RMS Condemns "UnitedLinux" per-seat License

dep writes "Likening the practice to Windows, Richard M. Stallman has issued a brief statement condemning the per-seat licensing that it appears will be employed in the "UnitedLinux" core distribution. He calls upon developers to refuse to allow their work to be used by such a distribution."

Comments

Not the standard definition of RMS....

[purpledinoz]

I thought this story was about Root Mean Squared mathematical function.

Re:Well that settles it!

[Darth Yoshi]

I guess I'll just have to stick to RedHat, TinyLinux and Lycoris.

Is it just me? Or does Lycoris sound like a mouthwash?

Some perspective [Re:ego anyone?]

[gnugnugnu]

And if the MPAA and RIAA were not so overbearing and restrictive in their exploitation of the entertainemnt industry they would be forced to find a new source of revenue. A job is not for life, invalid business models (unlike social services) have no right to protection. You have to keep learning, training and adapting. Some businesses fail (Enron) it is harsh but that's life.

If it is the entertainment industry it is not something most slashdotters would seem to have a problem with but when applied to the Technology industry suddenly people can relate.

RMS cares about propping up what he sees as the invalid software as property business model as much as most slashdotters care about propping up the entertainment industry.

Re:Some perspective [Re:ego anyone?]

[foobar104]

Im reffering to misguided attempts to maximise profits and gouge the public by inflicting copy prevention technology.

Pirated CDs and DVDs are a huge problem. Have you ever been to southeast Asia? You can buy pirated media on street corners in K-L for, literally, pennies. This isn't one guy copying a CD for his mate. This is large-scale mass production. Is it not appropriate and understandable for the music and movie industries to try to put a stop to this practice?

What we've established here is that the music and movie industries are in the right to try to prevent the sort of widespread piracy we see in Asia. Their method for doing so is distasteful to you, and to me, and probably to lots of other people. But there's a difference between doing the wrong thing and doing the right thing in the wrong way.

The music and movie industries's attempts to curb large-scale piracy do not amount to an invalid business model. Sorry.

So why aren't you looking at this as an opportunity? Get off your butt and figure out how to implement fair copy protection in music CDs and DVDs. Maybe a system like SCMS that lets you make a copy, but not a copy-of-a-copy. You're smart, figure it out! Then sell it to the record companies and retire to a life of leisure.

Unless, of course, you're a GNU/Communist. In that case, you'll give it to the record companies for nothing and go back to your workaday job, right? Right.

Im talking about attempts to use and abuse legislation to enforce riduculously long copyright terms.

First of all, the purpose of copyright legislation is to protect the rights of copyright holders. If I'm a copyright holder-- which I am, as are you-- then it's fair and appropriate for me to lobby to get those protections extended.

Nobody's acting immorally or illegally here, either. They're just acting in a way that's different from what you think they should do. That doesn't mean their business model is invalid, either.

Besides, I'd like to know who died and left you in charge of deciding what's "riduculous" and what's reasonable.

Im talking about the over inflated price of CDs, the abject failure of the mainstream music industry to adapt to MP3s and the internet.

The price of CDs, like any other economic entity, is governed by market forces. They charge $16 for a CD because people will pay it. It is not morally wrong or illegal to charge whatever price the market will bear. In fact, some believe that it's morally wrong not to do so.

And as for what you so dramatically called "the abject failure of the mainstream music industry," you're making it sound like MP3 technology and the Internet are some kind of divine force that must be reckoned with. Seriously, does it really matter whether you can download music over the Internet? Do you think the fact that you can't represents some kind of failure of the music industry?

You do? Well, then, get off your lazy ass and start a record company. Sign up some artists, or buy the rights to some music, and start delivering content over the Internet. It's your opportunity to lose.

Of course, if you want to do that, then you're going to need some cash. Maybe lots of it. You could-- and, if fact, will-- gamble your life savings, but unless you're incredibly rich, that won't be nearly enough. (If you were incredibly rich, you wouldn't be complaining about the price of CDs. So that's probably not the case.)

So what do you do? You get yourself a business partner or two, and get them to gamble their life savings too. That won't be enough, either, so you'll have to find some investors. Before they give you any money, you'll have to convince them that they can make it back, so you'll need a business plan. Make it a good one, too, 'cause what you're talking about has been tried before, and investors have already lost their shirts on it once. They're definitely in wardrobe-protection mode these days.

If you do all of that just right, you'll have solved the problem you're bitching about.

What's that? You can't do all of that? You don't have a business plan? The investors turned you down?

Maybe that's because it's a terrible idea.

Your argument is, in a word, absurd.

Expecting to continue to make the kind of profit margins for distributing music is what im saying is unrealistic and invalid.

If that were true, then the big record companies would be experiencing a decline in profits. They aren't. They're seeing record numbers. Why? Because people are continuing to pay $16 apiece for CDs. If any of your points was the least bit valid, we'd see some kind of market effect. But we don't.

So basically it sounds like you're just whining. You want to download MP3s for free, and you're not getting it, and you can't figure out how to do it yourself, so you're venting your frustrations by indicting the whole music sales business model.

Pretty weak, if you ask me.

Re:Nobody likes GNU / Linux ?!

[tsa]

George Bush is also not perfect.

Re:RMS #$#@'d in head head as usual ...

[smcavoy]

Sometimes I feel like I'm watching a bad episode of Highlander when I observe the Linux crowd.

Wow, now that's a flame. I didn't think anyone actually watched that shite.