Slashdot Mirror

Sorry, Bruce, but there's incontravertible evidence that this is so. In his essay The GNU Manifesto , he explicitly states that the purpose of his "GNU" project -- and the GPL -- is to make it impossible for programmers to make a better salary than they could as graduate students in academia.

Stallman writes:

For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could have had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: fame and appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a reward in itself.

Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same interesting work for a lot of money.

What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.

This is right from the horse's mouth -- written in one of his more candid moments and posted on his own Web site. Q.E.D.

If you don't like the GPL, all you need do is not use GPL code as part of your program. We are not forcing you to use it.

Funny: Microsoft makes this same argument about Windows.

Alas, due to misinformation about the GPL (which, alas, I fear that you and ESR are perpetuating by not speaking out about this outrage), it is spreading like a cancer. It is literally becoming as impossible to avoid GPLed software in the UNIX world as it once was to avoid buying Windows with an IBM-compatible PC. No, more difficult. Why? Because the GPL's predatory nature has done more to stamp out competition in the realms of UNIX development tools and utilities than even Microsoft.

You may license your own code any way you like.

This is not sufficient to stop the GPL's deleterious effects. It is important to encourage others not to stamp the GPL on their code, and to create non-GPLed open source products that can be used to replace GPLed ones.

I really take issue with your calling RMS unethical.

Do you think it's ethical to attempt to destroy others' businesses and livelihoods because of a 20-year-old petty grudge? I don't.

If we were to compare RMS' achievements with yours, I'm afraid you'd not measure up.

If you measure "achievement" by how much one has hurt others, you are right: I don't measure up. And am very glad not to. I won't sacrifice ethics for fame, fortune, or power, as Stallman has done.

--Brett Glass

KDevelop is looking nice... but much of what you are asking for (in terms of debugging, jumping to the error, editing, etc) is available for C,C++,Java,Perl,Python, etc, with one interface in the Data Display Debugger (DDD) at www.gnu.org/software/ddd.

Very cool piece of software.

See also this document for some FSF propaganda on the subject.

As a good example look at the huge problem that GNU has coming up with an english word for "free as in speech" rather than "free as in beer". The bottom line is, there is no good word - if you disagree contact GNU

This problem creates havoc in trying to explain people the idea behind free software. Sure they understand "freedom" but there is no good adjective that can be used on objects that are normally bought and sold (commodities), in the english language, to describe this freedom. Because of the lack of a word for it, it becomes much more difficult to understand - and truely limits many people into thinking that free software is something other than what it is meant to be.

Free speech == words that cost no money? If not how do you say it?
Joseph Elwell.

As a good example look at the huge problem that GNU has coming up with an english word for "free as in speech" rather than "free as in beer". The bottom line is, there is no good word - if you disagree contact GNU

This problem creates havoc in trying to explain people the idea behind free software. Sure they understand "freedom" but there is no good adjective that can be used on objects that are normally bought and sold (commodities), in the english language, to describe this freedom. Because of the lack of a word for it, it becomes much more difficult to understand - and truely limits many people into thinking that free software is something other than what it is meant to be.

Free speech == words that cost no money? If not how do you say it?
Joseph Elwell.

I do note that IBM has VisualAge COBOL, but where are the Qt bindings?

... And when will you be putting fixed-record support into ext2?

Which one of the COBOL environments provides a metaobject protocol? (Just as CLOS - Common Lisp Object System has, as does C++ as does Guile with GOOPS

Hmm? Hmm? Inquiring minds want to know...

Please, Java is the washed-up, has-been, never-will-be-again, even-if-it-tries-really-really-hard of programming languages.

You want performance? Enterprise support? Proven track record? I dare all the Slashdotters to point me to a better choice than COBOL, which I am currently using to develop an open source, business-to-business e-commerce framwork using advanced object-oriented methodogies and optimized for intranets running on the powerful Windows2000 platform. Huh? i thought so.

What I *really* want to know is which COBOL system Red Hat is going to support. GNU? maybe Tiny COBOL? I want answers. The choice operating systems is now down to CP/M 2.1 and Linux, and I'm going to go with the one with the best COBOL support.

C'mon Slashdot, address the real needs of real programmers, not these 'hackers' and 'd00ds'. So let's see more COBOL coverage in the future!

~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd

Why can't the following be done: have a standardized superset of flags for the most common and widespread options, such as verbose (-v), version (-V), recursive (-r), all (-a), force (-f).

[Someone else:]
Even better was the approach the Amiga took. It had standardised on a single library to parse all command lines, and allowed you to always know how to get at least the list of arguments to a particular command.

This is free as in gratis (sometimes called freeware), not free as in libre. You get a binary, you can pass it to your friends (or enemies, they don't care) You don't get source. You can't make changes. (You probably can't even disassemble it to find out how thing were done.) You can't hire someone else to make changes for you.

You pretty much have to depend on Sun maintaining it.

This is free as in gratis (sometimes called freeware), not free as in libre. You get a binary, you can pass it to your friends (or enemies, they don't care) You don't get source. You can't make changes. (You probably can't even disassemble it to find out how thing were done.) You can't hire someone else to make changes for you.

You pretty much have to depend on Sun maintaining it.

--

jd wrote:

Despite what many in the US think, the East coast does not mark the edge of the world, and people who sail beyond the horizon don't fall off.
RSA encryption has been used, freely, throughout Europe, for a considerable period of time. International versions of PGP, for example, can be found in many University FTP archives, and are widely used.
Yes, it does mean RSA can be used "freely" in the US, but that's about the limits of the benefit. One small continent, amongst many.

The facts here are certainly true, but that's not the whole story. A LOT of software development takes place in the US; all surveys I've seen have ranked the US as the largest software producer in the world (most of them rank India second). Key commercial products are developed in the US, and many key Free software projects (including the entire GNU project) are hosted in the US. All this software needs to care about the RSA patent, or risk lawsuits.

After the patent expires, none of this software need worry. European users will no longer have to use patches and alternate versions of American software, RSA code can be in the main code tree. RSA software developed outside the US will no longer feel like they need to offer an American version, since the rules will be closer together. This will make development easier across the board.


Besides, RSA isn't cutting-edge, by a long way. Yes, it's proved very resistant to attacks, and it's one of the best public-key encryption algorithms out there, but there's a lot of much newer stuff that looks like it could be more attractive in the long-term.

It may not be cutting edge, but it is the defacto standard protocol for encrypted internet communications. I wish more software would support DH/DSS, but they just don't. So-called "cutting edge" solutions generally have not been around long enough to be trusted, much less standard.


(IMHO, it's a mistake to rely on a "proven solution" in preference to looking ahead. If anyone cracks the primes problem, RSA is dead in the water. Instantly. No matter how "robust" it's been.)

Both needs to happen, you always need to be looking ahead to find new technologies. On the other hand, when implementing a real world system, you need proven, robust technology to rely upon. RSA is currently the tool used by most organizations to implement their PKI for this very reason.

In the future RSA may die, then they need to move to something else, but can you point them at a PKI technology: available right now, with a reliable track record spanning many years, with open cryptographic review spanning at least as long, that isn't succeptable to the "if anyone cracks the primes problem" vulnerability? Regardless, it's not a major vulerability, since that problem has been attacked from many different angles for centuries with no better solutions than the slow ones we have now.

----

How about copyleft? All the GNU books and manuals are already published under this licence. Read more about it here. -Alexander

yeah, maybe Open Source could be seen as raping the community, because some people do not understand the difference between Open Source, and Free Software.

Take the mozilla project for instance, where Netscape Inc. released the mozilla source tree and announced it as Open Source. There were many comparisons in the press, between the mozilla project and GPL Software, which really confused the issue. If you visit www.gnu.org and have a look at the licencing models, they explain the differences between Open Source and GPL Software.

In a nutshell Open Source != GPL Software, Open Source means open access to a specific source tree, whereas GPL Software means FREE (or bare minimum cost) access to the source AND the compiled binary. Basically Open Source software can still remain proprietary whereas GPL Software cannot EVER become proprietary.

Hope that clears things up.

Lollypop_man

Hmm, of course you can still make money while still complying with the GPL. For instance, You can always charge for end-user tech support, and there is always that part of your resume that will state that you have worked in cooperation with others on a large scale project.

There is also Condition 1 in the GPL (Version 2 June 1991) which states:-

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you recieve 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 recipients of the Program a copy of this license along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee. (emphasis added)

Also Ousterhout, by deriving proprietary extensions from the Tcl source tree (because that is what you do when you create an extension), it is automatically in breach of the GPL Condition 2b:-

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

BTW If you breach the licensing aggreement for proprietry software, then you should expect the owner (or their appointed agent) to 'savage you' so why can't the appointed agent to the free software movement do the same?

Remember, for many free software is a great way to learn new techniques and apply them to your own projects. It is usually a "leisure activity" for most, and many people work highly paid jobs, on the cutting edge of the technology, and if it wasn't for the sharing of Ideas, then the computing world would be still back in the days of the abacus.

The prime example of someone who produces GPL software and still earns a living is Linus Torvalds (who he you ask? :) ) who has been working at Transmeta Corp. for the last few years and whose product will change the face of computing again.

I will leave you to draw your own conclusions, but personally if it wasn't for GPL Software and Free software, I wouldn't have learned as much as I have done, and I wouldn't have the job that I work now.

www.gnu.org Try reading the situations vacant to see that you can really make money by supporting GPL Software.

If you break it down into business terms, GPL Software is a 'loss leader' where you sell as cheaply as possible (i.e. FREE) and Hit 'em for the after sales support.

Hope that clears the air.

Lollypop_man (I'ts just a handle, click user info above for my details, I'm no coward!)

Quote:- If programmers are inherently lazy, then I must be the greatest programmer that ever lived!

From the GPL:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

I assume that since you are not required to accept the GPL, Corel would be violating the license by forcing other people to accept it. There are no restrictions on using or downloading GPL software.

Actually, you can see Mr. Stallman's first e-mail about the GNU project here. The GNU project wasn't started until 1983, so Bill couldn't have know about it.

Although it doesn't account for that important fact, it's a fair comparison and not "wrong." After all, metaphors are good or bad, not right or wrong. Metaphors by nature tend to be oversimplifications anyway.

He is right about the second comment, in a way, but in the context of freely distributed software, he doesn't understand what "expensive" really means.

"Expensive", in terms of open source/bazaar software, is measured in units of *glamour* rather than units of *money*.[...]

Yes, Gates was talking strictly in a money-driven context. The PD programmers of the day got little notice (the "glamour") unless they could publish their work in a magazine, newsletter or the like. Yet, many of them still made programs mostly out of their own independent satisfaction of accomplishment. The GNU project knows this well and stays true to that ideal. RMS doesn't need units of glamour in place of money or seek praise for his efforts, and that's the real spirit of free software that Bill Gates ran up against even then.

Temporary restraining order DENIED!

Thanks to the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the organization and support provided by a few of our fellow defendants we are still here! Another hearing is scheduled for January 14th.

We would like to point out to all of the mirror sites with things like "fuck the lawyers" on them that it is because of a generous group of lawyers that we are still here. These lawyers are working for free (or much less than they could get by going over to the Dark Side) and don't deserve this kind of abuse.

Here is the EFF's stance on this case.

Save a copy of this web page now!

We have just been informed that the DVD Copy Control Association is seeking a restraining order against us (named as "Doe 28") for distributing DeCSS and linking to pages that distribute it and linking to pages that link to pages that distribute it.

Section 48 of this request states that we supposedly "have received notice through the MPA and refused to remove the information at issue". This is absolutely false! We have never received any such request (from the MPA or anybody else for that matter) and we obviously were not given the opportunity to refuse! Either Jared Bobrow needs to go back to law school or the DVD CCA needs to get a new firm. This is the kind of sloppy work that could get an important document thrown out.

Here is a 2600 story on this.

Explanation on legality of this information

The software (source as well as binaries) offered on this site can be freely redistributed because it was published under the GNU General Public License. The purpose of this software is not illegal copying of DVD disks. It is meant to provide information necessary to be able to program a DVD player for Linux. To do this, the CSS system needs to be incorporated in the player. Recently the (very weak) DVD content scrambling system was deciphered, freeing the way for a Linux DVD player. The CSS system is not a copy protection system, since it does not prevent copying of the disk. Writing information about the way an encryption scheme functions is completely legal. The source code and binaries on this site are completely legal too, since they contain no code from the DVD consortium or its members. The sources and programs on this site were written by third parties using clean-room reverse engineering methods which are (ready?) completly legal.

Attention www.rhythm.cx was hosting a list of mirrors for these files. That list of mirrors has been replaced with a page reading "This site has been taken down for legal reasons." Here's what the maintainer put on the site the day it was shut down:

NOTE (Thu, Nov 11, 12:17pm EST): I've recently been informed that a law firm which is likely to be one that would try get these mirrors taken down has been visiting this mirror site as well as others. With that said, there is a possibility that I may have to remove this site in the near future because like everyone else, I can't afford to go to court to fight it. Luckly, it seems fairly unlikely that any law firm will ever be able to get rid of all these mirrors at this point (there are currently 41 in 8 different countries and this list is growing every day). However, I have only seen very few mirror _lists_ like this one anyplace. If anyone has the resources, it might be wise to mirror this list of mirrors as well so that the right people will still know that these mirrors exist.

Here is a 2600 story with more details on how rhythm.cx was shut down.

Current Mirrors Last updated: Wed, Jan 19, 12:13am EST
Numbers are only for the maintainer's convenience

We apologize for the length of time between updates. This list has gotten quite large and thus more difficult to maintain.

Much thanks to this site for listing mirrors of the mirror lists.

1. http://www.humpin.org/decss/DeCSS.zip and http://www.humpin.org/decss/decss.tar.gz
   
   
2. http://www.2600.com/news/1999/11 12-files/DeCSS.zip/ and http://www.2600.com/news/1 999/1112-files/css-auth.tar.gz
   
3. http://douglas.min.net/~drw/css-auth/
   
4. http://www.devzero.org/freecss.html
   
5. http://www.chello.nl/~f .vanwaveren/css-auth/css-auth.tar.gz
   
6. http://www.geociti es.com/ResearchTriangle/Campus/8877/index.html
   
7. http://www.angelfire.com/mt/popefelix/
8. http://www.vexed.net/CSS
   
9. http://members.brabant.chello.nl/~j.vr eeken/
   
10. http://www.dvd.eavy.de/css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.dvd.eavy.de/DeCSS.zip
    
11. http://www.eavy.net/stuff/dvd/css-aut h.tar.gz and http://www.eavy.net/stuff/dvd/DeCSS.zip
    
12. http://frozenlinux.com/local/decss/in dex.html
    
13. http://dirtass.beyatch.net/decss.zip
    
14. http://decss.tripod.com/index.html
    
15. http://www.free-dvd.org.lu/
    
16. http://www.angelfire.com/in2/mirror/
    
17. http://batman.jytol.fi/~vuori/dvd/
    
18. http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/deCSS/CSS.ht ml
    
19. http://plato.nebulanet.net:88/css/
    
20. http://www.logorrhea.com/main.html
    
21. http://people.delphi.com/salfter/LiVi d.tar.gz
    
22. ftp://193.219.56.32/pub/dvd/LiVi d.CVS-11.06.tar.gz and ftp://193.219.56. 32/pub/dvd/LiVid.CVS-11.06.css-stuff-only.tar.gz
    
23. http://merlin.keble.ox.ac.uk/~a drian/css/index.html
    
24. http://www.dvd-copy.com/
    
25. http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/css -auth.tar.gz and http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/DeCSS.zip
    
26. http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/
    
27. http://members.theglobe.com/avoiderm an/dvd.htm
    
28. http://remco.xgov.net/dvd/
    
29. http://www.twistedlogic.com/htm l/tl_archive_map.htm
    
30. http:/ /munitions.polkaroo.net/software/algorithms/stream ciphers/decss.tar.gz
    
31. http://muni tions.dyn.org/software/algorithms/streamciphers/de css.tar.gz
    
32. http://uk1. munitions.net/software/algorithms/streamciphers/de css.tar.gz
    
33. http://muni tions.firenze.linux.it/algorithms/streamciphers/de css.tar.gz
    
34. http://www.irgendeinedomain.de/decs s/index.html
    
35. http://therapy.endorphin.org/DVD/
    
36. http://killer.discordia.ch /Politics/Copyprotection.phtml
    
37. http://linuxvideo.org/
    
38. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconV alley/Port/3224/
    
39. ftp://ftp.one.net/pub/user s/dmahurin/files/software/dvd/
    
40. ftp://ftp.charm.net/pub/usr/home/dutch/ or http://www.charm.net/~dutch/
    
41. http://dsl129.drizzle.com:2001/downlo ads/DVD/
    
42. http://perso.libertysurf. fr/ortal98/dvd_rip/decss_12b.zip
43. http://users.drak.net/bem ann/software/css/css-auth.tar.gz and http://users.drak.net/bemann/so ftware/css/DeCSS.zip
    
44. http://www.angelfire.com/movies/decss
    
45. http://www.angelfire.com/myband/decss/
46. http://josefine.ben.tuwien.ac.at/~davi d/dvd/
    
47. http://www.c0ke.com/DVD/
    
48. http://rockme.virtualave.net/
    
49. http://amor.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444t2v/
50. http://www.quintessenz.at/q/index.html
51. http://www.dvdlinks.co.uk/css/
    
52. http://www.fortunecit y.com/tinpan/tylerbridge/679/dvdcss.html
    
53. http://www.crosswinds.net/~valo/DeCSS/
54. http://members.home.com/christopherlee/ dvd/
    
55. http://members.xoom.com/freedecss/
    
56. http://www.dynamsol.com/satanix/DeCSS.zip and http://www.dynamsol.com/satanix/css -auth.tar.gz
    
57. http://mun itions.cifs.org/software/algorithms/streamciphers/ decss.tar.gz
    
58. http://www.able-towers.com/~flow/
    
59. http://www.cgocable.net/~jdionne/css/
    
60. http://people.mn.mediaone.net/bojay/s lashdot/
    
61. http://www.capital.net/~mazzic
    
62. http://24.108.23.121/DeCSS/
    
63. http://members.tripod.com/donotsueme/
    
64. http://donotsueme.homepage.com
    
65. http://www.homestead.com/donotsueme/ index.html
    
66. http://donotsueme.freeservers.com/
    
67. http://www.angelfire.com/punk/donotsueme/
    
68. http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~marsie/
    
69. http://209.178.22.9/protest/
    
70. http://www.bard.org.il/~marc/dvd
    
71. http://www.geocities.com/RainFor est/4360/decss.zip
    
72. http://www.altern.com/tfagart/decss.zip
    
73. http://www.itouch.net/~jm/dvd.html
    
74. http://ils.unc.edu/inls183/resources .shtml#DVD
    
75. http://avdira.cc.duth.gr/~kkonstan/css/
    
76. http://www.multimania.com/sxpert/decss/
    
77. http://www.posexperts.com.pl/peopl e/wrobell/css/
    
78. http://www.koek.net/dvd/
    
79. http://www.cyberchrist.org/freecss.html
    
80. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~cybe rchrist/freecss.html
    
81. http://www.planet.net.au/~coram/
    
82. http://www.geek.co.il/css/
    
83. http://www.datacomm.ch/adrien/decss/ index.html
    
84. http://home.rmci.net/bert/fuckthelawyers/
    
85. http://unimatrix.dyndns.org/fucklawyers/
    
86. http://www.isn.net/~dsimeone/DeCSS.zip
87. http://logical-solutions.com.au/DeCSS.zip
    
88. http://www.fsp.com/
    
89. http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~echerry/dvd
    
90. http://www.mafkees.com/dvd
    
91. http://dB.org/dvd/
    
92. http://dcwi.com/~wench/decss
    
93. http://dvdcss.newmail.ru
    
94. http://www.subcor.com
    
95. http://www.frankw.net/decss
    
96. http://danger-island.com/~dav/any.lawyer.who/quote s.this.url/gives.permission/for .his.residence.to.be.searched/any.bootleg.audio/vi deo/tape.found/nullifies.legal.and.moral .standing/
    
97. http://www.fortunecity.com/vi ctorian/parkwood/95/DVD/
    
98. http://www.asleep.net/dvd
    
99. http://members.xoom.com/NiKeX
    
100. http://www.geocit ies.com/ResearchTriangle/Station/2819/index.html
     
101. http://www.execpc.com/~unicorn/dvdmirr or.htm
     
102. http://members.xoom.com/chapter3/Mamma No.htm
     
103. http://wiw.org/~drz/css/
     
104. http://merlinjim.freeservers.com/dvd/
     
105. http://www.visi.com/~adept/liberty
     
106. http://www.ct2600.org/2600-DVD.html
     
107. http://magic.hurrah.com/~fireball/dvd/
108. ftp://ftp.foon.net/pub/decss
     
109. http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/css/
     
110. http://earnestdesigns.com/dvd
     
111. http://www.satl.com/~satlpop6/
     
112. ftp://cm-d0415.resnet.ucsc.edu/p ub/css-auth.tar.gz
     
113. http://www.mit.edu/afs/sipb/user /mycroft/css-auth/
     
114. http://www.eyrie.demon.co.uk/derek/dvd/c ss
     
115. http://ananke.hack.pl
     
116. http://budice.ancients.net/www.free -dvd.org.lu/
     
117. http://kesagatame.tripod.com
     
118. http://www.angelfire.com/pokemon/decss
119. http://www.gnosis.cx/download/DeCSS.zip
     
120. http://bone.powersurfr.com/DeCSS/
     
121. http://wakeupthe.net/dvd/
     
122. http://cubicmetercrystal.com/decss/
     
123. http://analyzethis.acmecity.com/triboro /90/
     
124. http://homepages.together.net/~ib nzahid/DeCSS.zip
     
125. http://www.save2600.8m.com
     
126. http://people.ne.mediaone.net/dantepsn/
     
127. http://members.xoom.com/mxpxguy/dvd/
     
128. http://decss.fall0ut.com
     
129. http://vedaa.tripod.com/decss.html
     
130. http://members.xoom.com/iox
     
131. http://www.hackunlimited.com/dvd/
     
132. http://hem.fyristorg.com/police/css.htm
     
133. http://elknews.netpedia.net/dvd/
     
134. http://www.idrive.com/decss/web
     
135. http://www.clug.com/~vodak/dvd/
     
136. http://www.nacs.net/~vodak/dvd/
     
137. http://ny2600.iwarp.com
     
138. http://www.wpi.edu/~nassar/dvd/
     
139. http://www.glue.umd.edu/~castongj
     
140. http://www.geocities.com/cold_dvd/
     
141. http://www.projectgamma.com/deccs/
     
142. http://members.xoom.com/mogreen/decss/
143. http://thrash.webjump.com/decss.zip
     
144. http://www.angelfire.com/de2/decss/dec ss.htm
     
145. http://www.ithink.org/dvd/
     
146. http://www.fortunecit y.com/skyscraper/motorola/1415/decss.htm
     
147. http://www.linuxstart.com/~kv ance/projects/decss.html
     
148. http://www.darkkingz.com/DeCSS.zip
     
149. http://ebmedia.net/dvd/
     
150. http://www.geocities.com/decss_forever/
     
151. http://revolution.3-cities.com/~spack/dv d/
     
152. http://www.geocities.com/Sili conValley/Software/8762/
     
153. http://smokering.org
     
154. http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/css -auth.tar.gz
     
155. http://dlsf.org
     
156. http://home.rmci.net/bert/dvd
     
157. http://thrash.webjump.com/decss.zip
     
158. http://linux.uci.agh.edu.pl/~outlaw/ decss.html
     
159. http://debian.mps.krakow.pl/mirror/css/
     
160. http://www.fission.org/~mangino
     
161. http://212.187.12.197/decss/
     
162. http://www.clarkson.edu/~andrixjr /decss/DeCSS.zip
     
163. http://www.geocities.com/Capitol Hill/1583/dvd.html
     
164. http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/dvd.htm
     
165. http://www.members.home.net/normanlorrai n/
     
166. http://home.swipnet.se/~w-18931/decss/
167. http://home.soneraplaza.nl/qn/prive/v alhalla/
     
168. http://www.robotslave.net
     
169. http://www.angelfire.com/punk/freedom/
170. http://www.corova.com/dvd/
     
171. http://2600.dk/mirrors/css/
     
172. http://dvdcrack.homepage.com
     
173. http://www.copkiller.org
     
174. http://www.worldcity.nl/~frank/dvd
     
175. http://members.xoom.com/iamkeenan/master/
     
176. http://www.adulation.net/css/
     
177. http://homepage.interacces s.com/~mycroft/decss/DeCSS.zip
     
178. http://underground.pl/dvd/
     
179. http://members.xoom.com/nyc2600
     
180. http://zerosoft.hypermart.net/warez/ DVDcrK.txt
     
181. http://www.deforest.org/CSS
     
182. http://www.xenoclast.demon.co.uk/main.ht ml
     
183. http://www.ctol.net/~ross/css-auth.tar.gz
     
184. http://www.xenoclast.demon.co.uk/main.ht ml
     
185. http://www.ctol.net/~ross/css-auth.tar.gz
     
186. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconV alley/File/3635/
     
187. http://members.xoom.com/a1010_2000/
     
188. http://decss.globalservice.hu/
     
189. http://members.xoom.com//_XMC M/madasian2000/index.htm
     
190. ftp://ftp.firehead.org/pub/
     
191. http://www.koek.net/dvd
     
192. http://www.mindspring.com/~stonethrower
     
193. http://www.geocitie s.com/SiliconValley/Hardware/6188/index.html
     
194. http://matt.frogspace.net/css/
     
195. ftp://www.spamshack.net/pub/dcss/
     
196. http://imezok.tripod.com/Untitled.txt
     
197. http://warpedreality.members.easyspace. com/
     
198. http://ts1.online.fr/dvd/
     
199. http://homepages.go.com/homepage s/4/0/3/403_error/
     
200. http://members.xoom.com/maud123/Home/C SS.htm
     
201. http://xtreme2k.8k.com/DeCSS/
     
202. http://hackingdvd.homestead.com/
     
203. http://www.geocities.com/corporatemi ndcontrol/
     
204. http://www.geocities.com/SoHo /Studios/6752/index.html
     
205. http://darklord.darkthrone.com/user s/smith/dvd/
     
206. http://www.image.dk/~mbp
     
207. http://www.divisionbyzero.com/decss/
     
208. http://decss.cx/
     

so what happens to GYVE ?

Interestingly enough, a heated thread on a related topic cropped up in the kernel-dev mailing list the other week. Check out Kernel Traffic for the details, but basically it had to do with some SGI engineers who wanted to make a change in a threading mechanism to facilitate 3D graphics performance on Linux. Linus explained that he felt their method was, basically, an unmaintainable, inelegant hack that has crept its way into Irix for marketing purposes but will never be in the Linux kernel.

The relevant thing in relation to the IBM article is Linus' discussion of the philosophy of fork() and how strongly committed he is to this model. He's stated quite often, in fact, that this thread scheduling mechanism (which schedules threads as separate processes) is a very intentional part of the kernel design.

Personally, I think this opinion will pretty much have to change over time when people are able to demonstrate very elegant patches for the many-to-many threading model discussed in the IBM article. In fact, if I remember correctly, this is the sort of threading model that TowerJ uses in their native Java compilation system to achieve such great scalability on Linux. You can find plenty of examples of in-process scheduling code if you're interested in checking it out: GNU portable threads is the first one that comes to mind, but almost every Java implementation offers this model as an option (green threads). The method IBM is talking about combines this inter-process tactic with the current, intra-process scheduler.

It just makes sense that if you have 10,000 processes in a queue and you have to recompute goodness for each every time you enter the schedule, this will be a less scalable approach than if you'd created 100 processes with 100 threads each, so that thread_goodness only needs to be computed when that particular process is entered. Think about the management of a large corporation: does the top management allocate resources, set timetables, and otherwise schedule every single employee? No, they schedule a number of departments and projects, then the next level of managers schedules each of the employees within those.

So far, I think this has been much less of an issue not just because Linux hasn't been focused on the enterprise space (where scalability to tens of thousands of threads is crucial), but more because the key server-side applications in Linux (Apache, etc), have been multi-process rather than multithreaded. Now, with the increase in multithreaded apps from Java (say what you will about the language, it makes threading MUCH easier than C) and, for example, the new Apache process models, we'll start to see serious real-world performance benefits for those OSes that have the best thread scalability. Linus, being the bright guy he is, will surely pick up on this make whatever changes are necessary. At least, that's the way I see it working out. --JRZ

"Basically, the gist of his argument is that microkernels aren't any better than monolithic kernels, simply because any tricks you can pull to optimize a microkernel can be applied towards optimizing a monolithic kernel. Microkernels aren't necessarily any more portable than a well-designed monolithic one, and they don't necessarily guarantee better performance. Further, they have some overhead that monolithic kernels can avoid."

He's right. Splitting up a perfectly working kernel in a myriad of tiny things that run in seperate address spaces buys you flexibility, not performance. Microkernels depend quite heavily on message passing via memory regions and other IPC methods. The problem is that (on the x86 PC at least) there is a heavy overhead to the memory reads. In the days when the CPU core can only access its L2 cache on every other, or every third, CPU instruction (K7), it doesn't make sense to play tricks with the MMU and address space. It's great for embeded systems where modularity is important, and memory latencies are not an issue, but a properly designed/architectured monolithic kernel works better on x86 machines.

If you read this Kernel Traffic piece, you'll see that (suprise, suprise!) the DinX framebuffer does not work as well as X's classic system because of the x86 memory bottleneck.

(I quote from the piece)"Just to clarify, performance is currently horrible on PC hardware because we read (memmove) from the framebuffer a lot when dragging windows around. And it seems PC hardware does this really slowly. "
This is because a read requires the data to filter through the main memory bus (100Mhz or 66Mhz), to the L2 cache (same as memory bus on Socket 7, a bit faster for PII/Celeron/K7), and then to the CPU and its L1 cache. So the message reading overhead exists, and is getting exponentially worse as the CPU/L2 Cache/Memory latencies add up. Writes are "fire and forget," and so do not suffer as much because of the latencies.


"I'm sure all of that is well and good, but the fact that the BeOS kernel exists, is a microkernel, and has a performance on par or better than (depending on the situation) the Linux kernel tends to, in my mind, dispute Torvalds' views that microkernels are basically intellectual playthings not worthy of implementation."

Now, if you'd read Linux-Kernel (digest or otherwise) or Kernel Traffic, you'd know that Linus has rejected a patch that removes a lot of the Linux Kernel latency because he says Linux is not competing with the BeOS. This patch does exist, and in this Kernel Traffic piece, we see how it removes the latency you complain about, without recoding the Linux kernel as a microkernel. QED: this proves your assertation based on architecture is flawed and false.

If you think the Linux Kernel's design is so horrible, anyway, you should go work on the GNU/Hurd. It needs more development/developers.

Cogito ergo cogito sum :-)
---

Hey, at least they didn't ask us to vote on the best singing voice.

I dont see what the big fuss is about.. Ultimately, its up to the individual who's work is being used to enforce the conditions laid out in the GPL. Its not the FSF's responsibility, or GNU's responsibility. Its yours. You hire the lawyer if you find someone trying to rip you off..Have a look at GNU's GPL faq if you dont believe me.

That, if anything, is the biggest loophole of all in the GPL. It means that you can selectively turn a blind eye to anyone using your work within a commercial project. You simply choose not to enforce the provisions of the GPL. And, as we all know, passing a little money over the table will gladly make even the most pious coder consider that route, as sneaky and underhanded as it is.

The only thing wrong with the GPL is the very thing which makes it work; the clause which specifies that you may not GPL your work and subsequently go out and sublicense it.

Translation: Sorry, kids--You cant make money off it, even if you built it all from scratch, top to bottom. Its a terrible paradox..It makes for great software, but it also prevents programmers from being compensated. The GPL, as nice as it is, wont pay your rent.

Then again, there's always the Perl Artistic License, which tends to make alot more sense than the GPL on these matters. AFAIK, it does allow for sublicensing.


Bowie J. Poag

• I have not seen RMS libeled.

Perhaps libeled is a bit strong. You do see RMS alternately called a communist, a Svengali a fraud and a number of other things. He generally is not criticized in a way that could legally be termed libel.

• This shows the destructiveness of the GPL. While these people would very much prefer to use another tool, the predatory nature of the GPL has eliminated alternatives.

An amazing claim. Let's see, every single OS vendor has a compiler suite which they heavily support. Most chip manufacturers have a compiler (Intel, Motorola, IBM) for their architecture. There are any number of companies that sell commercial compilers. There is lcc. Seems like there are many, many, many alternatives.

Oh, you mean a good, free, cross architecture compiler that really works well?

Since you make a speculation about a market that could have been had it not been dominated by that mean, destructive GPL'd gcc, allow me to me to make one. Intel, IBM, Compaq (and DEC), Motorola and probably any number of other companies spent a lot developing code generation for gcc. Had the GPL not tied their hands and required them to give these changes back, these companies almost certainly would have sold the modified compiler as a product. After all, each of these companies had their own compilers that they sold as products. Why would they give away their work on gcc had they not been forced to?

Rather than gcc destroying the market for a good cross architecture compiler, it set up an environment where such a thing could thrive.

Compilers (FORTRAN, Algol, Cobol) and free software both existed since the 1950s. It wasn't until a GPL'd compiler appeared that good, free, cross architecture compiler appeared.

• By tying it up with a multi-page license that's rife with legalese and places massive restrictions on its use. Yeah, right.

The GPL is shorter than most EULAs, and it only really places one restriction on the code; You can't take advantage of this community work unless you are willing to participate in the community by giving back. It may be more restrictive than the X/MIT or BSD licenses, but I don't see how you can reasonably call this a "massive restriction". The GPL is far less restrictive than any commercial license with which I'm familiar. What would you call commercial licensing? Tremendously restrictive? Unbelievably restrictive?

• Not so. They differ with RMS, and with good reason. Stallman's agenda is one of spite and malice.

Sure. He unfairly gets called all kinds of names. A reasoned discussion of issues of various "free" licenses is met with "RMS isn't God, GNU isn't a religion and the FSF isn't a bunch of prophets." and absolutely no substantive arguments and Stallman's agenda is one of spite and malice?

• While many users (in particular, "end users") can use the software in the way that best suits their needs, programmers cannot. This is the purpose of the GPL: to transform open source from a public good into a weapon directed against those who engage in activities of which Richard Stallman does not approve.

Another amazing claim. What public good could these Open Source programmers be considering that is not allowed by the GPL except to turn an Open Source product into a Closed Source product. Seems like any other kind of Open Source license allows programmers to transform open source from a public good into a private good. You speak of engaging in "activities" (plural), but really there's only one activity that GPL doesn't allow. That's benefitting from others work without giving back changes to the community that gave you your start.

-Jordan Henderson

Mirrors since 28-Dec-99 added by me.
To my main DVD page (containing list of lists of mirrors) Visit Humpin! (No, it's not what you think!)

Temporary restraining order DENIED!

Thanks to the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the organization and support provided by a few of our fellow defendants we are still here! Another hearing is scheduled for January 14th.

We would like to point out to all of the mirror sites with things like "fuck the lawyers" on them that it is because of a generous group of lawyers that we are still here. These lawyers are working for free (or much less than they could get by going over to the Dark Side) and don't deserve this kind of abuse.

Here is the EFF's stance on this case.
If you need a REAL reason to host these files, try reading this. Truth has never been more purely distilled.

Save a copy of this web page now!

We have just been informed that the DVD Copy Control Association is seeking a restraining order against us (named as "Doe 28") for distributing DeCSS and linking to pages that distribute it and linking to pages that link to pages that distribute it.

Section 48 of this request states that we supposedly "have received notice through the MPA and refused to remove the information at issue". This is absolutely false! We have never received any such request (from the MPA or anybody else for that matter) and we obviously were not given the opportunity to refuse! Either Jared Bobrow needs to go back to law school or the DVD CCA needs to get a new firm. This is the kind of sloppy work that could get an important document thrown out.

Here is a 2600 story on this.

Explanation on legality of this information

The software (source as well as binaries) offered on this site can be freely redistributed because it was published under the GNU General Public License. The purpose of this software is not illegal copying of DVD disks. It is meant to provide information necessary to be able to program a DVD player for Linux. To do this, the CSS system needs to be incorporated in the player. Recently the (very weak) DVD content scrambling system was deciphered, freeing the way for a Linux DVD player. The CSS system is not a copy protection system, since it does not prevent copying of the disk. Writing information about the way an encryption scheme functions is completely legal. The source code and binaries on this site are completely legal too, since they contain no code from the DVD consortium or its members. The sources and programs on this site were written by third parties using clean-room reverse engineering methods which are (ready?) completly legal.

Attention www.rhythm.cx was hosting a list of mirrors for these files. That list of mirrors has been replaced with a page reading "This site has been taken down for legal reasons." Here's what the maintainer put on the site the day it was shut down:

NOTE (Thu, Nov 11, 12:17pm EST): I've recently been informed that a law firm which is likely to be one that would try get these mirrors taken down has been visiting this mirror site as well as others. With that said, there is a possibility that I may have to remove this site in the near future because like everyone else, I can't afford to go to court to fight it. Luckly, it seems fairly unlikely that any law firm will ever be able to get rid of all these mirrors at this point (there are currently 41 in 8 different countries and this list is growing every day). However, I have only seen very few mirror _lists_ like this one anyplace. If anyone has the resources, it might be wise to mirror this list of mirrors as well so that the right people will still know that these mirrors exist.

Here is a 2600 story with more details on how rhythm.cx was shut down.

Current Mirrors Last updated: Fri, Dec 31, 8:18pm EST
Numbers are only for the maintainer's convenience

Much thanks to this site for listing mirrors of the mirror lists.

1. http://www.humpin.org/decss/DeCSS.zip and http://www.humpin.org/decss/decss.tar.gz
   
   
2. http://www.2600.com/news/1999/11 12-files/DeCSS.zip/ and http://www.2600.com/news/1 999/1112-files/css-auth.tar.gz
   
3. http://douglas.min.net/~drw/css-auth/
   
4. http://www.devzero.org/freecss.html
   
5. http://www.chello.nl/~f .vanwaveren/css-auth/css-auth.tar.gz
   
6. http://www.geociti es.com/ResearchTriangle/Campus/8877/index.html
   
7. http://www.angelfire.com/mt/popefelix/
8. http://www.vexed.net/CSS
   
9. http://members.brabant.chello.nl/~j.vr eeken/
   
10. http://www.dvd.eavy.de/css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.dvd.eavy.de/DeCSS.zip
    
11. http://www.eavy.net/stuff/dvd/css-aut h.tar.gz and http://www.eavy.net/stuff/dvd/DeCSS.zip
    
12. http://frozenlinux.com/local/decss/in dex.html
    
13. http://www.unitycode.org/
    
14. http://dirtass.beyatch.net/decss.zip
    
15. http://decss.tripod.com/index.html
    
16. http://www.free-dvd.org.lu/
    
17. http://www.angelfire.com/in2/mirror/
    
18. http://batman.jytol.fi/~vuori/dvd/
    
19. http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/deCSS/CSS.ht ml
    
20. http://plato.nebulanet.net:88/css/
    
21. http://www.logorrhea.com/main.html
    
22. http://people.delphi.com/salfter/LiVi d.tar.gz
    
23. ftp://193.219.56.32/pub/dvd/LiVi d.CVS-11.06.tar.gz and ftp://193.219.56. 32/pub/dvd/LiVid.CVS-11.06.css-stuff-only.tar.gz
    
24. http://merlin.keble.ox.ac.uk/~a drian/css/index.html
    
25. http://www.dvd-copy.com/
    
26. http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/dvd/css /css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/dvd/css/DeCSS .zip
    
27. http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/css -auth.tar.gz and http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/DeCSS.zip
    
28. http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/jvz/
    
29. http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/
    
30. http://members.theglobe.com/avoiderm an/dvd.htm
    
31. http://remco.xgov.net/dvd/
    
32. ftp://dvd:dvd@206.98.63.136
    
33. http://www.twistedlogic.com/htm l/tl_archive_map.htm
    
34. http://mu nitions.vipul.net/software/algorithms/streamcipher s/decss.tar.gz
    
35. http:/ /munitions.polkaroo.net/software/algorithms/stream ciphers/decss.tar.gz
    
36. http://muni tions.dyn.org/software/algorithms/streamciphers/de css.tar.gz
    
37. http://uk1. munitions.net/software/algorithms/streamciphers/de css.tar.gz
    
38. http://134.100.185.221/decss/
    
39. http://muni tions.firenze.linux.it/algorithms/streamciphers/de css.tar.gz
    
40. http://www.tasam.com/~fenkt/dvd/
    
41. http://therapy.endorphin.org/DVD/
    
42. http://killer.discordia.ch /Politics/Copyprotection.phtml
    
43. http://livid.on.openprojects.net
    
44. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconV alley/Port/3224/
    
45. ftp://ftp.one.net/pub/user s/dmahurin/files/software/dvd/
    
46. ftp://ftp.charm.net/pub/usr/home/dutch/ or http://www.charm.net/~dutch/
    
47. http://dsl129.drizzle.com:2001/downlo ads/DVD/
    
48. http://perso.libertysurf. fr/ortal98/dvd_rip/decss_12b.zip
49. http://users.drak.net/bem ann/software/css/css-auth.tar.gz and http://users.drak.net/bemann/so ftware/css/DeCSS.zip
    
50. http://www.angelfire.com/movies/decss
    
51. http://members.tripod.co.uk/bap/css/cs s.html
    
52. http://www.angelfire.com/myband/decss/
53. http://josefine.ben.tuwien.ac.at/~davi d/dvd/
    
54. http://www.c0ke.com/DVD/
    
55. http://rockme.virtualave.net/
    
56. http://amor.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444t2v/
57. http://www.quintessenz.at/q/index.html
58. http://www.dvdlinks.co.uk/css/
    
59. http://www.fortunecit y.com/tinpan/tylerbridge/679/dvdcss.html
    
60. http://www.crosswinds.net/~valo/DeCSS/
61. http://members.home.com/christopherlee/ dvd/
    
62. http://members.xoom.com/freedecss/
    
63. http://63.225.181.97/decss/
    
64. ftp://alma.dhs.org/pub/DVD/
    
65. http://www.dynamsol.com/satanix/DeCSS.zip and http://www.dynamsol.com/satanix/css -auth.tar.gz
    
66. http://mun itions.cifs.org/software/algorithms/streamciphers/ decss.tar.gz
    
67. http://www.able-towers.com/~flow/
    
68. http://www.cgocable.net/~jdionne/css/
    
69. http://people.mn.mediaone.net/bojay/s lashdot/
    
70. http://www.capital.net/~mazzic
    
71. http://24.108.23.121/DeCSS/
    
72. http://ananke.hack.pl/
    
73. http://www.geocities.com/donotsueme/
    
74. http://members.tripod.com/donotsueme/
    
75. http://donotsueme.homepage.com
    
76. http://www.homestead.com/donotsueme/ index.html
    
77. http://donotsueme.freeservers.com/
    
78. http://www.angelfire.com/punk/donotsueme/
    
79. http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~marsie/
    
80. http://209.178.22.9/protest/
    
81. http://www.bard.org.il/~marc/dvd
    
82. http://www.geocities.com/RainFor est/4360/decss.zip
    
83. http://www.altern.com/tfagart/decss.zip
    
84. http://www.itouch.net/~jm/dvd.html
    
85. http://ils.unc.edu/inls183/resources .shtml#DVD
    
86. http://avdira.cc.duth.gr/~kkonstan/css/
    
87. http://www.multimania.com/sxpert/decss/
    
88. http://www.posexperts.com.pl/peopl e/wrobell/css/
    
89. http://www.koek.net/dvd/
    
90. http://www.cyberchrist.org/freecss.html
    
91. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~cybe rchrist/freecss.html
    
92. http://www.planet.net.au/~coram/
    
93. http://www.geek.co.il/css/
    
94. http://www.datacomm.ch/adrien/decss/ index.html
    
95. http://home.rmci.net/bert/fuckthelawyers/
    
96. http://unimatrix.dyndns.org/fucklawyers/
    
97. http://www.isn.net/~dsimeone/DeCSS.zip
98. http://logical-solutions.com.au/DeCSS.zip
    
99. http://www.sarahandcasey.com/decss/
    
100. http://www.fsp.com/
     
101. http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~echerry/dvd
     
102. http://www.mafkees.com/dvd
     
103. http://dB.org/dvd/
     
104. http://dcwi.com/~wench/decss
     
105. http://dvdcss.newmail.ru
     
106. http://www.subcor.com
     
107. http://www.frankw.net/decss
     
108. http://danger-island.com/~dav/any.lawyer.who/quote s.this.url/gives.permission/for .his.residence.to.be.searched/any.bootleg.audio/vi deo/tape.found/nullifies.legal.and.moral .standing/
     
109. http://www.fortunecity.com/vi ctorian/parkwood/95/DVD/
     
110. http://www.asleep.net/dvd
     
111. http://members.xoom.com/NiKeX
     
112. http://www.geocit ies.com/ResearchTriangle/Station/2819/index.html
     
113. http://www.execpc.com/~unicorn/dvdmirr or.htm
     
114. http://members.xoom.com/chapter3/Mamma No.htm
     
115. http://wiw.org/~drz/css/
     
116. http://merlinjim.freeservers.com/dvd/
     
117. http://www.visi.com/~adept/liberty
     
118. http://mikedotd.penguinpowered.com/deccs
     
119. http://www.ct2600.org/2600-DVD.html
     
120. http://magic.hurrah.com/~fireball/dvd/
121. http://www.jonhanson.com/dvd
     
122. ftp://ftp.foon.net/pub/decss
     
123. http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/css/
     
124. http://earnestdesigns.com/dvd
     
125. http://www.satl.com/~satlpop6/
     
126. http://xempt.darpa.org:81/decss/
     
127. ftp://cm-d0415.resnet.ucsc.edu/p ub/css-auth.tar.gz
     
128. http://www.mit.edu/afs/sipb/user /mycroft/css-auth/
     
129. http://www.eyrie.demon.co.uk/derek/dvd/c ss
     
130. http://ananke.hack.pl
     
131. http://budice.ancients.net/www.free -dvd.org.lu/
     
132. http://defiance.darktech.org/decss/
     
133. http://kesagatame.tripod.com
     
134. http://www.angelfire.com/pokemon/decss
135. http://www.gnosis.cx/download/DeCSS.zip
     
136. http://bone.powersurfr.com/DeCSS/
     
137. http://wakeupthe.net/dvd/
     
138. http://everest.yooniks.org/dvd
     
139. http://cubicmetercrystal.com/decss/
     
140. http://analyzethis.acmecity.com/triboro /90/
     
141. http://homepages.together.net/~ib nzahid/DeCSS.zip
     
142. http://www.save2600.8m.com
     
143. http://people.ne.mediaone.net/dantepsn/
     
144. http://members.xoom.com/mxpxguy/dvd/
     
145. http://decss.fall0ut.com
     
146. http://vedaa.tripod.com/decss.html
     
147. http://members.xoom.com/iox
     
148. http://www.hackunlimited.com/dvd/
     
149. http://hem.fyristorg.com/police/css.htm
     
150. http://elknews.netpedia.net/dvd/
     
151. http://www.idrive.com/decss/web
     
152. http://quintessenz.at/q
     
153. http://www.clug.com/~vodak/dvd/
     
154. http://www.nacs.net/~vodak/dvd/
     
155. http://ny2600.iwarp.com
     
156. http://www.wpi.edu/~nassar/dvd/
     
157. http://www.glue.umd.edu/~castongj
     
158. http://www.geocities.com/cold_dvd/
     
159. http://www.projectgamma.com/deccs/
     
160. http://members.xoom.com/mogreen/decss/
161. http://thrash.webjump.com/decss.zip
     
162. http://www.angelfire.com/de2/decss/dec ss.htm
     
163. http://www.krackdown.com/decss
     
164. http://www.ithink.org/dvd/
     
165. http://www.fortunecit y.com/skyscraper/motorola/1415/decss.htm
     
166. http://chaz.fsgs.com/misc/DvD/
     
167. http://www.linuxstart.com/~kv ance/projects/decss.html
     
168. http://www.darkkingz.com/DeCSS.zip
     
169. http://come.to/intelex
     
170. http://ebmedia.net/dvd/
     
171. http://www.geocities.com/decss_forever/
     
172. http://revolution.3-cities.com/~spack/dv d/
     
173. http://www.geocities.com/Sili conValley/Software/8762/
     
174. http://members.xoom.com/s_o_sam/help.html
     
175. http://smokering.org
     
176. http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/css -auth.tar.gz
     
177. http://dlsf.org
     
178. http://home.rmci.net/bert/dvd
     
179. http://thrash.webjump.com/decss.zip
     
180. http://linux.uci.agh.edu.pl/~outlaw/ decss.html
     
181. http://debian.mps.krakow.pl/mirror/css/
     
182. http://www.fission.org/~mangino
     
183. http://212.187.12.197/decss/
     
184. http://www.clarkson.edu/~andrixjr /decss/DeCSS.zip
     
185. http://www.geocities.com/Capitol Hill/1583/dvd.html
     
186. http://members.xoom.com/freedecss/
     
187. http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/dvd.htm
     
188. http://www.members.home.net/normanlorrai n/
     
189. http://home.swipnet.se/~w-18931/decss/
190. http://home.soneraplaza.nl/qn/prive/v alhalla/
     
191. http://www.robotslave.net
     
192. http://www.angelfire.com/punk/freedom/
193. http://www.corova.com/dvd/
     
194. http://2600.dk/mirrors/css/
     
195. http://dvdcrack.homepage.com
     
196. http://www.copkiller.org
     
197. http://www.worldcity.nl/~frank/dvd
     
198. http://members.xoom.com/iamkeenan/master/
     
199. http://www.adulation.net/css/
     
200. http://homepage.interacces s.com/~mycroft/decss/DeCSS.zip
     
201. http://underground.pl/dvd/
     
202. http://members.xoom.com/nyc2600
     
203. http://zerosoft.hypermart.net/warez/ DVDcrK.txt
     
204. http://www.deforest.org/CSS
     
205. http://nickd.org/decss
     
206. http://www.xenoclast.demon.co.uk/main.ht ml
     
207. http://www.ctol.net/~ross/css-auth.tar.gz
     
208. http://www.xenoclast.demon.co.uk/main.ht ml
     
209. http://www.ctol.net/~ross/css-auth.tar.gz
     
210. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconV alley/File/3635/
     
211. http://members.xoom.com/a1010_2000/
     
212. http://decss.globalservice.hu/
     

• RMS isn't God, GNU isn't a religion and the FSF isn't a bunch of prophets.

The referenced page doesn't ask us to accept anything on faith. RMS doesn't support worship of him or any of his principles. RMS primarily makes reasoned arguments. You may disagree with those arguments, but if you were up to the challenge you'd use reason yourself.

RMS tells us his view as to why other licenses, and specifically the X/MIT license can lead to problems. It's a pity his detractors have to bring up these tired cultist labels that actually serve to remove reason from the discussion.

• If you don't like the license, don't participate. Don't use any of the products that might be created with this license.

It's funny that with all of the libel that RMS takes for his stands, you never see RMS suggest that others who don't support the GPL should stop using GPL'd products. Gcc comes to mind as something that has benefitted many in the Open Source "Community" who snipe at RMS, the FSF and the GPL.

Now we can see the philosophy of some of those who support other "free" licenses. They are factionalists. The FSF and the GPL support Freedom in software. The software is permitted to be used by anyone, even those who work against FSF goals.

-Jordan Henderson

RMS doesn't slam the MIT X license in particular, he is advocating the benefits of copylefts. If you don't want a copyleft, the MIT X license is fine. I believe he described it as "a simple non-copyleft free software license with no particular problems" at one point.

The MIT License (also known as the "X License") is used for all technical material, include program source code, manual pages, and similar material.

and

The project therefore requires source code and other purely technical material to use the MIT License

If you don't see any problem with that, just look at what RMS have to say about it.

Well, not totally new - try reading some of RMS's notes on the "good old days" at www.gnu.org

This is a very important and promising project. First of all, I think
it is important to have more than a single alternative for a kernel to
use on Open Source (well, mostly GNU) systems. Secondly, GNU HURD is a
microkernel, which is a certified Way of the Future, will be much more
extendable, flexible, and will scale better for SMP machines with lots
of processes. And most importantly, the HURD, although
UNIX-compatible, does not attempt to merely mimic UNIX but can
potentially function in much different and diverse ways that the UNIX
architecture cannot even dream of. Therefore: HURD.

I posted this on superspecialquestions.com, the web BBS that M. Doughty (of the band Soul Coughing) runs.

legislating the number OR i'll chew my audio, thanks.

The 5% nation has switched from offering an mp3-encoded Soul Coughing recording each month in favor of releasing a greater volume of material in the Liquid Audio format -- the catch being that these Liquid Audio files are only playable for 30 days.

The deal, as I understand it, is that more music can be released in the Liquid Audio format, since the 30-day timeout makes a future commercial release of the music more lucrative.

Let me explain why I feel this is a Bad Thing. The issue is complicated, but I'll be as breif as I can.

Liquid Audio is very different from mp3.

First, it's a "secure format". That means that (either by patent or trade secret) only Liquid Audio (the company) and its licensees can make players for these files. It also means that you can't easily convert a Liquid Audio track into another format.

Second, that 30-day time limit is more than just an inconvenience. It raises questions. Clearly I'm not supposed to be able to get around that 30-day limit. But is it a legal restriction, or just a technological one? What's the legal status of a program I might write to to convert a Liquid Audio file into a .wav or .mp3 file? Such programs exist, and they get called "cracks", and talked about as if they're seriously under the table. They're hard to find. Are they illegal? What about the simple solution -- if I get a headphone-plug-to-headphone-plug cable, put one end in the "out" jack on my sound card, put the other end in the "in" jack, and play the Liquid Audio track while I record to a regular wave file? Is that legal? Wave files are easy to encode as mp3s. Am I allowed to redistribute the resulting file?

If we don't ask questions like these, they're going to be answered the way record companies want rather than the way we (as either fans or musicians) might want. Explaining why those answers aren't likely to be the same is a little bit of a task. I'll do the best I can, and provide links. If you're interested, they'll cover the topic much more thoroughly than I'm going to here.

About Mp3:
There is a political battle being fought over the mp3 format. Mp3, like many formats to come (trust me here), makes it possible to store and transfer high-quality audio recordings digitally within reasonable a size range and with reasonable transfer speed. This is becomes increasingly true as storage and network technologies allow for larger and larger files to be reasonable for storage and transfer. Suddenly, it's physically possible to receive and entire albums in digital format over the internet. No one needs to manufacture a CD. No one needs to ship CDs to stores. No one needs to run stores, and no one needs to go out to stores to get music. Record companies are terrified. That's because the business of physically distributing music media is very profitable, and in the near future, it will probably be very outdated -- unless record companies get their way and are able to create an artificial demand for the distribution of music. They've banded together as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to fight mp3. One of the most effective arguments they're using to convince people that such a system needs to be put in place deals with artist compensation and copyright protection. But before I get into that, here are some links for information on mp3 and what record companies are doing about it:

http://www.riaa.com/
http://slashdot.org/ (search for "RIAA")
http://david.weekly.org/writings/sdmi.php3

About Copyright:
There was a time when Copyright made perfect sense. When printing presses were the only way to copy a publishable work, the trade-off was universally beneficial. Printing presses were expensive. Copyright made it possible for people with printing presses to profit from publishing a peice of writing, and didn't limit the rights of people who didn't have printing presses, since they had no reasonable way to copy printed works anyway. People with printing presses were happy, people without printing presses lost nothing of value, and authors could be rewarded for their efforts. When we stretch copyright to cover digital media, however, things get a lot more complicated. Anyone can copy a computer file. In fact, copying digital media is implicit in doing a lot of things that we have other metaphors for as well. To view this web page, for example, you've got to copy it from a server on the Internet. In its journey from that server to your computer, it is copyied between many other computers on the internet that you never have to pay attention to. When it arrives at your computer, it is copied around several times in RAM to get it into a format that will make sense to you, and it is probably copied from the RAM onto your disk for temporary storage to speed things up if you want to view it again in the near future. Then it's copied to a special place in the RAM, which is read by your video card, which then transforms it into the light you're seeing. Then it gets copied about in very similar ways in your eyes, your optic nerves, and in your brain. Worse, the whole web page, like any Liquid Audio track, image, or computer program, is represented within your computer as a number. What are the consequenses of legislating the rights people have over numbers and how they chose to interpret them? Copyright in the present day has become a very complicated issue. It's obviously still important to reward artists and authors for their work, but it's not at all clear how we should do it. Here are some links to pages which talk about what's wrong with the kind of Copyright that many record companies (and software companies before them) are in favor of:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyrig ht.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/dat.html
http://www.public-domain.org/old.html

Because of the mp3s released via the 5% nation, I used to count Soul Coughing amoungst the most politically progressive bands in terms of digital media policy. Such venerable (and notably non-major-record-label-affiliated) musicians as Frank Black and They Might Be Giants have released entire albums in the mp3 format. While I'm not sure it's really up to musicians to keep tabs on issues like these, it's certainly nice to see.

and this is an exerpt from a later post in the thread:

// I enjoy it when people like my music, but it's MY music. I did it. I put myself into it, and it's mine. I have a right to be compensated for it if you want to use it. The free distribution of mp3's takes away that right//

I can go out on the street right now and start selling fire. I can make the fire by banging some rocks together near some dry leaves, and I can sell it on sticks. If you've ever actually tried to start a fire by banging rocks together, you know that it's pretty difficult. So it would take a lot of hard work to make that fire. But if someone bought my fire from me, they could just turn around and start spreading it onto other sticks, and giving it away! Shouldn't I have some kind of right to profit from the fire I worked so hard to make? I don't think so. It was just a bad investment. Anyone can make fire cheap, and once fire is made, anyone can spread it cheap. What right do I have to stop them?

It comes back to the issue of how we're goinging to make music something someone can reasonably do for a living. I don't know how we should do that, but I know that a situation in which musicians get paid because people aren't allowed to do something which is essentially very easy to do will never work out. Getting controlled substances is considerably harder than copying digital media, and look how well the War on Drugs is doing. So why don't we drop that idea and start thinking very hard about what we can do instead?

I posted this on superspecialquestions.com, the web BBS that M. Doughty (of the band Soul Coughing) runs.

legislating the number OR i'll chew my audio, thanks.

The 5% nation has switched from offering an mp3-encoded Soul Coughing recording each month in favor of releasing a greater volume of material in the Liquid Audio format -- the catch being that these Liquid Audio files are only playable for 30 days.

The deal, as I understand it, is that more music can be released in the Liquid Audio format, since the 30-day timeout makes a future commercial release of the music more lucrative.

Let me explain why I feel this is a Bad Thing. The issue is complicated, but I'll be as breif as I can.

Liquid Audio is very different from mp3.

First, it's a "secure format". That means that (either by patent or trade secret) only Liquid Audio (the company) and its licensees can make players for these files. It also means that you can't easily convert a Liquid Audio track into another format.

Second, that 30-day time limit is more than just an inconvenience. It raises questions. Clearly I'm not supposed to be able to get around that 30-day limit. But is it a legal restriction, or just a technological one? What's the legal status of a program I might write to to convert a Liquid Audio file into a .wav or .mp3 file? Such programs exist, and they get called "cracks", and talked about as if they're seriously under the table. They're hard to find. Are they illegal? What about the simple solution -- if I get a headphone-plug-to-headphone-plug cable, put one end in the "out" jack on my sound card, put the other end in the "in" jack, and play the Liquid Audio track while I record to a regular wave file? Is that legal? Wave files are easy to encode as mp3s. Am I allowed to redistribute the resulting file?

If we don't ask questions like these, they're going to be answered the way record companies want rather than the way we (as either fans or musicians) might want. Explaining why those answers aren't likely to be the same is a little bit of a task. I'll do the best I can, and provide links. If you're interested, they'll cover the topic much more thoroughly than I'm going to here.

About Mp3:
There is a political battle being fought over the mp3 format. Mp3, like many formats to come (trust me here), makes it possible to store and transfer high-quality audio recordings digitally within reasonable a size range and with reasonable transfer speed. This is becomes increasingly true as storage and network technologies allow for larger and larger files to be reasonable for storage and transfer. Suddenly, it's physically possible to receive and entire albums in digital format over the internet. No one needs to manufacture a CD. No one needs to ship CDs to stores. No one needs to run stores, and no one needs to go out to stores to get music. Record companies are terrified. That's because the business of physically distributing music media is very profitable, and in the near future, it will probably be very outdated -- unless record companies get their way and are able to create an artificial demand for the distribution of music. They've banded together as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to fight mp3. One of the most effective arguments they're using to convince people that such a system needs to be put in place deals with artist compensation and copyright protection. But before I get into that, here are some links for information on mp3 and what record companies are doing about it:

http://www.riaa.com/
http://slashdot.org/ (search for "RIAA")
http://david.weekly.org/writings/sdmi.php3

About Copyright:
There was a time when Copyright made perfect sense. When printing presses were the only way to copy a publishable work, the trade-off was universally beneficial. Printing presses were expensive. Copyright made it possible for people with printing presses to profit from publishing a peice of writing, and didn't limit the rights of people who didn't have printing presses, since they had no reasonable way to copy printed works anyway. People with printing presses were happy, people without printing presses lost nothing of value, and authors could be rewarded for their efforts. When we stretch copyright to cover digital media, however, things get a lot more complicated. Anyone can copy a computer file. In fact, copying digital media is implicit in doing a lot of things that we have other metaphors for as well. To view this web page, for example, you've got to copy it from a server on the Internet. In its journey from that server to your computer, it is copyied between many other computers on the internet that you never have to pay attention to. When it arrives at your computer, it is copied around several times in RAM to get it into a format that will make sense to you, and it is probably copied from the RAM onto your disk for temporary storage to speed things up if you want to view it again in the near future. Then it's copied to a special place in the RAM, which is read by your video card, which then transforms it into the light you're seeing. Then it gets copied about in very similar ways in your eyes, your optic nerves, and in your brain. Worse, the whole web page, like any Liquid Audio track, image, or computer program, is represented within your computer as a number. What are the consequenses of legislating the rights people have over numbers and how they chose to interpret them? Copyright in the present day has become a very complicated issue. It's obviously still important to reward artists and authors for their work, but it's not at all clear how we should do it. Here are some links to pages which talk about what's wrong with the kind of Copyright that many record companies (and software companies before them) are in favor of:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyrig ht.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/dat.html
http://www.public-domain.org/old.html

Because of the mp3s released via the 5% nation, I used to count Soul Coughing amoungst the most politically progressive bands in terms of digital media policy. Such venerable (and notably non-major-record-label-affiliated) musicians as Frank Black and They Might Be Giants have released entire albums in the mp3 format. While I'm not sure it's really up to musicians to keep tabs on issues like these, it's certainly nice to see.

and this is an exerpt from a later post in the thread:

// I enjoy it when people like my music, but it's MY music. I did it. I put myself into it, and it's mine. I have a right to be compensated for it if you want to use it. The free distribution of mp3's takes away that right//

I can go out on the street right now and start selling fire. I can make the fire by banging some rocks together near some dry leaves, and I can sell it on sticks. If you've ever actually tried to start a fire by banging rocks together, you know that it's pretty difficult. So it would take a lot of hard work to make that fire. But if someone bought my fire from me, they could just turn around and start spreading it onto other sticks, and giving it away! Shouldn't I have some kind of right to profit from the fire I worked so hard to make? I don't think so. It was just a bad investment. Anyone can make fire cheap, and once fire is made, anyone can spread it cheap. What right do I have to stop them?

It comes back to the issue of how we're goinging to make music something someone can reasonably do for a living. I don't know how we should do that, but I know that a situation in which musicians get paid because people aren't allowed to do something which is essentially very easy to do will never work out. Getting controlled substances is considerably harder than copying digital media, and look how well the War on Drugs is doing. So why don't we drop that idea and start thinking very hard about what we can do instead?

Isn't this why the FSF came into being? Others have been burned in similar situations. The FSF lists the problems with non-free software:

When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives.

--

When RMS started out fighting for free software, he had a dream that one day, we would have a whole operating system based on this idea, and on the GNU Public License. They had already worked to make other free software, which ran on UNIX machines, but no kernel. (Things like emacs, compilers, X server, window managers). His eventual dream was for the HURD kernel, which would be the foundation for the GNU/HURD operating system. However, development went slowly, and when in 1991, Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel, it was quickly paired up with the already available GNU tools to create a complete operating system. Thus, Linux became the kernel used to make the operating system that HURD was meant for. If you go and read the HURD webpage, and gnu.org (Note correct link: http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.ht ml ), then you will notice that they talk about the key advantages to HURD, being that it's object oriented (always a plus for easy modification, though often means drop in speed) and several other things that industry techies have critized the linux kernel for not having. Honestly, for Linus and his cohorts to do something drastic to the linux kernel ("Hey, let's modify it so it does ...") it would be a project that would take years to develop.

However, I have never tried HURD myself, probably will never even do so unless their development kicks into action quickly like Linux has so they can survive, so I cannot verify anything. All that I know is probably just what I've read in the various FAQ's and on /.

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.ht ml

I am a coder, not a historian (and I don't use COBOL, though ancient buried history I did punchcard Fortran 77).

I'm not a historian, either, I'm just a middle-aged fart (an old fart is somebody who was around when COBOL was developed; I was around, but I wasn't precocious enough to be programming at the age of 5).

Interestingly enough, one of the people who was involved with GNU COBOL was a woman, Laura Tweedy, who'd also developed another piece of free software, libico, an LGPLed library to read Windows ".ico" files and libraries and to write XPM files; she says on her home page that she's not actively involved any more (she's working at a company that does "Natural Language Tools for Text Analysis and Message Management" - I found it amusing that on her Web site she spoke of an interest in natural language processing; the first thing that came to mind, given her work on GNU COBOL, was "as opposed to unnatural language processing?").

In April 1999, egcs merged with GNU C, producing the new GNU C. Version 2.95 was released, and with some minor bug fixes is now at 2.95.2.

Although there were warnings about egcs, I believe that most if not all Linux distributions were distributing egcs instead of GNU C before the projects merged.

There's a ton of new and upgraded stuff from egcs that is now part of GNU C. I'd appreciate people posting information about problems or warnings here - it seems to me to be rock solid. The list of changes is extensive, and online at the GCC web site

...Ed! Ed! is the standard text editor! Ed, man! !man ed
--
"HORSE."

This is exactly what I was thinking.

If Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer can make it into a many-page pictoral for Christmas as "Mini-Hef" ...

...why can't we have "St IGNUcius' Happy Happy hacking run"?

Starring the girls of the mansion as the The Techno-Talking Babes(TM)?

That statement ("we have no new intelligentsia") is, of course, wrong. Philosophy and the pragmatic disciplines have been forced to recede to a strongl and pervasive switch to literary theory and humanities in general. Observe the switches in temperament in great thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas and Thomas Kuhn, the sometimes-antiscience of Paul Feyerabend. There are large-scale social migrations in these areas, and they are not performed sloppily or illegitmately. Unfortunately (I use that word too much), literary theorists are amazingly elitist and consequently you'll see broad trends and individual statements that wish to ignore the new intelligentsia (almost out of spite or something).

I don't have that all figured out yet (duh), but I'm a technologist (software developer and IT manager) with education in philosophy and theology, while my wife is just now finishing the first of her graduate degrees in education and literary theory, so she gives me some insight from an insider's perspective. ...the cool part is that much of this is readily available and accessible to us geeks (that's why earlier, I thought that it was unfortunate that not more technologists participate as members of the intelligentsia).

Remember The Matrix? Neo kept some disks inside a hollowed-out book "Simulacra and Simulation" ...Jean Baudrillard's eerily-convincing book about fabricated reality which foreshadowed one of the plot structures for the movie... a technological one. What you have here is one of the great minds of post-modernist movements and a geek (well, I guess he was a "cracker", eh?) posited as together and somehow sharing a context, making statements about reality.

That said, this article unwittingly (it seems) places a gulf between technologists and the current reigning intelligentsia by at once misunderstanding technologists' sphere of involvement and social participation, and by ignoring powerful and complex intellectual movements which circulate around clear individuals.

Think free as in speech, not as in price.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

(I'm assuming you asked because you wanted an answer.)

I'll have to agree with this. Projects like the Free Film Project and Free Expresion are great and fairly innovative ideas that don't just deal specifically with software. but also include the ability for expansion and expression of different ideas by just about anyone. Maybe someday they can get some more recognition than they're getting now.

I like the "Best new Idea award" idea. that doesn't sound right...but I think it makes sense.

Let's face it: without common standards-compliant compilers, Open Source would be nearly helpless to advance on multiple platforms.

In 1999, gcc saw its first major upgrade for years, as egcs and gcc were merged. This went along with continued developments to make programmers more productive, such as the Standard Template Library and new Matrix Template Library (an awesome project at Notre Dame), to mean we can spend less time doing generic stuff and more time doing application-specific stuff.

GCC made great advances in 1999, and is deserving of recognition.

>What we do need to find is a way for artists to make money off of their labors. The problem is how can we do this [in a way] that's fair for everyone?

RMS addresses this quite convincingly in his article The Right Way to Tax DAT. This article was originally published in Wired magazine in 1992, but still holds quite a bit of relevance for the situation you bring up.

I'm getting off topic, I suppose, but Legos aren't the only platform where FORTH is available and you are not going to waste your time learning it.

Versions, free and commercial, exist for any Unix with GCC, DOS, OS/2, Macintosh, Windows, the Palm Pilot, and dozens of microcontrollers. Did you know that FORTH is part of the Open Firmware provided in the Sun and the PowerMac boot proms? (Note IEEE requires a subscription, so check out Sun's OpenFirmware page)

The experience on one platform transfers well to another and there is lots to like about FORTH, especially when dealing with an environment with exceedingly limited resources in comparison to a PC.

This list of FORTH implementations by platform is a little dated but should point in the right direction.

Even if the X Consortium and the Open Group had never planned to restrict X, someone else could have done it. Non-copylefted software is vulnerable from all directions; it lets anyone make a non-free version dominant, if he will invest sufficient resources to add significantly important features using proprietary code. Users who choose software based on technical characteristics, rather than on freedom, could easily be lured to the non-free version for short-term convenience.
.
.
.
In case anyone feels the pressure exerted by the criteria for inclusion in the X distributions, the GNU project will undertake to publicize copylefted packages that work with X. If you would like to copyleft something, and you worry that its omission from the X distribution will impede its popularity, please ask us to help.

Friends, free software developers, don't repeat a mistake. If we do not copyleft our software, we put its future at the mercy of anyone equipped with more resources than scruples. With copyleft, we can defend freedom, not just for ourselves, but for our whole community

"When you work on the core of X, on programs such as the X server, Xlib, and Xt, there is a practical reason not to use copyleft. The XFree86 group does an important job for the community in maintaining these programs, and the benefit of copylefting our changes would be less than the harm done by a fork in development. So it is better to work with the XFree86 group and not copyleft our changes on these programs. Likewise for utilities such as xset and xrdb, which are close to the core of X, and which do not need major improvements. At least we know that the XFree86 group has a firm commitment to developing these programs as free software."

(by the way, I was the AC you are responding to. I couldn't get slashdot to log me.)

"If this were true, then why do they go to such pains to disparage and denigrate *ALL* other Free Software licenses?"

They don't. See www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list .html for their official position. Note in particular what they say about the modified BSD license, the BSD license without the advertising clause. "It is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license with no particular problem."

"If the FSF truly believed that software should not have owners, then they would not copyright their software. They should make up their minds one way or the other. Either software should not be owned and all of GNU becomes public domain, or that they keep the GPL/copyrights and merely remove that article."

I think they are talking about a different kind of ownership. With free software, the author no longer has control of his/her software. While conventionally the owner has exlusive control over his property. In this sense, the FSF does not own GNU because they do not control it. This makes a lot of sense. Most people do not think of FSF owning GNU or of Linus owning Linux, simply because they grant so much freedom by licensing with the GPL.

"I am not against any individual belonging to the FSF or GNU Project. However, I am against their philosophy. This is a much different thing."

You are against granting users freedom with their software?