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Alas, despite the initial burst of enthusiasm with which a bunch of crazy Ozzies threw strong crypto back into the original codebase (the Cryptzilla project IIRC, moz as he is spoke does not include strong crypto. What's needed is an enterprising ex-US team to incorporate, say, GPG or some other public domain code.

\a

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Anybody remember the days when we were all excited to get a mention in the trade press?

Man! we're obsessed! :(

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Yeah, jeopardy was wrong but was is the contestant suppose to question?

"What is the GNU... uh... Lignu.. hmmm... Oh! What is GNU's Not Linux!"

I guess Linux is correct. One could have a liberal definition of 'system' I guess.

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GNU propaganda :)

You have a good point though. I'll cut it out. I just had to get something out of my system.

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• I made a mistake
• It is GNU/Linux

• GNU Emacs - the text editor
• GNU Cross Compiler - the compiler
• GNU libc - the C library
• GNU elvis - another text editor
• GNU Bash - command shell
• GNU Midnight Commander - a command shell thing
• GNU Window Maker - window manager
• GNUStep - desktop enviroment
• GNOME and all the apps - desktop enviroment
• Much much more... see the GNU software page for a more complete list.

• GNU Emacs - the text editor
• GNU Cross Compiler - the compiler
• GNU libc - the C library
• GNU elvis - another text editor
• GNU Bash - command shell
• GNU Midnight Commander - a command shell thing
• GNU Window Maker - window manager
• GNUStep - desktop enviroment
• GNOME and all the apps - desktop enviroment
• Much much more... see the GNU software page for a more complete list.

but I also feel that Communism and Open Source/Free Software have little, very little, to do with each other.

I see it this way. Open Source thinks you can separate the pragmatic from the principle. Open Source is also a tribe of marketers selling GNU/Linux to big businesses.

I personally want as little to do with Open Source as possible. Open Source is hyped too much in the media. Heck, the only reason he uses the word Open Source because he is so concerned that his big business buddies would think they couldn't sell the software.

Anyone want to start the Open Men (instead of Free Men) movement to tell the big business that they can sell people, oh wait, they can't. Oh! I see! People can distinguish free as in freedom when written before the word 'Men' but not for software, huh?



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I try to keep an open mind. But every Communist nation I know of has fallen to corruption. And I think that may be the probplem. Archimededs (I think) said that a monarchy (power of the one) is the best form of government but has so much potential for corruption. Aristocracy (power of the few) still has great potential for corruption but not so much as a monarchy. At the lower end of the spectrum is Polygomy (power of the many, or, what we call democract) where corruption is low but the government isn't very efficient.

I think the problem is design vs implementation. Marx had a noble idea, a classless society where everyone is equal. But the implementations sucks. It could be simply that the form of government that works well on paper goes to hell in practice.

I think the problem is that the government distributes the wealth. In a capitalism, virtually all of the weatlth is distributed by the people in our Free Enterprise system. This system secures against corruption because people have a choice to do business with these people or not (unless there is a monopoly which our government keeps a close eye on). This unlike communism that is an Aristocracy (power of the few) where have no choice about whether you want to do business with the government. If this government becomes corrupt, you still have to deal with them because they own all the businesses and all the wealth. By greed and selfishness, this government degrades to oppression.

Well this is my theory in any case.

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I agree. I hope for once this turns the tides. ESR has turned the free software movement into marketing for big business under the label Open Source. And he believes that you can somehow separate the pragmatic from the principle.

Free software is about freedom. The only thing that can happen by China's adoption of GNU/Linux is more freedom.

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Yes Yes YES YES!!!!!

Remember this is FREE software! With the free exchange of ideas, information, and source code, China's Government made a big mistake with GNU/Linux. The Information Age is bad for Communism. But they don't understand it, do they? It is like magic to them. Poof! Break a code. Poof! More rapid communication. I wish all the Chinese geeks the best of luck liberating information and perhaps something much greater.

Boy! We are playing in a much larger ball park now!

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Freedom people, Freedom. Most definitely because of this I urge everyone to refer to GNU and GNU/Linux as FREE software. With free software you have all the freedoms to use, modify, and redistribute. This means freedom to all users. If we deny China these rights, no matter how horrid their government, the software no longer is free then.

But, hear this! Communism (in every implementation we know of) and dictatorships rely on censorship and controlling all forms of communication to keep in power. Does GNU or GNU/Linux bear ANY resemblance to this!!! If anything the GNU operating system and derivatives are in complete opposition to what we think communism is.

This will not bring down GNU/Linux by any degree. Perhaps some will see this as some mark of tyranny on GNU or Linux. But I see the opposite happening. Perhaps. Just perhaps, a little bit of freedom will rub off in China. With source code, perhaps someone will modify. Perhaps someone will get educated and use this software in ways their government never thought possible. Perhaps, by some slim chance, it will be GNU/Linux that will help, in some slim way, to take some power from the government back to the oppressed people. Perhaps GNU/Linux can democratize China like it has democratized all of us!

This should make all the free software developers feel good. The internet is a much bigger place now.

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I think that the GNU Y2K readiness list is a bit disturbing. CVS-1.8 and 1.9 are not ready, and no newer version is listed as having been tested. Groff is not ready... ouch...


I also fully expect that there will be major and expensive breakdowns of computer systems. There is far too much stupid code out there being relied on. I had the same reflex as nearly every programmer... 'Ahh, it won't matter except for silly things like sorting your checkbook by date.' I still don't really know -why- it matters, but when people have done readiness-testing (setting the date to Dec. 31, 1999 and watching it rollover) computer equipment has done things like stop a power plant from working. Why? Probably some linkage between database functions and power functions. Or a failure in a cron-like system. Who knows.


As programmers we think it's 'obvious' that it isn't 'really' a problem. But it is a problem. It's just like when it's 'obvious' that it can't be -your- code that introduced the bug... until you step through it with a debugger and realize that it is. You can argue until you're blue in the face about why it shouldn't be a problem, but the empirical evidence disagrees.


Well, Lawyers, Liars and Perl gives a better explanation of why there are Y2K issues even in modern code better than I can do.

--Parity

It is the part of the free software foundation that produces code. See Here. The original idea was to develop a completely free Unix. Some Finnish guy came along and created his own free kernel, though, before they finished. He used his kernel, and the add-on tools they developed, to create a complete, free Unix (or Unix-like) system. (He also used their development tools to build the kernel.) This is what most people call Linux. As they say on their website: "though these systems are often referred to as ``Linux'', they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems."

(Personally, I don't think that this rolls off the tounge well enough to ever catch on, but it is a shame that the GNU people don't get as much public credit as they deserve.)

In April 1999, the egcs steering committee was appointed by the FSF as the official GNU maintainer for GCC. At that time GCC was renamed from the "GNU C Compiler" to the "GNU Compiler Collection". From http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html

While i don't understand why the movie industry insists on this, I do understand that it's their right to determine proper usage, because they paid for it's creation and hence, it's their property.

But there in lies the rub. It is not clear that there is indeed a human right to control what happens to content after it is produced. In particular, no freedom of the producer seems restricted by people copying the work, and disallowing copying certainly is a restriction of the consumer's freedom.

Rather, defences of intellectual property seems to boil down to ecconomic arguments. There, I think RMS's argument is very relevant - copyright should be seen as a contract between the public and the producer, and the very fact that the people wants to create copies demonstrates that the contract should be rewritten!

In the end, I think the DVD in particular and media-industry in general shows a clear crisis of democracy in western countries, especially the US. A small group of rich capitalist, through their lobbying groups, have the control over these issues - not the voters. Consequently, they are able enrich themselves at the expense of people in general. And they are able to use the institutions of the state (police and courts) against those who oppose them!

I was going to say something but decided against it. So let me just say there are persons more worthy.

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Hey slashdot editors! I know you are busy, and maybe that's why you thought interviewing JP would be a great idea. I've already posted a comment on why I think this is a very bad idea. So I thought I would try and be productive. Here is a list of people who are of the right caliber to merit an interview (that is to say, try interviewing great folk like this FIRST before wasting your time and ours on JP):

(from the 1999 Free Software Award Nominee page)

1. Tom Adelstein
2. Eric Allman
3. Lennart Augustsson
4. Stig Bakken
5. Donald Becker
6. Brian Behlendorf
7. Tim Berners-Lee
8. Jim Blandy
9. Craig Burley
10. Thomas Bushnell
11. Shane Caraveo
12. James Clark
13. Alan Cox
14. Miguel de Icaza
15. DJ Delorie
16. Theo De Raadt
17. Matthias Ettrich
18. Paul Eggert
19. Ralf S. Engelschall
20. Fred Fish
21. Olivier Fourdan
22. Fractint Team
23. John Gilmore
24. Andi Gutmans
25. Chuck Hagenbuch
26. Carsten Haitzler
27. Charles Hannum
28. Shawn Hargreaves
29. Geoff Harrison
30. Mike Heins
31. Joey Hess
32. Earl Hood
33. Jordan K. Hubbard
34. Dan Ingalls
35. Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
36. Kyle Jones
37. Bill Joy
38. Alexandre Julliard
39. Mike Karels
40. Jeremy Katz
41. Spencer Kimball
42. Donald Knuth
43. Werner Koch
44. Alfredo Kenji Kojima
45. Jeffrey A. Law
46. Patrick Lenz
47. Marc Lehmann
48. Rasmus Lerdorf
49. Mark Linton
50. Paul Mackerras
51. Peter Mattias
52. Doug McEachern
53. Caolan McNamara
54. Kirk McKusick
55. Bram Moolenaar
56. Tobias Oetiker
57. Tim O'Reilly
58. John Ousterhout
59. Dave Rand
60. Brian Paul
61. Nicholas Petreley
62. Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
63. Alessandro Rubini
64. Dr Douglas Schmidt
65. Keith Sklower
66. W. Richard Stevens
67. Darryl Strauss, Zeev Suraski
68. Danny ter Haar
69. Andrew Tridgell
70. Jorrit Tyberghein
71. Bert Tyler
72. Guido van Rossum
73. Miquels van Smoorenburg
74. Wietse Venema
75. Paul Vixie
76. Patrick Volkerding
77. Tim Wegner
78. Jim Winstead
79. Jamie Zawinski
80. Phil Zimmerman.

Granted, some of these have been covered already, but maybe a handful at the most. I must confess to maybe knowing who 10% of these people are. I would sure like to know something about the rest of them. Just imagine all the cool stuff each of these people has to offer--why in the world are we looking to interview inflamatory, damaging people like JP?

Just trying to help :-) I figure 80 some odd suggestions should keep you busy for a while.

You should be able to find people working on GNU software on the GNU Who's Who List.

The man is right. To wit, from the 1998 winner page:

we wanted to recognize long-term central contributions to the development of the world of free software.

I'd like to remind everyone of the article that Richard Stallman wrote about possible demands that could be made of Microsoft if they would lose.

First I must warn all that I have long since dropped out of my business analysis train of thought as I steadily receded back into loving electronics and OS's - *NIX being my favorite.

Businesses and managers are very impressionable folks. In that I mean they truly believe in commercialism. I have worked with government and commercial sector and I have seen the way salesmen can appeal to these goons. With the government it is - well kinda perverse in a way but it works, with business it's easy -- we offer you this and get that.

So let's break off and follow that last statement for a second, we offer this and we are saying you get that.

Now let's apply the late 80's early 90's MS edition of that very same statement:

If you want that you must buy this in order to survive and have that, oh yeah we forgot to mention you have to also buy this other pile of sh*t as well but we can get inot that later . . .

Now come back to the present.

Joe Blow IT Manager, the very same schmuck whose light up when the dancing paperclip "finally does voice recognition" (f*n idiot) sees this. He now says - sh*t, maybe sinking all of that $$$$ into M$ could kick back - - QUICK, what do the other InfoWorld Ad say? Who should I turn to?

Yes this will happen. Even some delusional idiots will actually turn to Apple to solve their "hi end needs". This will be the first fallout.

But hey, all society advancement comes at great pains and cost, this will be one of them. By the same token just as many smart IT Managers will sit back and "see where things are going" and probably apt for a conservative UNIX Company or quite possibly FreeBSD or Slakware (despite it's "freeness" Slakware still boasts the best uptime and stability in distro - not neccessarily kernel).

IT Managers, believe it or not, think very short term as within 2-3 years or so. They are not forward thinkers (well not most of them I am sure the gang at Red Hat might take me up on that) so many saw NT as a good thing for the next year or maybe 2 years. This makes sense when the byline of your job is "keep from gettin' fired".

So, first, businesses will begin to lose confidence in MS, some will stick with them but many (as is already happening) will turn to companies like VALINUX and Sun.

The home computing market gradually lags anyway due to out of pocket expense limits so breaching the MS infiltration will take several years, but I believe as more becomes available and usable, more home users will seek alternatives. They may or may not turn to Linux, that is hard to tell (but I can say, the time is ripe for FreeBSD to make it's move).

Ultimately home users will not change their hbits for a long long time, I think everyone already sees this. I expect a shift to take place in 2-3 years (given the current buying trends).

I mention them in the same context here because I mean the same thing - both GNU / Linux and OSI now will see something that has been slowly and quietly happening for a long time.

Converts

Developers and geeks alike will also lose confidence in the almighty M$. We now will be given an opportunity to bring in and cultivate untapped talent that simply "didn't know any better" but have now awoken. This will most likely happen (in large numbers) after a ruling which is pretty sure to go against M$. It is already happening, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Linuxnewbie.org's mailing list jumps a little next week.

This isn't much different from other breakups as far as business is concerned. Geeks, however, will reap great reward which as all /. readers know is what matters.

Not according to the letter Stallman wrote to Linuxworld -- in it he states that you can't be forced to release all of the resulting code under the GPL -- only the part that is actually GPL'd.

You need to re-read that section; one is not forced to release one's code under the GPL, UNLESS one incorperates GPL'ed code into one's own. This includes linking against it. If one wishes to release one's code under a different license, one my do so by removing all GPL'ed code (and probably rewriting those sections).

And anyway, doesn't the GNU library license specifically allow that linking to GPLL'd libraries does not constitute a 'derived work'? As I recall that was a major impediment to commericial use of GCC, resulting in the library license.

The Lesser GPL (LGPL -- used to be Library GPL) allows one to link against a library without one's code being considered a derivative work. glibc, for example, is LGPL'ed; the GNU readline library, on the other hand, like the CygWin library, is GPL'ed. If one links against a GPL'ed library, the resulting code is considered a derived work and one is required to GPL it (or, of course, not use the library). Not all libraries are, or should be, LGPL'ed, which is why they changed the name. The GNU web page has a good discussion of these issues.

Sad, but true. Musicians make the best $$$ touring. They get screwed on record sales because:

• Their royalty percentage is typically very low. If you are signing your first record contract, they will take great advantage of your naivete.
• The cost of recoding the songs in the studio, mastering it, etc are extracted from the artists' portion of the royalties. The artists may never see any record sales royalties.

Software IP stops me from putting my Battlezone CD in my CD-ROM and a £1 CD-R disc in my CD-RW, copying

I guess this is where we have a semantic misunderstanding. Are you sure you are not talking about copyright? A Steven King novel is not patented, but it is still protected from someone just xeroxing millions of copies and selling it themselves. Isn't that copyright, not patent/IP. The author of a novel can't prevent anyone from writing a similar novel with the same premise, but he can prevent unauthorized verbatim duplication.

Microsoft Windows .... Remove IP from the equation and what you end up with is no-one able to afford to develop anything even remotely like Windows - which, much as I dislike it personally, was a big help to getting proper computers into the home.

I just can't see how your argument leads to the conclusion that nobody would be able to afford to develop good software once the fear of being sued out of business is removed. If anything, there will be less money spent on litigation and more for development. Note that I am not arguing for the illegal duplication and distribution of another persons' software, only for the freedom to develop my own version. Just because there is more competition, the market doesn't just disappear. Someone is going to sell an OS with a GUI (Mac/Windows/Amiga, or other). Others will be developing free OS's with GUI (Linux/GNOME/KDE). Others will be selling and supporting the free stuff (RedHat, etc.). And so on. The only time we need to bring lawyers into the equation is when someone is making perfect unauthorized copies (not clean room reimplementations) of someone else's product and selling them.

Again, you confuse IP (copyright) with patents. Two very different issues.

Actually, the term IP does not have a precise legal definition. In common usage around here, and on slashdot, the term IP has been attached to patents, copyrights, trademarks and every other legal mechanism that can be used to protect yourself and intimidate others. I agree with RMS that its probably better to avoid that term. I will start avoiding it today.

Perhaps in the UK, the term IP is a legal equivalent of copyright, and that's why we seem to be having some miscommunication.

You are ignoring the main idea behind the copyleft. From RMS's Pragmatic Idealism essay:

I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.

The idea of copyleft is to use software copyrights, which RMS believes should no exist, both as a defensive measure against the efforts of free sowftare authors being exploited by non-cooperators, and to build a collaboratory community of people who create free software.

While it is true that copyleft is a form of copyright, and thus an use of power, this power is used as a means to abolish itself; it is a self-subverting use of power. The world the FSF wants us to live in is one in which this power does not exist. Since the GPL is a means to that end, and not an end in itself, it is about freedom, not power.

---

"Your freedom to throw your fist ends at the tip of my nose."

[and hence my preference for GPL]

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From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philoso phy.html:

• Confusing Words You Might Avoid:
  • Piracy: "...Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as ``sharing information with your neighbor."
• Third Party Ideas... "we more or less agree with them":
  • The Manifesto: Piracy Is Your Friend
  • "Note that the GNU Project recommends avoiding the term piracy since it implies sharing copies is somehow illegitimate. (Excuse me? It is! Whether or not your goal is to legitimise it, it is *still* illegal)
  A few examples...
  

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philoso phy.html has at least half a dozen references to it.

"This license, the Lesser General Public License, applies to some specially designated software packages--typically libraries--of the Free Software Foundation and other authors who decide to use it.[...]

For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes a de-facto standard. To achieve this, non-free programs must be allowed to use the library. A more frequent case is that a free library does the same job as widely used non-free libraries. In this case, there is little to gain by limiting the free library to free software only, so we use the Lesser General Public License."

Using a storage media greater than 500 megabytes for the storage of many individually compressed software components.

Just to add my two cents to the other non-math applications: recently I've been using TeX almost exclusively to typeset music (via GNU Lilypond). Though I did originally start using TeX to typeset math-heavy CS homework.

The single worst thing about the 'Open Source movement' is that it is bringing about an army of marketers.

Come on guys! This what the marketing department of Corel and Microsoft do! "Hmmm. So, will this increase our user base?"

"Yes but will they find the software usefull?"

"Herbert! Get the new guy out of here now!"


I pity what the Open Source movement has turned into.

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Why do we need another group to act in our best interests? The people that most want to lead the community are usually the ones least likely to be able to do it (the right way).

The Internet is strange. I have been using it for a few years and I still don't get it entirely. For some reason, it is expected that you are connected to the world-wide network. Most people don't know why they need to be connnected, just that they do.

I still don't get the internet. I wonder if it is like when telephones were invented. How come virtually everyone has a television and telephone in their homes?

Why is that thousands of people flock to this site in particular everyday? It would be easy to say Slashdot is for news and communication. We would carefully avoid mentioning anything about addiction and obsession.

There are probably many other sites on the internet like this one, catering to thousands. But for some reason, people are not heading to information sources and news sites, we are gathering to web forums, chat rooms, and email.

The question of whether Man is a social animal has no doubt been solved. There has never been a more powerful force in our world than world-wide communication. And world-wide economic exploitation.

Anyone see the comercials? For e-business? Yes, we now have people from Russia, Japan, Switzerland, etc. telling us how the Internet is power. The Internet is power but now, of course, money has become wrapped up in it. Now, thanks to the internet, all of us see constant advertisements on all our sites. But that is okay, commercial television has prepared us for this. Making money is okay.

After all, we all need to exist in this economy. It is how we get jobs and how we sell our goods. It lets us specialize to what we do well instead on focusing on survival; creating the things we need that are better made by people who know to do those things well.

You have probably noticed that this post is full of contradictions. I just don't yet get this 'Internet' thing. I use it daily. I understand many of the technologies that makes it work. But to understand it is not specialty of programmers, technicians, or system administrators. To understand this are the specialties of philosophers and writers. A big job it is for them. Because to understand this internet thing requires knowlege not much less than knowing how the world goes around.

I am posting here to say I don't know. Does the Internet boom harm society? Did television? Did telephone? Yes and no is probably both of the answers. But them are easy answers. So, for now, I am content with "I don't know".

But one thing I do know. I was going to go into astronomy if I wasn't distracted by computers. But would I have been a good astronomer? Probably not. If you people don't know this yet I will say this to you: computers are among the easiest of professions. Computers have their challenges, sure. But Computers have solutions and you are allowed to be wrong What we call debugging is simply not feasable in most professions. How many bridges must an engineer build before he gets it right? How many people does a surgeon get to practice with?

I don't know. Any other answer would be dishonest.

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Electronics and food. What an open-minded company.

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Is Star Trek dead? I will have to answer "It depends."

I have long been a Trekker. I grew up with The Next Generation (the best of the Trek series IMHO). I also know what makes Star Trek better than Prime Time.

It's the story stupid! If there is a good plot and theme, that could make up for the worst of actors, the most hideous directing, and the cheeziest special effects.

Star Trek did this. Gene Roddenberry was a God because of this. The Next Generetion did this. I can't count how many times both series have surprised me, gasp at the depth, and made me think. This is what Star Trek did well and this is what made it a success. It was (and still is) one of few shows that want you to think.

Then came Deep Space Nine. DS9 had a great concept. It could have been great in the same way Star Trek 6 was great. In many ways the show was great. But somewhere along the lines, the story became unoriginal and cheap. But then they began a war, somewhat like Babylon 5, and it meant something. I was satisfied with the last few seasons of DS9 but I will submit that it lowered Star Trek to a point that it was like everything else.

And Voyager. This is a sad show that tried, futily, to retake some of the energy from TNG. Voyager has had some great shows but what it lacks is excellent theme. Theme is key to all that is Trek. If a show doesn't mean anything, I don't want to watch it and I am sure there are others who agree with me. Voyager kept rehashing the same themes, whether original to Voyager ot stolen from TNG. These themes became stale. Then 7 of 9 came aboard and the ratings went up! Now instead of trying to revive Star Trek, all the producers needed to was keep the audience staring at Seven's breasts--just like everything else. So in this sense, Star Trek is dead. It should be hung and tortured for the monster it has become. But, there might still be hope.

I will use a familiar cliche to Babylon Five watchers: This new series might be our last, best hope for Trek. I have read of some rumors about the new series parelleling the United States and Europe. The uninitialted may find nothing of interest here. But the more alert Trekkers will recognize this as another attempt at the thing Star Trek has done so well: making Star Trek relevent to a current day audience. Indeed, this is a common challenge for all science-fiction. But think! The recent controversy over the United States attacking Kosovo. Whichever side of the fence you take regarding this incident, there is plenty to say here about morality and human beings in general. How exciting it could be. Hopefully, as the article suggests, Rick Bermin will rethink Star Trek in this way. Come on Rick. Tell us something for us to ponder. Make us think. Blur the distinction between good and evil. And have our heros save the federation from its largest threat: itself.

This new series holds all the cards. This could be the resurrection of Star Trek! It could also bury Star Trek forever.

Live long and prosper, Star Trek.

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Why don't someone find all the software they can, look for the CREDITS or AUTHORS file, parse it, store entries for each developer in a database somewhere, and then bring out the statistics!

Why hadn't someone thought of this before? You are not going to find out about the developers in "Linux" Software Maps... look in the tarballs.

* Linux is not very significant in the whole of things. What about the compiler, filesystem utilities, X Windows System, text editors, Desktop Enviroments, etc.? And what of the other kernals?

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And that's why you should use the LGPL for your next library, ladies and gentlemen.

(see "Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library" if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

Seriously, free software has seen the successes it has because it shows about the right amount of cooperation with proprietary software. You can't reach into the sources of a GPL application, change it, and sell it as a proprietary application - but you can connect to a GPL server with your proprietary client, or run your proprietary app on your GPL kernel.

As far as I'm concerned, the LGPL fixes a potential bug in the GPL - one way that two separate pieces of software can talk, dynamic library linking, might not be allowed, so we explicitly permit it. Yet RMS seems to think this bug should stay. As far as I can see, this artificial distinction will only make calls from proprietary software into free software (or vice versa) somewhat less convenient: you have to go through CORBA or some similar gateway.

I think that use of the LGPL (the "Liberal General Public License", as I now dub it in riposte) would most usefully increase - that all new programs should start using this license, since it seems increasingly that today's standalone program is tomorrow's library.
--

Debian seems to follow what FSF and RMS is saying. RMS wants people to stop using LGPL, even for libraries. Check this out: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-n ot-lgpl.html

I think the project your referring to is the Harmony project which is the GNU effort to make a source compatible lib. IIRC, that effort was reinstated some months ago. It sounds very exciting. It's the only UI lib I know of that doesn't have problems with UI updates outside of the event thread. A multithreaded UI could be very cool, indeed.

Why don't people realize that domain names were never intended to be identified with any sort of trademark? To refresh your memories, the domain name system was introduced so that we wouldn't have to remember awkward IP addresses. But it looks like this reason has been totally forgotten/ignored in the mad rush to "appropriate" a piece of the web.

I, for one, hate this attitude of rushing to register every damned domain that you can lay your hands on. Lots of these companies/trademark holders go on a wild spree, not only registering their trademark in all the TLDs (top level domains), but also registering all sorts of variations of their trademarks, including typographical errors, misspellings, etc. Most registrars actually encourage this! I am appalled. The .com domain has become totally corrupted with all sorts of websites that can hardly be described commercial. Same goes for the other TLDs.

Stop the trademark-domain crap already!

Sreeram.

Why don't people realize that domain names were never intended to be identified with any sort of trademark? To refresh your memories, the domain name system was introduced so that we wouldn't have to remember awkward IP addresses. But it looks like this reason has been totally forgotten/ignored in the mad rush to "appropriate" a piece of the web.

I, for one, hate this attitude of rushing to register every damned domain that you can lay your hands on. Lots of these companies/trademark holders go on a wild spree, not only registering their trademark in all the TLDs (top level domains), but also registering all sorts of variations of their trademarks, including typographical errors, misspellings, etc. Most registrars actually encourage this! I am appalled. The .com domain has become totally corrupted with all sorts of websites that can hardly be described commercial. Same goes for the other TLDs.

Stop the trademark-domain crap already!

Sreeram.

BSD has always been an open source license, except in the eye's of FSF

Look at the FSF's BSD licence page. It clearly says that the BSDL is a free licence, although it did have a problem with the advertising clause.

Some people feel that Linux is gaining popularity not because of its Freeness, but because of hype.

Others, who have adopted Linux because of its Freeness, have apparently forgotten why proprietary software is bad. That's not to say that it should never be used; it's simply to be avoided when possible and practical.

Remember these bad things about proprietary operating systems:

• The user is at the mercy of the vendor for bug fixes
• The user is at the mercy of the vendor for continued development
• The user is at the mercy of the vendor for support
• The user cannot use the software however he/she wishes; he/she must use it within the confines of the EULA
• The user cannot share the software with others

So, the question isn't whether one should use proprietary software on a Free operarting system when it is most practical (i.e., if there were a proprietary Quicken for Linux, and one needed online banking functionality). The question is whether one should use proprietary software when a perfectly good Free alternative exists.

For me, the answer is no. I may not agree with RMS on everything, but I do think he's right about the direction we should be moving. And I'm never going to move back in the direction of proprietary software.

For a refresher: http://www.gnu.org/

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Almost but not quite.

If you are a newbie it is okay to ask questions to gurus as long as you tell them that you have looked for the information and give them some idea that you know what you are doing. Don't worry about being flammed unless you are being a jerk. Half the gurus are jerks themselves. You need to sound confident and not desperate.

I speak from personal experience.

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Who's paying for it it not important, the important thing is to do it right. That is why all the media hype and the bogus companies that pretend to support Open Source get in the way instead of helping out the movement. Just ignore them, and go for trully OS sources of information and software, like GNU, Technocrat and AppWatch.

Sorry for flaming.

But there is this thing called a learning curve. Having the mouse available eases the learning curve but eventually the user would figure out the key bindings. So eventually the user would stop or almost stop using the mouse.

You should see me in computer class. I use the keyboard all the time on Excel spreadsheets and finish the spreadsheets before everyone else virtually everytime. You can tell a person's experience with the computer, even on a Windows or Mac machine, by how often they reach for the mouse. This is that learning thing.

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Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!

There you go confusing Star Trek and Star Wars again. See, if ESR dressed up as someone from Star Trek the protest would have been taken more seriously.

;)

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You are partly true. Archimedes thought that monarchy would be the best form of government but had the highest potential for corruptionn.

But the US government isn't a true democracy. Our President could fill the role of a monarch but he is voted for by the people and his actions are watched carefully by the Supreme Court and Congress. He doesn't even have the power to create laws, just vetoes them.

So I think the US constitution is one of the best forms of government that exists.

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Really? Why don't you get off your elitist high-horse and ask yourself how mouse support is a bad thing.

Oh no! The program is easier without taking away my flexibility! Easier! Oh, the horror!

I am more in the opinion that most of the clueless are the people who *use* GNU/Linux.

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Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!