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@akratic
Free Software is (in part) about community. You are (we assume) part of the community. The gnash flash viewer http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ had an Alpha release (0.7.1) in May 2006. So, it is clearly usable. Whether it does everything you need will only be determined by your testing of it. As part of the community, you do not have to code, but you can test and contribute comprehensible bug reports.

@BoberFett
Having a working Flash viewer is the first step to being able to have a Flash to W3C (SVG, CSS, etc.) standards converter. It is difficult to convince some people to switch without the tools to help them switch, and many people are already invested in Flash media. Being able to move people off their entrenched software *is* a way to win. But you have to start somewhere and showing a working viewer is a good start. It helps prove the tool understands the Flash "markup".

@smash
You may not have a Flash viewer installed but there are (unfortunately) millions who do and if we (the community) want to move them into our community completely, we need to provide them the free software tools to do so. To many people, Flash is important and so it needs to be important to the community.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

As for editor, good question.

At the beginning of the interview, RMS talks about the top priorities for GNU programmers. He remarks, "Flash was a high priority, but it's mostly done." Is this true? Is gnash close to being a usable Flash player?

http://gplflash.sourceforge.net/
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

11. because the program is licensed free of charge, there is no warranty for the program, to the extent permitted by applicable law. except when otherwise stated in writing the copyright holders and/or other parties provide the program "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. the entire risk as to the quality and performance of the program is with you. should the program prove defective, you assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction.

Sound familiar? It should.

I think linvir meant "Pardon my bias, which is thinly veiled, poorly."

Does that help?

Mono allows a lot of things to run on Free software platforms.

You chose to ignore this in favour of a vague appeal to untested patent problems.

Many people would see this as bias masquerading as insightfulness.

Also, you're kinda defensive.

No, it's probably because of higher referral rates from B&N. After all, even the GNU project stopped boycott Amazon years ago.

Yes, closed source is bad. Read why.

You can always use Octave( http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/ ).
It works great, I did most of my numeric methods assignments with Octave on Slackware, with no issues.

Hoax or not: IMO, I do not think SCO should be allow to distribute Linux again, ever. I think it's fair to say that since SCO tried to declare the GPL invalid, they do not accept the terms of the license. Therefore, according to the GPL, section 5, they have no permission to modify nor distribute the work.

Additionally, I would hope that all GPL copyright holders explicitly revoke SCO's license to distribute of their GPL software, not just Linux. Let the devil squirm and die.

DRM can be open

Define "open". Given DRM that permits viewing but prohibits copying, it's impossible to implement such DRM in free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation or by the Debian project because an attacker can edit the source code to tee(1) the work to a file, build the program, run the program, and make an unencumbered copy.

Encrypting a message is DRM, SSL is DRM, anything that prevents others from seeing or doing what they want with some digital data is DRM.

Encrypting a message is privacy: only the holder of the intended recipient's private key can view or reproduce it. Encrypting the digest of a message is authentication: the message came from somebody with the sender's private key. SSL is privacy with a bit of authentication added to exchange keys past a man in the middle. The term "digital restrictions management", on the other hand, is most commonly understood to refer to technical measures that authorize the owner of a lawfully made copy or phonorecord[1] of a work to view but not reproduce or modify the work, even where the law otherwise permits such reproduction or modification (such as the copyright exemptions of 17 USC 107 through 122). What are the honorable uses of such DRM?

[1] US copyright law defines "phonorecord" as any physical medium in which a sound recording is fixed, and "copy" as any physical medium in which any other work is fixed.

Just to mention that there's another way to get flash working on AMD64 (or PPC, or SPARC, or whatever else) :
using an opensource plug-in (and recompiling it for your platfrom).

GNASH uses openGL and Cairo for rendering, and it looks like it has recently started making alpha releases (0.7.1).
Right now, it doesn't support streaming and thus doesn't work with google video and youtube, but works already with most animations...

A wish to say a big thank you to the team working behind this.
In a couple of months, maybe we'll enjoy something that's compatible enough and will be considered as a viable alternative to flashplayer.

Just my $0.02 worth. Not meant as a troll, just me calling it as I see it.

Oklahoma's Spyware Bill dies a quiet death.

What do you expect from a bunch of dumb Okies? I'll look on the bright side: When their computers are so infected with malware as to be unusable, they won't be able to go to Republican hate sites.

Lenovo denies ditching Linux . . . 'Customers of the recently introduced Lenovo 3000 units still won't have a preloaded option, however, because the small and midsize business customers that are the targets for those units have many different requirements, he said.'"

More like, "because Lenovo would rather not pay full retail for XP."

Mars rover escapes again.
Isn't it interesting how the lion's share of the cool space-related stuff is unmanned? Even more reason to kill the Shuttle program.

RIM CEO speaks out against unlimited wireless . . . "unlimited bandwidth use in the wireless world is needed because access to the network is what spurs innovation."'"
Access to the network is what spurs people's Crackberry habits. I'd really like a toke off of whatever he's smoking.

Microsoft LiveMail gets ads. . . . Similar to Google's Gmail
Next, they'll lobby Congress to make it illegal to use anything but LiveMail. Don't forget, Google hates America and Linux supports terrorism.

FSF anti-DRM campaign expands.
I'm sure it will be least as successful, if not timely, as the GNU HURD project.

I suggest you try out Gnash . It certainly isn't perfect, but it's better then jury-rigging the propriatery blob of evil into working on a 64-bit platform.
Just remember, if you find bugs (and you will) please remember to send reports. ;-)

They could call it the LGPL !

The GPL does not do a very good job of respecting the wishes of the writers of non-GPL code who want to work with GPL code, and especially if you're in the shoes of such as MS, it can easily appear to have been written that way specifically out of spite towards big business.

It was ... kind of ... in an indirect fashion.

Basically, the purposes of the GPL were to a) make selling software as a standalone product impossible and b) serreptitiously generate more GPLed software.

I think what MS is hoping for here is that folks who want to work with big business will begin to release under less severe licenses, or that a GPL will be written with more allowances than what currently exists.

The LGPL is a reasonable balance between Open Source principles and commercial reality. However, RMS doesn't really like the LGPL, because he's not the kind of bloke who is capable of compromise.

So you think it's perfectly fair and reasonable to ask others, be it MS or random Joe Coder, to reinvent the wheel simply because the license on your software precludes their use of your code with theirs, possibly due to reasons outide their control. How was it, again, that you are better than MS?

If code authors want their code to be used in proprietary systems, they're free to release it under a BDS or LGPL license. The fact that a large majority of authors do not release under these licenses is an idealogical choice. You're free to write your own libraries if you don't agree to the terms, the same way you're free not to use a proprietary piece of software if you don't agree to the license.

I think GNU said it best: "Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free software developers need to make advantages for each other." (ref)

Is it perfectly fair and reasonable that companies are allowed to make money off of code that they didn't develop, and give nothing in return to the original author(s), against the authors' implicit (via the license model chosen) wishes?

There's a huge difference between saying "Here's some code, use it, or not, as you wish, but kindly release your changes to the public.", and saying "Give us your code, with no restrictions, so we can incorporate it into our product to make money." or "Here's some code, and oh, by the way, you owe us $10 per seat."

Well, there's Gnash, but that's besides the point.

Google Earth for GNU/Linux is free, but shackled.

Yet another GNU/Linux application dependent on non-free 3D acceleration drivers. Thanks, but no thanks Google. Like Java, also an open standard, there are no free OpenGL implementations for common video cards for Linux, making Google Earth completely useless to the free software community. Please see Richard's essay, which I've linked to above.

Labor does not create all wealth. Sometimes natural resources create wealth. Sometimes intellectual property creates wealth.

The phrase "intellectual property" is a misnomer, as it conflates disparate legal traditions. I'll expand what you wrote into what you probably meant:

Labor does not create all wealth. Sometimes natural resources create wealth. Sometimes copyrights create wealth. Sometimes patents create wealth. Sometimes trademarks create wealth. Sometimes trade secrets create wealth. Sometimes rights of publicity create wealth.

Copyrighted works spring from the labor of authors and lobbyists, and patented inventions and trade-secreted know-how spring from the labor of inventors and lobbyists. Trademarks and rights of publicity spring from the labor of marketers and lobbyists. So we've collapsed all of so-called "IP" into labor, much of it being inefficient rent-seeking labor.

This is Bull Shit (TM).
RMS went to Brasil and talked to our Minister of Culture (which happens to be a musician, and happens to have released some of his works under Creative Commons license recently). The minister was using business attire, black suit, dark gray shirt, darker tie; RMS was in his usual khakhis-and-t-shirt. It is an honour for a head of any branch of the government, not an imposition, to receive a person who -- although I do not agree with many of his practices and/or views -- embodies and started the Free Software movement, and keeps on pushing its agenda. The internet would be a very different beast -- if it existed at all -- if Stallmann hadn't written the GNU manifesto in the 80's.
People who judge a person by his attire are hopefully an endangered species. People's actions define their responsibility, not their clothing. And again, I don't agree or condone many of RMS's/FSF's actions and positions, but I respect them for their work in furthering the Right to Read. Remember that Mohandas Ghandi used, for a long time, only clothes that he had made himself.

This is Bull Shit (TM).
RMS went to Brasil and talked to our Minister of Culture (which happens to be a musician, and happens to have released some of his works under Creative Commons license recently). The minister was using business attire, black suit, dark gray shirt, darker tie; RMS was in his usual khakhis-and-t-shirt. It is an honour for a head of any branch of the government, not an imposition, to receive a person who -- although I do not agree with many of his practices and/or views -- embodies and started the Free Software movement, and keeps on pushing its agenda. The internet would be a very different beast -- if it existed at all -- if Stallmann hadn't written the GNU manifesto in the 80's.
People who judge a person by his attire are hopefully an endangered species. People's actions define their responsibility, not their clothing. And again, I don't agree or condone many of RMS's/FSF's actions and positions, but I respect them for their work in furthering the Right to Read. Remember that Mohandas Ghandi used, for a long time, only clothes that he had made himself.

Since Apple's implementation is the least obtrusive and most user friendly, does it make since to protest? Why not go after more draconian DRM?

(1) NEdit combined with exuberant ctags.
(2) Red Hat's SourceNavigator.
(3) GNU Global to generate a nice clickable HTML version of a source tree.

I used to also use CSCOPE, but I can't fine Solaris/Sparc binaries which don't require root access to install (pkg format isn't helpful for me -- I'm just a developer on the box, not an admin).

On the mainframe side, I usually use a combination of FINDREF, IACULL, and CULL, which together form a sort of superpowered CSCOPE, but I'm not aware of a similar tool in the UNIX world other than things like CSCOPE (which are useful but rather basic in functionality).

I have sometimes used GNU Global which makes indexed html pages of the code. Somewhat similar to lxr but there is no setup, just run two commands, gtags and htags. One nice thing about global is that it can be used on any incomplete subset of a software system. Want to just look at the files in the drivers/net/wireless directory in the linux kernel tree? Fine, just run gtags and htags from that directory (and no other setup is necessary).

I have also used NCC which "compiles" each file and makes a index file with information like "function AAA calls functions BBB, CCC and DDD, reads variables EEE, writes variables FFF and GGG". The format is not exactly like that but you get the idea. NCC includes a text mode gopher-like variable usage/function call browser and there is a script to make graphical call graphs (via dot from graphviz). At work I have also used information from ncc files in combination with with information from the map file to find maximum stack usage.

This study (which I just found while writing this) seems to have an interesting analysis of this topic.

think beyond ed

If something is FSFFree, it's open source.
If something is open source, it MIGHT be FSFFree. Maybe. Depending on the license.
If something is proprietary, it's not either FSFFree or OS.

Then there is the thing that, you know, they work together. You know, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr eedom.html talks about it. Oh, and there are some small peices of software you may have heard of. I think they are called, um, "Linux", and maybe a bunch of stuff by a group calling it all "GNU"?

The book is not only cheaper at Amazon, but occasionally through the Third Party Sellers offering books there, one can get a mint book for pennies in comparison to the full price.

In any event, Amazon's patents shouldn't intimidate Free Software fans, as the GNU project ended their boycott since there was no sign of danger.

Merging is only supported using the actual version numbers, not tags. Specifically, the merge command syntax requires the user to determine what version numbers are associated with what tags so as to perform the merge using the version numbers.

Not at all. You clearly have a lot of documentation reading to do, and it's pointless for me to reproduce it here, but let me at least say that you need not specify the version numbers at all, and that you haven't understood that there are SVN tags which, while simply represented by directories (Unix philosophy anyone?), are actually a snapshot of a certain revision and thus interchangeable with revision numbers. Go ahead and tag your every commit with whatever naming scheme you want if it makes you more comfortable, and use those instead.

The "copy" is referred to by SVN zealots as a "cheap copy" because it is an almost constant time operation

So making an objective observation about an O(1) copying operation makes one an SVN zealot? That's a pretty cheap shot. Are computer scientists "linked-list zealots" too when they point out that adding an entry to the beginning of those is usually O(1), and thus are objectively better at that than other data structures? I honestly don't get your aggressive tone against a technology which you don't seem to understand and has done no harm to you, yet serves many of us well. Seriously, have you even used it?

What the documentation says occurs is that links are made to the original repository area and the file deltas are recorded in the new tree. Conceptually this means that space consumption is very small being only a small growth in the size of some control files and creation of some directories. Realistically, there is a practical limit on the number of directory entries that can be made in a system. So for a very large repository containing many modules, tags and branches, then the growth rate in directory entry usage would be significant if not unsustainable.

Uh, no. Had you even once created an FSFS repository you would have noticed that in fact every transaction, no matter how large, adds exactly two (2) new files to your filesystem, one with the revision and one with the revision properties (usually just a few bytes). All the operations described in the documentation are done in the SVN virtual filesystem. When you commit changes, the revision file contains an aggregation of all the reverse deltas of the changes you made in that transaction. When you commit branches/tags, that file contains the difference in the virtual filesystem nodes described in the link. By my count, that file is usually a little over 600 bytes. I don't know the details about BDB but it's similar.

Convinced yet? No? Good! How about you try it?

The migration of a multiple-project CVS repository to SVN appears on the surface to be an unsustainable move. Ideally, the projects would be split into separate repositories if such a migration was to be performed.

Really? You should tell these guys (have a look at their repo). Or them. Or them.

The reasons to stay with CVS would be largely dictated by practical issues.

Finally, we agree. Pretty much the only meaningful reason to stay with CVS these days is backwards compatibility with tools & user training. And even those are fading, as SVN support is added to pretty much everything and it turns out it's not that different from the basic users' point of view (it is different for the more advanced users who need to tag, branch & merge, but those can learn it just as they did CVS; I'd argue that conceptually it's even simpler). Another big reason might be that they simply can't be

Grab a CVS checkout of GNUradio (see http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/ for the homepage, and http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/gnuradio/ for the browseable CVS on GNU.ORG), and be sure to grab gr-radio-astronomy module.

Grab a CVS checkout of GNUradio (see http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/ for the homepage, and http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/gnuradio/ for the browseable CVS on GNU.ORG), and be sure to grab gr-radio-astronomy module.

As you can see on the GNU website, the boycott has been over since 2002. So, you are now allowed by your masters to purchase from Amazon.

Maybe they aren't fans of Amazon's one-click patent.

Sorry, but you don't actually have a unique rarity on your hands. 5x5x5 Rubik's Cube's can be bought for about $30 in any good toy store. If you like ordering online, they're available direct from the manufacturer along with all the other versions. Also, that simulator you requested has already been written. There is a general Rubik's cube simulator available here which can simulate a cube of any size.

As to being too difficult to solve, the world record for solving one of these is 1:47.22 (that's less than two minutes). You can check out lots of records on this speedcubing site. The 4x4x4 is really pretty similar to the 3x3x3, except with extra algorithms needed for the new peices that are present. If you can solve a 3x3x3, you're most of the way to the 4x4x4. The 5x5x5 is a similar extension of the 4x4x4.

For the record, I can solve the 4x4x4, but my times are pretty awful. I don't have good algorithms for solving those extra peices, and I don't do it often enough. On the 3x3x3, though, I can consistently do it in 1:30, and that's just with home-grown algorithms some friends and I came up with.

For about 7 years now, Red Hat has been badmouthing the Free & Open Source K Desktop Environment and the Qt framework that KDE is built on. Both KDE and Qt are licensed under the GPL, the Free Software license with the strongest copyleft/forced sharing protections that ensure the users' rights to control their own computers.

I know for a fact that Red Hat employees have embarked on a FUD campaign against KDE by spreading outright lies about its licensing. One such lie that they've been perpetuating is that thrid-party companies can't write proprietary software using Qt and KDE: this is plain wrong, because a company that wants to write proprietary software based on Qt can simply play by the proprietary rules and buy a proprietary license from Trolltech (the makers of Qt). This arrangement is only fair, and it provides a financial incentive for companies to write open source software. Furthermore, revenues from prorietary development go directly into improving the Free & Open Source Qt framework. This dual-licensing arrangement is a WIN-WIN situations for ordinary users like you and me.

Now, I'd understand if Microsoft were spreading this FUD, but for a company like Red Hat that pretends to be 100% for open source to be doing this is downright hypocritical.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a free software zealot and don't use and Microsoft products at all, at work or at home, and Firefox is my primary browser, but don't you think you're being a little unfair by picking this particular example? For one, many of Firefox's "killer features" were actually Opera innovations -- Firefox's primary innovation is its extensible architecture. Tabbed browsing etc existed first in a number of other browsers (I don't even think Opera was first.) I don't use Opera (not free) but this is my understanding.

Then, as strange as it may seem, some good features were actually copied from IE to Firefox -- for example, everytime Firefox blocks a popup or notifies you that a plugin is missing, it does so with an unobtrusive little bar at the top of the screen which does not interfere with your browsing experience. This was an IE innovation, ironically. I seem to remember that the different colored URL-entry field background for https and such were also IE innovations (they came with XP SP2 I think -- I'm sort of fuzzy because as I said I don't use any of these products, at all).

Let's also not forget that while IE's CSS support is not stellar by today's standards, Microsoft pretty much invented CSS -- good CSS support on Netscape didn't happen until Mozilla made it a priority (that is, Netscape 6). IE 5 (which was released more than a decade ago) supported large amounts of CSS2 when no one else did. Microsoft dropped the ball and stopped CSS development (IE 6 added very few features and fixed very few bugs), but it's worth noting that had IE 5 not supported CSS as well as it did, we probably wouldn't have the ability to seperate feature from content as well as we do.

It's funny to look at it that way. IE 5 and 6 are shitty browsers by today's standards, there's no doubt -- but when you consider their release dates, they were miles ahead of everything else out there. I remember being forced to use Netscape 4 in those days, because nothing else was available for Linux. Given that I essentially had to use a non-free product if I wanted to browse the web graphically, I know that I would have prefered to use IE 5, definitely. Alas the UNIX version only ran on SUNs (there was a UNIX version, did you know?)

I personally don't like MS's products, but sometimes I think people on Slashdot would do well to read RMS's article, "Is Microsoft the Great Satan?" Microsoft's corporate practices are a result of its monopoly status and the proprietary software industry as a whole. Any other company in the same position would act essentially the same way, so picking on Microsoft specifically all the time is sort of futile, I think.

Of course that's going against the general Slashdot meme, but for all its evil, MS has produced some ok products, if you're willing to look past their proprietariness. And they have innovated, it's wrong to say the haven't. Software is like math, you know... that Newton quote is appropriate: "If I have seen further it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Everyone always copies everyone else's ideas. That's how it should be. Apple copied from Xerox, Microsoft copies from Apple, Apple copies from CMU and FreeBSD, NeXT, Be, Amiga, and even Microsoft. GNOME and KDE copy from all of these too.

This is the whole reason that proprietary software in general and patents in particular must be opposed -- we all are "guilty" of copying ideas. When everyone does it, perhaps it's time to rethink whether it's right or wrong. I likened software to math: as it stands a mathematician publishes his ideas in a peer-reviewed journal and everyone benefits, including the mathematician himself. Everyone is able to learn from his innovations and his mistakes. But if math worked the way software works these days -- and algorithms are essentially just math, lest we forget -- all journal articles would be owned by private entities that would do their damndest to make sure tha

I know how to deal with this. We need to get the feminists on board. [...] we explain how the whole copyright thing is a conspiracy by a bunch of Rich White Men to tie access to culture, education and information to earning power as a covert way of keeping it away from women, who have less earning power.

Great idea. http://gnu.org/ is a good resource, but having one oriented towards kids is better, we could target all ages!

Well not quite, but quoting The Right To Read under fair use terms: "This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do."

This is exactly what society is moving towards. We need to stop it before it's too late.

You NEED to practice typing the normal way. I used gtypist to learn dvorak, and it should be useful no matter what layout you end up deciding on. You must be absolutely religious, though. Don't look at the keyboard, and if you must, find a way to cover the keys (or get Das Keyboard). You'll need a layout to look at when you've completely forgotten, but it's a lot easier to wean yourself off of if it's on-screen or something. And you absolutely must use the finger it tells you to. Trust me, typing with all your fingers is much better than just using two.

In addition, the definitions of "open source" and "free software" have nothing to do with anonymous bugzilla access, but rather with the availability of source code and the rights one has with regards to use and modification of said code. If you don't believe me, read the definitions yourself.

You forget one thing: This piece of software depends on non-free software, which means you have a vendor-tie-in. I can not use this product without MS software. That means the software is useless in a free-software world. Read RMS' thoughts on java, Free But Shackled - The Java Trap for more thoughts on this. I agree with Stallman on this topic; a free software world requires all software to be free, and producing fsf-stuff designed to only run on windows harms the over all progress. Portable software is ok, but software dependent on properitary software is IMHO evil.

I agree. I'm switching over to OS (when I can) because I refuse to have my data held hostage.

Are there open source versions of InDesign / FrameMaker? This is one of the main reasons Windows is still around for me, because I don't see it on the list

The other MS/Adobe products are covered:

* Photoshop -> Gimp. Yeah GIMP still sucks for PS users, but at least it is functional, and extendable. (i.e. It _badly_ needs a default PhotoShop keyboard theme/config and better CYMK support, before it replaces PS.)

* Illustrator -> Inkscape or Sodipodi

* OpenOffice -- Toss up if excel / calc is better, but at least we have functional choices.

Cheers

I believe they have no intention of using the "dark side" of IP. They are simply using IP for the reasons it exists.

Use of "intellectual property" as a blanket term is the dark side. It confuses patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, which have different scopes, different durations, different requirements to defend, and more differences than I care to list. The only thing the laws subsumed under "intellectual property" have in common is that they grant some sort of exclusive right that can be transferred or licensed. People who use the "dark side" have a vested interest in such confusion, so as to increase the perceived scope of their exclusive rights.

The "Turbo Pascal for Windows" product was a woebegone POS that never did much, and wasn't missed.

Also, its VERY easy to translate pascal's much simpler syntax to something a c compiler can handle. Consider: no need for multiple inheritance, friend functions, etc.

In the case of Delphi, where pointers are all hidden away from you, the task is even easier.

Now if you want to see something REALLY interesting, look at what the gnu guys are doing with gcc - making a java compiler that compile - not just to java class files/bytecode, but the whole program directly to a native binary (not just native methods). http://gcc.gnu.org/java/

That task is a LOT harder than supporting a somewhat limited subset of pascal.

phoning up and complaining that you disagree with a columnist's point of view

If anyone really thinks that DRM is or should be outside the FSF's agenda, he should read The Right to Read.

DRM is exactly the kind of things that caused Stallman to launch the FSF in the first place.

> In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights [sic] management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu [sic, it's GNU] General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma.

Um, yeah? They're the Free Software Foundation -- they like Freedom. DRM is the exact opposite of Freedom, which is why they're against it. The FSF has always been about politics. If you want the neutral, "here's some code, enjoy!" stance, use the BSD license. If you want to ensure that software remains Free for generations to come, then the GPL is the way to go.

If you read Stallman's essay, The Right to Read , you'll see why he's so opposed to DRM. Today, DRM is limited to crappy pop music that nobody wants any, but the extension of what can be done with DRM is pretty scary. It's easier to nip the DRM plague in the bud rather than wait until the society in The Right to Read becomes reality!

For starters, market realities right here in the United States put the lie to the FSF's histrionics. Apple's iTunes Store, which sells DRM-encoded music and videos to millions of iPod owners, is going like gangbusters. Clearly, despite DRM's widely discussed inadequacies and regular aggravations, more than a few consumers are willing to put up with it when the price is right. That's just basic free-market economics.

For starters, market realities right here in the United States put the lie to the FSF's histrionics. Software vendors such as Microsft and IBM which sell closed source software to millions of businesses, are going like gangbusters. Clearly, despite closed source's widely discussed inadequacies and regular aggravations, more than a few consumers are willing to put up with it when the price is right. That's just basic free-market economics.

far removed from its own stated first principles. In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights management) technologies,

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.

I'm sorry, you must phrase your rebuttal in the form of quotes from the GPL, otherwise I'll believe you're talking out your ass.

I'll also use the GPL FAQ. I doubt you believe the GNU folks are talking out of their asses.

Whether or not you feel it is more or less wrong is up to you, but in my opinion, you're breaking a social (and legal, for that matter) contract if you then attempt to use the software in a method against the GPL, i.e., closing it up in your own hardware without releasing changes,

Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?

attempting to sell it for profit,

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

just plain not releasing modifications under the GPL, etc.

The modified work as a whole must be licensed under the GPL, that is all the GPL requires. The modifications may have any license compatible with the GPL. In particular, modifications in the public domain are explicitly acceptable.

You need not accept the GPL on my software; however, without accepting it, you have no right to use it under copyright law. It is exactly like an end-user license agreement. The only way you can use it without accepting the GPL is if I, as the copyright holder, give you the option of using it under another license.

Copyright law doesn't affect use, only distribution. Why did you think the GPL specifically states "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works." without mentioning use? Why do you think it states "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." ?

I'm sorry, you must phrase your rebuttal in the form of quotes from the GPL, otherwise I'll believe you're talking out your ass.

I'll also use the GPL FAQ. I doubt you believe the GNU folks are talking out of their asses.

Whether or not you feel it is more or less wrong is up to you, but in my opinion, you're breaking a social (and legal, for that matter) contract if you then attempt to use the software in a method against the GPL, i.e., closing it up in your own hardware without releasing changes,

Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?

attempting to sell it for profit,

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

just plain not releasing modifications under the GPL, etc.

The modified work as a whole must be licensed under the GPL, that is all the GPL requires. The modifications may have any license compatible with the GPL. In particular, modifications in the public domain are explicitly acceptable.

You need not accept the GPL on my software; however, without accepting it, you have no right to use it under copyright law. It is exactly like an end-user license agreement. The only way you can use it without accepting the GPL is if I, as the copyright holder, give you the option of using it under another license.

Copyright law doesn't affect use, only distribution. Why did you think the GPL specifically states "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works." without mentioning use? Why do you think it states "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." ?