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Put up or shut up is a good thing to tell people who complain. It's not a nice thing to tell people who are trying to help you.

Without Linux, GNU would still be a rather obscure name that many computer scientists don't even recognize. Sure, the GNU tools allowed Linux to start off sooner, but there was nothing special about the GNU tools at the time Linux was created -- save that it was free (gratuis), and our beloved Finn could afford them on a student's budget.

No one who ever wrote a line of code outside of Visual Basic would ever say something as ignorant as that. First off, anyone who knows their history knows that GCC was not the only gratis compiler in the world. Second, anyone who has been using those compiler knows that GCC has long been and remains one of the best. Combined with other GNU tools, GCC provides one of the finest development environments in the world. It's reputation is well earned and great. I am not a proffesional programer, but my first compiler was gcc for DOS. I have used Borland, Watcom and MS compilers as well. All but MS have their charm. GCC is my first choice today.

Free Software is all about philosopy. It would not exist if people had not thought about community, individual rights, and how to foster such things in an increasingly greedy and careless world. GNU/Linux is a direct result of this man's effort to teach people a better way, as you might be able to tell from the vast numbers of contributors to it. A community has been formed that values individual and community rights. They publish their works under the GPL and other free liscences.

Aside from some work in the HURD, RMS isn't a software developer anymore.

Hmmm, That's a kernel, right? Just like Linus organized and maintains. Oh I see, I've been trolled. You were so good at acting ignorant it was hard to tell.

No, that's not fair, it's flambait really. By diminishing the work of one of your enemies, you seek to have people flame away at another of your enemies. Nope, not gonna work. Linus is a fine fellow and his kernel works very well. There is nothing common about any of the great achievers of the free software world.

Put up or shut up is a good thing to tell people who complain. It's not a nice thing to tell people who are trying to help you.

Without Linux, GNU would still be a rather obscure name that many computer scientists don't even recognize. Sure, the GNU tools allowed Linux to start off sooner, but there was nothing special about the GNU tools at the time Linux was created -- save that it was free (gratuis), and our beloved Finn could afford them on a student's budget.

No one who ever wrote a line of code outside of Visual Basic would ever say something as ignorant as that. First off, anyone who knows their history knows that GCC was not the only gratis compiler in the world. Second, anyone who has been using those compiler knows that GCC has long been and remains one of the best. Combined with other GNU tools, GCC provides one of the finest development environments in the world. It's reputation is well earned and great. I am not a proffesional programer, but my first compiler was gcc for DOS. I have used Borland, Watcom and MS compilers as well. All but MS have their charm. GCC is my first choice today.

Free Software is all about philosopy. It would not exist if people had not thought about community, individual rights, and how to foster such things in an increasingly greedy and careless world. GNU/Linux is a direct result of this man's effort to teach people a better way, as you might be able to tell from the vast numbers of contributors to it. A community has been formed that values individual and community rights. They publish their works under the GPL and other free liscences.

Aside from some work in the HURD, RMS isn't a software developer anymore.

Hmmm, That's a kernel, right? Just like Linus organized and maintains. Oh I see, I've been trolled. You were so good at acting ignorant it was hard to tell.

No, that's not fair, it's flambait really. By diminishing the work of one of your enemies, you seek to have people flame away at another of your enemies. Nope, not gonna work. Linus is a fine fellow and his kernel works very well. There is nothing common about any of the great achievers of the free software world.

Put up or shut up is a good thing to tell people who complain. It's not a nice thing to tell people who are trying to help you.

Without Linux, GNU would still be a rather obscure name that many computer scientists don't even recognize. Sure, the GNU tools allowed Linux to start off sooner, but there was nothing special about the GNU tools at the time Linux was created -- save that it was free (gratuis), and our beloved Finn could afford them on a student's budget.

No one who ever wrote a line of code outside of Visual Basic would ever say something as ignorant as that. First off, anyone who knows their history knows that GCC was not the only gratis compiler in the world. Second, anyone who has been using those compiler knows that GCC has long been and remains one of the best. Combined with other GNU tools, GCC provides one of the finest development environments in the world. It's reputation is well earned and great. I am not a proffesional programer, but my first compiler was gcc for DOS. I have used Borland, Watcom and MS compilers as well. All but MS have their charm. GCC is my first choice today.

Free Software is all about philosopy. It would not exist if people had not thought about community, individual rights, and how to foster such things in an increasingly greedy and careless world. GNU/Linux is a direct result of this man's effort to teach people a better way, as you might be able to tell from the vast numbers of contributors to it. A community has been formed that values individual and community rights. They publish their works under the GPL and other free liscences.

Aside from some work in the HURD, RMS isn't a software developer anymore.

Hmmm, That's a kernel, right? Just like Linus organized and maintains. Oh I see, I've been trolled. You were so good at acting ignorant it was hard to tell.

No, that's not fair, it's flambait really. By diminishing the work of one of your enemies, you seek to have people flame away at another of your enemies. Nope, not gonna work. Linus is a fine fellow and his kernel works very well. There is nothing common about any of the great achievers of the free software world.

The Gnu Compiler Suite has an extensive regression test. See for example "GCC Automated Testing System" or "GCC 2.95 Regression Test Strategy"

If you need to write a regression test for your own software check out DejaGnu.

--Andre

I couldn't agree more. Testing is incredibly important for software projects and automated tests makes sure that certain test are not forgotten.

GCC has a test suite: http://gcc.gnu.org/testresults/ and uses the test suite as a formal release criterion. The GCC team also uses those tests as benchmarks for the compiler.

You thought MS had sort of nazi-esque methods? Well, I will now, in this brief essay, reveal to you the hidden truth of Linux, an joint Finnish-German Nazi conspiration for revenge against the victors of WW2. Let's look at the evidence.

During the second World War, Finland was a close allied to the Third Reich, as is clearly illustrated by this photo of a finnish military aircraft. After the defeat of the Axis Powers, a revantionist urge abounds in both countries.

Linux was written by Finnish stuent Linus Thorvalds, a member of the small Swedish-speaking minority of Finland, well known for it's white supremacist tendencies. In this article Thorvalds expresses his enthusiasm and admiration for the German-led KDE project. He also makes some unclear statements about the claims of Richard Stallman for calling the operating system GNU/Linux being invalid. Why is this? Obviously, the Nazi -and therefore Anti-Communist- Thorvalds here shows his support for his German allies against the Communist GNU and GNOME projects.

But what does this hideous Nazi conspiracy want? We cannot, at this point, know. But what we do know, is that Nazies are up to no good. To stop them from achieving whichever horrible goals they hav in mind, I would strongly discourage any use of the Linux kernel or the KDE. Instead, I would recomend the use of a truly democratic operating system.

Thank You.

i can't decide if you're a troll, or simply misinformed. i'm going to give you the benefit of a doubt, and point out that "gnu/linux operating system" is not the same as the "linux kernel".

rms does not state that he is a major developer of the "linux kernel". gnu/linux is the combination of the linux kernel and gnu software, which rms did quite a bit to develop.

for a more formal rundown of stallman's position, see this document.

First, ``free beer'' and ``free speech'' are used to disambiguate the concept of Free Software. The GNU website explains this here.

``Open Source'' was coined to solve this ambiguity problem in a different way; so, ``free beer''/``free speech'' is really orthogonal to Open Source.

Second, ``free beer'' is actually an ``aspect'' of neither Free Software nor Open Source. Much Free/Open Source Software is ``free beer'', but that has nothing to do with Free Software or Open Source. Specifically, the FSF explicitly endorses commercial Free Software, such as Redhat Linux, and the OSI provides specific ideas for how to make money off of Open Source Software.

To answer your question, a copyright license complying with such a patent license would not qualify as either a Free Software license or an Open Source license. The Free Software Definition states ``Being free to do these things [including charging money for software] means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.''

My guess as to why this restriction is imposed is that it's to prevent a scenario such as the following: You go to the local computer store, buy a copy of the latest version of (say) Redhat Linux, and take it home and install it on several of your friends' computers. They later re-imburse you for their portion of the purchase price. Lo! You have now sold them copies of Redhat Linux, and are liable to pay royalties to the patent holders (if any).

The Open Source Definition likewise states, ``The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.'' So, such a license would not qualify as Open Source either.

First, ``free beer'' and ``free speech'' are used to disambiguate the concept of Free Software. The GNU website explains this here.

``Open Source'' was coined to solve this ambiguity problem in a different way; so, ``free beer''/``free speech'' is really orthogonal to Open Source.

Second, ``free beer'' is actually an ``aspect'' of neither Free Software nor Open Source. Much Free/Open Source Software is ``free beer'', but that has nothing to do with Free Software or Open Source. Specifically, the FSF explicitly endorses commercial Free Software, such as Redhat Linux, and the OSI provides specific ideas for how to make money off of Open Source Software.

To answer your question, a copyright license complying with such a patent license would not qualify as either a Free Software license or an Open Source license. The Free Software Definition states ``Being free to do these things [including charging money for software] means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.''

My guess as to why this restriction is imposed is that it's to prevent a scenario such as the following: You go to the local computer store, buy a copy of the latest version of (say) Redhat Linux, and take it home and install it on several of your friends' computers. They later re-imburse you for their portion of the purchase price. Lo! You have now sold them copies of Redhat Linux, and are liable to pay royalties to the patent holders (if any).

The Open Source Definition likewise states, ``The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.'' So, such a license would not qualify as Open Source either.

First, ``free beer'' and ``free speech'' are used to disambiguate the concept of Free Software. The GNU website explains this here.

``Open Source'' was coined to solve this ambiguity problem in a different way; so, ``free beer''/``free speech'' is really orthogonal to Open Source.

Second, ``free beer'' is actually an ``aspect'' of neither Free Software nor Open Source. Much Free/Open Source Software is ``free beer'', but that has nothing to do with Free Software or Open Source. Specifically, the FSF explicitly endorses commercial Free Software, such as Redhat Linux, and the OSI provides specific ideas for how to make money off of Open Source Software.

To answer your question, a copyright license complying with such a patent license would not qualify as either a Free Software license or an Open Source license. The Free Software Definition states ``Being free to do these things [including charging money for software] means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.''

My guess as to why this restriction is imposed is that it's to prevent a scenario such as the following: You go to the local computer store, buy a copy of the latest version of (say) Redhat Linux, and take it home and install it on several of your friends' computers. They later re-imburse you for their portion of the purchase price. Lo! You have now sold them copies of Redhat Linux, and are liable to pay royalties to the patent holders (if any).

The Open Source Definition likewise states, ``The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.'' So, such a license would not qualify as Open Source either.

[All links pulled from google's first page for each letter - sick, ain't it?]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Alpha of Third Generation of the Leading Linux Desktop for Developers

October 5, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0alpha1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful and easy-to-use free Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0 is scheduled for its first beta release this December and for final release in late February 2001.

This inaugural release of the KDE 3, which follows two weeks after the stable release of KDE 2.2.1 series, is based on TrollTech's Qt 3.0.0beta6. It ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, etc.).

The primary goal of the 3.0alpha1 release is to provide a framework for developers to start porting their KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 and to solicit developer feature contributions and feature requests before the KDE 3 API is frozen for binary compatibility. In addition, experimental KDE users who would like to try this release can set up a KDE 3 system side-by-site with a KDE 2 system. Instructions for doing so are available here.

Additional information about KDE 3 is available at the KDE website, including a tentative release plan, a KDE 3 info page, and a list of planned features.

For both developers and users, KDE 3 offers substantial improvements and additions compared to KDE 2 (the great bulk of which are, at this juncture, due to the switch to Qt 3):

For the developer:

For everyone:

Most of these improvements result directly from the switch to Qt 3, which has been the focus of KDE 3 code development so far. Improvements to the KDE libraries and applications themselves are planned for the successive beta releases leading to the first stable KDE 3. A list of these planned features is available here.

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done surprisingly quickly. The process is substantially easier than it was for porting from KDE 1 to KDE 2, and even very complicated applications can be ported in a matter of a few hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although neither the KDE 3 nor the Qt 3 APIs are frozen, few changes are anticipated for the final releases of KDE 3.0 and Qt 3.0.0, respectively.

KDE and all its components (including KDevelop and KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0alpha1 requires qt-3.0.0beta6, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-3.0.0-beta6.tar.gz, as well as libxml2 >= 2.3.13, available here.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0 or 3.0.1, though the forthcoming gcc 3.0.2 release will most likely work.

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.0alpha1 is available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alpha1 /src/ http://master.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alp ha1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0alpha1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE FAQ, screenshots, KOffice information and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. Thanks!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Alpha of Third Generation of the Leading Linux Desktop for Developers

October 5, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0alpha1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful and easy-to-use free Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0 is scheduled for its first beta release this December and for final release in late February 2001.

This inaugural release of the KDE 3, which follows two weeks after the stable release of KDE 2.2.1 series, is based on TrollTech's Qt 3.0.0beta6. It ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, etc.).

The primary goal of the 3.0alpha1 release is to provide a framework for developers to start porting their KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 and to solicit developer feature contributions and feature requests before the KDE 3 API is frozen for binary compatibility. In addition, experimental KDE users who would like to try this release can set up a KDE 3 system side-by-site with a KDE 2 system. Instructions for doing so are available here.

Additional information about KDE 3 is available at the KDE website, including a tentative release plan, a KDE 3 info page, and a list of planned features.

For both developers and users, KDE 3 offers substantial improvements and additions compared to KDE 2 (the great bulk of which are, at this juncture, due to the switch to Qt 3):

For the developer:

For everyone:

Most of these improvements result directly from the switch to Qt 3, which has been the focus of KDE 3 code development so far. Improvements to the KDE libraries and applications themselves are planned for the successive beta releases leading to the first stable KDE 3. A list of these planned features is available here.

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done surprisingly quickly. The process is substantially easier than it was for porting from KDE 1 to KDE 2, and even very complicated applications can be ported in a matter of a few hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although neither the KDE 3 nor the Qt 3 APIs are frozen, few changes are anticipated for the final releases of KDE 3.0 and Qt 3.0.0, respectively.

KDE and all its components (including KDevelop and KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0alpha1 requires qt-3.0.0beta6, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-3.0.0-beta6.tar.gz, as well as libxml2 >= 2.3.13, available here.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0 or 3.0.1, though the forthcoming gcc 3.0.2 release will most likely work.

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.0alpha1 is available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alpha1 /src/ http://master.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alp ha1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0alpha1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE FAQ, screenshots, KOffice information and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. Thanks!

There is also the HURD (from GNU), and there are hundreds of GNU/Linux distros, and probably a few systems that are a combination of the Linux kernel and *BSD utilities. (I think that MINIX is completely dead by now, so that doesn't count.)

There is also the HURD (from GNU), and there are hundreds of GNU/Linux distros, and probably a few systems that are a combination of the Linux kernel and *BSD utilities. (I think that MINIX is completely dead by now, so that doesn't count.)

Microsoft has posted the genome of the Black Plague here, confirming the "viral" nature of the GPL. FSF responded by pointing out that the Black Death was actually a bacterium. Isaac Hayes suggested that a reconstructed Black Plague would produce this.

...but i just cannot fathom WHY the RIAA would think that restrictive practices like this would actually INCREASE their profits.

I'm not entirely worried. Microsoft tried this by trying to scare everyone into licensing their "pirated" copies of Windows ("..turn in your neighbor...", sound familiar.. Nazi Germany), by forcing people, companies, corporations to audit their licensing practices (what Microsoft forgets, is that piracy is what gave it market share on the desktop. If it was hard to obtain illegally, their numbers would probably be 40-50% less than what they are).

Thank you Microsoft, because now you're forcing companies and corporations, your bread and butter, to realize how much countless millions they spend on your licensing, support, and software, all when there's a completely free, open, viable alternative "over here". The largest bank is Brazil is beginning to switch whole-hog to the better free alternative. Hundreds of other companies are also. This isn't about linux,this is about freedom, about being open with information, offering a hand, an alternative. Not the typical "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" that Microsoft embodies.

The same will happen to the music industry as well. Let's not forget how the music industry got it's initial funding. It wasn't from corporations, it was from the early days of "The Family" (you know who I'm talking about).

Support open, legacy-free formats now, such as Ogg Vorbis and others. Let them gain a strong foothold, and we'll just make our own cds. What's stopping a record company from supporting open standards on their own format? Nothing. The "Big 5" music companies don't stop anyone else from getting a cdrom into Wal-Mart.

Support that activity now.

You could show people RMS's story The Right to Read. It doesn't specifically relate to hardware-controlling laws though.

• Use of GCC makes no requirements about the license of your program.

lcc is great for learning about compiler design (that's why it was created), but it doesn't optimize very well

Then why does the Quake mod community prefer lcc to gcc?

Also, the since it's licensed under the restrictive GPL license, any programs it compiles contain GPL-licensed code

Not true. According to the GPL FAQ, a GNU General Public License on a compiler infects compiled code only if the compiler copies part of itself (or any other GPL code) into the output. Thus, code compiled with GCC doesn't fall under the GPL unless it #includes a GPL'd header file or links against a GPL'd library. Most most programs under GNU/Linux link against GNU libc licensed under Lesser GPL, which simply means link dynamically or provide the .o files.

You're probably thinking of Cygwin, whose default settings link all code to a GPL library, but Cygwin can also use the MinGW runtime that links only to libraries included with the Windows operating system.

From: patl@athena.mit.edu (Patrick J. LoPresti)
Subject: The True Path (long)
Date: 11 Jul 91 03:17:31 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.religion.emacs,alt.slack

When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi *and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like, 'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.

Ed, man! !man ed

ED(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual ED(1)
NAME
ed - text editor

SYNOPSIS

ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]

DESCRIPTION

Ed is the standard text editor.

---
Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed because it's ED!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem$ ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

---

Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!

TEXT EDITOR.

When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their "edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

?

I recently had the job of evaluating what SCM system to use for our company. We were using CVS at the time.

I believe that the complaints your bosses have about logging and concurrent editing can all be fairly easily fixed in CVS.

The major gripes we had with CVS were:
. slow (see below)
. merging between branches was miserable, because the system didn't keep track of what had already been merged
. renaming files lost all the history
. windows interface was cumbersome

We actually worked with a system layered on top of CVS that allowed us to submit batches of files at once, in a single transaction. This was the major cause of slowness, and CVS didn't really support transactions, so in some sense we were just fooling ourselves. The other major cause was doing a 'cvs update' on a large tree could be slow.

Most of the problems we had could've been fixed
if we spent the time to fix it. Some (transactions, renaming) we couldn't really fix at all. But, when I looked at everything I wanted to fix in CVS, I found that I had just described Perforce's feature set, and when I looked at how they implemented things, they did it like I would've. Plus, comparing the cost of Perforce (relatively cheap) to the time it would've taken us to implement the same features ...

So, we switched to Perforce, and I've been (more or less) happy since. The branching structure is a little weird (compared to ClearCase's, which is the most intuitive I've seen), but we're learning to live with it.

At a previous company, we used ClearCase. This was also a fine product, and it does a few things that no other product does, but it's very expensive, and a major hassle to administer.
ClearCase (at least in the mode we used) implements its own filesystem, and can provide a level of security that the others just can't. But, is this worth paying 10+ times the amount for it?

I also looked at AccuRev. This was about on a par with Perforce, and had one or two features that looked really cool. But, in the end, Perforce won mostly because we went with the product that had bigger market share and more people had used it before.

VSS wasn't an option because we're a mostly linux based shop, and because I had heard many of the complaints that others are making as well.

PVCS I think is mostly an also-ran in this day and age. I think most new source-system users use one of the other previously mentioned systems.

One new open source project (Subversion) looked promising, but it was too immature for us to use.

Bitkeeper also looked interesting, but not enough so to beat out Perforce or AccuRev.

Another thing you might want to consider is how well the SCM integrates with a change mgmt system (or bug/task database). Perforce has a simplistic change database built in, but it's good enough for what we want it to do, and it can also be used with Bugzilla and a few other systems. Of course, CVS and at least ClearCase can do these as well. I've found Bugzilla somewhat cumbersome to use on limited inspection. Other freeware systems (GNATS, for example) are very weak.

One license to rule them all, eh?

Yeah, but that's the other license, not the BSD license he wrote it under. Of course, knowing Sauron, it's probably some sort of trick to win our trust until he's powerful enough to destroy us.

Of course, as Raymond points out, unhappy newcomers are free to fork the project if they don't like what the leaders are doing. However, this only proves the project is no longer self-organizing--it is now two projects.

Another good example would be the gcc/egcs history, where the release structure split repeatedly (386gcc, g77,djgpp,etc.), and later merged again (in a fork! -- egcs-1.0 which a few releases later became the main branch). If you examine the overlapping hierarchies of release management of that project over the last 13 years, you will see that any concept of a single flat hierarchy completely misses the actual dynamics involved.

You're a fucking knob:

link

link

link

link

link

Sure the official name is "The X Window System" but many people refer to it as X-Windows. After all, you knew what I was talking about, didn't you?

Ass.....

Not according to the Free Software Foundation, the people who write the GPL.

See this page on their site. It lists the modified BSD license as being compatible with the GPL.

It is the requirement you mention (inserting the copyright notice) that makes the two incompatible. A GPL'd program can't have that "restriction".

If you are cynical you could say that this is an example of the viral nature of the GPL and that RMS wants to take over the world!

The requirement that a copyright clause remain intact is NOT the same as the dreaded "BSD advertising clause".

In fact, the current BSD license is completely compatible with the GPL (Just remember that the commingled result must be GPLed). See the FSF list of GPL-Compatible licenses.

The license doesn't have to be the same one as long as they are compatible. gnu.org has this list of compatible licenses.. note that the modified BSD license is included as compatible.

Highly recommended for GNU fans.

You can always donate to the Free Software Foundation too.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it deliciously ironic that out of one side of RMS's mouth he complains bitterly about people who refuse to accept his mandate on renaming "Linux" to "GNU/Linux" while also objecting to the old BSD advertising clause?

RMS and the FSF at one time objected to the BSD license for a clause that existed in the BSD license which required people who incorporated BSD code to include credit in any related advertising or documentation.

Personally, I think it's a lot less objectionable to be required to give credit to a resource in an advertisement than it is to giv the FSF authority to rename my projects at their discretion.

How is this any different than the advertising clause which RMS denounced?

gcc -D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/local/src/linux/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -mpreferred-stack-boundary=2 -march=k6 -DEXPORT_SYMTAB -c signal.c
signal.c: In function `kill_proc':
signal.c:714: Unrecognizable insn:
(insn 124 116 117 (parallel[
(set (reg/f:SI 3 ebx [47])
(const_int 0 [0x0]))
(clobber (reg:CC 17 flags))
] ) -1 (insn_list:REG_DEP_ANTI 116 (nil))
(expr_list:REG_UNUSED (reg:CC 17 flags)
(nil)))
signal.c:714: Internal compiler error in insn_default_length, at insn-attrtab.c:223
Please submit a full bug report,
with preprocessed source if appropriate.
See http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/bugs.html for instructions.
make[2]: *** [signal.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/linux/kernel'
make[1]: *** [first_rule] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/linux/kernel'
make: *** [_dir_kernel] Error 2

1. Such a license as you describe would not be compatible with the GPL, as the GPL demands that no use restrictions may be added to GPLed software. (See GPL section 6). So unless one individual entity has the copyright at this point to relicense the entire Linux kernel (unlikely-- *does* anyone? do you have to sign over your copyright to someone specific when you submit a kernel patch?), such a restriction (stating that if you write software using Linux you must open-source it) could not be added unless it were added to the GPL itself.
2. Please note that linux and other such GPLed products are always released under a certain version of the GPL, with the addition of the phrase "or at your option a later version of the GPL". Hence, even if new restrictions are added to the GPL, this does not affect GPLed code already out there.

   In either of the cases described above, you are still free to simply use the older, less restrictively licensed versions of Linux already out there, as the GPL does not allow anyone to retract a license they have given someone under the terms of the GPL.

As far as things go the actual license part of the GPL is fairly straightforward. RMS certainly knows what it means, and it certainly isn't "full of loopholes." You simply misunderstand how copyright works. For more information see here [columbia.edu] and here [columbia.edu].

From Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL:

What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged).

And all of them, from Apple to Microsoft, have complied rather than pressed their luck in court.

Both Apple and Microsoft were faced with a lose-lose situation with exploiting the holes in the GPL. As software companies, their interests are in keeping copyright law as covering as much as possible, and they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they tried to argue that copyright law simply does not cover some of the restrictions which the GPL attempts to cover.

It's funny that you use Microsoft and Apple as examples, because they can certainly do just about anything they want with GPLed code which runs on their operating system.

However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

It is also illegal to make a derivative of a copyrighted work and distribute it.

The entire foundation of the GPL relies on the legal definition of what consitutes a derivitive work with regard to software. Further, to my knowledge it has never been ruled that a work is even considered a derivitive work if there is no claim of copyright on that work. Even in the unlikely case that the legal issues do pan out, a derivitive work can be prepared anonymously, and there are no legal protections against the distribution of a derivitive work, only the production of such a work. A third party who obtains a derivitive work does not have to agree to the GPL, and therefore can redistribute binaries without redistributing the derivitive work. These last two points assume that the derivitive work does not contain any code from the original work (they could be dynamically linked libraries).

They also must provide the code on a physical medium on request for no more than the cost of media and shipping; simply putting it up on ftp is not sufficient.

RMS wrote in GNU GPL v2:

Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange.

IANAL so I don't know how this would hold up in court.

Another GPL loophole: you may be able to get any and all proprietary shared libraries classified as "the operating system".

AFAIK, they are only obligated to provide machine-readable source code to the person to whom they gave the binary executables.

The GNU General Public License, section 3(b), requires licensees who redistribute the software to make the source code available at cost "to any third party," i.e. to parties who have not necessarily purchased the device containing the software.

I just found a loophole in the GNU GPL! The "source code" could be in a proprietary language (as long as it remains the preferred form for modification), as the GPL does not require the compiler to be distributed. (Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to use MSVC or VB to compile GPL software.)

Even if you are distributing unmodified binaries... you must still provide the original copyright/GNU license with the product, according to the GPL.

Actually, if they didn't change the source, you should refer to Article 3. Article 1 refers to source code. I'm not completely sure, but from reading article 3 it sounds like if the source is available then you are fine, which the kernel, samba, etc. except you have to tell the people where the source is...That means I have to change my response, it does turn out I was wrong, after R'ingTFM, or the GPL for that matter, I didn't realize that you do need to tell how/where to get the source code even it is knowingly available, either by providing it with the software or a written offer for getting it.

From GPL: "Article 3...provided that you also do one of the following:

* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

* c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
"

I hope I didn't viloate the GPL by copying part of the GPL... :-P

They also must provide the code on a physical medium on request for no more than the cost of media and shipping; simply putting it up on ftp is not sufficient. In practice making it available by ftp may be acceptible if it means that nobody particularly wants to get the software on a physical medium, but the offer to provide the physical medium must be made.

It's a sensible idea, I think. Why would Microsoft allow its products to be used against them? It reminds me of Lenin's famous remark, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." Naturally, Microsoft not being stupid, they're not going to let you use their rope that way. Of course, most Slashdotters are against free-market capitalism, so I suppose it's understandable, in a pathetic sort of way, that this would be considered "newsworthy" around here.

(And yes, even if you don't use Un*x, there is software to allow multiple desktops under Windows).

Can you point me to some? Multiple desktops and textutils are the two major things I find lacking in Windows 98 compared to the Solaris/X/fvwm terminals at my school, and I've already figured out how to get textutils working (cygwin).

I'd agree that fewer processes is better than more processes, given other things being equal. But is that because of performance issues? I've run benchmarks on the overhead of forking processes, and I was able to reach forking rates of over 9000 per second in Linux 2.4.7 on an 800 Mhz Pentium-III. While the overhead is non-zero, I think I'd focus on other matters where performance is an issue.

Now for Java. I like the Java language. I don't like the Java run time environment. Portability-after-compile is unimportant to me. I have not started to work with it yet, but I look forward to using gcj.

Separating application functionality from user interface is already a known idea, and it can be done many ways to make the components pluggable. Do people believe that Tomcat has an exclusive on this concept?

With regard to your discussion of Foo and Foo2, I don't know what you are referring to. Why can't one do this in another language other than Java? And if in Java, why is it that Tomcat is a necessary part of this?

I do worry about the apparent documentation problems. One of the things I have found that really slows down projects, whether a programming project or an administrative project, is non-existant, confusing, vague, or misleading documentation. What is it that "jetspeed" does? I'm sure it's not reading your mind and generating code ahead of your typing.

I really want to know this stuff. I want to pin down just what it is that makes all this better. And I want to isolate the different aspects of it, for example the servlets, the environment, the language, to see which of those aspects contribute what to the benefits, and to compare how those aspects can contribute by themselves. Tomcat is more than one thing, but where's the synergy? It's not obvious to me, and I hope people are not presuming it is obvious to everyone.

Yes, the same amount of work has to be done, but (essentially) the OS doesn't have the same insight into the work as you do, so you can do a better job. You can do all the vector math for a 3D scene, and *then* dirty the cache doing some sound processing, but you'll dirty the cache only once, not multiple times when the OS will go back and forth between the two.

The last sentence of your first paragraph is correct, the cache would be dirtied anyway (unless you can write a program which fits all (including data and appropriate kernel parts!) in cache. Then you have no problem. :-)

You are also right in your second paragraph. But we were talking about pre-emptive multitasking here, and the pre-emptive part means just the opposite of what you are saying.

GNU Pth is a non-preemptive multithreading package that gives you this kind of control with a familiar POSIX Threads API.

Personally, I prefer event/message-based architectures, which can scale to multiple threads or processes if needed (like if you want to use multiple CPUs or if you have totally blocking operations like libresolv-based gethostbyname). But GNU Pth is nice too, a shame it's not used more...

Basically, there's a dependence flow, where each cell on a spreadsheet is referenced to cells on previous sheets.

The Free Software Foundation has a dependence flow manager that can track dependencies between objects in a filesystem and can call programs to re-create files when the files they depend on have changed. This tool is called GNU Make and comes with most distributions of a GNU system or a GCC development environment.

I'd actually love to move to a browser interface

And you can with server-side Ruby, Python, Java, or Perl. Simply port your simulation to a compiled or interpreted language, create a makefile to re-run the simulation whenever the input changes, and write CGI programs to coordinate the whole mess into a Web application. If the whole thing runs on one box (as is most often the case for a flat-file app), and that box must run Windows, use the Win32 version of Apache HTTP Server, the MinGW GCC distribution (or Cygwin if your app is GPL compatible), and ActivePerl or ActivePython.

With Jon Katz it always have to do with Your Rights Online [tm], doesn't it? If you're concerned about your online communications being monitored, use encryption, like

• SSL
• PGP
• ssh

And if you're concerned that the government can break those, start supporting research for stronger encryption.

I think every packet that goes into the Internet should be monitored, and I know it can. If there's something I want private, I'll keep it private myself, and I expect everybody to do the same. Expecting the law to protect you when you use insecure technology is somewhat like those who expect the law to protect them when they use insecure encryption on DVDs. Pick up the slack yourself and quit asking the government to do it.

But the big question about this "Stallman" is "Does he run Linux?"

Of course. Linux makes up a part of the primary operating system used at the FSF; it's the kernel of the GNU/Linux system: GNU's Not UNIX®, and Linux® Is Not UNIX®. I still wonder why FSF didn't register the "GNU" mark.

gcj 3.0 implements a great deal of 1.2. It's lacking AWT/Swing and RMI. The latter will be in 3.1.

SourceForge shouldn't be a single point of failure anymore, the GNU project now has Savannah based on the SourceForge code. As far as I can tell it's open to all Free Software (as oposed to Open Source on SourceForge) projects. Upon registering your project you can even apply for it to become part of the GNU project ;).

SourceForge shouldn't be a single point of failure anymore, the GNU project now has Savannah based on the SourceForge code. As far as I can tell it's open to all Free Software (as oposed to Open Source on SourceForge) projects. Upon registering your project you can even apply for it to become part of the GNU project ;).