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If you don't even have the right to get an education and let others borrow your textbooks, how is digital restrictions management not a crime against humanity?

"Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."

...so GPL3 code can eat GPL2 code, but GPL2 code can't eat GPL3, since it requires compliance to GPL3 or "any later version". Well, that's how I read it anyhow.

Clearly, you have no idea want your talking about. Fortran 66 became an ANSI
standard in March 1966. Fortran 77, the revision to F66, became an ANSI
standard in April of 1978. I don't have access to the Fortran 90 standard,
so can't post a date, but Fortran 95 was ratified in 1997 as an ISO standard.
Fortran 2003, the newest standard, became the standard in Nov. of 2004.
Work is currently underway on Fortran 2008. You can read about the details at
http://www.j3-fortran.org/ The fact that several vendors offered often
incompatible extensions isn't the fault of the various Standard committees.
Fortran, as a standardize language, has been around for over 50 years. You
can't say that about any other language.

As to Fortran in GCC. It is alive and well. You can go to http://gcc.gnu.org/ or
http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortran to learn more. You may also be surprised
that gfortran is competitive with commercially available compilers. See
compiler comparison at http://www.polyhedron.com/

Clearly, you have no idea want your talking about. Fortran 66 became an ANSI
standard in March 1966. Fortran 77, the revision to F66, became an ANSI
standard in April of 1978. I don't have access to the Fortran 90 standard,
so can't post a date, but Fortran 95 was ratified in 1997 as an ISO standard.
Fortran 2003, the newest standard, became the standard in Nov. of 2004.
Work is currently underway on Fortran 2008. You can read about the details at
http://www.j3-fortran.org/ The fact that several vendors offered often
incompatible extensions isn't the fault of the various Standard committees.
Fortran, as a standardize language, has been around for over 50 years. You
can't say that about any other language.

As to Fortran in GCC. It is alive and well. You can go to http://gcc.gnu.org/ or
http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortran to learn more. You may also be surprised
that gfortran is competitive with commercially available compilers. See
compiler comparison at http://www.polyhedron.com/

Whatever you do, raise the issue early -- certainly before the program is half finished. At this point, the university still needs you, so you can play hardball: tell the administration you will finish the program, make it usable, if they have agreed in writing to make it free software...

Work out the arrangement with the sponsor first, then politely show the university administration that it is not open to renegotiation. They would rather have a contract to develop free software than no contract at all, so they will most likely go along.

You were probably modded troll because of this statement:

I know that Stallman champions zero-price software, and only tangentially open source software. So? I prefer the open source to the zero price.

Personally I think you're just horribly mistaken, not a troll. You might try reading the the link the post that you replied to provided.

Stallman is all about "free as in freedom", not free as in zero price/"free beer". He believes all software should allow you the freedom to copy, edit, and distribute. He is completely against proprietary software -- he considers it evil!

"Open source" shares the same goals of promoting software that lets you freely copy, edit, and distribute, but they have a different public relations approach. From History of the OSI:

"We realized it was time to dump the confrontational attitude that has been associated with "free software" in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds that motivated Netscape. We brainstormed about tactics and a new label. "Open source," contributed by Chris Peterson, was the best thing we came up with."

So you see, they really promote the same ideas, but Stallman has a hippie, anti-business image that many felt were hurting the movement, so they started their own. Your comment about zero-price vs. open source was completely off the mark, so it was perceived as a troll.

Microsoft does a great job of diverting attention away from the fundamental problems in the software industry that the F/OSS movement attempts to redress. So much Microsoft bashing happens here and in other forums that the uninitiated might think the primary motivation of the F/OSS movement is to usurp Microsoft. Not so.

If you've never taken the time to read about the philosophy of the free software movement, you really should take the time to do so. The problem is bigger than Microsoft.

Microsoft does a great job of diverting attention away from the fundamental problems in the software industry that the F/OSS movement attempts to redress. So much Microsoft bashing happens here and in other forums that the uninitiated might think the primary motivation of the F/OSS movement is to usurp Microsoft. Not so.

If you've never taken the time to read about the philosophy of the free software movement, you really should take the time to do so. The problem is bigger than Microsoft.

I'm going to download the source to Media Player Classic. I'll make some changes to it, give it a new name, and sell a binary. Only the binary. My new video player is closed source. Yes there is no copyright on it, but it's still closed source. How are you going to get the C++ source to my changes?

Open source depends on copyright. Without it the source will completely ripped of by the scummers and nothing could be done about it. Some developers are fine with that, others are not.

Copyright is necessary, though I do feel it should expire with time. In the past I said 20 years plus an optional 20 year renewal. Some in this thread suggested something similar but with 30 years. Both are a good idea.

I think GCC can refine its guessing of branch probabilities using runtime profile data (see -fprofile-arcs and -fbranch-probabilities, also this page about improving GCC's optimizer). I don't know how close this is to your ideals though... Better ask a GCC developer.

This worries me, a lot. I remember how pissed I was when I first jumped back into Linux a few years ago, and tried to compile a device driver. I quickly realized that EVERYTHING that I had spent months learning back in college about linux devices was now completely bunk. This is open source, isn't it? The whole point is to be able to hack it. You can't hack it if you have to learn an entirely new API every few months.

Perhaps its time to stop the Linus-worship anyway, and go with the HURD:

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/gnumach.html

-dave

Wow... you don't actually know a fucking thing about Stallman, do you?

I know quite a lot, actually. I'm surprised you don't, as much of his philosophy is readily available online. For example, he has an essay entitled "Why Software Should Not Have Owners", at the very same time he encourages the use of copyright. He even that requires contributors assign copyright to GNU. Copyright is software ownership, even if you wrap it in euphemisms like "copyleft".

Liberty != no taxes. Unless you happen to be a right-wing nutjob

Are you saying Free Software is a matter of Left versus Right? Wow!

Taxation may be necessary, but it is still antithetical to freedom and liberty. It is estrictive and coercive. If you don't pay your taxes you can go to jail. Even if it's a nice warm fuzzy leftwing tax like Stallman's proposed tax on software to support Free Software development.

I'm glad he's stopped calling for that tax, but no leader of an ideology founded on voluntarism should ever have suggested it.

Wow... you don't actually know a fucking thing about Stallman, do you?

I know quite a lot, actually. I'm surprised you don't, as much of his philosophy is readily available online. For example, he has an essay entitled "Why Software Should Not Have Owners", at the very same time he encourages the use of copyright. He even that requires contributors assign copyright to GNU. Copyright is software ownership, even if you wrap it in euphemisms like "copyleft".

Liberty != no taxes. Unless you happen to be a right-wing nutjob

Are you saying Free Software is a matter of Left versus Right? Wow!

Taxation may be necessary, but it is still antithetical to freedom and liberty. It is estrictive and coercive. If you don't pay your taxes you can go to jail. Even if it's a nice warm fuzzy leftwing tax like Stallman's proposed tax on software to support Free Software development.

I'm glad he's stopped calling for that tax, but no leader of an ideology founded on voluntarism should ever have suggested it.

Let the community decide what Stallman said, including comments by Stallman.

Any misunderstanding of what Stallman said will not be corrected by allowing "the community [to] decide what Stallman said". Unlike the expressions of ancient speakers, we can hear his recordings, read the transcripts of what he said, and email him.

Also, such work is being done (albeit not on a wiki, which poses some minor technical advantages) thanks to the work of the FSF and FSFE.

Finally, it's worth noting that Stallman was not and is not a member of the open source movement. He started and remains a member of the free software movement which is philosophically distinct and over 10 years older than the open source movement. In fact, it is people's ignorance of this is directly addressed in the talk being referenced in this /. story:

It's not enough just to teach people to use Free Software. Of course I hope that they use Free Software, because it's a shame if they're using non-free, user-subjugating software. But just to use Free Software is not enough if we want to have freedom that will last for many years. If we gave everybody that uses computers freedom tomorrow, but they didn't know what that freedom was, five years from now, many of them would have lost it because someone would have said to them "I've got a nice program that will make things easier, would you like it? Of course, you have to promise not to share it, and I won't let you see what's inside, but it's a nice program, don't you want it?"

A person who has not learned to think that there is something wrong there might say yes. And that means her freedom is partly gone. So, it's not enough just to give people freedom. We need to teach people to recognise it as freedom so that they can learn to value it and then defend it and not let it go. That's what we need if we want to have freedom not just tomorrow but permanently.

Actually, that would be a mistake and completely unnecessary in order to give you the freedom you need to make and publish rebuttals. You shouldn't be able to alter what other people say when they're airing their views, as is the case with political commentary. You should be able to quote them and rebut, and this is a freedom you already have in the US thanks to fair use exceptions to copyright law. While fair use is under attack, the remedy is certainly not to let people misstate other people's views.

People outside the US probably already have something in their legal systems which is comparable to fair use, so your concern has already been addressed there too. The remaining people who have nothing comparable would not be well-served to allow their modified versions of his talk or transcript to be distributed under Stallman's name ("mak[ing] him say whatever we want").

Finally, to be able to misquote someone is not a freedom, it's a power.

Can you point to us the link and its location within the link?

There is nothing about Free softwares that is against paying for softwares

Users don't even care about proprietary versus Free softwares!

Free software is a social movement. Open source is a pragmatic movement.

This is a good point. If a program is released as free software and the source is extensive and hard to read, then it's possible but very costly for users to modify it. For most people, making a change will involve either (a) getting someone on the original development team to make the change or (b) hiring programmers who weren't on the original development team to spend a lot of time studying the code. If you don't have either a lot of money or a lot of time and programming skill, then the original developers of the program effectively have a monopoly on improvement of the code. So much for Stallman's Freedom Three.

Contrast GNU Emacs. It's designed to be easily modified. There is a tutorial available on how to modify Emacs. There is also a wiki for people to share modifications of Emacs without asking the developers to add the changes to an official release.

If free software developers are seriously concerned about their users' ability to modify the code, they should think carefully about how to do this when developing the programs (e.g., documenting the code, using Guile or another extension language).

he still can't sing

I certainly understand and share the frustration of tax-dollars helping a healthy and profitable corporation, but another way to look at this is NSA is helping the users.

It would be nice if that were true, but given the secrecy and lack of information about exactly what the NSA did we have no idea how "helped" any of us are.

As it stands, this announcement is effectively the government giving free publicity to Microsoft and claiming without any evidence that Vista is secure in some way. (See all the "Good Housekeeping" seal-of-approval guff from the Microsoft spokesperson in the article.) In fact we have no idea from this whether they were helping to get Treacherous Computing debugged, so that "the users" don't control the software on their machines properly, or if they just tested a firewall, or what.

In any event, if the government wanted to help "the users" it would make it very clear as to what security criteria were met and whether or not Vista reaches it. It would publish a table with GNU/Linux, Mac OSX, Microsoft Vista etc results from their testing labs and make recommendations as to which should/should-not be used if we want to stop our economy being crippled (through wasted time, ID theft etc) by crappy software.

The fact that none of the above is done lends credence to the theory that this is the government lending a helping hand to a private monopoly, because the roll out of their latest software abortion is looking like a flop.

This is the equivalent of Microsoft jumping up and down beside the NSA and yelling "look, I'm with the trustworthy guy!". Shame on the NSA for either being used, or voluntarily abusing its position like this.

You ask some good questions, especially considering that my original post smelled of flaimbait.

I have a mind, I've heard of Ada, and I've read about it, but I've never touched an Ada compiler.

You may touch an Ada compiler for free 8^) since Ada is an official member of gcc. It is therefore available for any platform for which gcc is available. You may download from gcc.gnu.org or better (pre-compiled) from libre2.adacore. It is called GNAT and is written in Ada (at least the front end is.)

So, where is it written that all software must be written in C or C++? Its not, but TONS of software and especially existing libraries are written in C/C++.

Can Ada be used for Linux kernel modules or Windows device drivers?

Absolutely.

I know C and possibly C++ can be used. Does Ada have hooks to common libraries like SSL and zlib?

As another poster commented, it is trivial (really) to make Ada bindings to C libraries. The "connection" is an official part of the Ada language specification. I did this recently for a plotting library written in C called PLplot plplot.sourceforge.net. I was just learning Ada and knew even less C. Most of my effort was involved in learning enough C to get the job done. I have posted information about these bindings at http://homepage.mac.com/oscarruitt/plplotinada/plp lot_ada.html. Note that this software is not yet released and is still under review by the PLplot folks; the usual disclaimers about suitability and nonliabiity apply.

How proven is the Ada compiler for Solaris, Linux, Windows, and AIX?

I'm not sure what you mean by "proven," but Ada is surely as proven as C and C++ is for these platforms. Ada can do anything that C and C++ can, as far as I know. Ada compilers typically undergo a notoriously stringent testing suite. When you fly on modern commercial jet aircraft, you're flying Ada. Post your question to comp.lang.ada and you'll get answers from actual Ada experts.

I've got years of experience with C/C++, zero with Ada, if you really want that code to be written yesterday, how long will it take me to be as proficient in Ada as I am in C/C++?

Tough question. Again, others with more experience in all of these languages can answer better. I'll answer this way at the risk of sounding prejudiced: You can become proficient in the subset of Ada that "covers" C and C++ in less time than it took you to learn them. Also, once you achieve some level of proficiency in Ada, it is commonly reported that development time is less than for C/C++. And Ada is said to excel in long-term maintenance of large projects.

Personally, I (like everyone else) have looked time and time again at getting serious with C. (I first learned to program in 1973 and have used many languages.) Maybe I'm lucky, but I've always had the final choice in what languages I use. I am a big proponent of knowing several languages and choosing the best one(s) for the job. Not only has C struck me as being inappropriate for every programming task that I have had with respect to reliability, it has also struck me to be hard to learn and even harder to read. Ada, on the other hand, has a clean, consistent syntax and of course is designed from the ground up to be safe.

I ask people all the time why the still use Windows just like you are asking about why people still use C or C++. The difference in my question is that there is a clear migration from Windows via virtualization and/or using alternatives to Windows specific solutions. The fact of the matter is that change takes time and effort, and people are fundamentally lazy and comfortable with what they are already familiar with. Couple that with ignorance of there being a better way, and your stuck with the lowest common denomina

Actually, start-stop-daemon is Public Domain, the problem lies on the 4-Clause BSD license of the whole thing, RTFA and you'll see that there are about a hundred different "mentions" to make regarding advertisement, creating a whole mess for *any* derivative work of FreeBSD, and, perhaps, even for FreeBSD itself.

More information at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_Licenses
And at: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

I think this might show the real problem -- copyright assignment. It appears the FSF requires copyright assignment:

http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Leg al-Matters

(I thought that was the case, but maybe I misinterpreted that statement)

Is this generally the case? Having never contributed back directly to a project (my contributions have all been along the lines of "look, this is wrong, here is a test case to show what might need fixing"), I realize I have no idea what the norm is. It certainly does seem that requiring copyright assignment makes sense for the long term -- otherwise, your project is effectively at the mercy of any and all developers who contribute. I know some people have seen that as a strength in the past (pointing out, for example, that Linus could never hijack the Linux kernel -- he hasn't "owned" the rights to it for a long time now), but it seems a glaring weakness in this case.

Here's a link explaining the problem.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

I'll explain how this might affect a user like you, because at first it doesn't seem like much of a restriction: just mention UC Berkley in any advertisements featuring BSD.

What could be simpler!

And then seventy five other shmoes copied the provision.

So now my voluteer website saying, "I'll help anyone, anywhere install BSD for free!!!!" needs to say:

"I'll help anyone, anywhere install BSD* for free!!!!

This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the alteran, who considers himself extremely l33t.
This product includes software developed by the University of Utah and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by Inman Software Corp, and its employees, to be used freely as long as this statement is attached. Inman Software Corp acknowledges the work of many of its contractors, who may have also contributed code to this product.
This product includes software developed by the Grossman Progammers and Associates. Use of this software is fully authorized for all purposes as long as this statement is enclosed.
This product includes software developed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the University of North Carolina at Tweetsie and its contributors.
etc., etc.

You get the idea, but pretend I make this list TEN TIMES longer.

Of course, when you got your copy of this software, you saw something like what I showed you above, right? Because if you didn't, well, you're running your software illegally. If you didn't, please erase it. (See, that's an effect right there!)

And that's just the beginning. Anyone advertising/distributing BSD needs to READ EVERY DAGGUM LICENSE and figure out which shmoes need to be credited on every scrap of paper or HTML mentioning BSD. Or just be illegal-- their choice. And because there are so many contributors, any one of which could insert a new program and provision at any time, which means every update needs to be rechecked.

No one is going to do this. They are just going to give up, or ignore the law-- both of which ultimately hurt free software.

And, of course, its users.

Free software cannot be proprietary. In fact, it is the free software movement's proponents who argue that proprietary software is unethical and has no place in society. The only time the folks at the FSF install proprietary software is when they're working on a free replacement program. A user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software are the freedoms all computer users must have. The reason why we need these freedoms are ethical issues which the free software movement identifies and pursues as such, raising issues of social solidarity to make their point.

By contrast, the open source movement argues for an increase in developmental efficiency and never discusses social solidarity. This technocratic message not only carries no weight with most computer users (who aren't developers), it stresses the quality of the programming over what users are allowed to do with a copy of the program once they get it. This is why a few OSI-approved licenses are considered non-free (such as the v1.x revisions of the Apple Public Source License)—the criteria for acceptance comes from the movements' different philosophies. This is also why open source proponents sometimes side with proprietors—running proprietary video drivers instead of switching to other hardware or simply doing without the fancy 3D graphics; setting up repositories where users can more easily acquire copies of proprietary software (like the Ubuntu GNU/Linux repo which carries Opera, among other proprietary programs). Some open source movement proponents even drop the pursuit of technical superiority when faced with an argument of popularity, which is why some endorse the use of the patent-encumbered MP3 lossy audio codec when Ogg Vorbis is not only technically superior (as demonstrated in numerous blind listening tests) but has objectively better tagging. Open source proponents have no means to argue against technically superior programs even when the license for those programs hold users separate and helpless to control their own computers.

Years ago, Richard Stallman wrote about the difference between the two movements. More recently, he addressed this difference when he spoke at the fifth international GPLv3 conference in Tokyo in 2006. One interesting consequence of the differences is what you have to start with if you want the social solidarity the free software movement champions as well as powerful reliable software.

So if I am offered a choice between a proprietary program which is powerful and reliable and a free program which is not, I choose the free program because that I can do in freedom. I'd rather make some practical sacrifices to reject oppression.

But suppose you want both? Suppose you want freedom and solidarity, and you want powerful reliable software? How can you get it? You can't get that starting with the powerful, reliable, proprietary program because there is no way you can liberate that program. The only way you can get that, your ideal goal, is to start from the free program, technically inadequate as it may be, because you do have the option of improving it. That is the only path that can possibly ever get you to your ideal situation. Insist on freedom and make the program better.

Finally, it's important to not conflate the difference between freedom and skill. Freedom has to do with permission. I have the freedom to criticize my government even though I can't write as well as the man whose pen name was William Shakespeare. I could choose to spend more time reading and learning to write better, as he did. My lack of skill does not in any way justify denying me my freedom of speech. So how well I can do this task, how well others I trust can do it, doesn't enter into the situation.

Free software cannot be proprietary. In fact, it is the free software movement's proponents who argue that proprietary software is unethical and has no place in society. The only time the folks at the FSF install proprietary software is when they're working on a free replacement program. A user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software are the freedoms all computer users must have. The reason why we need these freedoms are ethical issues which the free software movement identifies and pursues as such, raising issues of social solidarity to make their point.

By contrast, the open source movement argues for an increase in developmental efficiency and never discusses social solidarity. This technocratic message not only carries no weight with most computer users (who aren't developers), it stresses the quality of the programming over what users are allowed to do with a copy of the program once they get it. This is why a few OSI-approved licenses are considered non-free (such as the v1.x revisions of the Apple Public Source License)—the criteria for acceptance comes from the movements' different philosophies. This is also why open source proponents sometimes side with proprietors—running proprietary video drivers instead of switching to other hardware or simply doing without the fancy 3D graphics; setting up repositories where users can more easily acquire copies of proprietary software (like the Ubuntu GNU/Linux repo which carries Opera, among other proprietary programs). Some open source movement proponents even drop the pursuit of technical superiority when faced with an argument of popularity, which is why some endorse the use of the patent-encumbered MP3 lossy audio codec when Ogg Vorbis is not only technically superior (as demonstrated in numerous blind listening tests) but has objectively better tagging. Open source proponents have no means to argue against technically superior programs even when the license for those programs hold users separate and helpless to control their own computers.

Years ago, Richard Stallman wrote about the difference between the two movements. More recently, he addressed this difference when he spoke at the fifth international GPLv3 conference in Tokyo in 2006. One interesting consequence of the differences is what you have to start with if you want the social solidarity the free software movement champions as well as powerful reliable software.

So if I am offered a choice between a proprietary program which is powerful and reliable and a free program which is not, I choose the free program because that I can do in freedom. I'd rather make some practical sacrifices to reject oppression.

But suppose you want both? Suppose you want freedom and solidarity, and you want powerful reliable software? How can you get it? You can't get that starting with the powerful, reliable, proprietary program because there is no way you can liberate that program. The only way you can get that, your ideal goal, is to start from the free program, technically inadequate as it may be, because you do have the option of improving it. That is the only path that can possibly ever get you to your ideal situation. Insist on freedom and make the program better.

Finally, it's important to not conflate the difference between freedom and skill. Freedom has to do with permission. I have the freedom to criticize my government even though I can't write as well as the man whose pen name was William Shakespeare. I could choose to spend more time reading and learning to write better, as he did. My lack of skill does not in any way justify denying me my freedom of speech. So how well I can do this task, how well others I trust can do it, doesn't enter into the situation.

ed, man. man ed.

I remember once getting really fooled by this. I'd accidently created a file with two sequential copies of the text I thought I had. I searched for "foobar", which worked as expected; then I searched again. The screen didn't change, and the cursor didn't move. So, first I checked if the mainframe had crashed, but that wasn't it. It took many minutes of fooling around to realize what had happened: EMACS had figured out that the screen already looked right, so no need to do anything (except perhaps update a character or two on the status line). I wonder how many other people had similar experiences back in the day.

So, sure EMACS may have been too big to run fast on Bill's machine, but bandwidth to the terminal had nothing to do with it.

Tar.

Yeah, ed is the best!

"When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless
help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!!
Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED!
ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!"

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

The four freedoms are all pretty clearly mentioned there - just because they're not in a pretty little list so that people like you have a chance of understanding them, doesn't mean they don't exist.

1. the blank cheque actually says "new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version"
   
2. spirit is very clearly defined
   
3. as mentioned elsewhere they have many contractual obligations about future versions and willingly enter into more
   

Fork because you have to FTP the very latest releases? Bit drastic, don't you think?

No; we all know what the free software foundation stands for. There has never been any hint that they would in any way interfere with the freedom of software users. Nobody has ever sustained such an allegation against them. That they may interfere with the freedom of software developers, where that is opposition to the freedom of users is a known and clear fact. We know that the primary objection to the GPLv3 is that some developers want to be able to develop restrictive software which makes it difficult to copy information.

The clear reason MySQL would make this change is because they intend to interfere with my freedom. Making a Fork now and committing it to switch purely to the GPLv3 if they switch to a purely to the GPLv2 is an important strategic move; if we wait until after the GPLv3 is completed, the version we release will be far behind in bug fixes. The point to do it is now.

Please don't claim MySQL is committed to software freedom or even to Linux. We've already had clear evidence that they are not when they chose to work with SCO at exactly the time when that could only do harm. MySQL is not a company to trust.

Not sure how stable it is but there's gnash from GNU.

A bit offtopic, but since this topic is about the GPL I thought I might be able to get some more information from here.

Could anyone point me to a good resource/site where I could ask some specific questions about the (commercial) use of GPL-ed code (more specifically the Quake 3 engine source), as the GNU/GPL site doesn't offer me all my answers I am looking for; And when I contacted them by email with those specific questions, they referred me to talk to a lawyer specialised in this (which I am currently not able to do moneywise).

I -did- do some Google-searches for it, but most came up empty.
I've been waiting some time for a GPL-topic to come up on Slashdot, so I could pose this question: So here I hope someone is able to point me in the right direction.:)

Thanks in advance, and any help is appreciated.

RMS seems to think you can enumerate freedoms ... he has the zero'th, first, second and third freedoms. www.gnu.org right there on the front page. Three strikes (plus a zero'th) and you, my trollish friend, are out.

Well, if MySQL should be usable with GPL2, the "or later clause" may cause problems. For example a GPLv3-only-licensed patch would force MySQL to the new license.

1. they have the right to REJECT the patch
2. they require copyright assignment so they could change the license anyway

Luckily in *nix systems that support the TZ shell variable (all POSIX systems) you have a way to make it behave as you wish irregardless of special timezone file sets. Just set your TZ variable using the long form:

std offset dst [offset],start[/time],end[/time]

Example: EST+5EDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2

In the example EST is set to have the normal offset from UTC of 5 hours; since this is west of the prime meridian, the sign is positive. Summer time begins on the first Sunday in April at 2:00am, and ends on the last Sunday in October at 2:00am. The second offsest was omitted because by default it's +1 hour.

Special thanks to the GNU documentation of the GNU C library: http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/ TZ-Variable.html

I know this to work on AIX, HP/UX and Linux. Other systems should behave similarly.

Breaking "only" CSS has been trivial for a long time, but it's also increasingly illegal as more and more countries adopt DMCA anti free speech lookalikes under pressure from entertainment industries (and if you happened to miss it, the entertainment industry gladly tried to ruin a young talented programmer's life even in a country where there was no DMCA look alike prohibiting dvd decryption at the time). And you fully ignore that all DRM formats inherently are as usable as a Spanish galleon on wheels when it comes to portability, freedom (nudge nudge, wink wink), usability and simply every consumer's (excluding you, seemingly) wish to avoid Pottersville patterns, as in not be tied to certain, often inferior proprietary hardware and software without being referred to as these pie-rat persons you continue to make noise about.

Have a pleasant evening wherever you are and please enjoy your AIDS

This leads us into a universe of interesting arguments. what rights will you want to give up? History has on many occasions proven that giving up any rights whatsoever that have become obvious could turn out to be an amazingly idiotic thing to do. This applies to everything from civic liberties such as labor unions to consumer rights to geopolitical affairs.

What if this form of restrictions-infected, horrible, crippled online content becomes really successful? The possibility to buy non-infected not self destructive physical media that you can use with non-bloated Free Software or "non-approved" hardware players might become very rare at some point. What if your entire music or movie collection is rendered useless as a consequence of some stock market catastrophe? Or what about outages in your internet access? If that same stock market crash causes you loose your job or if you have to pay huge medical bills and can't afford broadband, will you enjoy not being able to listen music or watch movies you've actually paid for over the years? And what if some items in your music collection will be considered unethical, indecent or not politically correct after the next war, terror attack or political scandal? I don't see the possibility that the pigfuckers who control big media would decide to retroactively end the availability of certain content you've downloaded especially from these eat-as-much-as-you-want services as very remote. These examples don't even sound that extreme, right? Needless to say, corporate control over the access to media and hideous closed standards could also have negative effects on future historians' access to today's popular culture

In a nutshell, does it really seem fair to give away all your rights to get material that becomes increasingly cheap to distribute for the rights owners?

There is a big difference between the quality and durability of factory pressed and burned optical media. I have cds that were manufactured in the 80's and early 90's that work just fine, while some (not all, though) of the cds i burned during the early 00's are already getting unreliable. pressed DVDs from the 90s work just fine, but what about those burned with some crappy laptop drive a couple of years ago? Should the normal consumer figure out how to (propably illegally) copy some CSS- and Macrovision and region code infected one and only legal dvd-video on dvd-r copy before it gets unreliable?

And besides, buying files that a
A) contain non-standard obfuscated data in some proprietary format that only hardware players of specific brands that have licenses for the format in question can play
B) require you to authenticate to some online service that will go down when the store you bought it from does the belly up thing
C) are only playable with some crappy, privacy invading non-free, outrageously incompatible piece of software

is obviously out of the question. I don't want to pay for neither music music or video that doesn't play on any setup i want it to. Today, illegal file sharing are the only *online* options for those who want anything that doesn't blatantly offend what all consumers should demand.

US and European history is littered with lawsuits over patent infringment. Patent suits go back to the creation of patents. Because in quite a few cases a patent owner has been defrauded of their creation because the law and the courts have not been enough to protect their property they've taken a path of protecting their property with obscurity.

You could work with the http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/ and come up with a generic framework that could run most any kind of dsp related tranceiver be it wireless or wired.

When did the "Linux community" get so vitriolic and spiteful?

There is no vitriol in the parent's post. The term 'enemy' is only as emotionally charged as the listener wishes it to be. As it's easier to hate an 'enemy' than to understand and accept an opposing point of view, this is probably not the best choice of words in a constructive dialogue.

This isn't some ideological war that is being fought, and shame on you for trying to make it into one.

The parent is simply making an observation. Free Software is an ideology just as capitalism is an ideology. While not mutually exclusive (hence efforts being made to monetize Free Software both on the part of "Open Source" startups and established commercial vendors), these two ideologies do conflict in several areas.

Microsoft is [an] enemy?

<executivesummary>

While an organization as large and diverse as Microsoft will never be entirely focused on activities that impede or overtly threaten the F/OSS community, it has interests that are not and may never be compatible with those of the Free Software community. For that reason, MSFT is directly and indirectly engaged in activities that hurt and threaten the F/OSS community, not out of malice or even by choice, but in simply fulfilling obligations to its shareholders. It's just business :).

</executivesummary>

When did the "Linux community" get so vitriolic and spiteful?

There is no vitriol in the parent's post. The term 'enemy' is only as emotionally charged as the listener wishes it to be. As it's easier to hate an 'enemy' than to understand and accept an opposing point of view, this is probably not the best choice of words in a constructive dialogue.

This isn't some ideological war that is being fought, and shame on you for trying to make it into one.

The parent is simply making an observation. Free Software is an ideology just as capitalism is an ideology. While not mutually exclusive (hence efforts being made to monetize Free Software both on the part of "Open Source" startups and established commercial vendors), these two ideologies do conflict in several areas.

Microsoft is [an] enemy?

<executivesummary>

While an organization as large and diverse as Microsoft will never be entirely focused on activities that impede or overtly threaten the F/OSS community, it has interests that are not and may never be compatible with those of the Free Software community. For that reason, MSFT is directly and indirectly engaged in activities that hurt and threaten the F/OSS community, not out of malice or even by choice, but in simply fulfilling obligations to its shareholders. It's just business :).

</executivesummary>

When did the "Linux community" get so vitriolic and spiteful?

There is no vitriol in the parent's post. The term 'enemy' is only as emotionally charged as the listener wishes it to be. As it's easier to hate an 'enemy' than to understand and accept an opposing point of view, this is probably not the best choice of words in a constructive dialogue.

This isn't some ideological war that is being fought, and shame on you for trying to make it into one.

The parent is simply making an observation. Free Software is an ideology just as capitalism is an ideology. While not mutually exclusive (hence efforts being made to monetize Free Software both on the part of "Open Source" startups and established commercial vendors), these two ideologies do conflict in several areas.

Microsoft is [an] enemy?

<executivesummary>

While an organization as large and diverse as Microsoft will never be entirely focused on activities that impede or overtly threaten the F/OSS community, it has interests that are not and may never be compatible with those of the Free Software community. For that reason, MSFT is directly and indirectly engaged in activities that hurt and threaten the F/OSS community, not out of malice or even by choice, but in simply fulfilling obligations to its shareholders. It's just business :).

</executivesummary>

``But instead of extracting their player key and publishing that, he played a disc in a debug environment and extracted the 'disc key' for that specific title.''

So now the next step is to disallow running software in a debugger, just like in The Right to Read

Note the "and" in your first block of quoted text. It's saying that if both of the conditions are true (i.e. the author explicitly allows the use of any later GPL version), then you can use it under the terms of the specified GPL version or any later one. This is the preferred wording of the FSF, but I'm fairly sure it's not required.

It's not the same. More pixels. better colors, a wider aspect ratio. It's clearer, the sound is dolby digital-- usually 5.1. Oh sure, there are times when the broadcaster simply upconverts a 480i signal-- but true HD content is readily available. A few days back, I caught Finding Nemo-- and the picture quality dramatically outclassed a mere DVD.. Yes, unlike a simple DVD, there were commercials, and time compression, but the eye candy...
If you want to see what hdtv really looks like, look here

A) RMS/GNU will complain that Redhat is violating the spirit of the GPL by not providing 100% equal access to free-loaders and then change the GPL

I can't see RMS denouncing Red Hat, for a couple of different reasons. The first is that despite Stallman considering corporations evil, Red Hat still works to bring them into the fold. Corps using Red Hat means corps finding out that Stallman exists, which can in turn at least potentially mean more people which Stallman has influence over. You'll never hear him say it, but power is what Stallman is primarily interested in. He also believes that the most effective way of getting it is to create at least a very convincing illusion of holding the moral high ground...hence why all the other stuff surrounding him is there.

The second thing to realise is that despite what it might sound like in speeches that he gives at times, Stallman doesn't have as much of a problem with money as people might think. He might not like the idea of other people making it, but he has no qualms whatsoever about it flowing in the FSF's direction. Corporations using Red Hat again means that organisations with potentially very large amounts of money fall under the FSF's legal jurisdiction, via the GPL...which is really something to widen the gnu head's smile.

Stallman is also a member of that particular branch of anarcho-communism which advocates using the infrastructure of the pre-existing society in order to bring about its' downfall...which means utilising what corporations can do for him at the same time as working to destroy them.

Also, in a recent half-page interview with Red Hat's XO, he used the word "community" probably four times. Red Hat knows exactly which side it's bread is buttered on, which also explains the attempts to revitalise the Fedora project. Probably the main reason why Red Hat wouldn't enter into something like Novell's agreement with Microsoft is because it knows that to do so would be biting the hand that feeds it.