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• Open Publication License
• FSF's take on the OPL
• The source for the book is available (in addition to the html version).

. . . the FSF sided with Microsoft and put a ban down on porting GNU to Apple OSes.

This comes as no surprise.

Richard Stallman is a man of firm principle and unshakable conviction. Some of his convictions are clearly insane, but others -- such as his belief in the Free Market -- are not. In any case, I feel a great kinship with a man who will not under any circumstances compromise his principles.

The "Open Source" movement, by contrast, is purely pragmatic. Pragmatism is dangerous: By definition, the pragmatist believes that the end justifies the means. This is the moral and intellectual pit that the "Open Source" "movement" has fallen into. This is why they support Apple and IBM: It's convenient. It seems momentarily advantageous.

THEY ARE COMPLETELY AMORAL.

You can't trust amoral people. A man with his eye only on the main chance will sell out his supporters in a heartbeat.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I especially recommend it to those who only know RMS by reputation, and not from his actual writings. This one is particularly cogent, concise and undesrtandable. I consider it mandatory reading for any layperson interested in modern copyrigyt issues.

Since it's better known for Java-to-native compilation, many people don't realize that gcj also includes a JVM.

You *can* install [GCC 2.91 as kgcc]. If you want to use a stoneage compiler with tons of known issues, that's your choice.

What about GCC 2.95.3? It fixes the incompatibilities with glibc 2.2. (Given, it wasn't out yet when Red Hat 7.0 was released.) Any big problems with 2.95.3 (official GNU source release) as opposed to 2.96 (RH fork)?

Does it fix the GCC C++ issues?

Even if it still ships with Red Hat GCC version "2.96," you can still use it to recompile GCC 2.95.3 (last stable version; mirrors here), Linux itself, and your apps.

You install your programs into /usr/local/stow/foo/*, and then from /usr/local/stow type stow foo, which then creates symlinks into the /usr/local hierachy. To remove the symlinks, simply cd /usr/local/stow and stow --delete foo, and then you can safely remove /usr/local/stow/foo.

Very simple, very effective.

Go you big red fire engine!

Why does everyone simply believe Apple when they say Open Source?!?

The Apple Public Source License is not approved by the Open Source Initiative nor the Free Software Foundation. In fact RMS gives reasons why it is not acceptable, even their new 'version 1.2' APSL release.

They really need to stop erroneously using the words 'Open Source'.

Why does everyone simply believe Apple when they say Open Source?!?

The Apple Public Source License is not approved by the Open Source Initiative nor the Free Software Foundation. In fact RMS gives reasons why it is not acceptable, even their new 'version 1.2' APSL release.

They really need to stop erroneously using the words 'Open Source'.

No, sorry, GNU/Hurd uses the Mach kernel; it would be GNU/Darwin (not GNU/Mach).

'Hurd' refers to the (userspace) device drivers, as does 'Darwin'. Both use the Mach microkernel.

You need to understand the difference between a monolithic kernel and micro-kernel to see the difference between Hurd and Mach (or Darwin and Mach).

A monolithic kernel (like Linux) has all operations and device drivers in-kernel; they all run in kernel mode (ring 0 on x86).

A microkernel (like Mach) only has the basic operations, but doesn't do everything you need. You need userspace 'server processes' which complete the kernel and run in userspace (ring 2 on x86). Thus, you have GNU's Hurd (play on words, it's a 'herd' of server processes) and Apple's Darwin.

But they BOTH use the Mach microkernel.

See history of FSF and GNU (scroll down to 'The GNU Hurd") for a better explanation.

As a complement to the parent's described behavior, I would encourage the reader to check out GNU pth, a very portable single-process non-preemptive threading library. With this you get the sort of benefits the parent describes, but the work is mostly done for you already.

This is just silly. Selling things like this has one purpose: it gets the company name out. This is obviously not their long the long-term plan for making money.

It looks from this situation like, just as in the beginning, many people in the KDE community simply do not understand why software must be free. Perhaps it's just a basic philosophical difference, but if you think the Kompany selling closed software is OK, have a read of Why Software Should Be Free. I have no problem paying for what I get, but I believe in the right to modify and redistribute the programs that I use.

As for Eazel and Ximian not having a plan for making money, you havn't done your research. They do. I am looking foreward to the servaces they will be providing.

--Ben

"Heisenbugs", as you call them, are almost always the result of memory management bugs. Arrays boundaries are being overwritten, null pointers are being accessed, freed memory is being used, or some other memory is being misused. It's a very common problem.

Now, one answer to this problem is to use smart pointers and automatic garbage collection. That won't help array boundaries, but you can use an equivalent wrapper for arrays. It's not a bad practice to get into for large-scale C++ development.

Another solution, and one I have found to be *incredibly* useful, is to use a memory profiler. There are loads of memory profilers on the market today. Visual C++ has one included, the GNU Foundation has one, and loads of commercial companies offer profilers. Most of the commercial ones have nice functions, such as pretty (and useful) graphical displays and the ability to profile code that has already been compiled. I remember profiling Solaris (the OS itself) back in the early 90s, finding loads of memory leaks and memory management problems.

Even though I'm not a betting man, I would lay money that if you rid yourself of memory management problems, your code will no longer contain these "Heisenbugs".

If there is someone left with rights that has the power to sue for loses, then that is the same someone that would be required to continue its support or that person/company would probably be liable for damages in the first place.

When a f__ked company dies, a holding company buys up its assets, including GGM[0] rights. The holding company may then discontinue the product and support therefor, leaving you with no central license servers.

"So crack it." Four letters: DMCA. And even a copyright owner brings about no legal action, the Federal government can still prosecute criminal copyright infringers in the US.

Rented software (and proprietary software in general) give me too much discomfort for me to continue using them more than absolutely necessary. A large library of free software makes this "absolutely necessary" absolutely small.

[0] Government Granted Monopoly. I prefer this term to "IP" (intellectual property) because it more accurately describes how the United States Code treats copyright, trademark, and patent issues.

LTSS 1.0 could support WAV, MP3

s/MP3/Ogg Vorbis/

GIF

s/GIF/PNG/ because PNG is better documented and supports 24-bit color and alpha transparency. You partially address this with

TIFF

but s/TIFF/PNG/ because even without TIFF's LZW codec, TIFF is much larger than PNG and not as well standardized.

Text/ASCII

Non-European language advocates would complain.

Text/Unicode

Better. Thank you. This solves the script issue, but in what natural language would information be stored? How is it a valid assumption that future generations can read format specs written in US English of A.D. 2001 or in UK English of A.D. 2001?

HTML version whatever

Make sure it's run through W3C's HTML Validator if you want to archive it. MSHTML is a Bad Thing.

and perhaps even Java for interpretation of abirtrary [sic] file formats.

The Java(TM) langauge does not have the wealth of alternative implementations that the C language has. Both are nearly Turing complete (full Turing completeness requires unbounded storage) and equally fast when compiled to a native instruction set.

People sometimes attack PGP because it is mostly used by criminals and beast bearded dirty GNU hippies.

Just shows how much they know. No true dirty GNU hippie would dream about using PGP with it's restrictive licensing. Everyone knows that the one true personal privacy program is GNU Privacy Guard, and it's the only one that GNU hippies would consider using. Furthermore, it's Free Software, so you can avoid the problems described above by hacking the source to use a different default location for your key ring that the attacker won't know. See the true power of Free Software in action! GNU forever!

People sometimes attack PGP because it is mostly used by criminals and beast bearded dirty GNU hippies.

Just shows how much they know. No true dirty GNU hippie would dream about using PGP with it's restrictive licensing. Everyone knows that the one true personal privacy program is GNU Privacy Guard, and it's the only one that GNU hippies would consider using. Furthermore, it's Free Software, so you can avoid the problems described above by hacking the source to use a different default location for your key ring that the attacker won't know. See the true power of Free Software in action! GNU forever!

isn't dmoz.org's software open? I know its content is.

dmoz's content is NOT free documentation because its license restricts your freedom to redistribute an older snapshot of the directory.

But how open is open? - they don't seem to say what definition they are using!

Or do they? I looked in the site dics and found that OSD's definition of open source is any software under a license approved by the Open Source Initiative, from free GPL2, BSD2, X11, and Clarified Artistic to flawed QPL, BSD1, and Python 1.6 to too-vague-to-be-free Original Artistic. (Sources: free | open)

It's nice to see that the folks at this Open Source Directory are modeling the software categories after Sourceforge'.s Software/application taxonomies typically vary from site-to-site and distribution-to-distribution. While I appreciate that all the site maintainers out there take time to organize information about software applications, the diversity makes it difficult to synthesize materials from multiple sources. I applaud this directory's deference to a previously-existing taxonomy.

A while back, I started creating a list of software categorization schemes/systems relevent to Linuxland:

http://freshmeat.net/browse/627/
http://apps.kde.com/na/2/categories&nav=f
http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Softwa re/
http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/potato/main/ binary-i386/
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/
http://www.gnu.org/gnulist/production/index.html
http://www.userfriendly.net/linux/RPM/Groups.html
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-category/
http://www.freebsd.org/ports/
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/media- types/media-types
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
http://www.labs.redhat.com/gug/users-guide/main-me nu.html
http://www.linux.com/links/Software/

http://www.gnu.org/directory/

Miller doesn't get Free software. He like so many other suits doesn't understand that Free doesn't equal free. If he would have reviewed The Free Software Definition before answering these questions he would have seen that developers of Free software can charge as much or as little as they want for the products they create.

I charge for Free software that I develop and my customers understand and appreciate the freedom aspect even though they may never understand the code themselves at least they know that they can hire someone else who will and can make necessary modifications.

It's too bad Miller harped so much on Linux never attracting good developers because they can't get paid because he's wrong.

Microsoft's biggest downfall will most likely be due to the fact that countries like Mexico, Brazil, China and others are using Linux in the classroom becuase they can't afford MS' products. When a generation of developers comes out of these countries they will most likely produce software for the platform they grew up with.

dp
---

You can run PPP over GNU httptunnel. The same thing, really, but no joke.

/abo (10 Mb/s Ethernet internet connection straight to his home, and no freakin' firewalls!)

--

Doesn't everyone here go ape-shit whenever someone violates the GPL? I mean, what's the difference? Why the double standard? Not flaming (I'd be AC otherwise), I really don't get it.

That should have been Bayonne

It's late here I apoligize.

Bayonne

Bayonne, the telecommunications application server of
the GNU project, will offer a free, scalable, media
independent software environment for development and
deployment of telephony solutions for use with current
and next generation telephone networks. Bayonne
already offers a fully distributed application server for
use today with multi-line telephony cards from many
vendors under free operating systems.

This works great with the single line Quicknet Cards as well.

The one tiny problem is that RMS, who I had always pegged as being overly idealistic to the extreme, failed to place his song under the GPL. Instead, you're only allowed verbatim copying and distribution of the original article linked above (with no mention of whether or not you may produce recordings of the song, provided that you make the original sheet music still available).

So, instead, I offer the following (admittedly imperfect) lyrics distributed under the LGPL (for convenient mixing with commercial songs). If you have a problem with them, you're more than welcome to fork-and-fix.

LameAnti-RIAASong, v0.1 (Proof-of-concept prototype)

Contributors: Cameron Perkins, DeAnna Janecek, Stevie Strickland

We don't like all this opt-in stuff.
It speaks of serious collusion.
There's more to music than comercial fluff,
Hillary Rosen is suffering from delusion.

This song is just a half-assed protest,
it may not become a geek war cry.
But putting aside all bits of jest,
at least we did something to try.

Thanks to the Supreme Court decision
in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
we can create a spoof full of derision
and stuff the cease-and-desist down the sink:

All our music fades to grey,
getting further from us every day,
as the RIAA marches on,
soon the music might as well be gone *insert guitar riff here*

The RIAA attempts once more,
to prepare for this copyright war
and if we don't settle the score
they'll continue suing forever more...

(Quoth Lars Ulrich, "...ever more.")

The one tiny problem is that RMS, who I had always pegged as being overly idealistic to the extreme, failed to place his song under the GPL. Instead, you're only allowed verbatim copying and distribution of the original article linked above (with no mention of whether or not you may produce recordings of the song, provided that you make the original sheet music still available).

So, instead, I offer the following (admittedly imperfect) lyrics distributed under the LGPL (for convenient mixing with commercial songs). If you have a problem with them, you're more than welcome to fork-and-fix.

LameAnti-RIAASong, v0.1 (Proof-of-concept prototype)

Contributors: Cameron Perkins, DeAnna Janecek, Stevie Strickland

We don't like all this opt-in stuff.
It speaks of serious collusion.
There's more to music than comercial fluff,
Hillary Rosen is suffering from delusion.

This song is just a half-assed protest,
it may not become a geek war cry.
But putting aside all bits of jest,
at least we did something to try.

Thanks to the Supreme Court decision
in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
we can create a spoof full of derision
and stuff the cease-and-desist down the sink:

All our music fades to grey,
getting further from us every day,
as the RIAA marches on,
soon the music might as well be gone *insert guitar riff here*

The RIAA attempts once more,
to prepare for this copyright war
and if we don't settle the score
they'll continue suing forever more...

(Quoth Lars Ulrich, "...ever more.")

In a rather twisted mockery of open source spirit, the original virus code is then stored at the end of the ELF executable.

Of course, the next question is whether a virus could fall under the GPL. According to the GPL , it seems to only miss -one- detail:

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.

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

Since the virus comes with its own source code, and it includes its copyright notice, and it has a notice that refers to the GPL license... I'd say it comes very close to fulfilling the GPL. If it contained a copy of the GPL as part of its payload, in my opinion, it would fully be part of the GPL.

You might want to take a look at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html.

I think the Debian project has adopted the GNU philosophy nearly as is, and it considers the freedom to sell an essential freedom.

Go away and read what the GPL says. Then come back.

(It's at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.)

by Richard Stallman

Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.

Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.

The word ``free'' has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of ``free software'', we're talking about freedom, not price. (Think of ``free speech'', not ``free beer''.) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.

Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.

Non-free programs are usually sold for a high price, but sometimes a store will give you a copy at no charge. That doesn't make it free software, though. Price or no price, the program is non-free because users don't have freedom.

Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.

Free software is a community project, and everyone who depends on it ought to look for ways to contribute to building the community. For a distributor, the way to do this is to give a part of the profit to the Free Software Foundation or some other free software development project. By funding development, you can advance the world of free software.

Distributing free software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it!

In order to contribute funds, you need to have some extra. If you charge too low a fee, you won't have anything to spare to support development.

Will a higher distribution price hurt some users?

People sometimes worry that a high distribution fee will put free software out of range for users who don't have a lot of money. With proprietary software (18k characters), a high price does exactly that -- but free software is different.

The difference is that free software naturally tends to spread around, and there are many ways to get it.

Software hoarders try their damnedest to stop you from running a proprietary program without paying the standard price. If this price is high, that does make it hard for some users to use the program.

With free software, users don't have to pay the distribution fee in order to use the software. They can copy the program from a friend who has a copy, or with the help of a friend who has network access. Or several users can join together, split the price of one CD-ROM, then each in turn can install the software. A high CD-ROM price is not a major obstacle when the software is free.

Will a higher distribution price discourage use of free software?

Another common concern is for the popularity of free software. People think that a high price for distribution would reduce the number of users, or that a low price is likely to encourage users.

This is true for proprietary software -- but free software is different. With so many ways to get copies, the price of distribution service has less effect on popularity.

In the long run, how many people use free software is determined mainly by how much free software can do, and how easy it is to use. Many users will continue to use proprietary software if free software can't do all the jobs they want to do. Thus, if we want to increase the number of users in the long run, we should above all develop more free software.

The most direct way to do this is by writing needed free software or manuals yourself. But if you do distribution rather than writing, the best way you can help is by raising funds for others to write them.

The term ``selling software'' can be confusing too

Strictly speaking, ``selling'' means trading goods for money. Selling a copy of a free program is legitimate, and we encourage it.

However, when people think of ``selling software'', they usually imagine doing it the way most companies do it: making the software proprietary rather than free.

So unless you're going to draw distinctions carefully, the way this article does, we suggest it is better to avoid using the term ``selling software'' and choose some other wording instead. For example, you could say ``distributing free software for a fee''--that is unambiguous.

High or low fees, and the GNU GPL

Except for one special situation, the GNU General Public License (20k characters) (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy.

The one exception is in the case where binaries are distributed without the corresponding complete source code. Those who do this are required by the GNU GPL to provide source code on subsequent request. Without a limit on the fee for the source code, they would be able set a fee too large for anyone to pay--such as, a billion dollars--and thus pretend to release source code while in truth concealing it. So in this case we have to limit the fee for source, to ensure the user's freedom. In ordinary situations, however, there is no such justification for limiting distribution fees, so we do not limit them.

Sometimes companies whose activities cross the line of what the GNU GPL permits plead for permission, saying that they ``won't charge money for the GNU software'' or such like. They don't get anywhere this way. Free software is about freedom, and enforcing the GPL is defending freedom. When we defend users' freedom, we are not distracted by side issues such as how much of a distribution fee is charged. Freedom is the issue, the whole issue, and the only issue.

Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Updated: 5 Oct 2000 taz

However, asking people for money isn't a problem. After all, that's how RMS funded much of his work: asking people to pay him to punch Emacs off to a tape for them. They COULD have downloaded it, or found somebody with a tape and copied it.

And the FSF is still makeing money doing just that. They sell CD-ROMs, manuals, tee-shirts and more on their web page at http://www.gnu.org/order/order.html.

Now, who wll be the first to complain that they charge 4x more to organizations than to individuals for the CDROMs.

I quote:

`Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.''... Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere.

Now, this is part of RMS' official definition of free software, which the GPL was created to protect.

Now a quote taken from the GPL's Preamble:

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish),...

So, in conclustion... RFM people.

You can find the complete free software definition here: Free Software Definition

and the GPL here: GPL

I quote:

`Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.''... Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere.

Now, this is part of RMS' official definition of free software, which the GPL was created to protect.

Now a quote taken from the GPL's Preamble:

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish),...

So, in conclustion... RFM people.

You can find the complete free software definition here: Free Software Definition

and the GPL here: GPL

You are sadly misinformed. Check out Selling Free Software. Even RMS says selling free software is OK.

Also given the fact that anyone can simply download the software and read the book online, something of a disincentive to even buy the shrinkwrap.

Free MP3's on Napster, and yet CD sales are up. How does this figure into your argument?

Linux should be developed along with other products..such as how ibm distributes servers with linux on them. They make the money from the server, not the software

That's one model. Service + Support is another model. It remains to be seen how each model will fare.

Don't make investment choices based on this post. :)

On that we agree... in fact, don't make any sort of decision from what you read on /. :)

Ryan T. Sammartino

10. If you use Open Source software and you're 18 years old, you don't have to join the army.

9. Nobody ever bombed a Linux box.

8. Linus vs. Bill is a more exciting match than Sharon vs. Arafat.

7. "Linux" vs. "GNU/Linux" debate slightly less violent than "Israel" vs. "Palestine" conflict.

6. I'll take "The Free Software Song" over "Yerushalaim Shel Zahav" any day of the week.

5. There are no penguins in Jerusalem.

4. If you go on a Beer Hike in a remote area of Israel, you might get shot.

3. Ten Commandments aren't GPLed.

2. Jolt and Ramen noodles are cheaper than falafel.

And the number one reason why Open Source is better than Jerusalem:

1. Two words: Bruce Perens.

Cheers,
IT

most of the work (at least in AMOS) for manipulating the chipset had been done for you, an implemented as BASIC commands (like to scroll a graphics screen - you used the SCROLL command).

C is the same way. A decent 2D graphics library will have a function scroll_screen(x, y). The Basic version I remember (QBasic) was so limited that it didn't even support drawing primitives to offscreen bitmaps.

BASIC has the easiest learning curve (and if you already know BASIC, no learning curve).

Visual Basic != Blitz Basic. Lack of a recognized standard for the Basic language creates a tremendous learning curve from one dialect to another. For example, some dialects have line numbers; others don't. Some use gosub for function calls; others use call; others use fn; others have a more C-like syntax. Some Basic dialects have multiline if...then...else...endif; others only allow if condition then goto 12345.

I will never understand why BASIC is knocked so much nowadays

Mostly because people are under the impression that "20 goto 10" is still valid Basic. Exception handling under most dialects is a piece of; on error goto is a lousy kluge for a try/catch structure.

or some other engine, like Genesis

I always thought Genesis consoles were programmed in 68000 assembly.

There are several free, open-source [Basic] compilers for Linux

Will code written for one compile on another? I may try my hand at Basic again once I see one or both of these:

• Standardization activity for the Basic language. Currently, the differences among dialects are so great that "programming in Basic" == "throwing portability out the window."
• A frontend in the GNU Compiler Collection for Basic. Fast code needs a good optimizer; GCC's is one of the best.

I gotta wonder how Linus and most of the kernel development group feels about this. While Linux probably isn't guiding missles yet

Linus and the kernel hackers are writing a UNIX kernel. That's all they're doing. They also deliberately chose the GNU General Public License, which they understand grants Freedom 0, The freedom to run the program, for any purpose .

Now, I might want to use a UNIX kernel in my criminal master plan, or my act of terrorism, or my unethical business, or even my Evil Petting Zoo. I might choose Linux, but that is not the responsibility of the kernel hackers. They are only responsible for the kernel itself, not for its use.

If the kernel was deliberately programmed to do unethical or illegal things... that would be a different matter.

Actually, the FSF would rather copyright didn't exist.

This is one of the most frequent GPL/FSF misconceptions I see here.

Yes, the GPL does require copyright to work. But that doesn't mean the FSF is pro-copyright. The GPL was a license built to attempt to promote free software in a world where copyright is the law. If copyright wasn't the law, there would be other ways of promoting free software, and it would probably be easier to do so.

For example, in a world without copyright, all programs or algorithms written down in academic publications (or publications of any kind) would be available for all to use. Admittedly, the GPL's protection against turning things proprietary would be lost, but it would also be less necessary (since compilation, encryption, and obfuscation are known not to be effective protections against plagiarism anyway).

For example, see the essay at the gnu website here for an example; other essays in the same place may be more apropos.

Jules

I could make that list even longer with many more projects that Red Hat either funds, maintains, develops or contributes to, but I think I've already proven my point.

I could make that list even longer with many more projects that Red Hat either funds, maintains, develops or contributes to, but I think I've already proven my point.

I could make that list even longer with many more projects that Red Hat either funds, maintains, develops or contributes to, but I think I've already proven my point.

Even if we like ASP or not, even if we prefer PHP, JSP or ColdFusion, I think the port isn't bad by itself. It is more software for UNIX systems, so that means *NIX operating systems are taken very seriously. Why should we "fight" against this? New software is a way of developing these systems.

However, I think that an ASP port for UNIX should be completely free, opensource and so on. As everybody knows, that allows programs to be of high quality and really tested (see this for examples of not-deeply-tested applications). Furthermore, it is possible that commercial and free versions of a system exist, each one with its own capabilities (for example, mySQL and other SQL based systems).

As a conclusion, I agree on the port, but there should be a free version (and soon if possible :) ).

But aren't this kind of extra-value services (packaging, customization, documentation, etc.) just how free software / open source is supposed to make money. Even if you ask RMS.

Hm. That code looks a bit weird (I haven't tried actually running it, though). The second for loop's body ends with a semicolon, not a comma, and there are no braces to be seen. Still, the following (long) loop is indented. Should it really be? Not that it matters, since this is C and not Python, but if the point is to make it readable... Weird. I just ran it through GNU indent, and it seems to agree. I didn't look at the original (non-cleaned-up) code, either.

Heh, but not for long, The gcc page says its out, but the dload links point to 2.95.2 - pulled for some reason....
--
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc

Anyway, software developers (including myself) love it.

Cryptnotic

This is nonsense, the GPL says no such thing. The closest thing is a statement that you must include a list of the changes you made (ie, ChangeLog entries), which is only common sense, and that the changes must be licensed under the GPL. (roughly) This is section 2 of the GPL.

See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for more information.

I think you may have been confusing it with some other license; I know there are some free software licenses that require this, although I can't remember any examples at the moment.

Daniel