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...about porting Linux apps to the Cloud? TFA talks about how OpenOffice/LibreOffice will never make it to the cloud in time to be competitive vs Google Docs/Office Live...but if the Linux/FOSS crowd wants their software to remain open, why would they use such applications in the cloud? Would providing the app via the cloud into a browser be considered "distribution" of the application or binary, and if so would the cloud provider be required to provide their modified source to interested parties? If not, I see no reason why OSS advocates would even want to use such applications in the cloud...and without those who are most feverishly supportive of Open Source, what real market would "Cloud LibreOffice" or "GIMPCloud" have?

You seem to think all "OSS advocates" are feverish and prefer Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL. In fact, the Free and Open Source communities often use permissive licenses and there are many successful projects under such licenses.

You are astute to wonder about the effectiveness of Copyleft for web (cloud) applications. For authors wanting to apply the principle of Copyleft to web apps, there is the AGPL.

...about porting Linux apps to the Cloud? TFA talks about how OpenOffice/LibreOffice will never make it to the cloud in time to be competitive vs Google Docs/Office Live...but if the Linux/FOSS crowd wants their software to remain open, why would they use such applications in the cloud? Would providing the app via the cloud into a browser be considered "distribution" of the application or binary, and if so would the cloud provider be required to provide their modified source to interested parties? If not, I see no reason why OSS advocates would even want to use such applications in the cloud...and without those who are most feverishly supportive of Open Source, what real market would "Cloud LibreOffice" or "GIMPCloud" have?

You seem to think all "OSS advocates" are feverish and prefer Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL. In fact, the Free and Open Source communities often use permissive licenses and there are many successful projects under such licenses.

You are astute to wonder about the effectiveness of Copyleft for web (cloud) applications. For authors wanting to apply the principle of Copyleft to web apps, there is the AGPL.

...about porting Linux apps to the Cloud? TFA talks about how OpenOffice/LibreOffice will never make it to the cloud in time to be competitive vs Google Docs/Office Live...but if the Linux/FOSS crowd wants their software to remain open, why would they use such applications in the cloud? Would providing the app via the cloud into a browser be considered "distribution" of the application or binary, and if so would the cloud provider be required to provide their modified source to interested parties? If not, I see no reason why OSS advocates would even want to use such applications in the cloud...and without those who are most feverishly supportive of Open Source, what real market would "Cloud LibreOffice" or "GIMPCloud" have?

You seem to think all "OSS advocates" are feverish and prefer Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL. In fact, the Free and Open Source communities often use permissive licenses and there are many successful projects under such licenses.

You are astute to wonder about the effectiveness of Copyleft for web (cloud) applications. For authors wanting to apply the principle of Copyleft to web apps, there is the AGPL.

I guess I should have written Emacs/vim-like instead ;)

Also: the horror, oh the horror.

Emacs/W3

But if you want to get something real done, it's just stupid to limit yourself to only open source OR proprietary software. Pick the best tool for the job.

Be careful: sometimes, especially in cases of works under a "copyleft" or "share-alike" license, a work's copyright license limits which tools for the job are lawful. For example, some licenses require works to be made available in an editable format that isn't Java-trapped.* See, for example, sentences containing "Transparent" in the GNU Free Documentation License and sentences containing "technological" in CC BY-SA. You can use proprietary tools yourself, but you also have to make sure that the work can be edited with free tools.

*Term's original is historical, prior to IcedTea.

But if you want to get something real done, it's just stupid to limit yourself to only open source OR proprietary software. Pick the best tool for the job.

Be careful: sometimes, especially in cases of works under a "copyleft" or "share-alike" license, a work's copyright license limits which tools for the job are lawful. For example, some licenses require works to be made available in an editable format that isn't Java-trapped.* See, for example, sentences containing "Transparent" in the GNU Free Documentation License and sentences containing "technological" in CC BY-SA. You can use proprietary tools yourself, but you also have to make sure that the work can be edited with free tools.

*Term's original is historical, prior to IcedTea.

GNU Emacs and GCC were the "traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development"? That's news to me!

There are a couple of things you need to realise here.

The first is ESR had(has?) issues with Stallman, and always hated his style. Stallman has a rather Socialist outlook on life, and ESR is a committed Libertarian. So one of ESR's missions in life (at least back then) was to marginalize Stallman. These projects were, in ESR's view, tainted by Stallmanisim, so he's going out of his way to denigrate them. This is also why he helped invent the term "OpenSource". A prime goal of CatB was to establish a foundation for the movement that Libertarians (like ESR himself) could get behind, rather than the Socialist-sounding GNU Manifesto.

The second is that there was actuall a grain of truth in those complaints at the time. When that essay was written, there was an active fork going on of GCC, due in part to the intransigence of the maintainers. Emacs had more forks than it would be easy to count (most notably XEmacs), for similar reasons. Both of these situations are much better today, so these complains may seem an anachronisim.

That's not always the case, probably not even most of the time. Consider someone enlisted in the army who at the same times writes a journal. Is the journal the property of the army? Nope. Is this silly slashdot comment the property of *my* employer because I'm writing it at their computer? No again. It all depends on in what effect the asker wrote his framework. Was it his main job to develop a web framework for the companys new product? Or was it something he was having fun with at breaks and in the downtime between tasks?

Most employment contracts have a clause in them that says some like "and any other duties as directed". That covers most stuff like this. If he was being paid as a software developer, and he used this in any sort of work project, then they have a strong argument for it being theirs. Based on this strong argument the FSF is unlikely to touch this with a 12 foot pole, so he would have to fight his previous employer in court himself.

Court cases are long, slow and expensive. In the meantime they are making money off his project, he is unemployed and rapidly haemorrhaging money. Ergo, they will most likely get the pleasure of bankrupting him as well as making him look like a nightmare employee to anyone who considers employing him in future.

The moral of this story is that when you are at work, your boss is your boss. If you work on your own projects in your own time then you have to be damn sure they are kept very separate from your work and NEVER use them as part of a project you write at work.

The following page is about Stallman commencing the GNU project: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html

But it is quite long so here is the relevant part:

"In January 1984 I quit my job at MIT and began writing GNU software. Leaving MIT was necessary so that MIT would not be able to interfere with distributing GNU as free software. If I had remained on the staff, MIT could have claimed to own the work, and could have imposed their own distribution terms, or even turned the work into a proprietary software package. I had no intention of doing a large amount of work only to see it become useless for its intended purpose: creating a new software-sharing community."

I'm a bit surprised. It is official policy of the FSF not to use the term "cloud". The issue with the closest thing, software as a service, is explained here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html

It's a real pity that Ghostery isn't free software.

It has a look-but-don't-touch licence for the source code. Being able to look is better than nothing, but if no one can modify or fork it, then it's unlikely that anyone's reading the source code at all. I wouldn't trust my privacy to something with no community or third-party oversight.

Here's gnu.org's list of free, mozilla-compatible add-ons:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/addons.html

For privacy, there's only really Noscript and Requestpolicy.

Really? You can't access the CEDET version control system? Have you asked one of those distros for the missing files and they said no they won't send them to you?

The existence of the source on a 3rd-party site is not sufficient for compliance with GPL V2 section 3a or V3 section 6a/d requirements. Providing the source only on request is only valid compliance with V2 3b/c or V3 6b/c if you accompany the binaries with the offer to provide source on request which most did not because that's not the method by which they chose to comply with the GPL!

Go figure someone who said something as stupid as "Another fine example of why any intelligent company keeps as far away from GPL as possible" wouldn't understand the GPL.

Not giving you instant online access is not a violation.

It is unless the binaries are accompanied with a written offer to provide the source on request. Read the GPL, idiot. Hypothetically being willing to provide source if someone asks is not sufficient for compliance.

Unless of course the actual copyright holder has granted these people the right to distribute the binaries without the source.

Yes, unless that's the case, you're completely wrong and just as stupid as you appear. Kinda a thin hypothetical to be hanging your whole superiority complex on isn't, it? Especially when basic reasoning skills suggest that it is highly unlikely that every single downstream distributor of Emacs has received specific dispensation, since they'd have no reason to think there was a problem and the copyright holder would have no reason to know the distributor exists. It is also unlikely that they created a general dispensation for all recipients of emacs from 3rd parties to redistribute without complying with the GPL, because the GPL is the license they chose to allow all Nth generation recipients to redistribute.

Did you follow that, or did I lose you at "basic reasoning skills"?

But nevertheless I admit that while your understanding of GPL compliance is without a doubt stupid and wrong, as is your estimation of whether current emacs distributions are in compliance, there's a very slim chance that you aren't completely wrong. Go you!

Of course even then, they still wouldn't be complying with the GPL, now would they? And what has been claimed? Oh, right.

Would you be able to untwist your panties if we instead said "highly probably GPL violations" or even just "possible", or did you already suck them up inside you?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/1810225/Righthaven-Copyright-Lawsuit-Backfires

Oh right, and then here's your other big insight that there's more to a copyright violation lawsuit than license compliance.

You must think this information is relevant to the discussion because your head is too stuck up your own strawman's ass to notice nobody is talking about suing anybody.

No, I choose not to ignore ignorant fucks such as yourself. You and people like you give GPL a bad name. I don't make deals with idiots, I make fun of them.

You make a good point. Here I was trying to offer a convenient and face-saving way for you to back off from your idiotic blatherings to some more moderate compromise position. But why should I do that? This is the internet!

You don't understand the GPL (but pretend to). You don't understand what is actually being claimed (but pretend to). You don't understand the difference between copyright license compliance and a charge copyright infringement (and don't even pretend to). You also don't even pretend to understand the issue of innumerable downstream distributors that can't possibly have all received separate licenses. And to top of this hilariously stupid cake w

Really? You can't access the CEDET version control system? Have you asked one of those distros for the missing files and they said no they won't send them to you?

The existence of the source on a 3rd-party site is not sufficient for compliance with GPL V2 section 3a or V3 section 6a/d requirements. Providing the source only on request is only valid compliance with V2 3b/c or V3 6b/c if you accompany the binaries with the offer to provide source on request which most did not because that's not the method by which they chose to comply with the GPL!

Go figure someone who said something as stupid as "Another fine example of why any intelligent company keeps as far away from GPL as possible" wouldn't understand the GPL.

Not giving you instant online access is not a violation.

It is unless the binaries are accompanied with a written offer to provide the source on request. Read the GPL, idiot. Hypothetically being willing to provide source if someone asks is not sufficient for compliance.

Unless of course the actual copyright holder has granted these people the right to distribute the binaries without the source.

Yes, unless that's the case, you're completely wrong and just as stupid as you appear. Kinda a thin hypothetical to be hanging your whole superiority complex on isn't, it? Especially when basic reasoning skills suggest that it is highly unlikely that every single downstream distributor of Emacs has received specific dispensation, since they'd have no reason to think there was a problem and the copyright holder would have no reason to know the distributor exists. It is also unlikely that they created a general dispensation for all recipients of emacs from 3rd parties to redistribute without complying with the GPL, because the GPL is the license they chose to allow all Nth generation recipients to redistribute.

Did you follow that, or did I lose you at "basic reasoning skills"?

But nevertheless I admit that while your understanding of GPL compliance is without a doubt stupid and wrong, as is your estimation of whether current emacs distributions are in compliance, there's a very slim chance that you aren't completely wrong. Go you!

Of course even then, they still wouldn't be complying with the GPL, now would they? And what has been claimed? Oh, right.

Would you be able to untwist your panties if we instead said "highly probably GPL violations" or even just "possible", or did you already suck them up inside you?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/1810225/Righthaven-Copyright-Lawsuit-Backfires

Oh right, and then here's your other big insight that there's more to a copyright violation lawsuit than license compliance.

You must think this information is relevant to the discussion because your head is too stuck up your own strawman's ass to notice nobody is talking about suing anybody.

No, I choose not to ignore ignorant fucks such as yourself. You and people like you give GPL a bad name. I don't make deals with idiots, I make fun of them.

You make a good point. Here I was trying to offer a convenient and face-saving way for you to back off from your idiotic blatherings to some more moderate compromise position. But why should I do that? This is the internet!

You don't understand the GPL (but pretend to). You don't understand what is actually being claimed (but pretend to). You don't understand the difference between copyright license compliance and a charge copyright infringement (and don't even pretend to). You also don't even pretend to understand the issue of innumerable downstream distributors that can't possibly have all received separate licenses. And to top of this hilariously stupid cake w

The real irony here is that, apparently, XEmacs did this right.

I was going to question the correctness of your claim that "merely publishing the source isn't enough", and that you can't do it reactively, as that runs counter to how I'd always understood the license, and then decided I should first check the GPL's terms to be sure that I understood it correctly. ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html )

The GPL3 (which I believe Emacs uses, as far as I can tell?)'s section six includes the offer "access to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge". It even says that you can store the source and object code on different servers, and that you do not need to require recipients to copy the source along with the object code.

They do appear to have had a written offer (as mentioned in section 6b) to give anyone a copy of the Corresponding Source (6(b)(2)); whether you actually must put the bits on that server at request-time, or at the time of initial publishing doesn't seem to be addressed. One could probably argue that it's not a valid offer if the bits aren't available, and that's likely why they're scrambling to fix it. (That, and they actually DO want to give us the missing sources, and only just realized that they had not.)

The FSF isn't violating the GPL. It's people who are redistributing it.

We have made a very bad mistake. Anyone redistributing those versions is violating the GPL, through no fault of his own.

We need to fix those releases retroactively (or else delete them), and we need to do it right away.

I see two quick ways to fix them: to delete the compiled files, or to add the sources they are made from.

See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-07/msg01155.html

One of the fundamental requirements of the GPL is that when you distribute object code to users, you must also provide them with a way to get the source. GPLv2 gave you a few ways to do this, and GPLv3 keeps those intact with some clarification. It also offers you new ways to provide source when you convey object code over a network. For instance, when you host object code on a web or FTP server, you can simply provide instructions that tell visitors how to get the source from a third-party server.

The actual wording for network distribution in the GPLv3 says you just have to make or have the source available in the same methods that the binaries were
GPLv3

d) Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code. If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements.

I bet we can find Emacs source on the same server we can find Emacs binaries.

One of the fundamental requirements of the GPL is that when you distribute object code to users, you must also provide them with a way to get the source. GPLv2 gave you a few ways to do this, and GPLv3 keeps those intact with some clarification. It also offers you new ways to provide source when you convey object code over a network. For instance, when you host object code on a web or FTP server, you can simply provide instructions that tell visitors how to get the source from a third-party server.

The actual wording for network distribution in the GPLv3 says you just have to make or have the source available in the same methods that the binaries were
GPLv3

d) Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code. If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements.

I bet we can find Emacs source on the same server we can find Emacs binaries.

Actually, you're supposed to make it available if you're distributing downloadable copies, no request necessary. The "by request" is if you distribute physically (in a device, or on physical media). See Section 6, Conveying Non-Source Forms, of GPLv3.

We have made a very bad mistake. Anyone redistributing those versions is violating the GPL, through no fault of his own.

We need to fix those releases retroactively (or else delete them), and we need to do it right away.

I see two quick ways to fix them: to delete the compiled files, or to add the sources they are made from.

From the mail linked to in the story: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-07/msg01155.html

All I am going to say to those of you who think "open source" does not matter is read Richard Stallman's paper "Who Does That Server Really Serve?"

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html

Having open and honestly published API's and protocols is important and certainly better than nothing, but there are so many other reasons why access to source code is important for trust and freedom in computing.

The author of the summary seems to be unaware that IP is been shown fairly convincingly to be a sham term.

Perhaps. A lot of people seem to think so.

See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

You just screwed your own argument by linking to the most useless, bias article that you could find.

The author of the summary seems to be unaware that IP is been shown fairly convincingly to be a sham term. See

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

Not really... Google is in trouble right now mainly for having made a clean-room implementation(Dalvik) of Java VM. But much of Java is already available under GPL. The GPL is designed to give protection from patent claims by the author of the code.
From the GPLv2 :

...Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

Like the FSF said Google could have avoided much of this by just building Dalvik over Oracle's GPL code, or a derivative of it such as IcedTea.
Why didn't they do so?
Probably to release Dalvik under the more permissive Apache license which allows for proprietary modifcations by handset manufacturers.

Other companies in the future (in case Oracle wins; lets pray it doesn't) are just probably going to
(1) license Java, or
(2) license the patents allegedly infringed by Dalvik or
(3) just use a derivative of Oracle's GPL'd code such as IcedTea.

For the most part, the military wouldn't really have to contribute back to open source. The GPL only requires distribution of source if the binary is distributed. However for the purposes of distribution an organization is considered one entity. So if an organization (such as the military) chose to create a derivative work of some open source software purely for internal use, they wouldn't have to give anyone the source. I would imagine that most military developed software would be for internal use only.

OTOH, the military has in fact contributed to open source in the past. The DoD supported projects like OpenBSD for a long time. It would be nice to see more of that.

I think that people kick at HURD because of the grand claims made by some HURD fans. These grand claims have not panned out.

If you look at the old HURD FAQ, you will see claims that "Linux and BSD don't scale well" and that HURD, being based on Mach, should scale better for SMP; furthermore, HURD would be "considerably more flexible and robust than generic Unix".

The superior architecture of HURD was supposed to make it easier and faster to develop and debug HURD, and thus HURD was going to leapfrog past Linux as the obviously better solution.

Kernel debugging in Linux is significantly harder than user-space debugging. The microkernel design of HURD was supposed to allow for things like file systems to be written and debugged with the ease of user-space development under Linux. That being the case, it seems surprising that HURD is so far behind Linux after so many years.

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but here are my thoughts on the current Linux and HURD situation:

First, Linux scales really well now. People are using Linux on really large SMP systems.

Second, a microkernel architecture, while more robust than a monokernel, cannot be as fast as the monokernel. If one subsystem wants another subsystem to do something, it must format and send a message; the other subsystem then receives the message, unpacks it, validates it, and then does the action. This is more secure and more stable than the monokernel, where the one subsystem will just make a function call in the other subsystem's code; but it is inherently slower. So Linux is scaling better than HURD expected, and Linux has an inherent speed edge, so HURD is unlikely to outperform Linux. Meanwhile, while it might be true that HURD is easier to debug than Linux, the kernel developers have figured out how to debug Linux, and there just isn't enough benefit there to warrant a switch to HURD.

Finally, Linux is widely used and well understood; lots of businesses are running mission-critical apps on Linux. Even if HURD's microkernel design gave it a theoretical edge on Linux for reliability, the real-world experience is all on Linux; it has been shown to be Good Enough while HURD is only theoretically better.

steveha

I don't mean to be flippant, but I think we'll know that Hurd is growing up when http://gnu.org/ runs on it.

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

Richard Stallman's famous parable about the Right to Read, and what will happen if intellectual monopoly laws continue to grow.

It's amazing how RMS, obstinate as he is, has been so prescient.

The story's about what will happen when we're all converted to electronic books.

No, the Core series is i686. the Pentium series was 586

Then why does GCC treat -march=i686 as Pentium Pro, covering all P6 architecture-based CPUs? I've requested a clarifying citation over at Wikipedia's P6 article.

Followed the link until I here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/running/debian.html

So to try it I downloaded and ran in in qemu as per the instructions.

Playing around a bit I noticed this:

root@debian:~# uname -a
GNU debian 0.3 GNU-Mach 1.3.99/Hurd-0.3 i686-AT386 GNU
root@debian:~# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.1 (GNU 0.3 GNU-Mach 1.3.99/Hurd-0.3 i686-AT386)


So maybe you're right in calling it Linux ;)

When they started HURD the Linux kernel wasn't around yet. But after the Linux kernel appeared they sort of felt obliged to finish it, although Richard Stallman acknowledges they wouldn't have even bothered starting it's development if the Linux kernel had existed at that time.

On the GNU page linked above, Richard Stallman comes across as almost apathetic about it.

They're really not selling it to me.

Proof: Compare this to that.

Which makes you go "awwwwwwwww, how cute."

I can't be the only person that's never hurd, umm, heard of it.

"The Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for UNIX, a popular operating system kernel."

From http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/what_is_the_gnu_hurd.html

Forget the mouse and the tabs and just pick a server to launch screen and go from there. This way I can close my laptop, drive home, vpn back in and get all my sessions exactly how they were. I do something similar with RDP to manage Windows systems. This also means I can survive a network blip and not lose my place (my data center is stable and is remote from my office which has terrible LAN reliability and power issues).

less version 443

So, how does this relate to Android? Simple, CHECK the market place vs Ubuntu package manager and see just how much installing applications costs you. Remember that story about the Apple app store netting developers 2.5 billion and Apple itself 1 billion? Where do you think that money came from? That's right, you. Add a billion or so for the credit card companies and that is a lot of money. And for what? Apps that are available on Linux for free and INFINITELY more powerful.

I think you are conflating free as in beer with free as in freedom. There's nothing in the GPL that says that you cannot charge money for free software as long as it fulfills the four essential freedoms. In fact, in the early days, the Free Software Foundation charged money for their software (mostly to cover the cost of the media and the operational expenses of the FSF). The fact that the apps in the App store are not free has nothing to do with the fact that money is being exchanged for them but everything to do with the fact that they don't respect these four essential freedoms (although there may be apps that do, I don't actually own and Android device so I haven't checked).

FORTRAN is extensively used on supercomputers and is still in active development (each new version of gcc has tons of new features for FORTRAN, not just enhancements to C, and C++ etc. see http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.7/changes.html).

So don't knock FORTRAN!

Richard Stallman's lecture on patents is worth listening to get an understanding of the real issue and some history on how some software patent cases have played out. http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/#2011 Scroll to 'The danger of software patents.'

I once worked at a company where Internet access was strictly limited to legitimate business uses only. I heard they fired several people for just random browsing! But I could bring in my own laptop. I was also on dial-up for awhile after college.

Anyway, I couldn't go to the Internet all the time, but I could and did use wget to set up regular things to download to read while I was offline. Things like Slashdot, my favorite forums, my RSS feeds, etc. The biggest problem with this setup for me was that I could read stuff, but couldn't respond (like this) before someone else did. The biggest problem with this setup for you could be understanding how to script wget downloads.

(I just noticed that their licence notice doesn't make any sense. I presume they meant to write "with*out* written permission")

I just went looking for free alternatives but NoScript is all I found!

* https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/

TrackerBlock, BetterPrivacy, and Ghostery all seem to be proprietary software. What a disappointment.

FSF maintain a list of free mozilla-compatible plugins:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/addons.html

I see one free plugin that I haven't tinkered with: https://www.requestpolicy.com/

Where could Drupal patent the use of 'hooks' to let developers interact with the core of the application? (If they invented this, I am not really sure.)

No they did not. Hooks are ancient.

I couldn't do my homework because I do not have the right to read the book anymore. It only allows for 1-time read - that's all I could afford.

But then I guess, the world needs people doing menial labor. The poorer, well, no more books for them!

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

I'd rather have something that is a bit more Mac like. When I compile UNIX stuff on OS X, I configure it with --prefix=/opt/{package_name}. I can then uninstall it by just deleting the package directory and copy it to a new machine by just copying that directory. I'd love to see a simple package manager built around this idea.

You're after stow http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/

"GNU Stow is a program for managing the installation of software packages, keeping them separate (/usr/local/stow/emacs vs. /usr/local/stow/perl, for example) while making them appear to be installed in the same place (/usr/local). "

The original sin was to invent copyright in the first place.

The concept of copyright in itself is not such a bad thing. Firstly it is the cornerstone on top of which the GPL and a large amount of open source software is built:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html

Without copyright a company could take open source software and utterly violate the GPL without the original author having any remedy what so ever.

Secondly, there are many of us who rely on producing content protected by copyright in order to put food in our mouths and pay the rent. Take the example of computer games, these take many man hours to produce initially from many different people but can be infinitely copied once they are a finished product. Without the concept of copyright you could buy a computer game, then sell it on as many times as you wanted without sharing any of the vast profits you made with the people who produced the product originally. Since you did not have the overheads of actually producing the game in the first place you could sell it far cheaper than the original authors and so more people would buy it from you than them. This would obviously not be any fairer than the current system.

Under a capitalist system without copyright law this is exactly what would happen too since the most ardent capitalists find any way they can of making as much money as possible. The only way to prevent this without some sort of copyright law is to remove money from the equation but that requires the people who made the game in the first place to not need money either and this would only be the case in a pure socialist society.

Since we are not living in a pure Socialist world with no money we need some sort of way to ensure that people can produce content like books, games, music and films and still some sort of reward. What's more, they need to be sure they will get a reward if they produce something popular in order to have an incentive to do it and the means to produce more after the first once is published.

The only argument is therefore if there should be exemptions to copyright law for certain things like books covering medicines and healing and how long copyright should be protected. I am not making any suggestions for either of these, just suggesting that it is not as easy as scrubbing all concepts of copyright from our law books, something you seem to be suggesting by calling copyright an original sin.

This is compatible with the GPL because (IANAL) the GPL does not care about trademarks, only copyright.

I don't think it is compatible, at least with GPL2:

"7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program."

Trademarks are restrictive. There is no exception for them in GPL2, so according to the license, they aren't allowed.

Firefox is already slow enough. This would result in lots of angry Wikipedia users who don't use NoScript. Moreover, the extensive use of Javascript recently is growing out control. I have to agree more and more with rms here.

Besides:

While Wikipedia's visitors read Wikepedia's entries, the CPUs of their computers are almost idle.

What make you think that this is the case?

This is specifically why we needed the term "Free" for software; open was already taken and it already meant something. [..] No, you can't call it Free, although you can call the plans free.

That's bullshit. Look at the definition for "free software". Do you see any capitalization of "free software" outside of grammatical usage like titles or beginnings of sentences?

Free was already in wide use as "free as in no price", a point of much debate in choosing a name for "free as in freedom" software, and a source of constant confusion for people not familiar with the movement.

"Open source" was not in wide use at all except for in the intelligence community. "Open" vs proprietary never had a precise definition. The term "open source" was defined and promoted into wide usage by the OSI, and then co-opted by people who wanted to get on the bandwagon.

If you're going to criticize "open source" as a term, you should apply the same criticism, if not more, to "free software".

If you can't fork it, it's not open source. Period.

Perhaps it's time we demanded of these so-called rights holders - "rights" which We The People GRANTED to them - to conclusively prove to us that granting them these copyrights has actually done anything at all to encourage further creativity? If they can't prove that, then we should revoke their rights and let them scratch in the dirt for a living like the rest of us. We've been presuming for far too long that copyrights (and patents) actually function as intended.

Its worth remembering that the enforcement of the GPL and other licences on which open source software is built relies on copyright law:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html

Maybe you are saying that each copyrighted work should be individually examined but that was not made clear in your post.

Richard Stallman, is that you?

Now we just have to wait for compilers to start adopting the new spec...

GCC supports most of the specs already.