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From the GPL FAQ: "If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are definitely combined in one program." That had me confused.

But why are you classing an icon as a program module? The FAQ asks:

Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program with two parts?

It clearly can't be classing icons and other data files as program modules, as this question doesn't make sense under that assumption. An icon on its own isn't executable. Further:

We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.)

Again, there is no communication between an icon and the program that displays it, an icon doesn't have an address space or functions, etc. When it says "module", it's talking about executable code.

Elsewhere in the FAQ, it also highlights the difference between the program and its data:

When the interpreter just interprets a language, the answer is no. The interpreted program, to the interpreter, is just data; a free software license like the GPL, based on copyright law, cannot limit what data you use the interpreter on. You can run it on any data (interpreted program), any way you like, and there are no requirements about licensing that data to anyone.

I don't think that answer is any different simply because the program and its data are bundled into a single file.

Is it lawful to distribute A. a 3D model, or B. an animated video of the 3D model, if the texture and mesh are under different, conflicting copyright licenses?

That depends upon whether you consider the 3D model to be mere aggregation or not. Does the choice of composition, arrangement, lighting, etc. make it more than aggregation? Probably, but that's something that doesn't apply to simply sticking an icon in an executable. The icon is simply there or it isn't.

ddrescue is an open source disk recovery tool based on dd. It can make a disk image from any kind of disk, regardless of format and it is designed to be very robust reading through bad blocks as you're likely to have on disks that old. You just need to have a floppy drive to connect to. ddrescue will compile and run on Linux, OS X and maybe Cygwin.

Once you have a disk image, Foremost can extract files from it. It is also open source and can be compiled and run on many different platforms and doesn't care about the filesystem on the disk image (or original disk). It searches for files based on header information. If need be, you can edit what header information it looks for. Since your BASIC source code is, presumably, ASCII text files, it shouldn't be a problem.

If you don't like GPL terms, don't use GPL software. How much simpler can it be?

"The terms of the GPL prohibit charging for GPL code ever"

This is a horrible misconception.
You can charge whatever people will pay for GPL code.
You just can't sell it to them without also granting them the code and the right to redistribute. That's it. Nothing says no money may change hands.
This is the difference between "free as in freedom" and "free as in beer". GPL code is free as in freedom, not beer.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Please don't use "commercial" as a synonym for "non-free.". It is certainly a shame Trolltech itself misuses the term commercial on their website to indicate proprietary software.

Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"

In MS Windows, try caps-as-ctrl.reg. You will need to reboot after installing.

Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"

In MS Windows, try caps-as-ctrl.reg. You will need to reboot after installing.

`Hurd' stands for `Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons'. And, then, `Hird' stands for `Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. We have here, to my knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms.

Not necessarily. Only if you distribute ALL your binaries with source do you not have to provide source for ANYONE on demand. If you allow written requests for source, you must allow the source to be obtained by ANYONE.

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

How is proprietary software anti-freedom? Its a product. You want it, you pay for it and then you can use it. What more is there to consider? Open source is only of value to those who either want to freeload, or like to tinker without paying for access.

The community is not the problem, I agree. But some customers (the guys in suits again) are and, as I wanted to point out, linguistically, the term "open source" can lead to confusion (as can the term "free software") (because people who come across it, don't necessarily know about the OSI definition). So for some customers, "open source" is just a development model. Whether that's good or bad depends on how much you care about people that just use the software know about your motivation for creating it.

I see your point and to sum up my position, here's a link to an article of which the section "Common misunderstandings of 'free software' and 'open source'" covers most of what I was trying to say (although I wouldn't agree the term "open source" was generally inferior).
I didn't read the whole article (I just came across it via Google), so please don't associate the rest of it with my point of view.

I also think the term "open source" was created to reduce the confusion of the term "free software" and not to protest Richard Stallman (with neither of which I would have a problem).

You are right the OSS is not about good vs evil.
Free software, though, is.
And most of the OSS you get is free software, too.
For people who care about how software affects freedom, using proprietary software _is_ bad, and using free software is good, if it is viable, even if the free software was inferior feature-wise.

A government is one of the places where software is not just bits, "good" and "evil" do matter, because using proprietary software could even mean subjecting your people to the whims of some company, removing their freedom.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Yeah. It was the Java on FreeBSD experience that really bludgeoned home that Stallman was right. Again.

I run only free software on my computers, so Sun's implementation of Java software was unavailable to me. I used other Java software as needed but I largely simply did without Java. The Java Trap has ended for this software (similar non-free dependency traps exist for other software). I think what Sun is doing is a fine thing and I look forward to trying Sun's newly liberated Java software.

I would pose the following question to slashdot: how has Java being closed source affected you personally, and what effects do you see this having in the future?

jdb2

http://www.gnu.org/software/reliability.html (and check out their references...)

Microsoft is a community of employees, bound by a common unifying theme: Make and support software, and get rich. The Microsoft "company" community has produced 10,000 millionaires.

The F/OSS community is quite different. There is a community, but only a few people at the top get rich. Other contributors will vanish into obscurity, never receiving a penny for their work.

You can be in the community of the rich, or the community of the poor, idealistic naive submissive fools.

It's your choice. You have the freedom to choose.

Remember who got the ball rolling? Richard Stallman, wrote in his GNU Manifesto (1984) http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html [gnu.org]

People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully.

That may have been true around 1984, before the widespread popularity of the Internet. It's not true that you could make a living from this now.

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.

These insights were penned by the same Richard Stallman who championed the GNU Hurd, which 16 years later hasn't even entered alpha. When Linux rose in popularity, Stallman tried to take credit, and insisted that everybody call it "GNU/Linux". That's sort of like Microsoft trying to tell everybody to prepend the name "Microsoft" to whatever applications they build with Microsoft products.

Now, did Richard Stallman suffer? No: he received a quarter of a million dollars from the MacArthur Foundation for the creation of FSF, and invested the dough in mututal funds; he's living off the interest. (Plus, he has no children, no wife, and no car... ) If Richard Stallman had his way, nobody would " be able to make a living from programming." He would rather hear you say "Do you want fries with that?"

Remember when Eric Raymond wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", and convinced a dwindling Netscape to open-source its code? The net benefit was predicted to help Netscape and AOL destroy Microsoft. How wrong those naive optimistic projections became. Netscape is long dead, AOL's customers are deserting to broadband provided by other ISPs, and AOL and its clientele are still reviled by most computer professionals as unwashed trailer trash. Good PR stunt move, oh Netscape and AOL.

Around 1876, author Mark Twain wrote the immortal "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". In Chapter 2, Tom finds himself stuck whitewashing a fence -- hard work he doesn't want to do. But then he comes upon a brilliant idea: Get other people to do the work for him for free! In fact, by feigning interest in his work, he managed to get other people to PAY HIM to do the work:

Tom went on whitewashing -- paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE up a stump, ain't you!"

No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:

"Hello, old chap, y

CNET has staunchly stood for everything this W/U claims to oppose. Yeah, I've wanted to get a call to arms to fight back against those who want to take away our technology freedom.

That's why I joined the Free Software movement. My enemy is Microsoft, Adobe, and CNET.

There's a long list of licenses compatible with the GPL at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SoftwareLicenses .

Some of the more well-known ones are the Apache License (version 2, compatible with GPL3 but not GPL2), the modified BSD License, the X11 License, and others.

GPL2 wasn't very compatible with other licenses because it forbade adding more restrictions (such as indemnification requirements) out of concern that people might add restrictions that served to make the software non-free. GPL3 section 7 specifically allows you to add certain restrictions that are common in other free software licenses, so it's more compatible with other licenses (at the cost of not being compatible with GPL2 unless the 'or any later version' clause was used).

Yeah, it's complex. But RMS's goal was first and foremost to make sure your rights as a user couldn't be taken away by a competent but unfriendly developer, and other people have had different goals. (e.g., it's safe to say that GPL focuses on the rights of the user, while BSD focuses on the rights of the developer.) In the real world, when goals conflict, complexity happens.

"numerous changes in this revision of the OS"

Asking people to call it GNU/Linux is one thing, but it's not much to ask Slashdot not to call a kernel changelog an OS changelog.

Thank you for your predictions, oh wise seer. Though I'm not sure if any of them will come true. However, I appreciate your unique interpretation of free software philosophy.

there is no way to mod 'overrated, illiterate'? oh never mind... I just tried to correct it... the main thing I can't even guess at is 'finging' anybody have any idea?
the post ought to read:

It is a safe bet that someone would get hurt; probably lots of someones. Regardless of your feelings about the war in Iraq some things are true:

1. War always requires some sort of damage beyond soldiers and military equipment or it never ends. One of the host societies must feel enough pain to give up the fight.

2. We have put extraordinary effort into not harming civilian populations, we have done a good job in the historical sense of finging wars but lots of innocent people have still been hurt. Lots of non-militarily valuable property has been destroyed.

3. According to the article summary, we have already demonstrated an inability to produce robots that can correctly identify targets and non-targets.

There are some who look at Iraq and Vietnam and wonder if our insistence on 2 is at least partly to blame for our (I wont say failures, if we are being intelectually honest, it's not fair), less then total success. So a war fought entirely by proxy with robots (If they worked) might be a very long one. I would image it would only end when it was economically or environmentally (those are really not separate) possible to keep building robots. That would be in many ways worse for the human populations then if we just died on the battle field. Finally we don't know for sure the robots wont work properly but I am not optimistic given fact number three. Hell we are talking about governments here both US and European alike that can't manage to execute their own elections acording to their own rules; electronically or otherwise.

Why do think we could build a robot army again?
--
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Richard Stallman points out how this works, and the specific value of cross-licensing, in his talk on "The Danger of Software Patents" or "Software Patents—Barriers to development". He's given this talk many times and recordings and transcripts are readily available (thanks to all you recorders and transcribers). He references an article in "Think" magazine, #5, 1990 (IBM's promotional magazine) which says that IBM gets "perhaps an order of magnitude" more value from cross-licensing than they do from licensing patents they own. The linked article quoting "Think" and the points raised there are well worth reading in their entirety—for IBM (the world's largest patent holder for many years running, by the way, thus compared to IBM everyone is "little") the trouble software patents create is hypothetical, for everyone else (including users) it's very real.

Although I personally have no use at all for Objective-C support, I like the fact that Apple contributed a lot of the code making that possible. Apple went up more than a few notches in my book tonight.

Also add to that a number of intel related optimizations, which you do have use for. After all all Apple's commercial software uses GCC so it's in thier best interests to have it work really well on whatever platforms OS X runs on.

Of course, I like that. It would be a tremendous disservice to overlook that- as our friends in Redmond have. Unfortunately, helping people make use of open source applications is nowhere near as valuable as sharing your own expertise and code to the community- and not just a tiny subset of it.

And that is exactly what Apple is doing! GCC is just one example, they are a huge part of course of WebKit as well which more and more open source browsers are using as a base. Even the things they don't do as much customization to like Perl or Ruby or Apache they are at least helping to QA on a large scale.

Apple is a commercial entity intent on maintaining its proprietary modus operanda and the profits it results in. They're selfish. Closed. Restrictive. Bossy. Ask yourself why they provide the services and goods they do. For the betterment of the community? No, it's for the betterment of Apple Inc..

You speak of Apple as a mindless automation. Yet few companies are as far from mindless (or at least headless) as Apple is. Apple (at this point anyway) is Jobs. And being a product of one man, means that it's not serving one end only. It means it's capable of being many things at once. One of them is a company that makes a profit. Another is a company that realizes all the great things it has gained from open source and gives back - to help others just as much as itself. It's the product of people who understand the phrase "A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats".

Any company with strong leadership is more the product of humanity than cold calculation.

I don't see a need to make this personal, but apparently you do. Also, I think you see by now that don't need to- or care to- read whatever manual that is. If I was looking for enrichment or enlightenment, my time is better spent at http://www.gnu.org/.

And you have no idea what a strong supporter of the GNU philosophy you are talking to. I have donated money to the FSF (and EFF) for many years now. I've been using and contributing to open source projects for decades now. And I have ever been a strong supporter of RMS in the face of ridicule on Slashdot and elsewhere.

It's not that I am taking this personally, it's that you are wrong and I detest misinformation. So please realize Apple is an excellent company in terms of supporting open source, even if they do not contribute to a single project that you care most about. After all, they are contributing just as much to a different kernel that some people like very much - Darwin. Some of us still believe in the Mach concept even if it's been tempered a lot over the years.

I guess you did since Apple makes contributions to GCC, and releases those back into the codebase. (snip)
OK, I can admit when I'm wrong; I had no idea Apple released code into GCC. Although I personally have no use at all for Objective-C support, I like the fact that Apple contributed a lot of the code making that possible. Apple went up more than a few notches in my book tonight.

Do you honestly place no value whatsoever in helping people make use of open source applications? (snip) Well OS X ships with all of them installed for one thing, which is as noted helping to spread use of them
Of course, I like that. It would be a tremendous disservice to overlook that- as our friends in Redmond have. Unfortunately, helping people make use of open source applications is nowhere near as valuable as sharing your own expertise and code to the community- and not just a tiny subset of it.

You mean how they want to hold the keys to it in order to strangle the life out it? I guess you must really love DRM to want to see it live forever outside Apple's control.
You mean the iPods that can play MP3 from anywhere, and can run Linux Or perhaps the iPhone - which is just getting an SDK... Which is as I said based greatly on open source (such as Darwin) and also makes use of a huge number of open source UNIX applications to add value.
In retrospect, I regret bringing up these specific instances. They detracted from my point, and gave you a easy list to nitpick. See below.

Why you typed up a whole message only to blow your own point is beyond me.
I didn't blow my point, I just failed to state it clearly. In short, you can tout all of these episodes in which Apple assisted in or contributed to promoting open source software, but the end point still remains: Apple is a commercial entity intent on maintaining its proprietary modus operanda and the profits it results in. They're selfish. Closed. Restrictive. Bossy. Ask yourself why they provide the services and goods they do. For the betterment of the community? No, it's for the betterment of Apple Inc.. I don't like that, and that's why I have a beef with Apple.

Before you suggest that I'm condemning all businesses or capitalism as a whole, one quick google search of 'largest kernel contributors' should show you some multinational corporations that I like and respect, in comparison to Apple and their half-assed open source support.

Please, please do all of us a favor and at least read the Ars Technica material on OS X before you embarrass yourself further. Basically you are chastising a company that has done far more for open source than you ever will in your whole lifetime.
I don't see a need to make this personal, but apparently you do. Also, I think you see by now that don't need to- or care to- read whatever manual that is. If I was looking for enrichment or enlightenment, my time is better spent at http://www.gnu.org/ .

Exactly, the GNU license does not exist. But the Free Software Foundation does have licenses: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html

The FSF and Stallman called off their boycott of Amazon nearly six years ago. Get with the times.

"Our system isn't a race to the bottom. It is a race to what people want. People want computers at the cheapest possible price and they do not care about tech centers or even support."

We want free software and free entertainment.

Proprietary? ISO/IEC 23270:2003 Information technology -- C# Language Specification
Does not seem to meet the defenition.
Especially with other alternatives out there.

This thread just will not be complete without Stallman's Right to Read.

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

Apple used FreeBSD and this was a success. What Microsoft needs is a service based operating system kernel, such as this one. It would be nice to see it used. ;-)

Check out GNU Octave, there are even books on both.

Perhaps you already know about GNU octave http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/, which is a free MATLAB replacement. It uses the same language. Alternatively, GNU R http://www.r-project.org/ has a different language, but similar functionanlity.

Sorry to break it to you, but unfortunately, EULAs have been proven actionable in court. Also, the prevailing viewpoint of the BSA and their Redmondian masters is that the mere act of installing software to use it constitutes "making a copy", and is permitted only at the whim of the license they provide; lest you be violating their copyright. Furthermore, in this post-DMCA era, copyright infringement is now considered a federal offense (I'm assuming you live in the US, as I do).

If you're a reasonable person, and like me don't care for this unjust situation, there is a solution. Use software that values your rights and freedoms

-a.d.-

Check out GNU Octave, there are even books on both.

You mean something like parallel_sort in libstdc++, since GCC 4.3.0?

One of several parallelised standard algorithms.

You know, I thought this stuff has been hashed enough YEARS ago: you know, when the whole free software concept was fresh and new?

The question really comes down to what sort of rights do you think people should have to their software? If you don't have an opinion on this matter, or if you don't think people really should have many rights at all, or only the rights that they've paid for, then your way of looking at it makes sense.

But if you think that people should have full rights to the software they use, then the GPL isn't really viral at all. The GPL is really for people who disagree that copyright should be applied to software, as it causes an imbalance in *control* of the technology. For instance, with current copyright law, you're forbidden from disassembling the software you use.

I think you can use the classical negative/positive freedom distinction with regards to free software. It seems that we all have the *ability* to disassemble our software, so that's negative freedom that would give us the right to do so. The only thing in the free software definition that corresponds to a positive freedom is the right to source code, which requires the author of modifications to the software to then distribute the source along with any binaries.

So, to some extent, I do see the point of people who would want to confine the free software definition to only negative freedoms: that is, all rights to the software except the requirement to pass along software. But, I also see the FSF's point that, without the source code you really don't have much practical control over what the software does on your machine, which puts that control in the hand of other people: businesses, governments, crackers, or religions/cults.

And I think sometimes the discussion gets a little obscure when they don't see any need for software by someone who doesn't program. That's not the point at all. We all have the right to bear arms, even if you're never going to hunt. We all have the right to peacably assemble, even if you're never going to protest. So the FSF is saying we all have the right to modify the source code of the software on our computer, even if we're never going to program.

Honestly, I don't think it's all that extreme at all, it just seems so in this cynical mindset the computing world is in.

ISO has been dead to me since the C99 standard was published. They changed virtually nothing from the draft even though there was a vast outpouring of bile from the community when the draft was published. Now it is almost 10 years later and there are still no C99 compliant compilers. The most compliant compiler is gcc in c99 mode which isn't the default mode, even though the C89 standard is officially deprecated.

Of course, it's not really possible to write a C99 compliant compiler as the the standard mandates behavior that is sometimes either completely impossible or just completely undesirable.

I think you mean proprietary (or perhaps non-free) instead of commercial software. Perhaps you are right although your claim would be more convincing if it came with evidence.

FOSS can be distributed or developed for a fee, as part of a business. Hence FOSS can be commercial software too. If you're only referring to the price someone pays to get a copy of the program, no significant distinction is made—proprietary and FOSS are available at every price, including free. The critical distinction between FOSS and non-free software has to do with what recipients of the software are allowed to do with the program when they get a copy.

"But we already have people associating Linux with virgins."

Real virgins use FreeBSD

I mean who would pick A GNU or a Tux over being in This pose