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

Either you've got a memory like a slashdot editor or you haven't been around here very long. The whole point of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act was to make it legal to remotely break the software of a user whom the vendor accuses (no proof required) of having broken the license terms until the user coughs up the ransom fee demanded by the vendor. Proponents of UCITA called this "self help" (i.e. vendor helping themselves) because it allows vendors to squeeze you without having to file a court case -- now you have to file a court case to get your software working again.

>We don't need ya! Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, kthx.

See, this is a perfect illustration of the different agendas of the BSD and GNU developers. The BSD camp has the attitude of "Do it for free because no one should have to re-invent the wheel". This leads to benefits such as the proliferation of the BSD networking stack which -even though they didn't make a buck off of it- they still benefitted because everyone started from the same -compatible- software base (instead of writing and implementing a zillion half-assed, incompatible solutions). The GNU attitude is "you can't use MY SOFTWARE unless you follow MY AGENDA and play by MY RULES". That would be fine, if these same people were not constantly frothing at the mouth about being "Free As In Freedom" (which, as you can see, means something wholly different coming from them than it does coming from anyone else -say coming from someone who advocates the *total* freedom granted by the BSD license).

In short, BSD is 'free' as in 'free to do whatever you like'; whereas GNU is free as in 'free do it my way or free go to the gulag'.

Grandma: "Let's see, there must be a replacement for Word on here somewhere... OK, 'text editors' sounds about right. Now, do I want 'emacs' or 'vim'? ... ooh, this one says it's 'the standard text editor' ..."

Dunno, Sourceforge just doesn't seem like the right forum for offering high-profile projects as the new standard -- it's too developer-oriented. Perhaps another website. Hell, Google seems to have latent urges to it themselves, which would really be pretty appropriate.

(1) DRM never expires. Ideally, copyright is a legal device used to enrich society, to encourage artists to create works based on the understanding that they will be able to profit from said works for a limited amount of time. After this time period expires, the creative works get released into the public domain. Unfortunately, DRM'd files don't do this- the music you bought on iTunes in 2003 will still be restricted in 3003.

(2) DRM will never work correctly without overly restrictive government controls. For example, let's assume that "Brand New Hyper DVD" format is completely uncrackable- the disks can never, EVER be decrypted and copied digitally. So what? Take your camcorder, aim it at the screen, and press record. Voila! Brand new copy without DRM. The only way to stop this would be to force all electronics manufacturers to include complicated measures to insure that they can't be used in this manner- but as we all know the next "DVD Jon" would show up in less than 2 days and crack these measures. The only way to fight this from a corporate/government standpoint would be to force all electronics capable of being used in this kind of pirating scheme to "phone home" on a regular basis to update their DRM software, and to BAN all older electronics without this "feature". See where this is going? Do you want to live in this society?

(3) DRM effectively turns your computer into a police snitch, working AGAINST you rather than for you. Just look at the Sony rootkit fiasco for an obvious example, or read up on the DMCA or broadcast flags or... you get the point.

(4) DRM adds an extra degree of complexity to playback, which constitutes another failure mode. A computer crash can often reduce a DRM'd music library to binary junk unless the user has been meticulous enough to save the mountain of data necessary to identify his/her computer as "the authorized playback device" of said music. Want to switch to a different computer, or swap out some hardware? Good luck- this will probably be interpreted as a "new computer" and your music won't play. Want to play your music on another device like your car stereo or your portable music player? You'd better hope the music vendor was "gracious" enough to bless you with that kind of "privilege".

(5) My fears of a world where DRM has taken over can best be summed up by the following short story. I'm TERRIFIED that this is exactly the type of world we will wake up to in, say, 2020 if things keep going the way they are...

The FSF is about _user_ freedom

large parts of it are offered in source code form.

Microsoft's Shared source initiative is not free software and won't help anyone improve anything. First, you don't have all of the source, so the Trojan is still hidden. Second, you can't modify it and share your changes. The first problem negates the freedom you would have if distribution was unrestricted anyway. The "customizations" they are so proud of, therefore, are no better for security than changing the wallpaper on your desktop.

The results are typical of M$ junk. "ActiveSync, TCP/IP and 802.11b Wireless Vulnerabilities of WinCE", "The exploit is triggered by viewing the malicious MMS message", " FrSIRT Security Advisories - Citrix Program Neighborhood Agent ... Note : In order to exploit these vulnerabilities the Program Neighborhood ..", and so on and so forth.

Free software is about freedom. The exact method by which a user's freedom is restricted (be it copyright, patent, trademark, DRM or another issue) is irrelevant.

I think the original poster already pretty much answered the question for you. He thinks a Linux distro like Debian should focus more on being usable/desirable to the majority of users, vs. being less so for the sake of "principles".

Good point. Lots of people don't care about freedom for any kind of content we ship, be it source code, images, manuals, audio samples, or anything else. For such people, free software is pretty much equivalent to warez that you'll never get in trouble for.

But I've also heard lots of people say that they really do care about the Four Freedoms for source code ... but do not think the same freedoms, or a close analogue, are valuable for non-program-code such as documentation or images. This is the part that makes no sense to me. One hears things like "it's OK for a font to be non-modifiable because font designers feel a need to maintain strict artistic control", for example. Yes, I've actually heard things like this! Why the same logic doesn't apply to programmers and our creative endeavors — that's what nobody seems to be able to explain to me.

I think it's already covered.

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all.

Looks like the GNU project have already started a branch of Moizlla called Gnuzilla: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/

Great. Now they can start using GIFs on their Web pages

See Put end to MS-Word attachments".

I wonder if something like GNU's Hurd where "The Hurd is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux)." might benefit from the a massively multi-core environment?

Granted it still needs a lot of work, but it might provide a faster system then the monolithic kernels of Linux and Windows.

The more I read Linus soapboxing over the GPL3, the more he rubs me the wrong way. Not that this is really a big shock: he's quite well-known for being stubborn and opinionated, it's just that he's usually on the side that makes the most sense. Lately, though, he's been sounding less like a firebrand for good code and more like an old coot with a sign reading "No Trespassing - Violators Will Be Shot".

Now, I'm hardly one to claim that the GPL3 is all hugs and puppies, and RMS has always rubbed me the wrong way far more than Linus. However, I do think that the FSF's Four Freedoms are a solid foundation, and I do think that the current GPL2 leaves too many pitfalls WRT submarine patents and, to a lesser extent, Tivoization -- both of which the GPL3 is tackling.

That being said, I also agree with Linus that the GPL3 design process is flawed, and that the current GPL3-as-drafted isn't nearly as elegant as the GPL2. (Not that the GPL2 was perfect -- the parts that redefine "derived work" to cover dynamic linking are clunky.) I think a lot of this owes to the fact that the "benevolent dictator" model that works so well in FS/OS was replaced with "design by committee", resulting in the classic problem: too many cooks spoil the broth. After all, if "benevolent dictator" works for computer code, shouldn't the same approach work for legal code?

One last gripe: Linus complains about 3/4 down that the GPL3 explicitly aims for compatibility with the Apache license. In the case of the 1.0 and 1.1 licenses, they're clearly BSD-derived and implicitly allow anyone anywhere to relicense them, including to create closed source products or to irreversibly convert an entire fork to another FS/OS license, like GPL2 or GPL3. In the case of the new 2.0 license, a cursory glance suggests that it's largely based on the GPL2 model, except that it does the exact same jig over software patents that the GPL3 does. In fact, it's got more similarity to GPL3 than GPL2.

In a nutshell, Linus is basically complaining that the GPL3 will meet the demands of the developers who use the Apache licenses, without giving back to those developers. However, this is the exact same situation that Linux is already in WRT the various BSDs, and a situation which Linux itself has previously taken advantage of on a rare handful of occasions. He's being a rank hypocrite on that point.

> > Are they going to go out of their way, and increase the cost of the
> > product, to give this capability?
> Well, they have another choice: They could just use code that isn't GPL'd. There's always BSD.

So Linus should just let embedded Linux die because of your zealotry?
Unfuckingbelievable.

And you didn't answer the question.

> > Is the company acting in bad faith if it ships its embedded Linux with
> > just exactly enough hard disk space to run the software it ships with, but no more?
> Depends on the situation. It could be considered bad design -- they won't be
> able to provide any firmware updates of their own.

Again, you didn't answer the question. And that's exactly the point. Nobody can answer these questions, because the GPLv3 is a confusing, overly broad mass of crap, that rivals the worst proprietary software licenses.

> Linus said, "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just
> be a completely unintentional side effect."
> I think that applies here. GPLv3 is not out to destroy DRM, but that may
> be a side effect, if such DRM depends heavily on open source software.

Except that RMS really is out to destroy DRM.
For the record, I agree that DRM is bad. I just don't think a software license can stop it.

While the GPL Preamble that you quoted does not give you permission to copy the license, that does not preclude the FSF from giving people permision to do so elsewhere. In fact they do allow you to modify the GPL under certain terms as explained in the GPL FAQ.

The short version is that you are not allowed to change the license as it is applied to that piece of software, nor are you allowed to create a modified version and pass it off as the GPL. But you can license your software under whatever terms you wish, and the FSF will not prevent you from using parts of the GPL in your license provided that you do not call it GPL.

"The point being made is that the new provisions of the GPLv3 are concerned with the politics of the DMCA and DRM rather than the freedom to read the source of, modify, learn from and distribute software. "

Alas people like you don't seem to realize that the two are bound to each other. Clearly more education needs to be done.

If you find ignorance so offensive, why not explain the issues yourself? You might find there's less of it to upset you. Of course, that's assuming you understand the topic well enough to explain anything, and I'm starting to wonder if that's a safe assumption.

Let's face it, you don't appear to have read TFA, the Free Software Definition, or any version of the GPL. In fact, the only thing you've contributed to our discussion is a bit of fluff about "self healing commons" nicked from one of Eben Moglen's speeches; probably by way of the slashdot discussion about Ian Murdock's latest project a while back.

So based on that, and the high insult to information ratio, I'm calling Troll on this one. It's not been an entire waste of time, since I've gained a better understanding of the issue through trying to explain it to you. But, unless you have anything to actually contribute to the discussion, I think I can find better uses for my time.

Still, better to light a candle than curse the darkness and all that. So let me take a stab at explaining the relationship between the GPL the Free Software Definition and Digital Rights Management. The one you understand so well and I, so poorly. Perhaps it will help you with your homework or something.

Let's start with the Free Software Definition . You'll see it defines free software as one that gives the user four specific freedoms. Let's quote them so we're both clear what we're talking about:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Still with us? Good. Now, clearly the Spectre of DRM doesn't impact on Freedoms 1-3. Nothing in DRM stops a user from obtaining the source under the terms of the licence, from studying it, modifying it or distributing it. So that leaves us with Freedom Zero: the freedom to run the program for any purpose. DRM can, of course, prevent a program from being run on a given platform. The trouble is that in this one instance, Stallman's prescience seems to have deserted him; he neglected to add "on any machine" after "for any purpose". Supporters of GPLv3 may argue that the intent was clear, and that to suggest otherwise is mere hair-splitting. Since the Free Software Definition is a philosophical and political document rather than a legal agreement, most people would probably concede the point.

Interestingly, the GPLv2 predates the Free Software Agreement, and hence makes no reference to the Four Freedoms. In particular, it makes no reference to the right to run software, purpose or platform notwithstanding. In fact it specifically disclaims any restrictions to do with running the program:

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

Now, as with the Free Software Definition, if take the GPLv2 as a political manifesto, (and it clearly is), then we can dismiss this too with handwaving. After all, the Free Software Definition says what the FSF are trying to a

I just read the link and am underwhelmed.

Since Burton and O'Reilly are apparently unable to criticize the four freedoms in a universal context, i.e., all possible users, they, for example, pick a special, tiny, subset, i.e., developers, as the recipients of their Freedom Zero. Recall that the FSF Freedom Zero applies to all users. So right away we see that their concern is indeed freedom for the few not the many. To accept their freedom as being morally equivalent to the FSF one requires us to assume the good of the few is equivalent to the good of the few. That clashes with the idea of freedom in a democracy---think about it.

Now, it has never been argued that developers should not be free to choose their licenses, but lacking any viable argument Burton goes ahead anyway and accuses Stallman of wanting that, a tiresome, knee-jerk reaction. Read it again for yourself---it's pathetic.

They are more sloppy than anything else. Need another example? How about at the end when Burton tries to imply that "right" and "wrong" must indicate religion. Either he has never heard of "ethics" or would rather avoid it! His cheerleading does O'Reilly no favors in my eyes.

I could one day see your POV, but cannot find it from the line of argument coming from Burton or O'Reilly. In any case, better arguments are likely to be found in longer works. Could you suggest higher quality arguments, such as at the level of these essays? I have some problems with a few of these essays and am always ready to ponder good arguments of any kind.

Which are your ideals regarding software. I want to be clear on this and make sure you see them as your ideals or do you see them as something else?

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
  Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).
  Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

See The Free Software Definition.
The GPL is a means to achieve and make irrevocable Free software in a world with strong copyrights, in effect by subverting copyright and turning it on itself. This is why "copyleft" is sometimes described as a "copyright hack". The GPL, however, is a means to the end, and is not the end in itself - ensuring that the four freedoms are available to users of software is the objective.

Well, I don't know what the technical legal terminology would be, but defacto it acts as a contract that you do indeed have to agree to to use GPL software. This conversation would not exist if Dlink could use GPL software without having to agree to the GPL.

It cannot be a contract, because it's unilateral. You can purchase or be given GPL software, and you need not agree to the GPL to use the software, nor does using the software constitute de facto agreement to the terms of the GPL. This is explained here: If I get some software under the GPL, do I have to agree to anything?. While agreeing to the GPL does not incur any obligations on you, neither is it required to use the software. This, incidentally, is one reason the GPL is very strong, as it is not like an EULA which purports to unilaterally bind you by the mere fact that you have received or use the software.

What does incur obligations, however, is redistributing the software, which is what DLink did. More precisely, it is not a GPL violation, but a copyright violation. By and large, redistribution of copyrighted works, including GPLed works, is not permitted in most jurisdictions today. The only possible get-outs are to not use GPLed code, and write one's own code, or to accept the validity of the GPL and comply with the necessary requirements of the license, such as those related to source code. If, on the other hand, one disputes the validity of the GPL, as DLink did, then we fall back to plain old copyright violation.

Right, in other words, the creator retains more control over his creation. That control comes directly from placing limits on the consumer of that creation.

Oddly enough, in some ways placing work under the GPL involves the creator giving up control to a wider community, especially if the maintainer accepts back improvements to the original also under the GPL rather than requiring copyright assignment to themselves before doing so. After a little accumulation, there are so many "authors" that the work can never be reclaimed or taken non-free, and the community can decide to take it away from the original creator by forking the project and assigning new maintainers. This is not common, partly because the creator generally knows it's possible, but it can happen, as with XFree86/Xorg and more recently Joerg Schilling's cdrecord tools being forked by Debian.

By contrast, the only freedom I see offered by the BSD license which is not also offered by the GPL is the freedom to deny further recipients the freedoms which the

If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that any program which uses it has to be under the GPL?

That pretty much sums it up. The way companies like nvidia get away with shipping binary drivers is to not actually link their binary with any GPL code and let the user do that part. Since the FSF and the GPL both recognize the fair use right for people to do whatever they want with GPL software for their own use (without redistributing it), it's legal.

I don't know were you got this idea but it is wrong.
He got it from here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncomp atibleLibs

Under the GPL, it must supply the source code for everything needed to build the executable.

Read it (carefully) and weap!

9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

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.

Stallman and the FSF -aren't- against software copyrights as a matter of principle. He does call for reducing the length of copyright and the scope of what it can restrict, but not for an outright abolition. On the other hand, the FSF (and incidentally I agree) regards patents as inappropriate in any case involving software. That is, in fact, their position-software should be eligible only for copyright, never for patents.

You can read more here, which probably explains it a lot more thoroughly then I do.

Because if someone patents something, you can't make a free version of it yourself.

Stallman's issue isn't with copyright

Developing a large and complex program means combining many ideas, often hundreds or thousands of them. In a country that allows software patents, chances are that some substantial fraction of the ideas in your program will be patented already by various companies. Perhaps hundreds of patents will cover parts of your program. A study in 2004 found almost 300 US patents that covered various parts of a single important program. It is so much work to do such a study that only one has been done.

Why on earth are you celebrating this record? You should realize that patents, especially software patents, are of very dubious utility and in may cases actively serve to harm the technological progress. Reaching 40 000 patents is a bad thing for pretty much everyone except greedy patent lawyers and short-sighted CEOs. For more information read this article. And in the future, don't be so hasty to celebrate what you don't know!

I knew automake had problems, but this is just ridiculous

What exactly has Joe Barr said that is false

1. "The MPlayer gang seems to relish nothing more than belittling their users and reminding them of just how little they know about Linux and computing in general" -- If the shoe fits. Don't email the developer list asking questions that belong on the Mplayer-users list. Mplayer-Dev is busy enough without all that.
2. "The journey began when I downloaded the latest CVS snapshot from the MPlayer Web site" -- A review of a CVS snapshot??
3. "The first thing to bite me was the configure script itself. It refused to run after detecting gcc 2.96, which is the default with Mandrake 8.1." -- Errrm, GCC 2.96?? A review of a CVS snapshot compiled with a broken compiler, greeeaaaat.
4. "It wants a file name on the command line." -- Duh.
5. "I needed video files. That called for gnutella." -- Because we all know the only thing worth watching is stolen from P2P networks.

1. "Gentoo doesn't ask what it can do to make things easier, it asks you exactly what it is that you want it to do, and then does precisely and only that." -- Funny, I don't remember being asked anything while installing Gentoo. There's no installer.
2. "For a proper Gentoo install, you'll need to read the fine manual. Read it a couple of times. Cover to cover. Pay particular attention to the sections on USE flags and Portage." -- Uhhh, not really. The Quick reference is more than sufficient.
3. "You will hear, see, and read "RTFM" dozens of times before you're done. But don't make the mistake of thinking that simply means having a copy handy as a reference during the installation, because by the time a question appears, it may already be too late. You need to RTFM before you begin." -- I don't even know what the fuck he's talking about there.
4. "Study GCC and the options that govern the behavior of GCC version 4.1.1." -- Forget studying GCC. If you don't understand what you're doing use the recommended $CFLAGS.
5. "After reading a few pages of the manual, I realized that the minimal live CD did not equal the Gentoo 2006.1 live CD. So I stopped and got the real thing." -- Dumb. You can bootstrap Gentoo from in Knoppix, that's what I always do. The CD you boot from makes very little difference. All you really need is bash, and something to download a stage tarball like wget.

• 7 Debian You chose Debian because you don't like to waste your time fiddling with Makefiles to install your system.
  After 3 years of happy debian using, you apply and become a Debian Mantainer. Now you waste your time fiddling with debian/rules file, to address stupid lintian warnings to comply with obscure parts of the Debian Policy.
  Meanwhile, some people waste your and others time with endless discussions. While you are deleting^H^H^H^H^H^Hreading the latest 400-email-long-flame-war, you hear that Ubuntu has a "Code of Conduct", and that people on Gentoo's IRC are polite and helpful. Your wife warns you that you are strangling your mouse.
  Your mind wanders... "super cow powers" is an option of APT .... but "sex" is not an option of GNU "echo". You suddenly feel the call of Wild Real Life (tm).

Of course, the speed with which Vim starts is terrific, as well, and since I do a lot of coding by remote, being able to comfortably run my editor in a GNU Screen over a terminal that may not do a create job sending control characters is really quite handy.

You mean that you used Emacs for more than a month and didn't discover Tramp? I edit remote files all day long, but do it from Emacs running on my local machine. Also makes applying the same macros to similar files on several different remote machines trivially easy.

Let us not forget the standard ed editor, the pinnacle of user friendliness! (Or is it sword point? I forget...)

I resolve the difference in the same way that copyright law does: by recognizing that the idea itself and the expression of the idea are two different things.

So, for example. No one "owns" that proprietary software restricts the user's rights. However, the phrase "The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it" was written by Richard Stallman as part of the GPL preamble. I cannot legitimately claim to have written that particular expression of the idea. If I did so claim, I would be lying, which is wrong. So, although Richard Stallman does not "own" the idea itself, I need to quote and acknowledge him if I want to use his particular expression of the idea.

The principle works out differently in cases of influence. Suppose I were to write "Using proprietary software to create government documents causes preservation problems, because the government needs to preserve documents for the long-term, but the company needs to ensure an ongoing revenue stream, and the two interests conflict." This idea has been discussed by many people, in many ways. This particular expression of it is mine. But I've been influenced by those other expressions of the same idea, particularly John Stone's essay Keeping Stuff. So, although I am not strictly required to provide a reference to that essay, it is polite to do so. In two ways. First, it's polite to acknowledge Stone's work in creating that particularly excellent essay. Second, it's polite to my readers, because it gives them the option to explore the subject further if they'd like. If all we're talking about is "influence," then there is no moral imperative to give a citation but it's still a good thing to do.

The obvious weakness in this is paraphrasing. What happens when somebody takes a direct quotation, changes a few words, and claims it as their own? Is that plagiarism or influence? In that case, I'd argue it's the degree of alteration that's important. If it's only changed a little bit, then that's probably not legit. If it's changed substantially, then it's probably legit. I refuse to draw a hard line on that one; this is an area where the only sensible way to proceed is to evaluate each case individually.

In most of the cases I've encountered, the judgement is usually pretty obvious. And the "paraphrasing" thing doesn't come up all that often. Most of the students I work with have much, MUCH more basic problems to deal with. Like writing sentences that are comprehensible. Frequently, students will hand me essays containing sentences that go on for a quarter of a page and remain incomprehensible even after I've read them three or four times. That's what I spend the most time working on, along with "clue fairy" duties. (I get to play "clue fairy" over all sorts of things. Like pointing out that I-got-drunk-at-a-party-last-night is not a good excuse for missing class. And suggesting that it would be a good idea to track assignment due dates in a calendar or a to-do list or something. The poor dears. They're so charmingly clueless, and they're completely unaware of their own cluelessness. As I'm sure I was, ten years ago.)

No, it's not intellectual property infingement, it's copyright infringement. See this.

Vim is nothing compared to Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed.msg.html

The Octave interpreter actually looks most ideal for this. :-)

The term "free" is an intentional echo of cold war terminology and works for military types. Freedom is what they are all about and they are never supposed to obey an unlawful order. The American ideology of the Cold war carried over from the defeat of the German dictatorship and Japanese Empire but was firmly rooted in American history, writing and law. The core of that ideology is that free, moral people working in honest cooperation and competition are happier and more prosperous than people toiling under centralized dictatorships. Interesting expressions of these ideas can be found in the writing of Robert A. Heinlein, especially Starship Trooper, which is recommended reading in the US Marine Corps. Free software is an honest effort to make things work, guided by a free meritocracy. It works and has become best of class because people agree not to screw each other over, standards to modularize their work make it so things are interchangeable and the fittest work survives.

Officers with higher degrees will instantly appreciate the peer review nature of free software. People who have published scientific articles understand first hand the practical requirements of repeatability too. To them, if you can't repeat it yourself you have to take it on faith and no military person wants faith in anything but the almighty when they can have proof instead.

The non free people tried to call free software, "software communism" but failed and may have it thrown back in their face. Any military person will tell you that Communist contries are really nasty little fiefdoms, where who you know is more important than what you know and the top guy is in absolute lawless control of everything until murdered. This more resembles the distrustful, back stabbing and intentionally wasteful world of non free software in methodology and results.

I'll quote the gnu.org sites, see what you think:

... what else could we say about a system based on dividing the public and keeping users helpless? ... One [non free propaganda] assumption is that software companies have an unquestionable natural right to own software and thus have power over all its users. ... [another is that] we would have no usable software (or would never have a program to do this or that particular job) if we did not offer a company power over the users of the program. and Consider these four practices of the Software Publishers Association (SPA):

1. Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners to help your friend.
2. Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and colleagues. Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying.
3. Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities unguarded and failing to censor their use.

The term "free" is an intentional echo of cold war terminology and works for military types. Freedom is what they are all about and they are never supposed to obey an unlawful order. The American ideology of the Cold war carried over from the defeat of the German dictatorship and Japanese Empire but was firmly rooted in American history, writing and law. The core of that ideology is that free, moral people working in honest cooperation and competition are happier and more prosperous than people toiling under centralized dictatorships. Interesting expressions of these ideas can be found in the writing of Robert A. Heinlein, especially Starship Trooper, which is recommended reading in the US Marine Corps. Free software is an honest effort to make things work, guided by a free meritocracy. It works and has become best of class because people agree not to screw each other over, standards to modularize their work make it so things are interchangeable and the fittest work survives.

Officers with higher degrees will instantly appreciate the peer review nature of free software. People who have published scientific articles understand first hand the practical requirements of repeatability too. To them, if you can't repeat it yourself you have to take it on faith and no military person wants faith in anything but the almighty when they can have proof instead.

The non free people tried to call free software, "software communism" but failed and may have it thrown back in their face. Any military person will tell you that Communist contries are really nasty little fiefdoms, where who you know is more important than what you know and the top guy is in absolute lawless control of everything until murdered. This more resembles the distrustful, back stabbing and intentionally wasteful world of non free software in methodology and results.

I'll quote the gnu.org sites, see what you think:

... what else could we say about a system based on dividing the public and keeping users helpless? ... One [non free propaganda] assumption is that software companies have an unquestionable natural right to own software and thus have power over all its users. ... [another is that] we would have no usable software (or would never have a program to do this or that particular job) if we did not offer a company power over the users of the program. and Consider these four practices of the Software Publishers Association (SPA):

1. Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners to help your friend.
2. Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and colleagues. Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying.
3. Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities unguarded and failing to censor their use.

Sorry, but screen is a window manager.

You can use it anyway you like. However, when it comes to distributing it (for personal gain), you don't have carte blanche. Bear in mind that you got it for free.

Not trying to be nitpicky, but you missed two points. One: The GPL doesn't differentiate between distributing it for free or profit. Distribution is distribution. The GPL doesn't care if you make money or not. (See the preamble of the GNU/GPL)

And not all GPL software is "free" as in price. I can make a software package under the GPL (independently or a derived package), but not distribute it to anyone but you for $1000. As long as I give you the source code along with the binaries, I am complying with Section 3a) of the GPL and do not need to provide it to any 3rd party 3b). Thus, it was always "free as in speech" but was never "free as in beer". Of course, you would be free to give it to anyone or sell it for any price you could get, as long as you complied with the GPL.

It may sound minor, but these are major points in the GPL. "Free" just happens to mean 2 things in English. In the GPL, free refers to freedom, not cost or profit. The GPL isn't simple at first glance, but it makes good sense for a lot of projects. The GPL is FOR making money, not against.

OS X comes with Python and pico pre-installed.

It's nano, actually (err... GNU nano; sorry), not pico.

[Satori:~] osiris% ls -al /usr/bin/pico
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4 Jul 28 02:53 /usr/bin/pico -> nano

I swear I hit the preview button...

there will always ALWAYS be a place for the determined to find software for free.

Yup. There always will be.

there will always ALWAYS be a place for the determined to find software for free.

Yup. There always will be.

... our new UNIX-replacing daemon overlords!

No, that's just RMS sour grapes. The spirit and intent of the GPL was written into the GPL.

When the GPL was written, it was only considered to be applicable to software products. Once GPLed software started being bundled with hardware, GPL fanatics proclaimed that the hardware was subject to the whims of RMS's warped views on freedom as well.

Ain't so. GPL authors licensed their code then got pissed when their code got used in a matter that respected the license.

That's what GPLv3 does and that's why Linus rightly objects to it.

On the same blog, Alan Levin asks how such entrepreneurs can change the world. It is hard to give - sometimes harder than taking. In Africa, it is about transfer of ownership - can you persuade the recipient that you are not wasting their time ?

There is a difference between information broadcast, and information available. You don't even have to be a overly-pedantic /. reader to know this.

This is the difference between the small town bar fight recorded in the small town paper, and it getting the leading position on every station in the country.

Yes, they're both public, though in the first example you have to look at the small town paper to get the info - which for 99% of people not in that small town - represents too much trouble.

Compare to disinterested parties getting their shotgun news - they didn't care, but now they know that Billy and Bobby were in a fight in 'small town'. Maybe they do something with the info, maybe not, but thousands & thousands of people now know as opposed to the hundred or so that read the paper.

There you have it. If you can't see the diff, maybe you need this.

I tend to do basically what MPlayer does nowadays, and that includes using Subversion for SCM, Bugzilla for bugs, Mailman for mailing lists, and Apache HTTPD for serving it all. I like to maintain a Debian Sid package (you can't directly upload to stable or testing anyhow, so the Debian maintainers will take care of adapting the package for those distros), and if someone else on the team knows anything about RPM, we also maintain the .spec file as well. I also like to keep an emerge script in there as well, but even if I didn't, someone would write one faster than you can bootstrap a Gentoo Mac Pro, so there's nothing to worry about there.

http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=2882 3 and http://www.mini-box.com/VIA-NL-10000E-Nano-ITX-Mot herboard and http://gcc.gnu.org/.

• ditto (copy files with metadata, etc -- though in Tiger, the standard file utilities finally handle resource forks)
• open (open a document or application in the gui)
• osascript (execute an AppleScript -- ie, osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to pause')
• /Developer/Tools/SetFile (set obscure HFS+ file attributes -- only available if Xcode is installed)
• softwareupdate (commandline version of -- you guessed it -- Software Update)
• hdiutil (mount, unmount, and manage automounted disks and disk images)
• diskutil (commandline version of Disk Utility)