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Too close for comfort?

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

Emacs has the kill ring: press one button to paste the last thing you cut/copied, press another afterwards to cycle through the clipboard history.

So with cua-style copy/paste keybindings it would go something like: select first part, Ctrl-C, select second part, Ctrl-C. Move to target, Ctrl-V, Alt-V to paste first part, Ctrl-V to paste second part.

Of course the problem is you can only use it inside emacs (as usual with emacs...). Maybe it's possible to create a program to do this in X/Wayland?

http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Fedora

I can kinda sorta grudgingly see why Linux would accept such firmware when it was new and unimportant. Now it could easily demand free firmware and the hardware makers would comply in a heartbeat. It's time to kick the proprietary firmwares to the curb where they belong.

Fedora should join the effort.

Stallman himself probably wouldn't have a problem with such a thing, as I don't believe he treats the 'mission pack' as software.

That depends on whether NPC scripts and set piece scripts are "software". Consider what Mr. Stallman wrote about the JavaScript trap where web sites get to run non-free scripts on your machine. In this analogy, a web site is a mission pack for a web browser.

Media players, image and comic viewers are going to be used overwhelmingly with non-free video and images.

Overwhelmingly, but not exclusively. Media players can be used with the short films Big Buck Bunny and Sintel or with homemade videos. My Archos 43 Internet Tablet, for example, came preloaded with Big Buck Bunny in its "Demo videos" folder. Most video game engines, on the other hand, won't necessarily have a compelling free or homemade mission pack to run. It took six and a half years from the source release of Q3A to when the last known non-free element was purged from OpenArena as of version 0.8.8.

It's a contraction of what RMS originally wrote: "To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer.'"

(GNU != A software project);

It is a collection of projects, and doesn't have a single primary maintainer. Even Stallman wouldn't claim it does.

http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#BSD

Exactly, I want to see a source. It would be especially neat to see the political leanings of the free software vs open source communities (and overlap of course): http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

I understand how that would work if I took, say, FreeBSD and LLVM and made a virtual machine, and in the virtual machine I write some piece of code that runs on the FreeBSD and compiles with LLVM, but the code I wrote is itself GPL. Then the release has BSD license restrictions on the operating system and compiler bits, and GPL license restrictions on the code I write.

But if I modify the LLVM compiler, and release the modified version, I can make it part of proprietary software and still comply with the original BSD license. If I modify the LLVM compiler, and want to release the modified version GPL, then I have BSD license code calling into GPL license code, and GPL license code calling into BSD license code. As far as I can tell, that violates the terms of the GPL - all of the code it links with has to be GPL also.

As far as I can tell, that combination can't be done. I honestly don't think the BSD license creators were intentionally trying to sink the GPL with their licensing provisions, but the practical result is that the BSD license is more friendly to re-use in proprietary software than re-use in "copyleft" ( https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html ) software.

So I suppose if you want to make a "copyleft" fork of BSD license software, you would need to use something like the LGPL or the Eclipse Public License. Both of those require all redistribution of the software in source or binary form to include access to the source code of the LGPL or EPL license code and grant the recipient the right to redistribute that code in turn under the same license. But both do not place restrictions on other software that links with or otherwise interoperates with the LGPL or EPL code. But again, I have a very weak understanding of these things.

He doesn't sell it very well. He mentions the things that each portion of law DOESN'T do as an advantage. However, said thing is often done by another portion of the law, and without those laws, FOSS communities can do anything they wanted. The closest to an actual advantage listed is the DMCA's safe harbor, which is probably less than we would have had received had a court ruled on the issue. He has somewhat of a point about trademark, but it's a mixed bag, and far from the best vehicle for source designation in its current form. All in all, though this jackass demosntrates perfect why GNU considers "Intellectual Property" a word to avoid.

GNU the operating system, not GNU the public license...

Just an extra detail: the G in GPL means "GENERAL" as in GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

They didn't start with FF because someone already has and they wanted kudos also. At least that would be my guess.

If you want to try out quantum computing simulation, consider checking out QCF in the Matlab-like Octave.

Google Checkout will be retired on November 20, 2013

For sellers of "digital goods" (whatever that means), Google Wallet will remain open. For sellers of physical goods, Google recommends Braintree. I'm under the impression that Google was shamed into closing Google Checkout for physical goods after one of Microsoft's "Scroogled" ad campaigns, which protested the fact that sellers could see buyers' postal codes.

http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_meme_hustler

Want to do actual good with code? Write free software then. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C-Extensions.html
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C_002b_002b-Extensions.html

Some of them are "draft standard", most aren't. E.g. computed goto, statements as expressions, conversion from member function pointers to regular ones, nested functions, various __attribute__ stuff etc.

http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C-Extensions.html
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C_002b_002b-Extensions.html

Some of them are "draft standard", most aren't. E.g. computed goto, statements as expressions, conversion from member function pointers to regular ones, nested functions, various __attribute__ stuff etc.

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in collegeâ"when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan...

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

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

Once your extreme views become fact, you're no longer a crackpot.

Exactly! If GNU wasn't ESSENTIALLY Unix then RMS wouldn't have bothered to name it that! I mean, come on, Unix is right there in the name. Why name it that as opposed to giving it a whole new name of it's own that speaks to what it IS rather than what it ISN'T unless he knew that Unix was so much a part of it's identity that he had to try to define it as not Unix in it's name?

Yep--it's even in the original announcement: it's a "Free Unix!" and a "new Unix implementation".
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html

I'm pretty sure the name was intended to be somewhat of a joke, and with their love of using recursive acronyms to come up with "clever" names (just look at the Hurd...) that's probably the case. But in a way the name is kind of ironic, and likely on purpose, because they weren't allowed to actually call the system "UNIX" and I'm sure they knew that, while at the same time it gets the point across quite well that it's not "really" UNIX--it is a clone.

because people will go over the limit and complain and say its not their fault. the cell phone carriers had this problem when minutes were rationed out on plans long ago

Even though cellular voice and text have tended toward unlimited on contract plans, satellite and cellular carriers still cap each subscriber's data transfer, usually at single-digit GB per month.

it is cheaper to sell unlimited plans and set rules limiting what you can do with a consumer plan

The problem is the insinuation that everyone who's not a business should resign himself to "consuming" works created by others. Perhaps the solution is a "hobbyist producer" tier between "consumer" and business, much as PayPal has the "premier" tier.

It's definitely a good sign. I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.

I'm not even against ads but I don't like being tracked by ads servers getting my IP address, my browser fingerprint ( https://panopticlick.eff.org/ ), and the page I was reading (referrer).

RequestPolicy and NoScript are two more good plugins for controlling what info your browser gives to who.

But there's more hope of this sort of thing getting into a fork, such as GNU IceCat: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/

> Are they doing this for only open-source sake?

They're doing it to have free software that can replace proprietary software. Being free software means the user community knows exactly what the software is doing and can decide how it will be modified.

Proprietary software locks users in, adds back doors, imposes DRM, gathers personal info and sends it to advertisers, omits features so that users can be pushed to buy the more expensive version, and omits features that users want (i.e. to protect privacy) because the owner has a commercial relationship with advertisers, and other nasty things that users don't ask for.

So it's not about "open source", but yes, it's about the distribution model. More specifically, "free software".
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

I'll just leave this right here...

The Right to Read

Just sending a bunch of keywords in email isn't enough - emacs has had a spook function since the 80s so they are kind of used to that stuff by now./ You'll have to act like a crazy-pants terrorist.

To make it really work we need to bring the eternal september to the islamic extremist websites. Everybody go post on those arabic jihadi websites. Uh, does anyone know of any arabic jihadi websites? Or how to read and write arabic?

In certain countries (the one I saw this happen in myself was Morocco), just going to an extremist website URL will end you up in prison as a suspected terrorist.

So for those planning to visit such websites I suggest you check the laws of the country you're in before you do so.

Just sending a bunch of keywords in email isn't enough - emacs has had a spook function since the 80s so they are kind of used to that stuff by now./ You'll have to act like a crazy-pants terrorist.

To make it really work we need to bring the eternal september to the islamic extremist websites. Everybody go post on those arabic jihadi websites. Uh, does anyone know of any arabic jihadi websites? Or how to read and write arabic?

Collect enough metadata, and everyone starts looking like a crazy-pants terrorist.

Just sending a bunch of keywords in email isn't enough - emacs has had a spook function since the 80s so they are kind of used to that stuff by now.

Yes, yes... whatever. Tell me, did you witness the Occupy protests? Did you see how the feds and local police coordinated to stamp that out? Did you see how even the mainstream media glossed over and under reported the events, and how there seemed to be "no real message" to the protests... except there actually was? At one point NYC Financial district was packed with people, that evening I was at a friends house and we watched the news, even scanned several local channels, not a mention of it... They wouldn't believe me that it even happened until I pulled up a video on my phone.

So, what you've got to do is not just encrypt data, but form a network of peers that you regularly encrypt data between. The system triggers on perceived organized networks of people, or what it thinks are "cells".

Also, I take offense at labeling the sending of encrypted data across a network as "Civil Disobedience". If IPv6 hadn't had mandatory encryption removed from the standard to keep PRISM running, would everyone then be a Civil Disobedient? Hell, everyone going to the government websites and pressing [F5] a bunch would be more of a Civil Disobedience than sending encrypted messages. I don't send ANY Unencrypted emails in the first place -- PGP is my SPAM filter FFS.

Just sending a bunch of keywords in email isn't enough - emacs has had a spook function since the 80s so they are kind of used to that stuff by now./ You'll have to act like a crazy-pants terrorist.

To make it really work we need to bring the eternal september to the islamic extremist websites. Everybody go post on those arabic jihadi websites. Uh, does anyone know of any arabic jihadi websites? Or how to read and write arabic?

Even that's not enough. Everyone needs to buy backpacks, pressure cookers, and explosives, so the authorities have no hope of finding the actual terrorists. Also take lots of flying lessons but deliberately skip the parts about landing and taking off. And bring a knife and a gun with you _every_ time you fly. They can't lock us all up right?

Just sending a bunch of keywords in email isn't enough - emacs has had a spook function since the 80s so they are kind of used to that stuff by now./ You'll have to act like a crazy-pants terrorist.

To make it really work we need to bring the eternal september to the islamic extremist websites. Everybody go post on those arabic jihadi websites. Uh, does anyone know of any arabic jihadi websites? Or how to read and write arabic?

Oh, for fuck's sake, does anyone even bother to read GNU literature any more?

From the GPL FAQ:

Is making and using multiple copies within one organization or company “distribution”?

No, in that case the organization is just making the copies for itself. As a consequence, a company or other organization can develop a modified version and install that version through its own facilities, without giving the staff permission to release that modified version to outsiders.

However, when the organization transfers copies to other organizations or individuals, that is distribution. In particular, providing copies to contractors for use off-site is distribution.

Hey nice straw man you built there, be a shame if i threw this match by it...WHOOSH! Comparing LGPL to vanilla GPL is like saying "Well if you can do it with BSD you MUST be able to do it with GPL, since they are all FOSS licenses, right?" even RMS has come out against LGPL because it doesn't promote his agenda like the GPL does, so comparing the two is pointless, other than the name they really have little in common.

And I think its funny as hell that the so called "enlightened" FOSSie faction can ONLY throw insults, know why that is? Because otherwise all you get is the same old excuses, which just FYI they have been used so many times there is a joke site that lists them and the one I linked to I think is VERY apropos as most of the FOSSie faction are notorious for using circcular logic. Oh and last time I showed up with a link from TM Repo one FOSSie had the brass balls to compare a joke site to Stormfront, which just shows that FOSSie is a good choice of name, like Moonie one can't question their beliefs.

No, copyleft puts users first, developers second. Software freedom is about the "four freedoms", and they are, as you can see, things the user is free to do.

Being a user and being a developer is in no way mutually exclusive. Developers are, generally, the first users of any software. In any case, why would a non-developer user care about those "freedoms"? It's the devs that are affected.

Secondly, why would a developer ever pick a license that puts HIM second.

A non-developer user would care about those freedoms because that's the only way they can guarantee they control the program and what it does for them. More info here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html A developer would pick a license that puts users first when the developer thinks that the users of the program should have control of the said program, and what it does.

1) The FSF criticizes copyright, but that has nothing to do with the fact that "freedom" to take freedoms away isn't a freedom to begin with;

2) FSF criticizing copyright (as it is) doesn't mean that they oppose to any kind of copyright. It is not true that you need "strong copyright laws", but you need some copyright laws (instead of everything being on public domain). More about that here: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/pirate-party-and-free-software

However, MIT/ISC are way close to public domain that the GPL.

Yes, those licenses are closer to the public domain. They both have problems, tho: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

No, copyleft puts users first, developers second. Software freedom is about the "four freedoms", and they are, as you can see, things the user is free to do.

Being a user and being a developer is in no way mutually exclusive. Developers are, generally, the first users of any software. In any case, why would a non-developer user care about those "freedoms"? It's the devs that are affected.

Secondly, why would a developer ever pick a license that puts HIM second.

A non-developer user would care about those freedoms because that's the only way they can guarantee they control the program and what it does for them. More info here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html A developer would pick a license that puts users first when the developer thinks that the users of the program should have control of the said program, and what it does.

1) The FSF criticizes copyright, but that has nothing to do with the fact that "freedom" to take freedoms away isn't a freedom to begin with;

2) FSF criticizing copyright (as it is) doesn't mean that they oppose to any kind of copyright. It is not true that you need "strong copyright laws", but you need some copyright laws (instead of everything being on public domain). More about that here: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/pirate-party-and-free-software

However, MIT/ISC are way close to public domain that the GPL.

Yes, those licenses are closer to the public domain. They both have problems, tho: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Ubuntu

Of course, you're welcome to waste your money but this is exactly that, waste.

Copyleft makes sure that users retain freedoms, including the freedom to hire developers to make the software do what the user wants.

No, copyleft puts software first, and the user second.

How is that the case? A free software license guarantees four freedoms to the users of a work. Because the work is free, all of its users are free, even if this is freedom is at the expense of some developers' business models.

Without strong copyright laws, something like GPL is totally impossible.

Without software copyright, anybody can obtain a copy of a proprietary program and lawfully disassemble, document, and distribute it.

Even if copyleft licensing is "viral", it performs the same role as the viruses in a vaccine.

Some people, probably including Stallman, would say that authors (and programmers) SHOULD work for free, giving their stuff away.

That is quite an incorrect description of what Stallman wants. Not programmers nor artists should in fact work for free according to his views. Not even software should always be "free" in the "gratis" sense of the word.

A short conclusion of his views is that software in itself should not be the product, but instead the programmer's time. It is in many ways a call for a "liberal" (if one wants to put labels on things, but they usually come with far too much preconceptions to be helpful) revolution for the goods involved in software engineering, for the purpose of empowering the programmer and maximizing society's benefit of programming skills.

George Orwell begs to differ. As do Richard Stallman.

> The market-based restrictions on hardware products are anti-business

What part of the licence are you referring to?

https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

Anon wrote:
> ...when I'm writing a library, what I want most of all is...

The LGPL is a tactical compromise. The aim is to get as many people using that library, but still encourage those software developers to contribute to free software projects.

It's an admission that a firmer stance is likely to backfire.

Conversely, when a firmer stance won't backfire, when it will instead lead to more people contributing to free software, then compromising is needless and self-defeating.

For example, Glibc is LGPL'd because FSF knows that if it was GPL'd, then some Unix vendor would push projects to ignore Glibc and use their proprietary libc instead. That would be a loss, so FSF compromised and used the LGPL so that Glibc will still be used, even by companies that don't want to contribute to free software.

It's a good essay, worth a read: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.en.html

The lack of mention of GPLv3's patent-fighting provisions is the major bungle.

It's hard to find a good name for non-copyleft licences since there are various versions of "the BSD" licence, and some are non-free. "MIT" is also ambiguous since that university surely has written various licences. "The licence of X Windows" is non-ambiguous, but not very recognisable.

LGPLv3 is the only other licence I'd considering adding to that mix, with a link to FSF's own Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library. It would be good to encourage the AGPLv3 too, but that could be an opt-in checkbox in a later screen.

But will you make the mistake of listening to rms sing the Free Software Song? (Which is apparently public domain, rather than GPLed)

http://www.gnu.org/music/free-software-song.html

As a minor correction, GCC (as of 4.8.1, see here) and Clang both have complete C++11 support

Or skip having a separate, standalone server, and just embed libmicrohttpd directly in your app.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html:

A secondary benefit of defending all users' freedom is that improvements made in alternate versions of the program, if they receive widespread use, become available for other developers to incorporate. Many developers of free software are heartened and encouraged by the resulting cooperation. However, in the case of software used on network servers, this result may fail to come about. The GNU General Public License permits making a modified version and letting the public access it on a server without ever releasing its source code to the public.

The GNU Affero General Public License is designed specifically to ensure that, in such cases, the modified source code becomes available to the community. It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version.

Generally, is considered ethical being paid to provide people with bugfixes for code you are responsible for.

From the GPL:

15. Disclaimer of Warranty.

    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.

    16. Limitation of Liability.

    IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS
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.

It's NICE to have the product's owner providing you with bugfixes. But by no means it will be unethical if he/she/it stops doing that - when it's the case, go code your own fixes or pay someone to do that for you.

Fair points, but I still think it was an awful decision to release Android using an interpreter for its recommended software stack.

I'm not suggesting just taking HotSpot and dumping it on a phone, and you're right that the JVM has its drawbacks, but they could have, say, adopted a system comparable to Mac's "universal binaries": apps ship with both Dalvik bytecode, and an ahead-of-time-compiled ARM-specific binary. In the future, when Android has a decent JIT compiler and may or may not still be running primarily on ARM, the shipped ARM binary could be ignored, and the Dalvik code used instead.

Or run an ahead-of-time compiler at app-installation time. Platform independence is preserved, performance will be good, but you'll have a lengthier installation process. C# does this I believe, and of course Unix has been shipping programs in source form forever.

Neither of my suggestions require starting from scratch with the compiler, as they don't depend on the Dalvik IR. Java->native code compilation can be done; Google could easily kick GCJ back into life, or something similar using LLVM.

The FSF has a definition of the term "free software".

Software under AGPL is not not free software according to that definition. It violates freedom 0.

Yet the FSF approved AGPL! This was an ethical disaster.

A key difference between free software licenses and commercial software EULAs was that the latter was a two way bargain. The copyright owner, who the law gives the exclusive right to make copies (including, for computer software, making temporary copies in RAM to use the software) grants you via the EULA permission to do that, in exchange for you agreeing not to do some things that otherwise would be allowed under copyright law. For example, you might have to agree to not reverse engineer the software, or to sell it when you are done with it.

The free software licenses, on the other hand, only grant you permissions. They do not require you to give up anything.

Until AGPL. AGPL goes beyond just granting you permission to do things that copyright law says require permission. It places restrictions on what you do with the software on your own machine. It is a EULA.

The "example config file" is not in the license language: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html