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Debian And WineX
fdsa writes "After a heated debate, and under some pressure by TransGaming, an 'intent to package' WineX from sourceforge CVS for (non-free) Debian has been withdrawn. The message provides a good summary of the recent Wine chaos, and notes how WineX is effectively under a different license than stated. Here's a mail from their CEO Gavriel State on the issue."
Amusingly, Gentoo Linux users can install WineX with a single command. It is packaged (I assume) from the Sourceforge CVS, and given that Gentoo compiles everything from scratch, conveniently sidesteps the whole distributing binaries thing.
By the way, for fellow Gentoo users, a 2002/05/11 ebuild is currently available by "# emerge winex". Check the package list for the most recent date.
This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would lik e to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.
Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in tw o days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tom orrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.
Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to f ind that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increm ent the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.
Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configu re their systems?
Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have i t, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly be en developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.
Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of fi les titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have liv es? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Window s!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each tout ing an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, Re dHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have shower ed since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working s o I can do my assignments.
Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling m y that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered o n my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I do n't want to lose my uptime."
Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am no t even going to ask.
Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...
Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ3 3R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux afte r discovering about 17 rootkits.
Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stres s has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.
Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, so meone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very susp icious of these guys.
Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reins tall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.
Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon ap peared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stress ed lately.
Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some oth er CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myse lf. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.
Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so de pressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?
Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll b e getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?
Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so ba d.
If you read the entire Open Source initiative statement, you'll understand that Open Source is just a fancy name for proprietary licenses. Yea, there are some guidlines that must be met but they are a mile wide, so when someone says they are "Open Source", you really have to read their license, because it could be just about anything.
GPL all the way, baby. You know what you're getting every time.
#include <sig.h>
If you want it to be truely free, use the GPL license. If you don't care, then use the BSD, Artistic, X11 or what-have-you. This is a good example of what can happen.
This is why I bought a PlayStation 2 -- NOTHING is free, and I don't expect any of it to be, so I'm not disappointed. I can just sit down and PLAY GAMES without making moral decisions.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I think the CEO's email makes their concern quite clear. They acknowledge that the current license can't prevent anyone from making a debian package. I think he's presented quite a reasonable argument for third parties re-packaging their code. What it doesn't address is why they don't make debian packages themselves. (please forgive me if they do, I don't use any flavor of Wine, and the CEO's email seemes to imply they don't, and have canceled plans to do so.)
From the E-Mail "If Debian goes ahead and packages WineX despite our request, we will have to evaluate how
that is affecting our financial situation, and determine whether we should change our
license to restrict any future binary-packaged redistribution, regardless of commercial or
non-commercial intent. It would certainly be our preference not to have to do so."
You know, as I recall there once was a day when projects such as these were more concerned with producing great software rather than profit margins. Unfortunatly it does take money to run a business, and in order to keep it viable so that you can continue to create great software you have to be able to finance the development process. Still I almost feel sad for some reason.
It seems that most Gentoo users are ex-Debian and ex-Slackware users who got fed up with all the bureaucracy and stagnation of these distros. After using Debian for some 5 years I can say that my machine is really happy with Gentoo, while it was pretty scared with Debian.
I'm not saying that to flame any distro, I'd just like to point to Debian and Slackware users there is another decent way to follow.
Transgaming has also promised to give back the sourcecode to Wine. There are many obstacles, including licenced technology like SafeDisc and S3 Texture Compression (if they ever do it) but I'm sure they can overcome it.
I would guess there are now more working games for Linux than for Mac OS. That's impressive.
Ciryon
Does a proprietry WineX threaten Linux in any way? No not really. It is a system that allows proprietry windows software to run on open source/free Linux. It hardly matters quite where the free/prop. divide is drawn either above or below the middleware - the end result is that the user is running is a non-free application - although things might be a bit confused if they start sticking prop. kernel modules into Linux - but then again, there is the precedence of VMware et al for this.
So there is nothing legally wrong with what Transgaming are doing. I say let them carry on - but just clear up the confusion and plainly state that WineX is a proprietry system. If anyone's nose is out of joint then it was Wine's fault for ever being under the BSD liscense - which it isn't now.
Of course Transgamings Business Model is wrong. They should simply re-sell Windows games - either to Windows users or to Linux users bundling WineX and some installation glue a la codeweavers.
If you want it to be truely free, use the GPL license. If you don't care, then use the BSD, Artistic, X11 or what-have- you. This is a good example of what can happen.
I think you don't understand.
To be 'truely' free you should use BSD license. It basically gives your code away.
Those of us who use GPL do it to get back some fruits of our hands. I WANT that any of my modified code will come back to me.
I think BSD people are very generous, but I personally don't think I could just give my work away the way they do.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Huh? They DO contribute to free software (ReWind for sure, which Wine can then mooch off of Transgaming - see how that works both ways?), but they PAY PROGRAMMERS TO DO IT FULL TIME. Where do you think the money comes from? When's the last time you DONATED to a free project?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
There's no reason why they can't continue proprietary development against the LGPL tree. You have to wonder if their motives are really good for the Wine community if transgaming doesn't even want to commit to sharing their updates to the existing codebase.
If they don't plan on sharing their code, which their ***ACTIONS*** indicate, then all they are doing is discouraging development of free API implementations by fooling people into believing that it's already done.
Parasites with good marketing. Show me the code or STFU.
This just illustrates why its important to understand the license governing a project before contributing to it. It is also the reason why the OSI keeps a list of approved licenses.
If you didn't take time to understand the license before contributing to the project, you can't complain that you don't like the result.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
"This is why I bought a PlayStation 2 -- NOTHING is free, and I don't expect any of it to be, so I'm not disappointed. I can just sit down and PLAY GAMES without making moral decisions."
You also have a system which is very good at playing games. The controller feels better than a keyboard, crashes are incredibly rare, the games are running on known hardware so there are no surprises (speed/driver/whatever issues), and the boot/shutdown time is almost instant.
Most of the games I want to play (I'm into RPGs) are on consoles anyway. Although I refuse to buy an Xbox to play the current Oddworld installment (grr). Amusingly, the only games I play on my PC (besides xscorch) are with console emulators
That said, Windows emulation does have some uses other than gaming...but then, gaming is what most of WineX's changes benefit.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
The ability to do -anything- with the code; whenever you want it; however you want it. Or in other words you and your actions are the thing that is free.
Or the ability of the code to distribute itself to wherever the code wants to go; and protection for the code to insure it does not get hidden away in obscure places.
BSD chooses the first as being important - at the expense of freedom of the code.
The GPL chooses the latter - at the expense of freedom for you.
And as with all things in live - reality is a compromize; one cannot have both. Companies and people who want their code to be used in the widest possible way generally pick the BSD code - and people who want their creations to have a robust live of their own - for eternity to come - and out of reach of commercialization - pick the GPL.
Dw.
People like to bitch about transgaming, but they really have done nothing wrong. They grabbed wine, used it according to the license attached to it, offered to trade code to/from the main wine tree. There's nothing wrong with that, if the wine developers didn't want their code used in that manner they should have (L)GPLed it from the start.
Similarly, if the debian crew decides to ignore transgaming's request and package winex in the distribution anyway, transgaming has nothing to complain about, but they can decide to change their license if they think they need too.
I think everyone needs a nice fine glass of STFU.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Granted, their method of releasing code isn't perfect, they also don't have the comercial customer support base that codeweavers has. And yes, they do support .deb, .rpm, & .tgz binary releases now (as of 2.01).
You're kidding, right? WINE has already helped TransGaming, to the tune of a million lines of code.
I think that most people here are misunderstanding the issue, and as a long WineX subscriber, I feel that I need to clarify.
:).
WineX has _always_ been available in source form for free (meaning you can get it even if you aren't a subscriber) if you are willing and able to pull it from their CVS servers. What has never been free is their compiled code, in which they add such goodies such as safedisc and securerom support (which of course, can't be open sourced, because WineX licensed it from the companies that created the copy protection)
What Transgaming is asking is that distributions don't package the free version of their source as a package, so people don't get the impression that when they try to run new game x with copy protection that it doesn't work with the WineX period, and not actually go and check transgamings site and realize that they need to buy the commercial version. I would hope more from the average linux user, but I can see their point.
Besides, people have been tolerating this behaviour from the MPlayer project for a long time, so I don't see what the big deal is. If you don't agree with their reasons, then exercise your right to choose and don't use the product
Well...
It is fine to pay programmers to do work and then sell that work for a moderate fee. However, their BASE was taken from a free project.
Of course under the old Wine license this was fine and legal. Now they have changed...
What erks me royally is the idea that Debian wants to do something that could fall quite in line with the available license and the WineX guys are throwing a fit.
I have no objections to turning a profit, but these guys seem to forget their roots.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Can't we just just apt-get along? nyuk nyuk
If we want Linux to become "main stream" we need to allow companies who support us to earn a living doing so. If TransGaming wants to keep their source closed, they have the right to do so under the X11 license. Now that WINE is under the LGPL license, they cannot incorporate any contributions to the LGPL'd tree without following the LGPL license agreement, which, I believe, would force them to put their source tree under the LGPL also.
So, if they want to go it alone without the support of the open source community then God bless them but as Wine moves forward or in a different direction they will need to keep their source tree free of LGPL'd code.
The two branches will get farther and farther apart and eventually, I believe that the Open Source branch will be superior and TransGaming will be in danger of going the way of the dinosaur.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
More on that in a bit :)
What erks me royally is the idea that Debian wants to do something that could fall quite in line with the available license and the WineX guys are throwing a fit.
Unfortunately, someone screwed up, and Transgaming has to save their ass. Either they should have picked a license that covers this issue, or they should have realized that Wine/Codeweavers would change to the GPL.
I have no objections to turning a profit, but these guys seem to forget their roots.
Personally, I find these kinds of statements amusing. The current Wine guys aren't the ones who originated the project. I believe Alexandre Julliard has been there the longest, but I don't think he started it.
So to 'remember your roots', they should be working on Wine in the faith of the original author, no?
Maybe people shouldn't code for idealism, but just towards a working product? Just a thought...
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
That does sound nice but a software project is a dynamic thing, evolving over time. Your scenerio is static, a happy snapshot where you're giving your code away and all is nice.
Lets look at the dynamic:
1.) Start project, license it as BSD
2.) Writing code, everything is nice.
3.) Code becomes popular, sizable group of developers gather.
4.) The vampires show up. Act just like regular users at first.
5.) Vampires start making making requests for you to change certain things, so their fork will work better. They promise to release patche sback to you.
6.) More vampires show up, make the same demands and promises as the proginal vampire.
7.) Your mailing list starts filling up with requests from developers who think it would be best for the project if you cooperated with vampire(x).
8.) None of the vampires have kept their promises. DEvelopers for you project are working on vampire forks.
9.) Your project is no longer popular because it has fewer features than the vampire forks. AFter all the vampire forks will always be their efforts+theirs. you can never keep up.
10.) People on your mailing list start to bitch and moan about not having feature X that they saw in vampire distro.
11.)Vampires continue to orbit. Plucking any new idea you have and not giving anything in return. Project dies a slow death and you get tired of working with it because it's not fun anymore.
Actually, it does NOT impose restrictions. It takes away some restrictions (from standard copyright law) and leaves some in. Public domain removes all restrictions, GPL removes SOME restrictions, MS EULA adds MANY restrictions.
/usr/games/fortune
The GPL is a copyright license; unless you plan to modify and redistribute a GPLed work, you don't even have to worry about it. Its terms are intended to make sure that others maintain the same freedom to modify and redistribute that you received and were pleased to take advantage of.
Microsoft's EULA is a usage license, attempting to impose conditions ex post facto on your use of a product you paid for. You are not able to read the license until after the purchase has been made, and its terms are crafted for the benefit of Microsoft and Microsoft alone.
Thus the GPL and the EULA could scarcely be more different in the letter of their conditions, the spirit of their conditions, and the manner in which those conditions are applied.
AC.
1. What the fuck does this have to do with wine?
2. Mono is a project started by the GNOME guys. It has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft.
3. Microsoft released a version of CLI and C# compiler under a license which is "free for non-commercial use only". In other words, they released nothing at all.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I for one rarely if ever give a crap about playing Windows games under Linux, but this is a big deal to me because the CEO is making a [public, no less] threat to try and control what someone else (Debian) does. And what they legally have every right to do.
What inexcusable about this behavior is that it's a strongarm play. You don't have to use any flavor of WINE to see that, and you don't have to contribute any code for it to affect you.
Extortion is wrong, period, regardless of the context and regardless of one's Favorite Approved Licenses.
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
I'm a former Mandrake user, (mandrake uses apt-get and urpmi, two tools which are nearly identical in functionality). Today I'm a Gentoo user.
Gentoo is by no means stable - you have to maintain the stability yourself. In fact, gentoo is more of a bleeding edge kind of system. They usually have the latest version of whatever someone has written a script for that can be automatically installed (including custom system options, most notablly the
-O3 and -fastmath optimizations on C and C++ code). New stuff is available every couple of hours to be recompiled for your system specifically.
The biggest problem with Gentoo right now is reverse dependancy checking - when you uninstall a package, the portage tool (similar to apt-get) doesn't check to see what packages will be broken by this change (forward dependency checking works great). And of course, not all of the code actually works right away. However, its been my experience that the user community is much, much better to work with than any other distro. In previous distributions, if something broke, I'd often have to scour the internet to learn how to fix it. With gentoo, problems are often solved with just a visit to their website.
One more thing - if you really like some package, you can just install it by hand. But its not much more work to make a package (unlike a rpm, for example). In fact, its not much work to edit packages if there are problems. Therefore, its quite possible for users to be developers in this distro. In fact, it seems to be the norm.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
But since linux users never pay for anything anyway I guess you can just use hacked versions of games from p2p networks.
... if you want to try it you can cut and paste yourself.
I don't think you would be out of your rights to get a "hacked" version if you own the game.(which nine times out of ten is just a modified exe file that doesn't bother with the SD shizz).
I don't advocate crime but why not try like www.cracks.am
Get your Unix fortune now!
Um, just what do you mean by `close the source'? Nothing a company does with my code has any effect at all on the freedom or availability of the code which I released under BSDL. If said company wants the benefits of open-sourcing their code, great. If they feel better off not doing so, great. Either way, the code I released under BSDL is still available under BSDL.
What you're really saying is that you feel you have a right to control the distribution of their code as well as yours. Now that's fine, if that's what you want, and there are certainly valid arguments for using the GPL in that case, but don't pretend it has anything to do with companies `closing' your source -- only you can do that.
If I understand the law correctly, copyright does not protect a business or product name. What you're looking for is "trademark". But otherwise, the idea is good. Enforce the trademark and insist derivitive compilations use a name other than "winex".
When's the last time you DONATED to a free project?
For the record, I've donated $30 to the Freenet project in the past year. I donate whenever I think a project is worthwhile, and Transgaming has just about passed that time.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Of course Transgamings Business Model is wrong. They should simply re-sell Windows games - either to Windows users or to Linux users bundling WineX and some installation glue a la codeweavers.
;-).
Eh? I've got some stuff to sell those people also
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
You know, I was really hoping this was going to take off. The only reason why I still have Windows on my computer is for games. Everything else I can do under Linux or Wine.
It's true that Transgaming was making a huge contribution to Linux, in an area where Linux was very poor. They were not that expensive with what they asked for their efforts. (Subscription based; $5 per month, $50 for a year)
However, they stated on their website that after 20.000 people became a member they will GPL all their code. Now Wine is LGPL they complain that it is too restrictive, while LGPL is less restrictive then GPL.
Another thing, the place where they mentioned the 20.000 people limit (Business Model), has suddenly been changed in the past 2 days. I know because I was looking into subscribing to them. I was even planning on mailing them to ask them how many people they already had. So is it a lie? Were they ever going to GPL their code? We had only that statement that disappeared without a trace.
So presumably no. Why? Because in their CEO's rant about Wine's license change to GPL, he states that it is impossible due to DMCA issues with the copyright protection they implemented. Also, they would for some reason be 'locked' into supporting Wine even if their business model would not pay what they want it to pay.
I can agree a little with the copy protection bit. However their claim that it contains highly sensitive information is nonsense. Advanced copy protections like SafeDisc and Securom have been reversed completely. Look up any reverser's webboard and you'll be smacked around the ears with all the little tricks that they use. With that you could even easily emulate the protection (which is already done in programs like Daemon-Tools).
So that can't be it. Did I mention that programs like InstallShield and Wise have been completely reversed too? Again, with this info around that can be found on any reversers board, anyone could write his own InstallShield installer.
The DMCA threat is overrated, although the DMCA has been abused for more ridiculous things already.
Then secondly, being locked in for support. I write some crappy OpenSource tools. I do this under an Artistic License. But with this, or even the GPL, there is NO obligation mentioned anywhere that I have to give support on it. Better still, it is explicitly stated that NO LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY is given with this software.
So what do they complain about? Maybe they claim that they have to keep up to date with the Wine tree? Also not true. They can take any copy of Wine, and work on it, as long as they publish their changes. No other obligation then that.
So where does this leave us? Remember SSH? The original author (Klonen if I recall correctly) had SSH as a GPL package, but later on changed it to a pay-for-commercial license. A group of people took the last GPL'd version and coded on it until they got OpenSSH, which is a perfectly fine SSH client and 100% GPL. This is a GOOD thing.
Now Transgaming is pushing Rewind, which is pretty much the same coupe as OpenSSH, except they do it so that the X11 license can be kept. Now you can argue that Transgaming deserves money for the work they do. Well I agree with that, but how far should we support that? Is Transgaming just putting up a friendly OpenSource front so they can get people to work for them for free? Or is it to get people to like them?
In short, by pushing the Rewind branch, they take away time and resources from the main Wine tree. This hurts us normal users. They put up a false front to attract coders and clients. If they were honest about their work, and it would help the Linux community then I'd gladly pay them for their efforts, but now I'm pretty much disillusioned.
I should clarify the roots portion...
;)
The root of the WineX project is the Wine project. WineX is a branch in all simplicity. They took a free project and added their touches under their license.
Someone wants to use their product in a manner fitting with their license. (Although this was under debate in a few emails)
WineX cries foul and threatens to change if such things happen.
I would not be so apt to complain if WineX was a completely original piece of software. That is where the whole ordeal starts to annoy me.
I want things to work out and I'm sure their efforts are beneficial. I just don't like their way of doing things. Of course, they have all the right in the world to do it their way and I'm happy disliking it
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
The BSD license is MORE free in the "libre" sense. To argue any other way is to destroy both the English and French languages. The English word closest to "libre" is "liberty". Liberty means the absence (or relative absence) of external restriction. It's generally used in the political and/or philosophical sense.
The BSD license has fewer external restrictions than the GPL. It is thus freer in the libre sense. It grants the recipient more freedoms, liberties, rights and permissions than the GPL. To say that it is not as free as the GPL is ridiculous.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Finally, a GPLer who gets it! Thank you.
Those of us who use the BSD license do so simply because we wish to give/share our software. We don't want to compell anyone to return the favor. It's a no-strings-attached deal.
We realize that not everyone will agree with us, but that's not why we're doing it. People who do wish some sort of a guarantee that mods come back to them should not use the BSD license, because that's not what it's about.
p.s. BSD vs GPL is rather like an anarcho-capitalist arguing with an anarcho-socialist over the nature of liberty.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
To be 'truely' free you should use BSD license.
No. I think you are confused with the wording. If you want your code to be "free" in the sense that your code's distribution and development can never be restricted, then use the (L)GPL. If you want to give away your code for free (no strings attached), then use the BSDL.
Has Lindows even released a product yet? If so, I haven't heard of it. The last time I looked they were still in "closed beta testing". (Sounds like what Corel did.)
I find that I am thinking a lot less favorably of Lindows that I was a few months ago, though I can't point to precisely which news stories caused this. Still... the people that they are targeting are used to MS, and compared to MS Lindows is openness and freedom itself.
As to Transgaming... how much are they contributing to Rewind? I tend to think of this squabble as companies attempting to compete with each other while sharing development. I don't think the companies realize just how much they depend on community good will.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The crucial difference is that the BSD code can be made non-free, where as the GPL code must always be free[1]. Or, to put it another way, the GPL code is not free to lose its freedom, but the BSD code is. When people say "the GPL is more free", they mean it because GPL code cannot be non-free, where as BSD code can be made so. When people say "the BSD license is more free", they mean it because BSD code has the freedom to be made non-free, where as GPL code doesn't have this freedom. They're both right, it just depends on which definition of free you use.
An AC in this thread used an analogy with a man:
True, with that analogy Man #1 is freer. But how about this one? Which man would you consider freer now? Argument by analogy is always tricky, neither of these makes a proper case. "Man #1's decendants can be enslaved, Man #2's cannot. Which family is freer?" might be closer than either[2]. But it still has trouble with anthropomorphism, software can't choose to remain free or to give up its freedom[3].Arandir makes a semantic argument based slightly on French (personally, i've always thought of gratis and libre as Spanish (not that it matters)) and more on 'liberty'. But "absence of external restriction" can mean "external restriction cannot exist" as well as "external restriction does not exist". My dictionary uses "freedom from" instead of "absence of", which makes this distinction even less clear. If you choose 'cannot', then the minor extra restriction on the GPL code makes it more free than the ease of imposing major restriction on the BSD code. It comes back to enslaving children again, Man #1 is free to have slave children, but Man #2's children will always be as free as Man #2 himself.
Hopefully this will shed some light on the situation, or at least convince people to come up with better arguments...
[1] Ignoring the original developer's ability to license it differently, of course.
[2] So Man #2's children can't choose to be slaves either. Some people get off on that sort of thing.
[3] At least not until we get MUCH better at AI...
--
perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
What you're really saying is that you feel you have a right to control the distribution of their code as well as yours. Now that's fine, if that's what you want, and there are certainly valid arguments for using the GPL in that case, but don't pretend it has anything to do with companies `closing' your source -- only you can do that.
I think that GPL is meant to be used for applications which will not be changed 'a lot'. When your code will eventually form only a tiny portion of total codebase, you should use LGPL.
As another poster said, this will not guarantee returnal of the code (internal binary use..), but this surely encourages it.
I'd like to know how much MS (isn't this a single biggest company using BSD code?) has contributed back to 'community'. Is there a single mention in changelogs 'merge with Microsoft'?
Not that they changed so much of 'telnet' that there's huge piles of their IP in that code.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
There is no problem at all. When a project has been GPLed, the author loses a very important piece of control. If the author isn't willing to continue development of the open source version, someone else can continue with it. The same goes for reduced open source functionality with a second commercial licence with more functionality. There is nothing to stop the open source community from taking over and extending the software in the public domain.
No. I think you are confused with the wording. If you want your code to be "free" in the sense that your code's distribution and development can never be restricted, then use the (L)GPL. If you want to give away your code for free (no strings attached), then use the BSDL.
BSD advocate's base their usage of free on these definitions (Webster):
2 a : not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being : choosing or capable of choosing for itself b : determined by the choice of the actor or performer c : made, done, or given voluntarily or spontaneously
4 a : having no trade restrictions b : not subject to government regulation c of foreign exchange : not subject to restriction or official control
5 a : having no obligations (as to work) or commitments b : not taken up with commitments or obligations
RMS bases his Free on:
3 a : relieved from or lacking something unpleasant or burdensome
Given the subjective usage of unpleasant/burdensome, I like the BSD advocate's usage better and believe that RMS should find a description that makes his intentions more clear. Perhaps something like Forever Free Software.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
Why bother? It seems kind of odd to create another distribution whose purpose is to mimic the bsd's. Why not just use one?
hawk
Nope, you got it wrong. There actually is no difference between the anarcho-socialists and anarcho-capitalists. Since neither believes in government, neither has a way to prevent the formation of societies they disagree with. Nothing is going to stop a syndicalist commune from starting up in an anarcho-capitalist world, and nothing is going to stop a propertarian company town from starting up in an anarcho-capitalist world. As long as the participants involved are volunteers, you can't stop it.
p.s. The "sell youself into slavery" is a tired analogy. It's also silly. Find something new.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Why must you conclude that one is better? Why not just accept the differences and move on? And, if you are going to state that one is better, could you at least justify it with a logical inference or something?
I already pointed out that Free is based on a subjective interpretation of the word free. It only works for a certain moral code which is clearly not shared by everyone. This creates confusion. That's why I'm not afraid to say that RMS choice of Free sucks. Language is about making things clear, not about overloading common words with new specific meanings.
No one can be confused that the BSD license is freer by definitions 2, 4 and 5 from my previous post. I happen to feel that BSD-licensed code is also more free in the sense that it lacks something unpleasant or burdensome. I can actually choose the license for my own code, even when it's linked to a BSD'd component. Others may disagree, but that disagreement is a good reason not to use the word free when we talk about this distinction between the two licenses. A term like Forever Free Software would be much clearer.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
Your arguments assume that the basic ethical foundations of all people will be changed. I can't make that assumption at all. In order for an anarcho-whatever society to arise, there must be a significant number of people who make that ethical change, but it doesn't have to be everyone. Even if 90% of the society are of the socialist bent, the remaining 10% have no restrictions on forming their own community.
Similar things have happened in history. The social-darwinist mindset of the late 19th centurty did not stop the Amana or Kaweah communities from forming. The industro-military mindset of the 60's did not stop hippy communes.
p.s. "Wage slavery" is another bad analogy despite its common usage. To extend the definition of "slavery" that far is to cheapen its meaning and insult all those who are or have been real slaves.
A slave who attempts to assert sovereignty over his or her own life is breaking the law and may be arrested, maimed or killed. An employee (in the typical capitalistic society) who decides to quit his or her job faces no such penalties. They will certainly face risks, some of which may be enormous, for their decision, but such risks face all important decisions in life.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned