Slashdot Mirror

A "warning" is warranted when something is "not inherently erroneous but that are risky or suggest there may have been an error." Creating a literal selector with @selector absolutely wouldn't justify a warning, and neither would creating a selector on an object with NSSelectorFromString(), nor would creating or redirecting a selector with class_respondsToSelector() or class_replaceMethod(). What you're proposing would break isa-swizzling and Objective-C's most powerful polymorphism mechanism.

Objects don't know if they respond to a selector, any selector, until they're hit with them, and even then they might have to break the selector into a string and decode what it's asking for, that's how key-value coding works on unsynthed properties, after all.

I think you're problem is you think Objective-C is object-oriented. It's not, it's class-oriented, with support for many object-oriented idioms.

If Apple wasn't having a resurgence, would anyone be paying attention to Ojective-C?

You mean like the GNU project?

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnustep/resources/ObjCFun.html

Maybe he ate some infected toe jam. But the big question is: Did he refuse treatment until he had personally verified that the ambulance and hospital computers were running open source software? If not, he's a hypocrite, because he has called all closed source software an "evil system" that should be avoided at all costs.

Make that 'the ambulence and the hospital computers were running free software, or more recently, libre software. Remember, he specifically refuses to be associated w/ open source, and is all about people getting certain rights, regardless of whether they're capable of doing anything w/ it. By which, I'm talking about the vast majority of things. But to answer your question, yeah, he's indeed a hypocrite, b'cos not only does he want 'non-free' systems to be avoided at all costs - he wants them to actually be shut down by government fiat.

Note that this is also the same man who wrote on his blog:

"[P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness." - May 2003

In other words, he thinks that children & animals are capable of approving sex acts? But I believe this, having read his wacko blog, which even the Greenies and Communists would cringe reading. But not NAMBLA or any of the Islamic groups now taking over the 'Arab Spring' countries.

"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing." - June 2006

RMS fans hate when these get mentioned, and they'll often call them lies without clicking on the links and seeing that they come directly from Stallman's online blog. Stallman is a kook, and he needs to be called out as one. This conference he fell ill at was about the "dangers of a digital society." He's a anti-progress luddite who doesn't even visit webpages--he actually emails a daemon that wgets the page and sends it to him. Techies worship him as if he's the only one who ever came up with the idea of free source code or there weren't any other free source movements (hello, Berkeley UNIX?).

How does this 'emailing a daemon' work? One still needs an internet connection to be able to do that. And one means to say that after everything else that's been tossed into Emacs, it can't contain a simple text based browser like elinks? His computer - a Lemote Yeedong - based on a Loongson CPU - has everything he considers sacred - a free BIOS, one great libre distro 'GNewSense' (since ones like Debian, Red Hat are not really free), and Emacs - what else could he need? Now, he should be admitted into a hospital whose computers have only that configuration, so that even the MRI machines and other computerized equipment are hooked on to only free, sorry libre, computers.

Open Source advocate Dr. Richard Stallman for one.

Eeek! I think you mean "Free software advocate Dr. Richard Stallman...". The distinction is important as the term emphasises the social benefits as well as the engineering benefits of being able to inspect and improve such systems. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Actually, GPL2 wasn't compatible w/ the Apache license. GPL3 is. However, since few outside FSF are going from GPL2 to GPL3, for practical purposes, what you say is correct.

Yes, there's a huge difference between the GPL and the GPL. Not to mention the much bigger difference to the GPL. :-)

Yes, there's a huge difference between the GPL and the GPL. Not to mention the much bigger difference to the GPL. :-)

From here:

...It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version.

If that provision *ONLY* applies when the user is utilizing the server via some direct network communication then it seems to me that one could effectively make a loophole in that provision simply by introducing an arbitrary layer of indirection that does not involve any actual network communication between the user and the software (possibly even an automated service). I had figured that the designers of the GPL v3 would have anticipated that loophole and plugged it, which is why I presumed that in my aforementioned hypothetical scenario that that a photo restoration placed which used a customized GIMP would have to distribute its modified source.

If I'm misunderstanding something, by all means, enlighten me.

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

read that while not "chemically impaired" and then could you show me where that clause is??
seriously try not getting your info from your local Microsoft Platinum Provider Partner when dealing with FLOSS stuff get it from the Gnu HisSelf

It's a fine distinction, but it essentially says that if you can reverse engineer the requirements of an API by observing it's behaviour, you are free to re-implement that functionality. i.e. You have to use so-called "clean-room" techniques, where the team that did the functional analysis of the APIs to write the specs have absolutely nothing else to do with the team that writes the implementation.

Heh, I like how If I take the API specs and create my own implementation, I'm guilty until proven innocent of infringment, and surely guilty unless I used a clean room technique.

Except that's just wrong! I can think of one very important instance: Stallman's part in the Lisp Machines, Inc. and Symbolics debacle over Lisp. Symbolics Lisp shared code with MIT Lisp, but Symbolics didn't want their improvements used by the competition. Stallman didn't use a clean room, but he re-implemented feature per feature what Symbolics added.

From Stallman's side of the story:

So Symbolics came up with a plan. They said to the lab, “We will continue making our changes to the system available for you to use, but you can't put it into the MIT Lisp machine system. Instead, we'll give you access to Symbolics' Lisp machine system, and you can run it, but that's all you can do.”

This, in effect, meant that they demanded that we had to choose a side, and use either the MIT version of the system or the Symbolics version. Whichever choice we made determined which system our improvements went to. If we worked on and improved the Symbolics version, we would be supporting Symbolics alone. If we used and improved the MIT version of the system, we would be doing work available to both companies, but Symbolics saw that we would be supporting [Lisp Machines Inc.] because we would be helping them continue to exist. So we were not allowed to be neutral anymore.

Up until that point, I hadn't taken the side of either company, although it made me miserable to see what had happened to our community and the software. But now, Symbolics had forced the issue. So, in an effort to help keep Lisp Machines Inc. going — I began duplicating all of the improvements Symbolics had made to the Lisp machine system. I wrote the equivalent improvements again myself (i.e., the code was my own).

After a while, I came to the conclusion that it would be best if I didn't even look at their code. When they made a beta announcement that gave the release notes, I would see what the features were and then implement them. By the time they had a real release, I did too.

In this way, for two years, I prevented them from wiping out Lisp Machines Incorporated, and the two companies went on. But, I didn't want to spend years and years punishing someone, just thwarting an evil deed. I figured they had been punished pretty thoroughly because they were stuck with competition that was not leaving or going to disappear.

Emphasis mine. Note that he had access, and did look at their code... It was not a full clean room operation, and LMI used Stallman's contributions. Symbolics threatened lawsuits -- I wish they had filed them; It may have cleared this API SSO crap up a lot sooner, and we'd have a work around for them by now even if they were copyrightable. The above instance had a large part to play in the creation of the GPL, which Java is now licensed under.

So, Unless I have TWO SEPARATE MINDS AND BODIES, then there is no way I -- a single software developer and entrepreneur -- could EVER create a "clean room" implementation as you've defined it. That's anti-competitive and unconstitutional IMO.

I've seen a remarkable change in business use of open-source once the GPLv3 came out, which may explain why.

Businesses were pretty much ambivalent towards open-source - it was neat, it was nifty, and as long as they provided source, they could stay on the right side of the license.

Then the GPLv3 came out, and suddenly their obligations became much greater and businesses got worried that GPLv3 may "taint" everything.

Suddenly open-source usage policies started becoming the norm - and by usage, it includes both internal use (build tools, etc) and using code in the product. Open-source projects now need to be "reviewed" by legal for license compliance in all usage (because internal tools may be shared with outside contractors) and other such business.

Some have gotten to the point where there's a narrow subset of what's allowed (pre-approved software and versions), and explicitly banned some licenses - BSD and MIT licenses are A-OK, Apache is iffy, and GPLv3 is a definite cannot use don't even ask. Heck, even the GPL can be iffy since GPLv2+ code can be GPLV3 in some instances because of what code is included (exception - v2-only code is OK because that code cannot be v3 at all - GPLv2-only is incompatible with GPLv3).

Even Apple have been moving away from GPL - they ditched GCC after the patches to support Grand Central Dispatch for LLVM, among other things.

As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright.

Says it right here! Nothing here that suggests that he advocates obeying the law - he just goes on his usual sanctimonious diatribe against the law.

I can't see how it's freer in any sense.

This is because you completely misunderstand what freedom means to the FSF. Let me give a hint to you:

“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them.

Think about what this means. Let me give another hint about what this means:

When users don't control the program, the program controls the users. The developer controls the program, and through it controls the users.

To put it another way, freedom means the user has control and not the developer controlling the user.

The economic argument goes like this: “I want to get rich (usually described inaccurately as ‘making a living’), and if you don't allow me to get rich by programming, then I won't program.

Priceless comment coming from someone who is a squatter, and doesn't have to bother about paying rent, or anything of that sort. For such a person, if you want to be able to pay your rent, utility bills, get your kids swimming lessons and so on, you'll want to get rich - or at least have to'. And then people wonder why he's thought of as a Marxist.

Sad thing is that so many good people in the FOSS community take him seriously, when there are so many better alternatives.

Yeah, and it's time to discuss something new. I didn't submit the following story, since it's now a month old, but I did find it interesting that Debian, which has always spoken the language of Free Software, decided to join the OSI.

Why? Debian itself has what it calls its 'Free software guidelines', and in it, Debian follows pretty much the same language as the FSF. However, the FSF refuses to recognize Debian as free software. Why? B'cos Debian 'also provides a repository of nonfree software. According to the project, this software is “not part of the Debian system,” but the repository is hosted on many of the project's main servers, and people can readily learn about these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database.'

In other words, b'cos Debian decides to give its users the choice of using 'non-Free' software if they want to, the FSF blacklists them and doesn't endorse their distro. I fully agree w/ Hairy and Barbara above that this is a religion, and nothing illustrates my point better than this. It's not enought that an organization provide 'the community' w/ 'free software' - it's also necessary that they not provide anyone - not even those who want it - w/ non-Free software. This is what makes the FSF a bunch of fanatics who sane people would avoid.

Debian has done a good first step in joining OSI - something that IMO they should have done many moons ago. Next thing I hope they do is substitute the deceptive term 'free software' w/ 'open-source' wherever they can. Like they say in the announcement, they needn't embrace every license that the OSI has accepted as Open-Source, but at least, by being more business friendly than the FSF, and using more industry accepted terminology, they can get more monetary backing for Debian from the industry.

RMS is himself a "hater", so what's good for the goose is good for the gander. He is on record as advocating that people pirate proprietary/closed source programs rather than pay for them - in other words, copyright law be damned when it doesn't support his flawed vision, because copyright that supports closed source is "morally wrong".

No, that's not what RMS is saying at all. Let's look at the paragraph that appears to upset you the most.

Many users unconsciously recognize the wrong of refusing to share, so they decide to ignore the licenses and laws, and share programs anyway. But they often feel guilty about doing so. They know that they must break the laws in order to be good neighbors, but they still consider the laws authoritative, and they conclude that being a good neighbor (which they are) is naughty or shameful. That is also a kind of psychosocial harm, but one can escape it by deciding that these licenses and laws have no moral force.

In this paragraph, RMS is not avocating that people pirate proprietary software. Rather, he is illustrating the cognitive dissonance faced by a "good neighbor" who wishes to share, but is stopped from doing so by licenses on proprietary software. His point is that one can assuage that cognitive dissonance by assuming the laws have "no moral force." See the difference?

If you actually look at the rest of his essay, it is abundantly clear that what he does advocate is having programmers release the source code of their programs, and allowing others the freedom to use and modify the program as they wish, provided they do not stop others from enjoying the same freedom. Pirating proprietary software (with no source-code available) obviously is an impediment to that, so why should he support it?

The funny part - since he publicly states that neither copyright laws nor software licenses should have any force, anyone can pirate a GPL program and use his statements as promisory estoppel.

Good luck with that. The GPL has held up in court against its violators on many occasions.

Suppose that both you and your neighbor would find it useful to run a certain program. In ethical concern for your neighbor, you should feel that proper handling of the situation will enable both of you to use it. A proposal to permit only one of you to use the program, while restraining the other, is divisive; neither you nor your neighbor should find it acceptable.

Signing a typical software license agreement means betraying your neighbor: âoeI promise to deprive my neighbor of this program so that I can have a copy for myself.â People who make such choices feel internal psychological pressure to justify them, by downgrading the importance of helping one's neighborsâ"thus public spirit suffers. This is psychosocial harm associated with the material harm of discouraging use of the program.

Many users unconsciously recognize the wrong of refusing to share, so they decide to ignore the licenses and laws, and share programs anyway. But they often feel guilty about doing so. They know that they must break the laws in order to be good neighbors, but they still consider the laws authoritative, and they conclude that being a good neighbor (which they are) is naughty or shameful. That is also a kind of psychosocial harm, but one can escape it by deciding that these licenses and laws have no moral force.

The funny part - since he publicly states that neither copyright laws nor software licenses should have any force, anyone can pirate a GPL program and use his statements as promisory estoppel.

No wonder the guy eats his own foot cheese. He's nuts.

There is very much a difference. A lot more licenses are considered 'open' than 'free', even while containing provisions that make it more palatable for the software creators. Look at the 2 lists that I linked to. The ones mentioned as 'open' are simply listed and categorized by their utility, w/o any judgement calls about their ethics, while GNU is more interested in listing them according to their purity i.e. similarity to the GPL itself. So it's small wonder that projects would pick an 'open' but not 'free' license - there are simply more of the latter than the former, and w/o onerous restrictions on software creators.

Contrary to myth, the Open Source movement, rather than the FSF, is the reason we have such major open source software such as Open Office, Firefox, Chromium, Apache, Android, and so on - if you notice, most of them are not GPL, and even Linus has decided not to make his kernel GPL3. If anything, companies like Sun went for things like the CDDL because it is not GPL. Oh, and before anyone says 'Android is Linux', Android is released under an Apache license and not GPL 2 nor 3.

I'd credit the likes of the OSI in helping popularize the Open Source model and bringing it to where it is. Unlike the FSF, it is not hostile to corporate interests and prefers to promote the advantages of this development model, rather than moralizing about the 'ethics' of 'Free Software'. Speaking of which, what is this 'community' that RMS, and you are talking of? People typically buy/download for free/copy software that they want to use, and use it. Most people don't, and won't, tinker w/ source code, nor pay someone else to tinker w/ them - if a software doesn't work the way they need, they either look for alternatives or workarounds.

ESR mentioned some of that in the 'Cathedral and the Bazaar', where he noted that worse than the confusion over the word 'free' was the perception that the FSF was down and out hostile to business. I'd say that that perception is accurate - name me one company (not non-profit organization like FSF) that Stallman endorses. As I've pointed out several times in the past, Freedom 2 of GNU is the poison pill in the GNU charter that makes it the most business hostile model. If a company, otoh, is fine w/ distributing its source code to its customers, but restricts re-distribution further downstream (for the obvious reason that they want to sell to those downstream potential customers themselves, and not have the value of their work diluted by other people who put no effort into it simply distributing it for free or their own profits), then they are more likely to find a sympathetic solution from OSI than FSF, who probably wouldn't give them the time of day.

There is only one case that I can think of where 'free' is a better idea than 'open'. It is the case of when a company is releasing support software for a competitor, like the recent story on /. about a TI employee writing FOSS drivers for QCOM in his free time the same way that he was writing FOSS drivers for TI in his work time. In such a case, it would be a good idea to use something like GPL3, just so that QCOM cannot make use of a non-employee's unpaid work and then include enhancements after making that proprietary. While it would have been perfectly ethical for them to do it w/ their own paid employees, it is somewhat unethical for them to do it w/ work done by employees of their competitors off the clock.

In this context, free does not refer to price. I'm amazed, given your UID, that you do not know that, and that the mods do not know that.

Read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software

Read
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

I'm really, honestly quite amazed that readers on slashdot are so completely ignorant about these facts. Once upon a time, the free-vs-open debate was the single most important one here.

This isn't the place I knew, this isn't the place I thought it was.

Even by the FSF's definition, "copyleft" and "free" are distinct terms. Every license in the summary is considered free by the FSF: BSD MIT ASL

Even by the FSF's definition, "copyleft" and "free" are distinct terms. Every license in the summary is considered free by the FSF: BSD MIT ASL

Even by the FSF's definition, "copyleft" and "free" are distinct terms. Every license in the summary is considered free by the FSF: BSD MIT ASL

Even by the FSF's definition, "copyleft" and "free" are distinct terms. Every license in the summary is considered free by the FSF: BSD MIT ASL

Even by the FSF's definition, "copyleft" and "free" are distinct terms. Every license in the summary is considered free by the FSF: BSD MIT ASL

Even by the FSF's definition, "copyleft" and "free" are distinct terms. Every license in the summary is considered free by the FSF: BSD MIT ASL

You'll probably get furious then if you'd see this or this. Those bastards are even worse than Google - they compile our pretty and portable .jars to completely non-crossplatform machine code! How dare they.

Java programming language != Java platform. There's no "contract" that any jar will run on any platform using Java programming language - go try running Java EE application on a Java-enabled phone or Bluray's BD-J applet on your PC.

And yes, MS was bitchslapped because they claimed to implement standard, compatible Java SE implementation while introducing incompatiblities. Google claims to implement NOT any of Snoracle's Java platforms, but a new runtime using Java programming language.

You can now proceed to remove your foot from your mouth.

The GNU Hurd, by contrast, is designed to make the area of system code as limited as possible. Programs are required to communicate only with a few essential parts of the kernel; the rest of the system is replaceable dynamically. Users can use whatever parts of the remainder of the system they want, and can easily add components themselves for other users to take advantage of. No mutual trust need exist in advance for users to use each other's services, nor does the system become vulnerable by trusting the services of arbitrary users.

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd-paper.html

And again, GPL3 is a solid practical response to the issue of software as a service. It's not essential in every instance, and like all other Free licenses, it's the author's right to decide how much freedom they want to grant their users,

Had Stallman actually produced good software (since Emacs), I would have agreed that he deserves credit here. But if it's only going to be about licenses, I'd put ESR ahead of RMS in this one - at least, the former isn't a sanctimonious fanatic moralizing about every aspect of software usage. His latest - dinging Saas, and continuing w/ his tinfoil theories on how services abuse you by getting you to voluntarily hand over your data. But hey - neither he nor his guys can write an OS - having failed to do HURD (it's now being done only by Debian and Arch) but seeing that Linus will never make Linux GPL3, the FSF in Latin America has forked Linux to one 'Libre-Linux', where they can continue to take the kernel from kernel.org, presumably replace its license w/ GPL3, bundle it w/ their 'Free' software, and continue selling it.

I believe that Open Source deserves credit, but I'd give that to ESR, for working w/ companies and helping popularize the open source development model in ways in which companies don't have to go bankrupt while chasing utopian dreams. He, rather than RMS, is the reason that companies like Netscape, Sun and many others made available open source versions of their popular software, like Mozilla, Libre Office and so on. 'Software freedom' ain't what brought us there - Open Source is.

Lower down the pecking order, I'd credit Tanenbaum, whose Minix provided the foundation ideas behind Linux.

Here, I believe, is where Java was first called a trap.

He pushed Ubuntu? That's strange - he includes Canonical in the list of organizations whose software fails his definition of 'free'. In fact, FSFLA (as in FSF Latin America, not Los Angeles) has forked Linux and produced a kernel called Libre-Linux, whose only difference from other Linux versions is that it won't get adulterated w/ 'non-Free software'. On GNU's main page, they're now promoting Trisquel. In fact, the distros that the FSF promotes are ones I guess even most /.ers have never heard of - Blag, Dragora, GNewSense (which Stallman uses on his Lemote Yeedong), Tuto, Venenux and so on. None of the common ones, such as Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and so on. In fact, they go out of their way to explain why they are 'non-Free'. Their reasons are classic - for instance, for Debian, 'the installer in some cases recommends these nonfree firmware files for the peripherals on the machine.', for Canonical, 'Ubuntu offers the option to install only free packages, which means it also offers the option to install nonfree packages too'. In short, you can't win w/ this bunch of whiners, no matter how much of free software you provide, or how careful you are to separate the 'free' from the 'non-free'.

In reality, the reason FSF have forked Linux is that Linus has made it clear that he won't make his kernel GPL3, and the FSF/GNU guys have proven themselves completely incompetent and incapable of producing HURD. Even the guys @ Debian and Arch are better at this. My guess - FSF is just going to take every version from kernel.org, stamp GPL3 on them, rename them and release them on their own - they're incapable of working on the kernel themselves.

I agree w/ the AC 2 levels up. If we were talking about Stallman actually writing code that prople would be interested in using, such as Openshot video editor or PDFcreator or Calligra Suite, then I'd agree that Stallman has contributed more in the last 5 years than AC has. All Stallman has done is shamelessly demand that software companies pay to host him at conferences, and suck up to his obsessions, such as calling Linux 'GNU/Linux', avoiding the term open source and talking about 'software freedom', and obsess about privacy violations of big brother. One doesn't need any programming, software development or even management skills to do that - all one needs is to be insanely opinionated. And on this front, I have no idea what Mr AC does for a living, but I'm willing to wager that s/he would be more successful in winning over organizations to her/his side. Reason being that while one can make a case for either BSD or GPL3, the AC is more likely than Stallman to listen to what the 'community' wants and needs from the licenses, and produce something of that kind, whereas Stallman would just turn on his propaganda about how they are not promoting 'Software Freedom' and alienate them, rather than win them over.

Notice how organizations like Apple, BSD, et al are actively working on either removing or replacing every bit of software that's going GPL3, no matter how valuable, be it GCC, Samba, glibc, and you have your evidence that Stallman has finally turned GPL into something that developers flee from. Even some GNU projects, such as GNOME3, haven't adapted the GPL3 license, since they don't want to be kicked out by mainstream Linux users, I'm willing to bet that over time, Linus is more likely than not to gradually replace GNU userand with something else, just so that they don't get stuck w/ GPL3. At which point, calling the OS GNU/Linux will be about as inaccurate as calling a BSD GNU/FreeBSD, and Stallman would have done to GPL what MS might end up doing to Windows w/ Windows 8 - for all practical purposes, kill it!

He pushed Ubuntu? That's strange - he includes Canonical in the list of organizations whose software fails his definition of 'free'. In fact, FSFLA (as in FSF Latin America, not Los Angeles) has forked Linux and produced a kernel called Libre-Linux, whose only difference from other Linux versions is that it won't get adulterated w/ 'non-Free software'. On GNU's main page, they're now promoting Trisquel. In fact, the distros that the FSF promotes are ones I guess even most /.ers have never heard of - Blag, Dragora, GNewSense (which Stallman uses on his Lemote Yeedong), Tuto, Venenux and so on. None of the common ones, such as Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and so on. In fact, they go out of their way to explain why they are 'non-Free'. Their reasons are classic - for instance, for Debian, 'the installer in some cases recommends these nonfree firmware files for the peripherals on the machine.', for Canonical, 'Ubuntu offers the option to install only free packages, which means it also offers the option to install nonfree packages too'. In short, you can't win w/ this bunch of whiners, no matter how much of free software you provide, or how careful you are to separate the 'free' from the 'non-free'.

In reality, the reason FSF have forked Linux is that Linus has made it clear that he won't make his kernel GPL3, and the FSF/GNU guys have proven themselves completely incompetent and incapable of producing HURD. Even the guys @ Debian and Arch are better at this. My guess - FSF is just going to take every version from kernel.org, stamp GPL3 on them, rename them and release them on their own - they're incapable of working on the kernel themselves.

I agree w/ the AC 2 levels up. If we were talking about Stallman actually writing code that prople would be interested in using, such as Openshot video editor or PDFcreator or Calligra Suite, then I'd agree that Stallman has contributed more in the last 5 years than AC has. All Stallman has done is shamelessly demand that software companies pay to host him at conferences, and suck up to his obsessions, such as calling Linux 'GNU/Linux', avoiding the term open source and talking about 'software freedom', and obsess about privacy violations of big brother. One doesn't need any programming, software development or even management skills to do that - all one needs is to be insanely opinionated. And on this front, I have no idea what Mr AC does for a living, but I'm willing to wager that s/he would be more successful in winning over organizations to her/his side. Reason being that while one can make a case for either BSD or GPL3, the AC is more likely than Stallman to listen to what the 'community' wants and needs from the licenses, and produce something of that kind, whereas Stallman would just turn on his propaganda about how they are not promoting 'Software Freedom' and alienate them, rather than win them over.

Notice how organizations like Apple, BSD, et al are actively working on either removing or replacing every bit of software that's going GPL3, no matter how valuable, be it GCC, Samba, glibc, and you have your evidence that Stallman has finally turned GPL into something that developers flee from. Even some GNU projects, such as GNOME3, haven't adapted the GPL3 license, since they don't want to be kicked out by mainstream Linux users, I'm willing to bet that over time, Linus is more likely than not to gradually replace GNU userand with something else, just so that they don't get stuck w/ GPL3. At which point, calling the OS GNU/Linux will be about as inaccurate as calling a BSD GNU/FreeBSD, and Stallman would have done to GPL what MS might end up doing to Windows w/ Windows 8 - for all practical purposes, kill it!

Sure, you CAN type on [an iPad], but it's used almost entirely for consumption.

Apart from "consumption" being misleading and the name of a disease, you make a good point about the difference between a device designed to support the creation of works and one designed mostly for read-only use. But with the iPad going PC-free starting with iOS 5, won't a lot of people end up choosing not to have any sort of creative device in their home? The worst case that some people are envisioning is that people will end up with an iPad, an iPhone, a smart TV (or a dumb TV plus a Blu-ray player, game console, or other streaming video player), and no creative device. In such a case, people would be less likely to create because they would be less likely to pay the up-front cost of a creative device.

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

Just want to set the record straight on a couple of things:

The FSF considers art to be non-functional data that does not trigger the GPL's linking requirement:

Data that has an aesthetic purpose, rather than a functional one, may be included in a free system distribution as long as its license gives you permission to copy and redistribute, both for commercial and non-commercial purposes. For example, there are some game engines that have been released under the GNU GPL, and have accompanying game information—a world map, game graphics, and so on—released under such a verbatim distribution license. This kind of data can be part of a free system distribution.

Source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

Secondly, the art will be dual licensed as CC-BY-SA, so even if you happen to not like the GPL, you need not use the art under that license. Also, while the contest requires your art to be CC-BY-SA and GPL for the sake of consistency, you are also entirely free to license it under a less restrictive license as well.

Finally, your assertion that the game has to run only on a 100% free platform is false. Your game can run on any platforms you want it to. It's just that those platforms must include a 100% free platform.

We don't want to restrict what you do with your code and art. However, we do have a set of standards for entry -- as long as those standards are met, you can do anything you want with your work.

I was just referencing someone else's comment that made it sound like it had to be on a 100% free platform. I didn't see a comment it was responding to, so I didn't know if it was out of context. I am glad to find out that the art does not affect your software license; the FAQ page for OGA made it sound like this was the case.

Just want to set the record straight on a couple of things:

The FSF considers art to be non-functional data that does not trigger the GPL's linking requirement:

Data that has an aesthetic purpose, rather than a functional one, may be included in a free system distribution as long as its license gives you permission to copy and redistribute, both for commercial and non-commercial purposes. For example, there are some game engines that have been released under the GNU GPL, and have accompanying game information—a world map, game graphics, and so on—released under such a verbatim distribution license. This kind of data can be part of a free system distribution.

Source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

Secondly, the art will be dual licensed as CC-BY-SA, so even if you happen to not like the GPL, you need not use the art under that license. Also, while the contest requires your art to be CC-BY-SA and GPL for the sake of consistency, you are also entirely free to license it under a less restrictive license as well.

Finally, your assertion that the game has to run only on a 100% free platform is false. Your game can run on any platforms you want it to. It's just that those platforms must include a 100% free platform.

We don't want to restrict what you do with your code and art. However, we do have a set of standards for entry -- as long as those standards are met, you can do anything you want with your work.

I think it's because certain people have started to conflate copyright, patents and trademarks under the non-descript banner "Intellectual Property".
It's all intellectual property, innit? Let's take the most strict interpretation of each of those three and assume it applies to the other two.
See also Richard Stallman's VERY clear essay: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

Those are pretty good, but for a really good laugh, check out:

http://gnu.org/

• Don't give more than what you're comfortably giving. Richard Stallman at least had a boiler room to live in, graciously provided by MIT, and there is always free food around MIT campus. He could afford to give away without a lot of material requirement in his lifestyle.
• End users don't really care which open source license your software is, but businesses do. Businesses can't stand GPL and will ask for BSD-like licenses. An example to consider is that QT was licensed by Trolltech under GPL, so it let them keep the ability to make money from business partners if they wanted to.
• I'd even go a step further and license your software under Affero GPL which requires software providing public network service that contain your software to give network users the access to source code as well. It's especially far-reaching since you said your software is a framework.
• If you built an end product around the framework, you can open source the framework but keep the end product proprietary. Think of the difference between Apache Portable Runtime (APR) and the Apache httpd server itself. APR is a framework, but httpd is a product.
• If you're really concerned about open sourcing as a moral decision, think about what drove Richard Stallman to open source in the first place. Instead of offering you a concrete suggestion here, you can look at the problem Stallman was facing, compare it with your situation, and see if you can offer another moral solution.
• Under no circumstances I'd use the controlled obsolescence approach (old version open source, new version proprietary) or try to sabotage the open source version (intentionally withhold documentation, inadequate build system, etc.), as suggested by other Slashdot commenters. They hurt most the people who are the most capable to give back to you.

"Everyone is telling me I should make it open source."

Open source is about allowing more people to look at the source code, for faster/better development. My guess is that most people who're telling you to make it open source have no idea what they're talking about. In fact, even you don't seem to understand the difference between open source and free software, because you write "[...] to become profitable on service alone." Free software is NOT the same as open source software. Free software is about freedom for its own sake, not about faster/better development. Start reading here.

GNU Robots uses Guile, but I don't see it on the list. GNU Robots lets you construct a program for a robot, then you set it loose in a virtual environment. It can use sensors to detect objects, blast baddies, pick up rewards, and move around. You write the program in Scheme, which is loaded by GNU Robots via Guile.

I've heard of Guile in the past, but I never managed to come across any application that actually uses it. Guile's own project list is rather meek, and whenever people talk about embedding a programming language, the talk appears to always shift to Lua. Does anyone know why no one picks Guile for any task? It would be great if it was possible to hear from anyone who actually gave Guile a try in any project.

This move was not unexpected. We've been hearing things to this extent for a bit now.

This leaves a few questions. First of which is:

Are the open source alternatives ready for prime time? Correct me if I'm wrong but here is the list of the major alternatives:

1. Gnash
2. Lightspark
3. Swfdec

4. 1. I've included Swfdec, but as I understand it, this is for flash apps that you have created and know work with swfdec. It is not for random content from unknown sources. A use case for this is a kiosk where you control the content and the display.

      Now, are the other two, Gnash and Lightspark, ready for primetime, i.e. can they replace Flash Player any time soon?

      Personally, the last time I used either one was a few months ago when I toyed with the idea of trying to make my workstation fully open source. I found that many youtube videos made the plugin crash for both Gnash and Lightspark.

      Since there is content right now that is made for Adobe's Flash Player, I feel that the way forward should be to stop creating new content for Flash. Let it die, and only create new content in HTML5. As for the existing content, the alternatives like the ones listed above need to be able to play need to be able to play it with no problems. I would even have no problem if there was new content developed with the alternative in mind rather than close source Flash Player.

Many years ago i was associated with Project UDI, the Uniform Driver Interface. The goal was to make a uniform ABI/API for device drivers. On Machines with the same hardware target (say, 32 bit x86) you would have binary compatibility. The same driver works on Solaris or Windows. For other platforms, they'd be at least source compatible. It worked in theory, and somewhat in practice - I think UnixWare shipped this as their native Device Driver Interface.

But you never heard of it. Part of it was the SCO/Caldera fiasco. 'Nuff said about that.

But part of it also was the fact that people had vested interests in this failing. Most famously, Stallman didn't like it. For now you could ship drivers without source for all i386 targets (not that having the normal Linux DDI prevented that before). But it was fun that I worked on something shipped in a commercial kernel, and also something that pissed off Stallman.

More importantly, the people who want this are necessarily in the weakest position. MS doesn't want this - everyone makes Windows drivers. They get nothing from it except lower exclusivity. (The fact that Gates and Stallman were on the same side of this should have given Stallman time to reflect). They'd never allow the UDI code to touch their kernel. One or two other big UNIX vendors feigned interest, but they had the same issue - they had exclusive (to UNIX) device drivers, and they'd lose exclusivity. Only Caldera used it. It was their project, and it helped their forked codebase - they had both UnixWare and OpenServer (very old) code bases they needed drivers for, and it made it an easier target for device makers.

None of the issues were tech issues, they all were people issues, which haven't gone away in the intervening years.

"I don't see how we ever come out of this without changes in technology

I.e., treacherous computing, where the computer actually serves the powers-that-be and not you

or changes in behavior,

Um.... I got nothing here. People are douchebags. Period. People have been defrauding, trolling, lying, and generally hating since before recorded history, and nothing the government can do the change the basic core of human behavior. Embedding monitoring and control logic into each computing and communications node would be far easier, and profitable for those contracted to accomplish it.

Here's how it works under the GPL: FAQ - Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? Most of the info is behind the "right to sell copies" link. tl;dr: you can sell the binary for whatever price you want, but (1) you have to also provide the source at no additional cost (except reasonable shipping fees if you send physical media) and (2) the user can turn right around and sell the software for whatever price they want. AFAIK this is exactly what happens with Red Hat Enterprise Linux vs. CentOS, for instance; Red Hat doesn't charge for the software itself, only for support contracts (and I think some branded images/names/etc. which the CentOS team can swap out).

Just as with the IBM patent story on /. a couple of days ago, the FSF and its friends have taught us about the dangers of software patents years ago.

The heart of that IBM story IBM told us about in a story in their promotional magazine called "Think" magazine from 1990 and Richard Stallman taught us about the consequences of this problem in his talk "The Danger of Software Patents" (which you can find in the FSF audio and video archives).

The heart of the danger for computer users (regardless of what you use a computer to do) was addressed by Stallman in a portion of his talk concerning Paul Heckel's patents:

Even the patent holders often can't recognize just what their patents mean. For instance, there's somebody named Paul Heckel who released a program for displaying a lot of data on a small screen, and based on a couple of the ideas in that program he got a couple of patents.

I once tried to find a simple way to describe what claim 1 of one of those patents covered. I found that I couldn't find any simpler way of saying it than what was in the patent itself; and that sentence, I couldn't manage to keep it all in my mind at once, no matter how hard I tried.

And Heckel couldn't follow it either, because when he saw HyperCard, all he noticed was it was nothing like his program. It didn't occur to him that the way his patent was written it might prohibit HyperCard; but his lawyer had that idea, so he threatened Apple. And then he threatened Apple's customers, and eventually Apple made a settlement with him which is secret, so we don't know who really won. And this is just an illustration of how hard it is for anybody to understand what a patent does or doesn't prohibit.

In fact, I once gave this speech and Heckel was in the audience. And at this point he jumped up and said, "That's not true, I just didn't know the scope of my protection." And I said, "Yeah, that's what I said," at which point he sat down and that was the end of my experience being heckled by Heckel. If I had said no, he probably would have found a way to argue with me.

Just as with the IBM patent story on /. a couple of days ago, the FSF and its friends have taught us about the dangers of software patents years ago.

The heart of that IBM story IBM told us about in a story in their promotional magazine called "Think" magazine from 1990 and Richard Stallman taught us about the consequences of this problem in his talk "The Danger of Software Patents" (which you can find in the FSF audio and video archives).

The heart of the danger for computer users (regardless of what you use a computer to do) was addressed by Stallman in a portion of his talk concerning Paul Heckel's patents:

Even the patent holders often can't recognize just what their patents mean. For instance, there's somebody named Paul Heckel who released a program for displaying a lot of data on a small screen, and based on a couple of the ideas in that program he got a couple of patents.

I once tried to find a simple way to describe what claim 1 of one of those patents covered. I found that I couldn't find any simpler way of saying it than what was in the patent itself; and that sentence, I couldn't manage to keep it all in my mind at once, no matter how hard I tried.

And Heckel couldn't follow it either, because when he saw HyperCard, all he noticed was it was nothing like his program. It didn't occur to him that the way his patent was written it might prohibit HyperCard; but his lawyer had that idea, so he threatened Apple. And then he threatened Apple's customers, and eventually Apple made a settlement with him which is secret, so we don't know who really won. And this is just an illustration of how hard it is for anybody to understand what a patent does or doesn't prohibit.

In fact, I once gave this speech and Heckel was in the audience. And at this point he jumped up and said, "That's not true, I just didn't know the scope of my protection." And I said, "Yeah, that's what I said," at which point he sat down and that was the end of my experience being heckled by Heckel. If I had said no, he probably would have found a way to argue with me.

Just as with the IBM patent story on /. a couple of days ago, the FSF and its friends have taught us about the dangers of software patents years ago.

The heart of that IBM story IBM told us about in a story in their promotional magazine called "Think" magazine from 1990 and Richard Stallman taught us about the consequences of this problem in his talk "The Danger of Software Patents" (which you can find in the FSF audio and video archives).

The heart of the danger for computer users (regardless of what you use a computer to do) was addressed by Stallman in a portion of his talk concerning Paul Heckel's patents:

Even the patent holders often can't recognize just what their patents mean. For instance, there's somebody named Paul Heckel who released a program for displaying a lot of data on a small screen, and based on a couple of the ideas in that program he got a couple of patents.

I once tried to find a simple way to describe what claim 1 of one of those patents covered. I found that I couldn't find any simpler way of saying it than what was in the patent itself; and that sentence, I couldn't manage to keep it all in my mind at once, no matter how hard I tried.

And Heckel couldn't follow it either, because when he saw HyperCard, all he noticed was it was nothing like his program. It didn't occur to him that the way his patent was written it might prohibit HyperCard; but his lawyer had that idea, so he threatened Apple. And then he threatened Apple's customers, and eventually Apple made a settlement with him which is secret, so we don't know who really won. And this is just an illustration of how hard it is for anybody to understand what a patent does or doesn't prohibit.

In fact, I once gave this speech and Heckel was in the audience. And at this point he jumped up and said, "That's not true, I just didn't know the scope of my protection." And I said, "Yeah, that's what I said," at which point he sat down and that was the end of my experience being heckled by Heckel. If I had said no, he probably would have found a way to argue with me.

No, it is not as simple as this. The GCC GPL exceptions are quite complicated. Just outputting some intermediate builds from your computer (flicking a switch in the compile arguments) suddenly makes your entire proprietary product GPLv3. That is a very scary thought for any corporate legal department. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception-faq.html

"Oh, you mean we accidentally released a GPL version of Microsoft Exchange server because of a toolchain change in our developer workflow. Oops...."

The FreeBSD project has already declined to upgrade its GCC implementation to the GPL version 3 release. That is one of the driving forces behind the move to clang/llvm within that community. So this really isn't quite so simple... The GPL v3 is quite scary to many corporations (as it was intended to be) and so they refuse to have anything GPLv3 installed on their machines at any level. I manage a 5 person development team and would always avoid anything GPLv3 without serious consideration of the implications.

They could just use the Dutch word for free, like the developer of the compiler originally intended for GNU (before GCC). Stallman asked to use it but got a "VUCK you" in reply: "the university was free but the compiler was not."