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The GPL does not requite that you redistribute the source for free, it requires that you don't charge more for the source than the binary however.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#CompanyGPLCostsMoney

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowDownloadFee

The FSF disagrees with you. From the GPLv2 FAQ:

Can I put the binaries on my Internet server and put the source on a different Internet site?

The GPL says you must offer access to copy the source code âoefrom the same placeâ; that is, next to the binaries. However, if you make arrangements with another site to keep the necessary source code available, and put a link or cross-reference to the source code next to the binaries, we think that qualifies as "from the same place".

Note, however, that it is not enough to find some site that happens to have the appropriate source code today, and tell people to look there. Tomorrow that site may have deleted that source code, or simply replaced it with a newer version of the same program. Then you would no longer be complying with the GPL requirements. To make a reasonable effort to comply, you need to make a positive arrangement with the other site, and thus ensure that the source will be available there for as long as you keep the binaries available.

The iTunes App Store entry for the game includes a link to the web site that contains the source.

If your program is free software, it is basically ethical--but there is a trap you must be on guard for. Your program, though in itself free, may be restricted by non-free software that it depends on. Since the problem is most prominent today for Java programs, we call it the Java Trap.

That was written before the release of Java as F/OSS, but I think it very much applies to the iPhone (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html for the entire article). Basically, the rights to use the iPhone SDK are reserved for a select few, that is only Intel OS X users. If you want to redistribute the app, it costs $99, plus you can not guarantee the right of distribution because of Apple's strange approval process. Distributing the program with a jailbroken repository wouldn't make it as much of a problem ethically, but when you can only vaguely assure the rights of distribution and use of the program, it becomes unethical.

The original developer can go jump.

As long as you including the source or a written offer to provide the source yada yada yada then you are complying with the license in letter, and in spirit: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

They can just download the code and release a free (as in price) version for the iphone themselves if it is such a big concern to them.

You have no obligation to a third party

The GPL FAQ sees that a little different:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesWrittenOfferValid

Not only is what you are doing allowed under all versions of GPL, the FSF encourages you to charge for free software, because if you make money, that could help you write more free software.

There is a spirit of the GPL, and it specifically says that selling Free Software is OK.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

The sort of thing Tivo does is against the spirit of the GPL.

I think that section is more to cover "transport fees". That is, the fee to actually download it, not to buy it.

In the latest version of the GPL FAQ, they specifically say that the right to sell software is one of the fundamental rights of free software, and link to a longer explanation.

Some quotes from that:

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

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

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

Yes; Free software does not mean gratis: If the developer claims charging for the software violates the spirit of the GPL they are mistaken. They may feel it violates the spirit of the community around the software, or the spirit in which they themselves gave away the software at no charge, but this doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong by charging; $3 is such a trifle compared to other costs of operating the iPhone, that it doesn't seem you are doing anything unreasonable -- although a lower price might encourage more buyers, and lead to more cash for your service in the long run.

You have to permit free redistribution, that doesn't mean you have to distribute it free yourself. You are actually providing a service that you deserve to be paid for, in fact, that you deserve to profit from. The fact the original creator didn't charge for the distribution doesn't mean you don't have a right to charge for the service you are adding.

As long as you are careful to follow the terms requiring distribution of source and notifying users of the app that it is GPL'ed software, using (for example) a banner when the application is first started.

At this point, people began wanting to use GNU Emacs, which raised the question of how to distribute it. Of course, I put it on the anonymous ftp server on the MIT computer that I used. (This computer, prep.ai.mit.edu, thus became the principal GNU ftp distribution site; when it was decommissioned a few years later, we transferred the name to our new ftp server.) But at that time, many of the interested people were not on the Internet and could not get a copy by ftp. So the question was, what would I say to them?
I could have said, âoeFind a friend who is on the net and who will make a copy for you.â Or I could have done what I did with the original PDP-10 Emacs: tell them, âoeMail me a tape and a SASE, and I will mail it back with Emacs on it.â But I had no job, and I was looking for ways to make money from free software. So I announced that I would mail a tape to whoever wanted one, for a fee of $150. In this way, I started a free software distribution business, the precursor of the companies that today distribute entire Linux-based GNU systems.

This is from http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html - and the person referred to is Richard Stallman.

Please do continue selling the software - as long as you provide the source code to anyone who demands for it, you are within the limits set by the GPL, legally, morally and ethically.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney

  Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?

        Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

    See also http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney

  Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?

        Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

    See also http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

Why was this posted on Slashdot anyway. They may call programmers rude, but this is clearly a case to RTFM before asking.

Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

Why was this posted on Slashdot anyway. They may call programmers rude, but this is clearly a case to RTFM before asking.

Those people are idiots!!!

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney

Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?

        Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide âoeequivalent accessâ to download the sourceâ"therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.

You did everything right, and nothing wrong. I am more thinking that the people who are angry are jealous that they did not think of it first.

Between installing malware on it's customers' machines, using draconian DRM, constantly trying to shove proprietary crap down our throat [...] I have decided that Sony can go @#$% itself.

What console doesn't use "draconian DRM"? What video game published by a major label isn't "proprietary crap"?

That argument isn't actually based on the technical merits, and thus doesn't make any sense..

Just because a Real OS features a Real FS backed up by a real company, doesn't necessarily mean the FS or OS are any good on technical merits compared to a REAL project licensed under a REAL free software license backed up by a REAL community and supported by a REAL foundation.

That argument isn't actually based on the technical merits, and thus doesn't make any sense..

Just because a Real OS features a Real FS backed up by a real company, doesn't necessarily mean the FS or OS are any good on technical merits compared to a REAL project licensed under a REAL free software license backed up by a REAL community and supported by a REAL foundation.

Yep. There's absolutely no way to use an iPod under Linux

Now, don't you start your whining about your precious Ogg and FLAC or-anything-else-support neither!

Now STFU, you fucking Troll...

No. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForNF

Think about this from a Free Software purist point of view. First of all, this would mean that anything produced by a GPL'd compiler would automatically fall under the GPL - and gcc is probably the most popular compiler in the world today for any language.

Unless the FSF stated otherwise http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForNF

from www.gnu.org http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForNF

I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?

        Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.

Open source refers to the licensing; it doesn't imply an absence of copyright.

I know that, but in the context of rayharris's post, the licensing on the Pandora PDA's firmware (except the video card driver) is such that one need not be so "careful with that box" unless one is planning to convey modified copies of its firmware. Specifically, the output of most GPL programs is not automatically GPL.

I'd trust the FSF's take on this more than Wolfram's because the FSF has a long history of interpreting copyright law correctly. The relevant GNU GPL FAQ entry says:

Is there some way that I can GPL the output people get from use of my program? For example, if my program is used to develop hardware designs, can I require that these designs must be free?

In general this is legally impossible; copyright law does not give you any say in the use of the output people make from their data using your program. If the user uses your program to enter or convert his own data, the copyright on the output belongs to him, not you. More generally, when a program translates its input into some other form, the copyright status of the output inherits that of the input it was generated from.

So the only way you have a say in the use of the output is if substantial parts of the output are copied (more or less) from text in your program. For instance, part of the output of Bison (see above) would be covered by the GNU GPL, if we had not made an exception in this specific case.

You could artificially make a program copy certain text into its output even if there is no technical reason to do so. But if that copied text serves no practical purpose, the user could simply delete that text from the output and use only the rest. Then he would not have to obey the conditions on redistribution of the copied text.

Wolfram has no interest in user's freedoms (as should be obvious from their claims to control user's output) but the implications of this are interesting for Wolfram considering what compiler Wolfram is likely using to make GNU/Linux and MacOS X binaries. I think Wolfram is merely looking at this situation with the most restrictive interpretation not just for the user (which is enough reason to reject Wolfram's programs entirely) but with regard to which copyright holder would control what.

Been know in other sources for a long time, the only thing different is it is on a web service.

GCC and other GPL software explicitly allow generated output not to be bound by their own licence.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL_linking_exception

They also missed to mention the full unicode support, which is quite nice.

Anyway they could have linked to NEWS.23.1, which has a concise list of new feature.

from now on we should refuse to use to use the term "Intellectual Property."

Mr. Stallman is way ahead of you. As I understand it, his points are as follows:

• "Intellectual property" conflates the respective purposes and scope of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret law.
• "Intellectual property" further conflates the respective purposes and scope of these legal traditions with those of laws governing land use.
• Abbreviation as "IP" implies that these conflations should have been well accepted enough that the reader should take them for granted.

Funny how when the reality of DRM sets in, it's hard to find supporters of DRM (like Linus Torvalds who doesn't mind Tivoization and objects to the GPLv3 which defeats Tivoization) advocating for less user freedom. The right to read isn't looking so weird anymore (for some, that story was always underrated wisdom).

Please keep this in mind when you next read some open source advocate tell you about how improved developmental methodology, quality of code, or time to market are better metrics for measuring the value of technology. Community, social solidarity, and a steady defense of our freedoms are clearly a better path.

Funny how when the reality of DRM sets in, it's hard to find supporters of DRM (like Linus Torvalds who doesn't mind Tivoization and objects to the GPLv3 which defeats Tivoization) advocating for less user freedom. The right to read isn't looking so weird anymore (for some, that story was always underrated wisdom).

Please keep this in mind when you next read some open source advocate tell you about how improved developmental methodology, quality of code, or time to market are better metrics for measuring the value of technology. Community, social solidarity, and a steady defense of our freedoms are clearly a better path.

But to the users, its not Adobe's problem. Adobe works fine on their windows machine, so it must be Linux's fault that they can't watch their favorite video's on Hulu.

Its a nasty double edged sword, since Adobe won't care till it hits a critical mass of users, and it won't hit a critical mass, if its crap. The only decent solution is an Open Source project http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ , so that others, who do care, can fix it, but while its coming along nicely, last I checked, wasn't quite as good as the cruddy Adobe one. (but I do need to check again)

It's easy to find. It is posted on the linux kernel mailing list as well as in several git trees from kernel.org. Where all kernel patches belong. See http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/7/20/167 .

Thanks for the link and I am aware of that. I guess I was wondering how they found themselves in compliance with Section 3 of the GPLv2 and I think this is where the article and SFLC are coming from:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

What I'm trying to say is I'm not seeing any of this and when I actively look on their site for it, nothing comes up.

So I grab GPL code, modify it and upload it to some remote unnamed repository with a license and go about my business releasing it under my own license as a binary on my site? I don't think so.

The market is failing for several mathematical reasons, so Sowell, even though wrong about many historic psychological things, is irrelevant (look up Marshall Sahlin's work on "The Original Affluent Society" or Alfie Kohn's work on motivation with lots of references to the scientific literature).
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html

The market does not account well for positive or negative externalities (stuff like pollution).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
The market can not price in its own systemic risk of failure from bubbles or banking failures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_risk
The market can not distribute income widely when a few players have most of the capital, resulting in unmet human needs and starvation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
The market needs human labor less and less because of automation and better design, producing falling wages and increasing unemployment, given limited demand for most consumer goods in the long term beyond some basic saturation level that the USA has already overshot and the globe will soon catch up with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
Cheaper computers are driving the cost of everything towards zero by supporting better design and smarter devices, but even cheap stuff is too expensive if you don't have a job.
http://www.shirky.com/writings/divide.html
Real markets (as opposed to theoretical ones) often have the richest players changing the laws in their favor (and even in a libertarian ideal, the richest can become the government through purchasing military might or votes).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
All these factors are creating market problems. The current economic collapse is one aspect of that. Things will only get worse in all of these ways. The market has many virtues, but those virtues can not be realized in an extreme form without various controls on the market (legal, social, religious, whatever).

There are many economic simulations about these issues. There are many negative real examples (Iceland) and positive examples (Western Europe with a stronger social safety net is doing better in the collapse; all industrialized countries that have comprehensive medical care pay less for medical care that has better outcomes; kids are happier in most other industrialized countries, etc.). The USA is even getting to be a less and less happy place for the rich who can afford health care, as emergency rooms go on diversion and epidemics get spread through poor people who have less resistance. And even if you are wealthy in the USA, it is only too easy to lose it all, as Bernie Madoff's clients can attest to. But the fact is, for most people, losing money to Madoff is a fantasy, and they live paycheck to paycheck, and the social tension is rising right now with rising unemployment and collapsing social institutions (even the shelters are closing for lack of money). We are just in the beginnings of this unless we take serious action as a society to deal with these *structural* issues with a failing economic control system and a dysfunctional (fossil fuel based) physical plant.

You are asking for a higher level of proof than created the current disaster. That's a good thing to do, I agree. It is a fair demand. That kind of evidence is the kind of thing someone like Bill Gates could make real inroads into with more computer simulations and with his foundation funding regional alternative experiments (like a basic income in a town), if he had a tr

Generally, Torvalds gets way more press than he deserves on politics. His views on the proper approach to solving certain problems with the Linux kernel might be well worth one's time to understand and abide by (particularly if one wishes to get their code into his fork of the Linux kernel). But his views in computer-related politics are so often wrong (either in framing the issue or in the side he takes) one wonders why anyone would bother to give him such heed.

I agree 100% -- on non-technical issues, Linus seems to be wrong as often as he is right. Even more so, Richard Stallman is often criticized for his extreme views, even though he is almost always right! (For example, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html, which seemed insane at the time, now is looking rather reasonable).

There's probably a lesson there in how one should present one's arguments, but I'm not sure what it is...

My point is that you're praising DRM not because it is good in itself, but because you believe that it's necessary for companies to license content.

No, I'm simply stating the obvious: it is false to say that DRM offers no benefit to the consumer ever. I come to bury DRM, not to praise it. ;)

And I do not believe that it's necessary; the publisher of George Orwell's 1984 does, obviously. (Oh, the irony!)

And when that happens, and you wonder whatever happened to the first sale doctrine, I'll be reading my paperback copy of 1984 while wondering what has become of the free world.

I sincerely hope that while you're reading that paperback, that you have the Right to Read it.

A piece of proprietary software does not and can not limit any user's ability to access it just because it happens to link to some GPLed software. According to the GPL, any proprietary software may link to any GPLed software as long as it is released with a compatible license. That means that by linking to the GPL the proprietary software's author must agree to respect the user's rights to keep accessing the software. That means that the only effect that this has on a proprietary software release is that the proprietary author cannot lock down the platform and take away the software user's rights, not to mention the conditions imposed by the GPLed software's authors in order to grant access to their software.

I personally consider myself to be solidly in the "pragmatist" camp, and I argued against using BitKeeper not because I thought Linux development should be "pure" and only use OSS, but because I saw the BitKeeper license as a ticking time bomb that made the tool unsuitable for its purpose. It made some sense if you only thought short term, but I think that's foolish for such a long-term project.

You seem to be a smart guy, but please notice the contradiction here as I see it. You say you're in the "pragmatist camp" because you don't think GNU/Linux should use only OSS/free software, yet when you look long term you notice that e.g. the Bitkeeper license was unsuitable for this purpose. Now look at the free software definition. We purists, as you like to call us, believe that all software that doesn't meet these four criteria our unsuitable for our purpose.

As it turns out, purists are just pragmatism who look at everything in terms of the long term. "From the perspective of eternity," as the philosophy Spinoza wrote. But really, this purist/pragmatist thing is a false dichotomy, it's false that purists aren't pragmatists too. People are making out that purists don't get anything done, even though the free software movement itself is an example of just the opposite. That so many self-described pragmatists are using GNU/Linux today just goes to show you that the purists have indeed accomplished a great deal. Why would anyone use a different operating system than the one they are used to if the old one could accomplish the task?

GNU/Linux is about idealism, even if the participants are seeking after different ideals. I even put Linus in this camp, he doesn't care about software freedom, but you know there are other things that he indeed cares a great deal about.

Reading that, it makes a lot more sense that RMS was arguing

> The difference between source code and object code and the practice of using EULAs would give proprietary software an effective exception from the general rule of 5-year copyright -- one that free software does not share.

That makes FAR more difference than the line from the summary, which gets things all wrong:

> a point that many anti-copyright proponents don't realize â" the GPL itself is a copyright license that relies on copyright law to protect access to source code

No, we really do realize that. We just want to find other ways to deal with the problem. See also this (and note who wrote it). That said, he is correctly described as a purist. In other words, you either agree with him, or he'll say you're wrong. There's no convincing him of anything that I've seen.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

If you ever understood why Richard Stallman takes exactly the stance he takes, you would never make so a silly statement.

Richard Stallman saw his own code he wrote for his own projects incorporated in a commercial product and got forbidden to ever reuse or publish his own code. And thus because the company in question had a license in place that basicly made all changes and extension to the code base the property of the company.

So Richard Stallman sought a way to make such a code grap impossible by design - by inventing a license that removes all your rights to all the code you were given the moment you try to shield it from other people.

So when Richard Stallman says that the GPL-type licenses are here not only to open source, but to keep the software actually free, then he has a point.

If you because of your limited experience don't see the point, it's not Richard Stallman's fault.

WRONG. No company stole his code. Stop making shit up and then accusing others of being of 'limited experience'. Good job on gaming Slashdot to get +4 insightful though. It's so easy, just write what they want to hear. The real reason Stallman did what he did: From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html

The MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) received a graphics printer as a gift from Xerox around 1977. It was run by free software to which we added many convenient features. For example, the software would notify a user immediately on completion of a print job. Whenever the printer had trouble, such as a paper jam or running out of paper, the software would immediately notify all users who had print jobs queued. These features facilitated smooth operation. Later Xerox gave the AI Lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so we couldn't add any of our favorite features. We could arrange to send a notification when a print job was sent to the dedicated computer, but not when the job was actually printed (and the delay was usually considerable). There was no way to find out when the job was actually printed; you could only guess. And no one was informed when there was a paper jam, so the printer often went for an hour without being fixed. The system programmers at the AI Lab were capable of fixing such problems, probably as capable as the original authors of the program. Xerox was uninterested in fixing them, and chose to prevent us, so we were forced to accept the problems. They were never fixed.

A copy of a program has nearly zero marginal cost (and you can pay this cost by doing the work yourself), so in a free market, it would have nearly zero price. A license fee is a significant disincentive to use the program. snip.. However, imposing a price on something that would otherwise be free is a qualitative change. A centrally-imposed fee for software distribution becomes a powerful disincentive. snip... Programmers writing free software can make their living by selling services related to the software. I have been hired to port the GNU C compiler to new hardware, and to make user-interface extensions to GNU Emacs. (I offer these improvements to the public once they are done.) I also teach classes for which I am paid. snip... This confirms that programming is among the most fascinating of all fields, along with music and art. We don't have to fear that no one will want to program.

He does believe that Software should be able to be distributed free of cost though he always avers that Free means libre and not zero price. The major flaw is his reasoning is that he thinks that since the marginal cost of producing an extra copy of software is zero, the price should be zero. But what about the sunk cost? If it costs $200 million for Adobe to make Photoshop, the first copy would cost $250 million and the rest would be free. Adobe folds after that and a magical group of hackers appear and work on it's code to produce the next version for free like they do for Gimp and OpenOffice now? Give me a break.There's some aspects of software development(like extensive testing, making it user friendly etc.) which is NOT fun and shouldn't be outlawed in the name of Freedom.

I'm pretty sure free= 0 no cost to obtain and compile. So no, it's not a twisted definition.

Freedom for software the way Stallman means it. (From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software: * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). * The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

I'm pretty sure Stallman's GPL'ed software is forced on the user of virtually all new computers exactly like Gates, i.e. not at all. Stallman has also advocated that all software should be "free" i.e. GPL'ed, and enforced by people with guns. Not even Gates goes that far vis-a-vis proprietary software.

He is perfectly correct about copyright law- the same laws that are ever so widely abused for Gates' benefit are also required in order for FOSS to exist.

That claim is complete nonsense. Without copyright, all software is free by definition.

I've been following C++0x for a long time now, and have been looking forward to it, but now I'm not so sure I'll ever use it. I was looking forward to Concepts more than anything and with that gone, it seems like a extremely minor upgrade. Also, even when the spec does come out, how many years before we can trust that most compilers can use it effectively... two, three?

http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/cxx0x_status.html

It's not that bad. Many of the simple, neat features (like auto typing and initializer lists) are available already. Also, many of the library improvements are just standardizations of existing libraries, so it won't take that long for implementations to catch up. The main reason for all this is that one of the criteria for inclusion of a feature into the standard was the existance of an implementation. And this is why concepts were dropped. There is the conceptGCC implementation, but several people were not satisfied with the design of concepts that conceptGCC implements. If the decision was made to change that design, concepts were not standard-ready anymore (no existing implementation).

" how many years before we can trust that most compilers can use it effectively... two, three?"

FYI, you can use a lot of it already http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/cxx0x.html
It's a fair bet that by the time it's signed off most of it will be available in gcc and you'll have an 'effective' implementation.

How quickly your shop upgrades compilers is a different problem.

Well, most of the things are already supported by compilers, or will be soon. (Se forexample http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/cxx0x_status.html for the list of that gcc 4.5 (The newest released gcc version) supports. So it is likely that c++0x will be supported almost fully, within a year of release.
(Microsoft and intel have also implemented much of the standard).

The only thing I miss from the gcc is an implementation of "Lambda expressions" and they are working on those. (They have a branch which afair kinda works :}

"No new C++ features like threads, proper enum classes, or hash tables"

"Concepts" is the only thing being removed from the new standard due to time constraints (which is a shame since they seemed like a great new feature).

I think you meant to say 'No new C++ features .... _until next year at the earliest_'

Of course if you want to try some of the new features in the meantime feel free to checkout the expiremental branch of gcc geared towards implementing C++0x.

Apple is the new Microsoft

Hardly new. First of all, Apple is one of the only companies (along with Lotus and Xerox) to have been actively boycotted by the FSF and LPF, back in the nineties. The boycott ended in 1995, but still, that proves that Apple has managed to reach a level of dickheadedness that even Microsoft has failed to achieve. So far. :)

(Just to really smear the icing of irony on this cupcake, one of the companies that the LPF/FSF boycott was in defense of was...are you ready for it? That's right...Microsoft!)

Apple is the new Microsoft

Hardly new. First of all, Apple is one of the only companies (along with Lotus and Xerox) to have been actively boycotted by the FSF and LPF, back in the nineties. The boycott ended in 1995, but still, that proves that Apple has managed to reach a level of dickheadedness that even Microsoft has failed to achieve. So far. :)

(Just to really smear the icing of irony on this cupcake, one of the companies that the LPF/FSF boycott was in defense of was...are you ready for it? That's right...Microsoft!)

Patents != Licences

Linux is distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2. This is an explicit copyright license, and it can be interpreted as granting an implicit patent license in any GPLv2 program with more than one author: "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."

Also patents have to be enforced by the companies that own them. If they do not the patent will be invalidated.

This is true (see laches), but it's much weaker for copyrights and patents than for trademarks.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html#section3

It's not a violation unless they refuse your request for the source code. However, they might have been violating it by not including the license and a method to request the source code. Anyone have the package to see if this was included before the 'official announcement?'

Didn't you all hear about the fork in the Christian Ubuntu? Apparently, one of the developers sent in 95 patches, but they were rejected. Now there's a Protestant Christian Ubuntu. The main difference is that the Protestant version has no icons. Source