I'm used to already in win32 (Ctrl-C to copy, Ctrl-X to cut, and so on). Really, I'm looking for one with syntax highlighting for languages such as HTML and CSS, and a tabbed-interface. Are there any Super Great editors that I should check out?

As has been seen with many other projects, the code gets branched at that point and progress towards and stable and bug-free final release is hindered.

Forking the project does not in itself hinder one fork from proceeding. The trouble with non-copylefted Free Software licenses are popular proprietary derivatives because then you are competing with what is partially your own work. If the proprietary improvements are patented as well you'll find it much more difficult to write a compatible substitute. As I understand it, the Ogg Theora team's choice of license is strategic.

Beta software should be released under a restrictive license. [...] This would force bugfixes back into the main branch [...]

I disagree. I don't think the freedoms of Free Software disappear or become unimportant just because the software is a pre-release. You cannot force people to help you with your software. You might not get the help you want unless you show you're willing to let them share what you've done.

Honest question, not a troll: does anybody care what the FSF thinks about this?

Yes, I care because the GNU GPL is the preeminent Free Software license. I care because the FSF is concerned with everyone's freedom to share and modify software, and that includes me. Their mission requires thorough analysis of the ethics and freedoms of Free Software, an analysis I think the FSF has done an excellent job of providing. This concern includes talking about patents that adversely affect those freedoms.

From the looks of things, there are a few hardliners who believe the FSF really knows what's what[...]

It's also possible people believe the FSF knows "what's what" because these people have considered the matter of Free Software seriously and reached a conclusion compatible with the FSF's position. The FSF has been around dutifully working on Free Software issues for so long many people have had the opportunity to learn what the FSF stands for.

A good example of this is the recent "GNU/Linux" thing. There are a few posters here who still insist on referring to it as "GNU/Linux," but nobody else really paid any attention.

Judging by the size of the Slashdot thread when the FSF published their GNU/Linux FAQ I'd say a lot of Slashdot readers paid attention--it was quite a popular discussion for Slashdot. I think it is fair to give credit where credit is due, and it is reasonable to draw fine distinctions in order to speak and understand things more clearly. I find calling the union of the GNU operating system and the Linux kernal "GNU/Linux" to be helpful to both of those ends. I also find the term helpful to instruct other people on why GNU is so important, and helpful to explain what Linus Torvalds contributed.

The FSF's point here is that W3C RF policy will not just make OSS implementations difficult, it will make it, in some cases, impossible.

That misses a big part of their point. The FSF speaks in support of the Free Software movement, not the Open Source movement. The difference between the two movements is key to understanding the root of their problem with the W3C's patent policy.

The Open Source movement discourages you from paying attention to software freedom. This can result in ignoring barriers that prevent everyone from sharing software and modifying software to suit their needs. The GNU GPL, the most popular Free Software license, is only an Open Source license because the OSI defined their terms broadly enough to include the GPL in an approved license list. The Free Software Foundation did the work behind the GNU GPL: they determined which issues the license would address, they wrote the GPL to address those issues, and they have maintained the GPL through today. Much of this work occurred well before the Open Source movement began.

So please give credit where credit is due and do not cite this work in the context of the wrong movement.

Copyright code offered "royalty-free but with constraints" is sort of a poisoned apple.

It is, but it's important to note we're talking about implementations of patented ideas. Implementations of patented ideas are usually under copyright but it is the terms of the patent that are chiefly at issue. Patents and copyrights are distinctly different segments of law but are commonly thrown together in a mish-mash some people call "intellectual property" (a term which is inappropriate in more ways than is apropos to talk about here).

You can use it in the intended application, but the code using it can never be GPL.

The patent policy under discussion can adversely affect the entire Free Software community regardless of which Free Software license is involved, not just GNU GPL licensees.

The FSF's point here is that W3C RF policy will not just make OSS implementations difficult, it will make it, in some cases, impossible.

That misses a big part of their point. The FSF speaks in support of the Free Software movement, not the Open Source movement. The difference between the two movements is key to understanding the root of their problem with the W3C's patent policy.

The Open Source movement discourages you from paying attention to software freedom. This can result in ignoring barriers that prevent everyone from sharing software and modifying software to suit their needs. The GNU GPL, the most popular Free Software license, is only an Open Source license because the OSI defined their terms broadly enough to include the GPL in an approved license list. The Free Software Foundation did the work behind the GNU GPL: they determined which issues the license would address, they wrote the GPL to address those issues, and they have maintained the GPL through today. Much of this work occurred well before the Open Source movement began.

So please give credit where credit is due and do not cite this work in the context of the wrong movement.

Copyright code offered "royalty-free but with constraints" is sort of a poisoned apple.

It is, but it's important to note we're talking about implementations of patented ideas. Implementations of patented ideas are usually under copyright but it is the terms of the patent that are chiefly at issue. Patents and copyrights are distinctly different segments of law but are commonly thrown together in a mish-mash some people call "intellectual property" (a term which is inappropriate in more ways than is apropos to talk about here).

You can use it in the intended application, but the code using it can never be GPL.

The patent policy under discussion can adversely affect the entire Free Software community regardless of which Free Software license is involved, not just GNU GPL licensees.

And they're shameless about it, too! If you want to donate some code to the FSF, they demand that you sign over the copyright on the code to them! We had some legacy software here (I work for Lockheed in Fort Worth, and we have a collection of Ada libraries that we don't use any more) that we wanted to donate to the FSF and they said that they wouldn't accept it unless we signed over the copyright to them!

They have good reasons for this policy. If you think this is only a theoretical concern, look up the early history of the development of GNU Emacs. RMS originally based GNU Emacs off code whose copyright had not been assigned to the FSF, but which he had been told he had permission to use by a contibuter to the original codebase. He was later forced to remove that code after being threatened by a company who had bought the copyright from another contributer (James Gosling) to that project.

This infomation can be found here. Do a search for "Gosling", to find the relevant part.

~Phillip

And they're shameless about it, too! If you want to donate some code to the FSF, they demand that you sign over the copyright on the code to them! We had some legacy software here (I work for Lockheed in Fort Worth, and we have a collection of Ada libraries that we don't use any more) that we wanted to donate to the FSF and they said that they wouldn't accept it unless we signed over the copyright to them!

They have good reasons for this policy. If you think this is only a theoretical concern, look up the early history of the development of GNU Emacs. RMS originally based GNU Emacs off code whose copyright had not been assigned to the FSF, but which he had been told he had permission to use by a contibuter to the original codebase. He was later forced to remove that code after being threatened by a company who had bought the copyright from another contributer (James Gosling) to that project.

This infomation can be found here. Do a search for "Gosling", to find the relevant part.

~Phillip

In this case, the executable includes a digital signature (it isn't runnable without the digital signature), and the source used to generate that digital signature is Microsoft's private key. (note: IANAL)

Neither am I, but it seems that the GNU GPL, section 3, specifically excludes any software that came with the OS or the compiler toolchain from the requirement of distribution of source code. Because the linker signs the app, those who distribute signed binaries of GPL'd software do not need to distribute the system vendor's private key.

I think you're confusing EFF and FSF. EFF is nothing to do with RMS.

Another foolproof (and currently expensive) way to avoid detection is to amplify the signal from the antenna to a point where it can suitably be fed into an analog-to-digital converter where it can be decoded digitally. This, in essence, is a software radio. No telltale signals of any sort are emitted at all.

There's a lot of problems with the above post!

First, let's get the nitpick out of the way: Why do you call someone starting a new software project "deviant"? "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software." Surely this also includes the freedom to fork or start new projects.

Next, the vaporware point - there are two counter-arguments here. If you don't like giving money to vaporware, don't! Support released projects, if you feel it's worth it. Also, the page linked to in the article specifically mentions: "Details: In short, Authors (the programmers of the software) first publish their work under a Ransom License (a special proprietary license)." (My italics.) It's not about paying for vaporware, it's about buying software if you think it's a worthwhile investment, with the possibility that it may become Free in the future, with all the associated benefits.

I believe that this model may be suitable for a great number of projects. I am sure many people's gripe with Microsoft, RIAA et al is not that they sell their digital information as a commercial product, which we can choose to buy or ignore, but that the business model they use does not reflect the real costs. It costs a lot of money to design, code, and market a product, but then it's cheap to duplicate that product. Trouble is, we are made to pay for these items long after the amortised cost of development has been returned - hence the astronomical profits of some successful companies.

These factors apply at different scales to many different products - and some scales are currently out of reach for Free Software. The principle is that it does take an investment of time and money to do some things (whether you personally think they should be done that way or not), and that this method may be a good way to gain a reasonable return on that investment without locking the product into a higher price in perpetuity than necessary.

Yes, it's similar to copyright - you get a limited time to exploit a body of work in order to realise a return, but then it's available for The Public Good. Do you think a non-profit organisation could have made the LOTR trilogy without being able to deliver some commercial benefit to its backers? How cool would it be, now that it has made millions for the studio, if legitimate high quality digital copies were available for the cost of making the DVD?

I'll finish (finally) with an example - a group of programmers would like to create an advanced compatibility driver set for GNU/Linux, to match or beat the drivers already available for Windows, for a large range of hardware. However, to buy one of each piece of hardware for testing, to look at the detailed product documentation (which is all freely supplied by hardware makers, naturally), to write the drivers, test them, to have somewhere to do it, and to publish them will take money. Say, $500,000 - even if the programmer's time is gratis. More if they need to eat and/or sleep. With Windows, you pay for that cost, a real cost, in every copy of Windows you buy for every computer. Let's say it contributes $5 to the retail price. But with the Ransom model, you decide - is it worth $5 to me to have the advanced compatability set? If yes, you hand over your $5, and when the development group has been returned their $500,000, it becomes Free for everyone.

You still have the product that you decided was worth $5, except now it's Free software.
You may not have decided it was worth $5, but now it's freely available, you can get the benefit, some time later.
The developers were able to access the funds to this project because they were able to show how they would return the investment.
This project got done where it would not have been done otherwise, because of such backing.

Get them and get ready to write your DotGNU programs and well ... GNU supports this , so for a change sell your soul to .GNU

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). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

It is within your right under tha authors' chosen license that you may modify the source and make it publically available (which it must be :)).

Pine was around BEFORE the GPL

did you read the EULA [microsoft.com]? You just sold your soul! 1 d (e)"indemnify, hold harmless, and defend Microsoft from and against any claims or lawsuits, including attorneys' fees, that arise or result from ...."

save $100 off the cost of a win2k license

Dabs.com asks GBP 269.07 (plus carriage) for Windows 2000 and either GBP 163.32 (limited "home" edition) or GBP 231.47 ("professional" edition) for Windows XP. This compares with under GBP 10 for a set of binary CDs from almost any such vendor. The difference is rather more than USD 100. And you'll need to pay this for every PC that may at some time run Windows.

all flash intensive with tons of cool intel/windows only games

Flash works fine with Mozilla 1.2a/1.2b. (It may not work with Mozilla 1.1a.) Java, on the other hand, does not (at least not with Mozilla compiled with GCC 3.0 or later).

When they hit high school, then's where you spring your plan -- by getting them their OWN pcs, older machines running Linux, for school use.

Isn't that a bit late? By then, change may be difficult or impossible once they are indoctrinated into the "Windows way".

Perhaps a better idea would be to seek out and/or create suitable software on GNU/Linux (or, even better, portable to most current platforms). There is a small amount in the Free Software Directory.

Projects seem to go one of two ways on code ownership issues: contributors assign ownership to the project maintainer (e.g. FSF projects), or contributors retain ownership of files they wrote (e.g. Linux kernel). Given that people are threatening you, it sounds like you're wanting to take ownership of the contributed code and distribute it.

The FSF have some good information on how to run a project, including a section on legal matters that covers getting the appropriate paper work from contributors before you integrate their code. Unfortunately I don't see how you get access to the actual text of the documents to replicate this process for yourself. Perhaps you could make your project an FSF project?

What's next? A /. post on the Biggest Card House In The World Live TV show? A story on My Cat Can Jump Wider Than Yours afternoon tv feature? Or what about these shows where neurotic parents make their kids dress up like Ms. Spears or Mr. Jackson and mimic to their songs? Maybe we need a new Section here, called Irrelevant TV Shows which I can ignore...

(In fact, I might want that Mini Playback Show stuff to be mentioned here as soon as some geek parents make their son dress up like RMS and have him sing this song... That would be worth a video tape. But that's a different thing, right? .)

Its great that the kernel is getting a bugzilla.

However, attention must be drawn to the plight of the poor, unfortunate GCC hackers, who are still having to put up with an inferior bug tracking system, despite a flurry of activity earlier in the year, it seems that little progress has been made on implementation. Lets all hope that GCC hackers don't have to continue to suffer the pain of crappy bug tracking for too much longer.

Its great that the kernel is getting a bugzilla.

However, attention must be drawn to the plight of the poor, unfortunate GCC hackers, who are still having to put up with an inferior bug tracking system, despite a flurry of activity earlier in the year, it seems that little progress has been made on implementation. Lets all hope that GCC hackers don't have to continue to suffer the pain of crappy bug tracking for too much longer.

Its great that the kernel is getting a bugzilla.

However, attention must be drawn to the plight of the poor, unfortunate GCC hackers, who are still having to put up with an inferior bug tracking system, despite a flurry of activity earlier in the year, it seems that little progress has been made on implementation. Lets all hope that GCC hackers don't have to continue to suffer the pain of crappy bug tracking for too much longer.

Dude, just their home dirs?? If you lose /etc you're up shit creek...

*** Begin /root/bin/bkpcrit
#!/bin/sh
# Backup critical files (hopefully)

dest='/mnt/zippy'
mount $dest

[ -e "$dest/NOTHERE" ] && echo "$dest NOT MOUNTED" && exit 99

# "If" checking for NOTHERE file...

dest=$dest'/linux-p233'
echo $dest = PK
read

mkdir $dest

# Copy this bkp script to zippy
cp $0 $dest
cp ~/localinfo.dat $dest

time {
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-ETC-suse.tar.gz /etc
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-rootbin-suse.tar.gz /root
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-davesrc-suse.tar.gz /home/dave/src
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-davebin-suse.tar.gz /home/dave/bin
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-usr-local-suse.tar.gz /usr/local
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-var-adm-inst-log.tar.gz /var/adm/inst-log
}

ls $dest -al
df $dest
exit

Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 and beyond David J Bechtel

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

The GNU Copyleft

You're showing a very common misconception about the point of the Thompson article. The problem is much, much deeper than your post suggests. And it's a problem that hits open source and closed source.

Let's say that you don't trust ANYBODY, so you decide to write your own compiler. And from now on, you're only going to run code that you've personally examined and compiled in your own personal compiler.

So, you write your own compiler. What language did you use? C? Well, you'll need to compile it then, won't you. What compiler are you going to use? Do you trust it?

The point of the article isn't just that you can't trust code you (and the open source community) haven't personally examined. You can't trust code unless you've personally built the entire compilation and execution environment using trusted code, from the ground up.

So think about the OS you're running right now. Is it Linux that you compiled from source? How can you trust gcc? If you do trust it, how do you trust the compiler that was used to compile gcc, etc? [See the gcc web site for info on how gcc is actually built using multi-stage bootstrapping]

An understanding of this concept will make you see computer security in the jaded way that true security experts see it: there is no such thing. Chances are that we all got our systems up and running from some public Linux distro. If the maker of that distro wanted into your box, they'd be there.

The question is, where did you get your software? Do you trust them? If getting your software from a bunch of hackers makes you nervous, getting it from Microsoft should, in my opinion, terrify you. At least we have forums like this (and folks like the Houston Linux team) to catch and fix the problems.

Loading a video game ROM into MAME is just like linking

I wouldn't be so sure. MAME is an interpreter. According to the GPL FAQ, the interpreted program is just data, and loading data into a program usually does not count as linking.

MAME was always open source. Saying it was "not-so-open" isn't true. All the source was free to download and look at. That's open source.

No, MAME was never Open Source because MAME's license was never approved by OSI, and no, merely seeing the source code is not all there is to Open Source (as the Open Source definition points out in the first sentence). It's easy to arrive at that misunderstanding however, many people merely take the definitions of the words "open" and "source" and arrive at that conclusion.

For a more thorough understanding of the differences between the Open Source and Free Software movements, I encourage you to read the definitions of both terms and this essay because it does not address one movement or the other by name calling like the OSI's FAQ does.

MAME was free software, but only free as in beer. It wasn't free as in speech. The change to (L)GPL would make it free software.

Sorry about the anonymous post. When I try to make a subtle point, I always get "-1 overrated" by people who don't read carefully. I don't know why I let the bother me, since I still gain unneeded karma.

Last time I checked, GCC source tarballs STILL aren't signed, despite this being brought to the maintainer's attention. The perception that MD5 sums are sufficient is extremely common.

Trojaned gcc, anyone?

Does anybody know if this uses anything from GNU's Free Film Project?

I haven't really heard much about the project myself and so I haven't looked, but from what I read on GNU's info page about it it seems pretty interesting. Also the GNU Octal stuff seems interesting, what about that, every decent film editor has at least rudimentary sound manipulation utilities.

If they're not, can anybody give reasons why? Projects like those and GYVE (GNU Yellow Vector Editor) are things that confirm my faith in GNU and RMS in my times of doubt.

Does anybody know if this uses anything from GNU's Free Film Project?

I haven't really heard much about the project myself and so I haven't looked, but from what I read on GNU's info page about it it seems pretty interesting. Also the GNU Octal stuff seems interesting, what about that, every decent film editor has at least rudimentary sound manipulation utilities.

If they're not, can anybody give reasons why? Projects like those and GYVE (GNU Yellow Vector Editor) are things that confirm my faith in GNU and RMS in my times of doubt.

Does anybody know if this uses anything from GNU's Free Film Project?

I haven't really heard much about the project myself and so I haven't looked, but from what I read on GNU's info page about it it seems pretty interesting. Also the GNU Octal stuff seems interesting, what about that, every decent film editor has at least rudimentary sound manipulation utilities.

If they're not, can anybody give reasons why? Projects like those and GYVE (GNU Yellow Vector Editor) are things that confirm my faith in GNU and RMS in my times of doubt.

Does anybody know if this uses anything from GNU's Free Film Project?

I haven't really heard much about the project myself and so I haven't looked, but from what I read on GNU's info page about it it seems pretty interesting. Also the GNU Octal stuff seems interesting, what about that, every decent film editor has at least rudimentary sound manipulation utilities.

If they're not, can anybody give reasons why? Projects like those and GYVE (GNU Yellow Vector Editor) are things that confirm my faith in GNU and RMS in my times of doubt.

Under the states' plan, online sellers would be required to purchase approved software to compute the appropriate state and local taxes or to certify with the state any in-house calculation systems already in place. E-tailers could choose to outsource tax collection to a certified third-party under the states' plan.

So far, participating states have conducted only one tax software pilot, involving four states, three technology vendors, and one online seller. Of the technology vendors participating in the pilot, just one -- Salem, Mass.-based Taxware, working in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard -- managed to get a system up and running.

I hope that the states don't go with a "trusted client" model that requires a specific piece of proprietary software in the point-of-sale system, and possibly a monopoly publisher. Write your state legislatures and ask them to consider the use of free software in this interstate catalog/internet sales tax measure should it pass.

. . . or ^d.

So my question to the Slashdot community is when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will pay for applications and not always assume they are free?

You seem to miss the whole point of free software.

I am one of people who will pay for applications and always assume they should be free, by which I mean that they should give me enough freedom -- see The Free Software Definition, What do you mean by Free Software?, or The Debian Free Software Guidelines (or The Open Source Definition, which is basically Debian Free Software Guidelines rewritten).

My question would be: when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will always assume that software should be free?

Think about it -- the answer will surely be somewhere between your question and mine. If you want to sell proprietary software working under free software operating systems, which exist only because some people have rebelled against proprietary software world, then you will have to find out which of our two questions the answer is closer to.

Better yet, where are the people who feel that way now?"

They are probably running Windows or Mac.

I don't really think people who use totally free software operating systems -- be it GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc. -- on their desktops, which, mind you, still often means many disadvantages in cooperation with proprietary software world (e.g. Microsoft Office obfuscated documents format), would like to use your proprietary software (which has nothing to do with paying for it), because such a software is exactly what they are trying to be free from.

I am using only free software today (and I have paid lots of money for some of it) on my servers, as well as on my desktops, and this is how does it look like for me: running Debian GNU/Linux with Apache and mod_perl plus PostgreSQL or MySQL is easy -- as long as it produces HTML, we are compatible with the rest of the world (even Microsoft browsers under Microsoft OS will have no problems at all) -- but using GNU on the desktop can be much more problematic. There are websites which use ActiveX, there are people who send MS Excel or MS Word documents in email (even if it's HTML written by MS Word, when I look at the source code, I don't know if I should laugh or cry), there are people who send different presentations and other data in the form of Microsoft Windows executables, et cetera, et cetera, every day there is some problem.

So, why do I use free software on my desktop, you may ask me? Because I strongly believe in my freedom, which I value much higher than my convenience.

This is why I will never use your proprietary software, and this is maybe why some of other people will never use it as well. Of course, I can speak only for myself, but I believe other people, who use exclusively free software desktops, do so because of different reasons than their convenience, as well.

And this is why I would suggest you targeting proprietary software to people who use proprietary software, which, after all, sounds quite obvious, but this might be exactly your problem here. If you want to target software to me, or to people like me, take a look at GNU Philosophy and Debian Social Contract to have some idea how do I choose my software. I wish you good luck.

So my question to the Slashdot community is when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will pay for applications and not always assume they are free?

You seem to miss the whole point of free software.

I am one of people who will pay for applications and always assume they should be free, by which I mean that they should give me enough freedom -- see The Free Software Definition, What do you mean by Free Software?, or The Debian Free Software Guidelines (or The Open Source Definition, which is basically Debian Free Software Guidelines rewritten).

My question would be: when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will always assume that software should be free?

Think about it -- the answer will surely be somewhere between your question and mine. If you want to sell proprietary software working under free software operating systems, which exist only because some people have rebelled against proprietary software world, then you will have to find out which of our two questions the answer is closer to.

Better yet, where are the people who feel that way now?"

They are probably running Windows or Mac.

I don't really think people who use totally free software operating systems -- be it GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc. -- on their desktops, which, mind you, still often means many disadvantages in cooperation with proprietary software world (e.g. Microsoft Office obfuscated documents format), would like to use your proprietary software (which has nothing to do with paying for it), because such a software is exactly what they are trying to be free from.

I am using only free software today (and I have paid lots of money for some of it) on my servers, as well as on my desktops, and this is how does it look like for me: running Debian GNU/Linux with Apache and mod_perl plus PostgreSQL or MySQL is easy -- as long as it produces HTML, we are compatible with the rest of the world (even Microsoft browsers under Microsoft OS will have no problems at all) -- but using GNU on the desktop can be much more problematic. There are websites which use ActiveX, there are people who send MS Excel or MS Word documents in email (even if it's HTML written by MS Word, when I look at the source code, I don't know if I should laugh or cry), there are people who send different presentations and other data in the form of Microsoft Windows executables, et cetera, et cetera, every day there is some problem.

So, why do I use free software on my desktop, you may ask me? Because I strongly believe in my freedom, which I value much higher than my convenience.

This is why I will never use your proprietary software, and this is maybe why some of other people will never use it as well. Of course, I can speak only for myself, but I believe other people, who use exclusively free software desktops, do so because of different reasons than their convenience, as well.

And this is why I would suggest you targeting proprietary software to people who use proprietary software, which, after all, sounds quite obvious, but this might be exactly your problem here. If you want to target software to me, or to people like me, take a look at GNU Philosophy and Debian Social Contract to have some idea how do I choose my software. I wish you good luck.

When you go to Google to find software to fill some specific need, you already know quite clearly how to search. The problem with finding "open data" is that there currently is not any commonly used clear label on such texts, research and articles. I tend to mention that the content is released under the GNU Free Documentation License or FDL when I want to release something to be freely utlized by anyone. One such case is for example the Amazon Discoveries series. Not that it would be any useful for anyone :) This problem is a bit related to the problem of releasing your idea or concept under such license - there does not seem any clear practise how to go on about this :: what to do if your idea might be unique but you do not want to patent it. We have that exact problem with for example the Openchallenge concept submissions. Any ideas on what practises to use in that case would help us out.

Of course not. It's going to fight cancer.

Dont worry, real scientists and programmers will be working on this, not pathetic amateurs or raving fanatics, so I suspect it will be able to handle it.

Although until it supports shitty console based text editors Im sure you wont be happy.