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If you want to steal peoples' work, go here.
Otherwise, go here.
Free Software is not tyrannical fanaticism. These people work hard to make a working Free kernel, operating system, and applications. Their only request is that it stays Free.
If anyone in the "Linux community" needs to be told loudly to disappear, it's people like you- people who want to take that freedom away.

Way ahead of you. GNU libc had the timezone updates available pretty much the instant it became law. In fact, the timezone files have quite a bit of history as they include every little detail on when timezones were fucked around with in order to properly calculate the date of time of a timestamp.

Also, anyone who's using GCC to compile their code (i.e. most people) usually ends up linking to GNU libc unless they're specifically linking a minimalist C library like ulibc.

heard of the GPL? http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

Here is is a what a "emerge --search java" yields in gentoo:

* app-accessibility/java-access-bridge Latest version available: 1.6.0-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 120 kB Homepage: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/ Description: Gnome Java Accessibility Bridge License: LGPL-2 * app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-java [ Masked ] Latest version available: 1.6.0 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 61,248 kB Homepage: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.6.0/ Description: 32bit version Sun's J2SE Development Kit License: dlj-1.1 * dev-java/ant-javamail Latest version available: 1.7.0 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 6,682 kB Homepage: http://ant.apache.org/ Description: Apache Ant's optional tasks depending on sun-javamail License: Apache-2.0 * dev-java/apple-java-extensions-bin Latest version available: 1.2-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 3 kB Homepage: http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/AppleJavaExt ensions/AppleJavaExtensions.html Description: A pluggable jar of stub classes representing the new Apple eAWT and eIO APIs for Java 1.4 on Mac OS X. License: Apple * dev-java/aterm-java Latest version available: 1.6 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 93 kB Homepage: http://www.cwi.nl/htbin/sen1/twiki/bin/view/SEN1/A TermLibrary Description: Java library for ATerm exchange License: LGPL-2.1 * dev-java/blackdown-java3d-bin Latest version available: 1.3.1-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 9,881 kB Homepage: http://www.blackdown.org/ Description: Java 3D Software Development Kit License: sun-bcla-java-vm * dev-java/cairo-java Latest version available: 1.0.5-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 353 kB Homepage: http://java-gnome.sourceforge.net/ Description: Java bindings for cairo License: LGPL-2.1 * dev-java/glib-java Latest version available: 0.2.6-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 323 kB Homepage: http://java-gnome.sourceforge.net/ Description: Java bindings for glib License: LGPL-2.1 * dev-java/gnu-javamail Latest version available: 1.0-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of files: 690 kB Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpathx/javamail/ Description: GNU implementation of the Javamail API License: GPL-2 * dev-java/java-config Latest version available: 2.0.31-r3 Latest version installed: 2.0.30 Size of files: 16 kB Homepage: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/ Description: Java environment configuration tool License: GPL-2 * dev-java/java-config-wrapper Latest version available: 0.12-r1 Latest version installed: 0.12 Size of files: 7 kB Homepage: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java Description: Wrapper for java-config License: GPL-2 * dev-java/java-getopt Latest version available: 1.0.13 Latest

It seems they may be entertaining the idea of keeping the code under the CDDL and dual-license it under the GPL, v3. I think it would be much more productive to skip the CDDL and switch entirely to GPLv3, as there are three big problems with keeping the CDDL:

• No GPL-only code import. More than 70% of all software available under an OSI-approved license is under the GPL (see Wheeler's essay, link below). Since Sun would require all GPL:d code they want to use to be dual-licensed as well, they can in fact only use GPL code that they can also get a CDDL-license for. This will be a tiny fraction, if any, of the vast amount of GPL:d quality code and libraries out there.

  For example, OpenSolaris on the SPARC can't be built from source today (nearly two years after it became available under the CDDL), because they lack an open source disassembler (yes, they need a disassembler, it's due to how the kernel debugger works). A well known and proven disassembler exists in the GNU binutils, ported to just about every useful processor type there is. OpenSolaris, I am told, wouldn't be able to use that, because it isn't dual-licensed under the CDDL and is unlikely to ever be.

• Fewer developers. If developers are forced to sign CA:s (contributor agreements) that make their contributions available under the CDDL, there is a risk that a section of the possible contributors from the GPL-only part of the world will not want to contribute.
• Smaller rate of adoption. This is a consequence of the previous two points. In turn, this leads to less demand for OpenSolaris skills, so there is money on the line here for people who know OpenSolaris or are thinking about learning it in order to make a living.

  For the obvious example of how GPL:d code is much more attractive and increases the rate of adoption even in cases when technically more advanced alternatives exist, consider that the BSD UNIX kernel never really took off in the way Linux has, even though in the early 90's the BSD kernel had an absolutely overwhelming technical lead at the time.

Much of the confused discussion on the opensolaris-discuss mailing list (warning: it takes days to read this and you don't particularly want to) could have been avoided, had the participants read David A. Wheeler's recently updated essay Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else. and been at least vaguely familiar with the Free Software philosophy.

So what is it about the GPL that makes developers want to use it? I can't speak for others, but in my own case it boils down to this: in 1985, when I first came across the GPL, I thought about the matter and decided that the inheritance of my life-time software development work to future generations should not be that of a jail built out of proprietary source code. This excludes the BSD-type licenses, as they allow someone else to take away one or more of the four freedoms I've worked hard for to establish at every opportunity. (Even then, it was not always possible, unfortunately.)

On the other hand, the only reason I can see why developers may want to use BSD-type licenses are that they want to deny others one or more of the four freedoms, or need to be able to. If you are one of these developers, maybe you will reconsider your position on this some day when it is financially possible for you. It is now easier than ever.

It seems they may be entertaining the idea of keeping the code under the CDDL and dual-license it under the GPL, v3. I think it would be much more productive to skip the CDDL and switch entirely to GPLv3, as there are three big problems with keeping the CDDL:

• No GPL-only code import. More than 70% of all software available under an OSI-approved license is under the GPL (see Wheeler's essay, link below). Since Sun would require all GPL:d code they want to use to be dual-licensed as well, they can in fact only use GPL code that they can also get a CDDL-license for. This will be a tiny fraction, if any, of the vast amount of GPL:d quality code and libraries out there.

  For example, OpenSolaris on the SPARC can't be built from source today (nearly two years after it became available under the CDDL), because they lack an open source disassembler (yes, they need a disassembler, it's due to how the kernel debugger works). A well known and proven disassembler exists in the GNU binutils, ported to just about every useful processor type there is. OpenSolaris, I am told, wouldn't be able to use that, because it isn't dual-licensed under the CDDL and is unlikely to ever be.

• Fewer developers. If developers are forced to sign CA:s (contributor agreements) that make their contributions available under the CDDL, there is a risk that a section of the possible contributors from the GPL-only part of the world will not want to contribute.
• Smaller rate of adoption. This is a consequence of the previous two points. In turn, this leads to less demand for OpenSolaris skills, so there is money on the line here for people who know OpenSolaris or are thinking about learning it in order to make a living.

  For the obvious example of how GPL:d code is much more attractive and increases the rate of adoption even in cases when technically more advanced alternatives exist, consider that the BSD UNIX kernel never really took off in the way Linux has, even though in the early 90's the BSD kernel had an absolutely overwhelming technical lead at the time.

Much of the confused discussion on the opensolaris-discuss mailing list (warning: it takes days to read this and you don't particularly want to) could have been avoided, had the participants read David A. Wheeler's recently updated essay Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else. and been at least vaguely familiar with the Free Software philosophy.

So what is it about the GPL that makes developers want to use it? I can't speak for others, but in my own case it boils down to this: in 1985, when I first came across the GPL, I thought about the matter and decided that the inheritance of my life-time software development work to future generations should not be that of a jail built out of proprietary source code. This excludes the BSD-type licenses, as they allow someone else to take away one or more of the four freedoms I've worked hard for to establish at every opportunity. (Even then, it was not always possible, unfortunately.)

On the other hand, the only reason I can see why developers may want to use BSD-type licenses are that they want to deny others one or more of the four freedoms, or need to be able to. If you are one of these developers, maybe you will reconsider your position on this some day when it is financially possible for you. It is now easier than ever.

I was talking about the chance that neither India nor Pakistan will be around in 10 years.

America is one of the most productive nations in the world.

... 50 million... killed...

... open source... free...

Be afraid when you find yourself competing against someone who is just like you. Only free. That day will come. Today you call this post a rant, and you're probably right. Tomorrow you'll wish you'd listened. I promise.

You are grossly misinformed. Competition in India is not cheese cake. Not every one is getting jobs. There are too many people and not to many local jobs that is why India or China has embraced globalisation. They haven't started it!

That day has come, and that day will never come. That day has already come in USA, where all the brightest of people work _from all over the world_, compete each other. And guess what, the world will never run out of people who are incapable of doing something. (If it could, USSR would have been the ideal today). And money makes people lazy.

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Whether that is true depends on what the Program does

Richard Stallman had the original idea of The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource, but he intended this encyclopedia to be decentralised. I quote from RMS's proposal:

Wikipedia as we know it today can fail if Wikimedia Foundation can't support the project for any reason (of course, thanks to GFDL, the Wikipedia articles will never disappear as long as people find them interesting). We need a way to decentralise Wikipedia, both financially (right now people donate to the Foundation which then decides how to spend the money), and from a hosting perspective (servers around the world can fail and require a single organisation to manage them. A P2P Wikipedia wouldn't need an organisatiion to support the project). We must find a way to run the project without the support of anyone but individuals caring for the project.

Short version: Wikipedia is nice but having a single organisation responsible for its success could prove problematic someday.

If you think about it, even FSF and EFF, and any kind of formal organisation, could some day be problematic in achieving the spirit of the founders's true goals. Is the present America what the US founders envisioned? It may be close but not exactly what they wanted to create. Unfortunately formal organisations can, in some cases, work in a way against the spirit or the practices of their founders for various reasons (usually for money to support themselves and grow as organisations). When you have a vision and you create a company or a not-for-profit organisation to continue your vision after your death you must know that the organisation you created and the people who will enter into it will inevitably someday have their own interests that may supersede the spirit of your vision. You create a vehicle to support your vision, but the vehicle (and every individual passenger-member) has its own will and its own self-interests.

Of course, it may be the case that the only practical way in the present society to run a project like this is to have an organisation supporting it.

And I am afraid that the only practical way to ensure the continuation of Wikipedia as we know it, is to allow the private for-profit sector support the project in exchange for some (preferably text-based) advertising (that should be clearly labelled as such).

First allow some ads, then try to de-centralise it.

Decentralisation can start by creating a P2P app that would allow any individual to become a "Wikipedia super-node", offering Wikipedia articles for serving to other P2P users that act as consumers (simple nodes).

The United States Code of Statutes does not define "intellectual property" as such; each of a half-dozen disparate fields of exclusive rights has to be looked at separately. Copyright law does not apply to raw factual information is not restricted by due to the idea-expression divide (Feist v. Rural). However, the same information may still be restricted by trade secret law, state secret law, patent law, or publicity law.

Has anyone suggested the compromise solution of making non-free images available only to logged-in users?

"If they GPL'd it from the get go, it would have been a shoe-in, game over, touchdown, and go home. "

Hmmm. Let's try that with smalltalk and lisp. Oh well, one out of two isn't bad.

I think that you would be surprised by how much the various GNU utilities change. Even if they didn't change much at all Novell would suddenly be on its own when it came to security patches, and it would definitely have to track any changes to the GNU utilities so that its packages didn't become incompatible. That would like add up to a whole lot of extra work that would not help SuSE Linux compete with Red Hat. Novell is already at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with Red Hat because it has to pay for development of its declining Netware software. The last thing that Novell needs is another codebase that it has to maintain, especially a codebase that doesn't have a lick of strategic value.

Now, Novell could try and get tricky about how it installed the GNU utilities, but that's precisely the sort of step that is likely to alienate customers. No one wants to purchase expensive Linux support contracts from a distributor that doesn't even have the legal ability to distribute newest versions of major parts of its software package. Besides, what would Novell do if the GNU admins decided to block their separate download tool or sabotage its efforts in some other way.

Quite frankly, that's no way to run a business.

Besides, while I agree that the DRM issues of the GPLv3 are high handed, the patent issues are spot on. The last thing the Free Software world needs is to see patents replace copyright as the de-facto way to control use and distribution of software. Free Software that I have to purchase patent rights to be able to use is not Free. I actually see the DRM stuff as a bit of a red herring. It really only would effect the kernel, and Linux isn't moving to the GPLv3 any time soon.

There's really no way to sugar coat the FSF. They are zealots. No one but a zealot would go through all of the trouble to write UNIX from scratch. To a certain extent the FSF is even a zealot with a thermonuclear device. Everyone wants to be able to distribute their GNU software, and so to a certain extent folks have to listen to what the FSF says. However, as zealots go the FSF is pretty darn benign. They just want to make sure that the ability of end users to hack software remains forever. What's more the FSF has been pretty prescient about the issues that are likely to come up in the future. Heck, the Novell/Microsoft deal shows that RMS was right to worry about patent covenants that only cover certain "blessed" parties, and it is hard to argue that RMS' The Right to Read essay wasn't prophetic.

Sure, sometimes I wish that RMS and co. would borrow some tact, but it is hard to argue with the FSF's results. Thanks to them we all have a lot of Free Software to play with.

RMS also distributes in Ogg Vorbis http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html
--
Please mod this off topic too. We don't want people to know.

Anything under a BSD or GPL license, yes, they can distribute (as long as they provide source for the GPL stuff). They didn't violate the GPL, so they don't lose the license. If GPL3 is ugly, they will probably simply keep using the regular GPL version.

That may or may not be exactly true. I believe the Microsoft/Novell deal covers the cross licensing of various patented technologies. If Novell implements one of Microsoft's patents in a piece of software, and then tries to distribute it as GPL'd software covered by version 2, they would still be in violation.

From the GPL:

Preamble

...
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.

Terms and Conditions

7. ... 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.

The only way for Novell to actually benefit from this deal would be for them to implement Microsoft's patents in new pieces of software that they (Novell) owns outright and distributes under a license other than the GPL. This software would also have to be sufficiently untangled from other GPL software. They could not take a current project covered by the GPL and implement one of Microsoft's patents in it. Or the deal between Microsoft and Novell would have to be such that every patent implemented by Novell, and distributed as part of a software package covered by the GPL, would have to be transferable to (or at least free to use for) every person who receives a copy of said software package.

What's more likely is that Novell is just using this as a marketing technique where they can say, "Other Linux distributions are probably infringing on lots of Microsoft's patents, we have the only distribution safe from a lawsuit from Microsoft." Either way, I don't like the way Novell is heading, but Stallman was smart enough to foresee this possibility when he wrote the GPL and I think he should get more credit than he does.

To be more specific, Linus Torvalds used Minix as a model for writing Linux (a kernel) because he wanted to run Minix on an x86 machine. He was planning on spearheading an entire operating system campaign, but his "team" stopped after the kernel because they found GNU, which, coincidentally, was missing a complete kernel.

GNU, on the other hand, directly used AT&T UNIX as a model.

See also http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-history.html

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

Fred

http://all.net/books/IP/evolve.html

GNU Source-highlight 2.5

http://www.gnu.org/software/src-highlite/source-hi ghlight.html

Yes it can, per the mere aggregation clause of both licenses. You just can't run GPL v2 code and GPL v3+ code in the same process. From GPL v2:

See also the GPL and non-free software, clarification of "mere aggregation", and use of GPL software in a proprietary system from the GPL v2 FAQ. Likewise, from the latest draft of GPL v3:

Furthermore, if you are referring to the combination of Linux with a GPL v3 application, then Linux itself is licensed under an explicit exception such that syscalls are not considered "combining" per the GPL. From the Linux license:

The GPL v3 application is licensed under the operating system exception, which is worded as follows in the current draft:

Yes it can, per the mere aggregation clause of both licenses. You just can't run GPL v2 code and GPL v3+ code in the same process. From GPL v2:

See also the GPL and non-free software, clarification of "mere aggregation", and use of GPL software in a proprietary system from the GPL v2 FAQ. Likewise, from the latest draft of GPL v3:

Furthermore, if you are referring to the combination of Linux with a GPL v3 application, then Linux itself is licensed under an explicit exception such that syscalls are not considered "combining" per the GPL. From the Linux license:

The GPL v3 application is licensed under the operating system exception, which is worded as follows in the current draft:

Yes it can, per the mere aggregation clause of both licenses. You just can't run GPL v2 code and GPL v3+ code in the same process. From GPL v2:

See also the GPL and non-free software, clarification of "mere aggregation", and use of GPL software in a proprietary system from the GPL v2 FAQ. Likewise, from the latest draft of GPL v3:

Furthermore, if you are referring to the combination of Linux with a GPL v3 application, then Linux itself is licensed under an explicit exception such that syscalls are not considered "combining" per the GPL. From the Linux license:

The GPL v3 application is licensed under the operating system exception, which is worded as follows in the current draft:

"Why is it bad? Because Novell ins't selling it's own products - it's trying to sell someone else's products apparantly in violation (or at least a creative interpretation) of the license agreement under which it was given rights to sell the software."

How are they violating the GPL?

The fsf website states that you are allowed to sell GNU software as long as you don't restrict usagem and either give out the source with binaries or give the source out upon request.

The FSF is using intellectual property to serve their own political agenda, which is interesting because they are the #1 organization against IP (or is it okay for the FSF only).

it's trying to sell someone else's products apparantly in violation (or at least a creative interpretation) of the license agreement under which it was given rights to sell the software

How exactly? Selling GPL software is quite clearly within the bounds of the license. If you have a problem with that you shouldn't have given your code away to begin with. And this response is pretty asinine. How is linux lock-out any better than microsoft lock-in?

Noo! What will happen to the GNU Foundation's war on .doc?!

The classic is GNATS.

Or roll your own. We needed to be able to integrate ours with our bespoke messaging system, and it didn't take long to knock out something from scratch in PHP and PostgreSQL. We're about the same size as your group.

Does anyone happen to know what the pressure would be like on the low pressure side of a good airfoil? :)

A Boeing 777-300 has a maximum takeoff weight of 300000kg and a wing area of 428m^2, giving a wing loading of 700kgf/m^2 (at 1g - the wing must be moving at or faster than stall speed to support this load). Units says "1 atmosphere" = "10332 kgf/m^2". 10332-700=9632. 9632/10332=.932. .932*15psi = 13.9psi.

Note that a 777-300 wing is still VERY BIG and even at stall speed is moving VERY FAST. For most general aviation aircraft you can use a figure like 100kgf/m^2, which gives you more like a 0.15 psi pressure drop.

Now, to figure how much wind energy it'll take to create that kind of pressure drop over that much air, look up the fuel consumption of a 777-300. :)

Why would we want the operating system's kernel to be bloated with drivers? The kernel should stick to what the kernel does best. Any device drivers should be separate from the kernel. Having to recompile the kernel every time a new piece of hardware is installed is extremely ridiculous. Having a modular (orthogonal) driver infrastructure is the best course of action. Hey! While we're at it, why don't we just ditch Linux and concentrate development efforts on Hurd? Hurd's a very good example of an orthogonal design, and it's more or less complete! Linus, himself, said he wouldn't have started developing Linux if Hurd was already complete in 1991. Well, now Hurd is complete, so we can all move away from this blob-infested mess. Even if the community has to fork Hurd to get it out the door*, it would be a far better alternative than what we have now.

* The community doesn't have to do this, as there's already a packaging effort underway.

Not only that, but if you don't like those licensing terms, they offer the same thing under a different commercial license. Choices, choices!

Sure they could, then you just print out the contents of the following:

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

Along with:

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1.html

And:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license

Then inform them that the "audit" is complete, unless they wish to discuss PDAs, which are purely commodity goods containing firmware which is not easily/readily pirated or counterfeited.

File and authentication Servers? Choose Samba over Windows.
Email/Groupware? Choose Scalix, Zimbra, Qmail, or even sendmail or postfix
Databases? Postgresql, Mysql, etc.

It has been possible to punt Microsoft for a long time now, and it has even become downright convenient in recent years.

So that raises a few questions:
1) Can reverse-engineering the file format give enough information to make a fully-featured flash decoder/player?
2) Will Adobe try to stop such reverse-engineering efforts?
3) Is it worth it to continue along the Flash route, or should supporters of Open Standards promote an alternate vector-based animation/movie format?

1) What is it you're missing? Google SWF spec and the first hit will be the specs without the restriction. It seems to be a copy of the original specs, though, so better stick with Alexis' reference. You could also read the sources of various tools, or the existing OS player. For the opcodes of the new VM, you could read the sources of a compiler or the VM itself.

2) Apparently they didn't. Neither did they try to stop the OS streaming server.

3) Both would make sense, depending on how you plan to use it. For the web, SWF will stay the king, IMHO. Users don't like installing additional plugins, but that wouldn't be a problem for standalone apps.
The bigger problem is content creation, both for a new format and for SWF. There are very good OS tools for making SWFs already, but they are focussed on programmers. If you want to write code and maybe include some assets like graphics and fonts that you then use with it, I'd say you're better off with the OS tools. But for graphical work like animations or layout, there isn't really a way around Adobe products for professional work (just that you can do animations and layout without them doesn't mean your designer will consider it an efficient, comfortable workflow, and he's right). This is where work needs to be done. Better SVG import for the tools, or direct SWF output for Inkspace or even a specialized app.

...certainly, but is it worth it?...why support closed software? That seems like a horrible idea to me.

Calculators like the HP-48 & the TI-89 are essentially tiny laptops running math software. My TI-89 software reminds me a lot of MATLAB. You'll have more time to "explore math" if you push aside the toys, and load up the ThinkPad w/ cygwin, octave, & gnuplot.

http://www.cygwin.com/ (if you're not running Linux)
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave
http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/

It's not like someone's going to ask you to turn in your calculator mesh graph of some x,y,z fn.

The Wall Street Journal's Walter S. Mossberg's latest column apparently missed a writeup on a existing software system called Emacs. Emacs is software written by Humans. The software allows Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, Amiga, ITS, TOPS-20, Solaris, HP-UX, Multics, DOS, and Apple ][ users to do common tasks, like launching programs, spellchecking (M-$), or Googling (W3M) for search terms, but what's interesting is that it allows you to do these tasks by use of the keyboard. From the article: 'There are many implementations of Emacs products, which can be downloaded anywhere. One, called Emacs, allows you edit text, Java, C++, C#, Lisp, Perl, XML, HTML, Relax NG, ADA, and other obscure languages, to launch programs and switch among windows via typed commands, do spell-checking, and to look up the meaning of words. Most versuins of Emacs also include a simple calculator and the ability to launch Google searches.' Humans are already able to write their own commands for Emacs using the ELisp extension language, not only in current versions, but in all versions all the way back to the pre-GNU ITS version (which itself then used TECO as the extension language.

Watch closely as exploits like these force the government to enforce Trusted Computing TCM Modules on to every computer system. "Trusted Computing" means that you can't trust your computer anymore, as you would not be allowed to have full control over it - Because if you did you might figure out how to run a debugger tool to extract these very kinds of keys!

In The Right To Read, Stallman writes, "...Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger...," - TCM allows for this kind of system to be implemented now.

--jeffk++

Well, the Wikipedia definition says

By that definition, BSD and MIT are not Free Software licenses because they do not require you to distribute the code for any changes you may make.

Thus the difference between Free and Open Source is whether or not you must make available the source for any changes you make to the code. Free Software is a subset of Open Source Software. Free Software will always also be Open Source Software, but Open Source Software need not be Free.

Wow... First off even in RMS's essay on why you shouldn't use the LGPL he grants that there are situations where using the LGPL is favored. I'd argue that the features provided by the OpenMoko project are "readily available for proprietary software" hence this software's case being of those situations.

Second section 3 of the LGPL lets you re-release the source under the GPL, if you so desire. So if you only want to use GPL'd code, have at it, you're free to create your own GPL'd fork.

Lastly not everyone agrees with RMS ideas on open source. Using the LGPL doesn't restrict your writing of open source programs (under whatever license you please) so really what's your complaint? You can't handle the competition from closed source (or BSD, Apache license) competitors?

If you are going to use "Hello, World!" as an example, you must include this one:
http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/hello.html

This version supports internationalization, has man pages, and uses automake/autoconf to configure itself for most environments. It also has a few extensions to the original program and is written to GNU coding standards.

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

And that emacs client is way older than any of the ones you mentioned, and significantly older than the web. See the description of labels in the manuel.

I agree with your conclusion, gmail is just using standard decades old email terminology.

We are not talking about manufacturing. Describing what people create as goods is probably at the heart of some of our society's problems. I also take exception to your idea that everything has to be looked at from a cost recovery or profit model. Electricity, telephone service, post offices and so forth all had a period where they were not profitable - but were developed by governments as a social good. We already have a model - you just can't see it from the framework you insist on using.

The advantage that you have here is that you are supporting the status quo. You are asserting that any change to IP has to give you all the things you value - and it needs to be proved before you try it. Not much incentive for me to spend time trying to think of a solution. Especially since I can also take the point of view of the status quo and watch how people will ignore the notion of IP because it doesn't make sense. I can afford to wait because there will be an IP crisis - and the harder you try to support old notions of IP in a changed environment, the more those laws will be ignored or broken.

I didn't say the New Standard was ideal - I simply made the point it is a different model.

Someone has to interpret the information and apply it meaningfully.

Not to mention the first part, knowing where to look, finding it and organizing it. Many people don't even know what the Internet is good for, the difference between a paid and unpaid service and where they might be better off doing something else - like getting on the phone.

....unless there are huge network effects or transition costs that would discourage switching to the alternate choice...

Pretty much defines software, don't you think?

I don't think most people care about whether their software is "free software" or not.

I don't disagree with your assessment. Linux is difficult, if you are a casual computer user. It doesn't run most of the software you can get at the store. It may or may not work with your new consumer electronic device. So on and so forth. I think Apple's OSX shows a Unix-workalike can be made user friendly. I think your comment above about free software is also true - right now. However, I think the minute that people are put in the position where free software enables them to do things that they cannot do on a proprietary system, they will start to care and if there are enough of those things to reach a tipping point, they will consider a switch - just like many people that found it easier to use Linux to learn about database design, programming or what have you.

...open source apps simply can't make this claim...

Free software apps frequently aren't cross-platform. I'd say that was a significant barrier to larger market share. I can't just download Gnucash onto a Windows machine - I have to already have some flavor of Linux on it. I'd say this was a common problem.

He does not believe that authors/programmers have a moral right to the product of their own mind.

I think his key position is that "Cooperation is more important than copyright." I think he is arguing the impact of ownership on society has many negatives - particularly intangible ethical pollution. I tend to agree with RMS's point of view. Ownership has to be looked at from the point of view of its impact on society - and many of the negative impacts are intangibles that are considered externals from a strictly economic point of view.

...most [high tech startups] simply would not be able to even raise the funding that they needed without patents... Most software firms would not survive without copyright.

Again, this is because of the model in place. You can say the same about aerospace - except these firms get funding from government because the investment

I wonder if anyone's actually made a web-based emacs...

Linux is only free if your time is worthless.

What I don't understand is the bank's rationale for using flash for this. If a user deletes his cookies, it's probably because he wanted to delete his cookies. There's no incredible hardship involved with logging in again.

> I have a problem with the concept of a "regime"...

No, I have a problem with the concept of "intellectual Property"

with GnuCash and Gnash you are free to Flash your cash.

with GnuCash and Gnash you are free to Flash your cash.

You get pissed off when they go after the aggregators and hypocrically say Go After The Individual Pirates

So WTF is it? Go after aggregators or go after the pirates?

should those of us that provide intellectual properties for a living be marginalized for your 'greater good'.

There is also Gnash which is a clean-room implementation of Flash. I run Gentoo amd64 with no 32-bit compatibility libs, and I have the Gnash plugin working on my system.

No, not better because it's untrue.

Allowing people to distribute Torvalds' version of the Linux kernel with non-free software firmware, and allowing TiVoization, these are political choices. The reasons these choices are made is more important than the label some /. posters ("political") place on them. But since they use the label, it's important that we understand what Torvalds really says and stands for.

When Torvalds takes credit for an entire operating system he didn't write by allowing people to call the GNU/Linux OS "Linux" (giving no credit to anyone but his project, named after him), that's a political choice. When he tries to insist that the name "GNU/Linux" "paint[s] Linux as a GNU project" despite that for years the FSF has been clear the Linux kernel is not a GNU package, that is a political choice. These choices are made to placate businesses (possibly also Torvalds' ego).

I'm not redefining the word political at all. It's important to see these choices for what they are: differing agendas, but still agendas. For people who share Torvalds' agenda, popularity is more important than ethics. And popularity often means going along to get along. Ironically, Torvalds' lack of advocacy for the freedom to cooperate as a general ethical principle is something people connect with him (ironic because the Linux kernel wouldn't be what it is without the cooperation of many other people and organizations). The irony continues because of the conflict between his claim that the kernel was "always about giving source code back and keeping it open, not about anything else" and proprietors efforts to make the kernel a vehicle for their proprietary code.