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RMS Weighs in on BitKeeper Debacle
mshiltonj writes "You know its what we've all been waiting for: RMS weighs in on the BitKeeper debacle. An excerpt: "I want to thank Larry McVoy. He recently eliminated a major weakness of the free software community, by announcing the end of his campaign to entice free software projects to use and promote his non-free software. Soon, Linux development will no longer use this program, and no longer spread the message that non-free software is a good thing if it's convenient."
frist psot!
Do you prefer vi or Emacs?
I'm am first! Finally!
p0st! Awww.... :(
Now let's get back to actually working on this replacement...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Yeah imagine paying for something that's convenient and useful. How evil can you get :)
All software should be Free as in gay sex from a glory hole in the Berkley library bathroom!
I for one welcome our Open Source overlords.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
...the more I like him. :)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Soon, Linux development will no longer use this program,
Doesn't he mean GNU/Linux development?
Why must we corrupt Open Source with mentions of the terms "money," and "finance"! She is a virgin! She cannot handle it!
McVoy's great triumph was the adoption of this program for Linux development. No free software project is more visible than Linux. It is the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system, an essential component, and users often mistake it for the entire system. As McVoy surely planned, the use of his program in Linux development was powerful publicity for it.
Yeah, RMS is all about Free/Free but I see it as an important step for all software. Free stuff that isn't "totally free" is *not* wrong.
I would like to make my personal feelings known that non-totally free stuff that is later taken away because someone didn't learn "no give backs" is lame.
Yeah, RMS is right about a lot of stuff and really does have vision but I just have to disagree w/him here. Not everything has to be free.
Yes, he is saying the same things as always. The same things he's been saying twenty years ago. And still, the rest of the world keeps behaving in exactly such ways that his words apply perfectly, again and again. Makes you wonder who's being more stubborn, exactly.
RMS is a lot like William Shatner, most of the time you're ashamed for him, but before you're ashamed, you can resist the urge to cry: Go tiger go!
There's nothing wrong with non free software, so long as the cost is worth the end result. Sometimes it makes more sense to buy something because it is supported and stable and someone can be held accountable for mistakes. Don't get me wrong, open source software has it's place, but that place is not every where. For the most part Open Source means Open Sore, which is fine if you have the time/engery/resources to make it work the way it needs to. Not everything is free.
you've been waiting for the RMS "I told you so"?
You know you have. I just wonder what took so long, was GNU/Hurd not booting this week and he finally saw the poll on slashdot?
What cynical minds really want to know is: Did RMS have this one written a while ago and was just waiting to send it?
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
This article must be THE TROLLBAIT OF THE YEAR.
I bet that there will be 1000+ posts of trolling and open sores zealotry.
Soon, Linux development will no longer use this program, and no longer spread the message that non-free software is a good thing if it's convenient
Until something else comes along that suits there needs. I don't recall Linus saying, "Gee, I'll never do that again!"
OK, if you're a Stallman Myrmidon, just mod me as a troll or flamebait now.
Re-read the quote. Now try re-reading it with a cheesy Eastern-bloc accent (Boris Badenov will do in a pinch). How long before Stallman gets up on a podium and starts banging with his shoe shouting, We will bury you!"
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Now the corporates will sit back and think "should we use Open Source projects which might end up in a ditch or simply shell out a few bucks and go for Windows? No politics, No court cases, No hassles."
Note: Not a troll just a point to ponder over..
fuvoo: watch something
You saw this coming
"I want to thank Nike. They recently eliminated a major weakness of the apparel community, by announcing the end of their campaign to use sweatshops to promote their non-free products. Soon, apparel development will no longer use this technique, and no longer spread the message that sweatshops are a good thing if they're convenient."
In other words, how in the world has this eliminated anything??
I am scientifically inaccurate.
"Well, I don't want to sound like a dickhole, but I told you so." - Mr. Garrison
"no longer spread the message that non-free software is a good thing if it's convenient"
So if a task needs doing, and GPL software can't yet do it well - RMS would rather that people ignored that task and pretend it didn't need doing, than to do the task with the best available tools?
Why do all people in software seem to fall into one of two sides?
"Open source is best, paying for software is dumb and evil!"
"Open source is for idiots, you'll live with your mothers till they die then you're on the street. Make money or get out"
Whatever happened to "every hole has a peice to fit it, some peices require different tasks to get them. Some require money, others require some code". It's no wonder MS is calling people communists, it's exactly the same pathetic ideals which no one wishs to adapt to the world.
I like muppets.
If I buy Mac mini this friday, will I get Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for free?
RMS, exposed for the idiot he is. He's all high and mighty, "You must call it GNU/Linux!", but once he's done with one crusade he forgets it to start another.
There must be a way to entice a fanatic like this to die for his cause. There must be. At least give him a wedgie.
Quote that describes RMS best:
"RMS is a madman, but fortunatly he's our madman".
RMS is a lot funnier if you put "Bitch!" at the end of his quote...
If all you hear from him is is "I'm going to weigh in on this issue and pretend I'm still relevant" rhetoric, you need to do your homework.
RMS promotes copyright. Fuck all that.
And actually it has helped the kernel developers to make the kernel better, so in fact it has been a good thing, I don't agree at all that non-free software is always bad, it can help...
I'm pretty sure he means Linux, not GNU/Linux since he uses 'Linux' to refer to the kernel alone and 'GNU/Linux' for the operating system as a whole. This contretemps is about the use of Bitkeeper for kernel development.
I could take a dump in the morning and RMS would bitch if my toilet couldn't run Linux.
Richard Stallman is a nut who would kill the entire software industry if he had his way.
If all software was "free" according to Stallman's definition, there would be no incentive for students to enter into the software industry (we're already seeing this in the US). That will lead to a lack of skilled programmers, and eventual stagnation and death of the entire software industry (including "free" software).
I am the maverick of Slashdot
RMS is a fanatic. No pay, no real itch to scratch and no reason to work for it. This "community" thing is just a pipe dream.
Who gives a &%@$! what Stallman says. He's a total whackjob. Check out his politics if you don't believe me.
Someone you trust is one of us.
If either the grandparent or the parent poster had read the article, they would know why their comments are off the mark. RMS meant "Linux" in this context, as he explains right there in the article.
As we all know, some people refer to Linux as GNU/Linux, basically because it takes both to make the operating environment.
However, since the Linux kernel contains so much stolen code from SCO (a fact already admitted), I think that it would be more appropriate to name the kernel SCO/Linux.
It also looks more professionnal.
BK was used for kernel development. The Linux kernel. Hence, RMS calls it "Linux", because that is its name.
In order for RMS to write "GNU/Linux" development, he would have to mean that the ENTIRE OS (meaning, kernel and all above components) used BK, which would be impossible and silly.
He also name drops GNU/Linux, mentioning that Linux has such visibility that it is often mistaken for the entire GNU/Linux OS.
Whether you agree or disagree with RMS's naming conventions, he was not in any way inconsistent here.
from the quite-a-backhand dept.
Hey you linux kernel bitches, who is your GNU/Pimp now?
or, more correctly,
Bill Frist's fatwa on Justice Sunday: Protest The Filibuster Against Those of Faith for his sugar daddy.
Patriotically as always,
Kilgore Trout, CEO
I've been working with Linux for about 2 years now. I've also been trying to master music production for about the same amount of time.
My music software of choice was Beast/BSE, which is a modular softsynth/sequencer program. At first, I kept giving up. I just couldn't make the sounds that "everyone else" was using. After a while, I understood enough to make those sounds, but I had spend so much time making my own sounds that I didn't want to use "everyone's" sounds.
The moral is: Free Software has a huge learning curve in some cases, and I was tempted to give up very often, but in the end, I believe that the Free Software gave me more power than a non-Free equivalent.
That's why I bought a Mac with OS X. It's a delight to use, I get the benefits of a CLI with a fabulous GUI and it JUST WORKS. Why the fuck should I care if I can see the source or not?
How's Hurd coming along, you raving lunatic?
I know there's a "core dump" joke in here somewhere.
My guess would be their message will be exactly the same (or Linus's will be, given he controls the project). Bitkeeper nonwithstanding, their argument will still be use the best tool for the job. They might be more inclined to think about the potential costs of non-Free software, but their overall philosophy is unlikely to make a significant change.
It's sad, but most people nowadays (including me, for that matter) will take the practical way over the idealistic way. RMS gets pissed (if I read this right) because people by and large steadfastly refuse to be idealists. I would be curious to ask him what his take would be on someone who thinks it is idealistic to promote capitalism and the economy (and hence a better standard of living, at least in their minds) by refusing to give anything away free. My guess is he would say they are dead wrong, tragically wrong, or even criminally wrong, but I'll bet he would find that person less exasperating on some level because they were acting on principle rather than expedience.
I don't say I agree with RMS - in fact in general I tend to be rather pragmatic about this sort of thing. But my pragmatic thinking basically boil down to:
1) We live in a highly litigious society
2) I have a finite amount of money
3) Commercial software is expensive for my income
4) Most of my software use is not the kind of use where the software Must Work. A few bugs or missing features aren't the end of the world.
5) Should I happen to create something with software I want to sell commercially (let's say a book) I don't want to have to worry about Microsoft coming after me for improper licensing and demanding a chunk of royalties or something equally fun.
6) Any kind of legal action, even that with little to no merit, is enough to cause major headaches.
7) Hence, in balance, there is no reason for me to either pay $$$ for commercial software or pirate it when there are workable, free alternatives.
This has some exceptions - I use Acrobat Reader for example, which is only free as in beer but allows me to fill out tax forms. But in general I prefer tools with licenses that cost no money, demand no information, don't expire, and at least in theory allow me and/or anyone to fix them when they break. That's what meets my needs.
Maybe, in some sense, it could be argued that ideals ARE practical, because the long term consequences of going without them don't tend to be good.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
I cannot understand this analogy. Beer isn't free.
Can someone explain it to me?
...Same old RMS...
Everytime I read something he has written I realize just how far in the sky his thought really are...Yes Free software is wonderful...I'm all for it if it has a solution to the problem I have...however is something commercial solves the problem better than, thats what I am going to use.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
frankly little in his response should be any surprise to anyone who has any idea who he is. this is what he's about, DUH. Given the way that the GPL was constructed, to pretty specifically ensure the purity and freedom of anything using it he has made his views abundantly clear.
I think he makes a good point, ultimately, ANY price will exclude SOMEBODY....no matter how cheap. For GNU/Linux, that just can't work. If it's in the Kernel or the basic GNU tools, its GOT to be FREE, OPEN, and unencumbered by patents or IP. The same goes for anything you need to get AT the source, like BK. Besides, what's wrong with using something like CVS or subversion anyway??
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
If all software was "free" according to Stallman's definition, there would be no incentive for students to enter into the software industry (we're already seeing this in the US).
Right. Because RedHat has no incentive to try and use free software as a business model.
Oh, wait...
git will get better and one day it will be competitive with the best-of-breed software, and the benefits of this will flow to everyone - from rabif free software gurus to people who just can't afford commercialware.
Then he'll blow something up!
Where did I see RMS breaking into Berkley to listen in on CS lectures ....Hmmmm.....
Look it up for yourselves....
I basically believe in his misssoin, but sometimes he can be a bit....well....radical.
If Bitkeeper had been a game, very few here would have complained about the fact that it's not truly free, and one wouldn't expect Linus to be terribly annoyed in the face of Tridge's actions.
But Bitkeeper was used in the role of a mission-critical piece of software. This is not really any different in importance than the kernel you run, or the database engine that stores your critical information, or the office suite you use, or perhaps even the web browser you use.
What makes those pieces of software so important are the consequences to you if they should fail to function properly, or if their use should suddenly be taken from you. They're mission-critical, or (perhaps) infrastructural in nature -- their importance is much higher to their users than that of much of the software that's out there.
And so, the importance of them being truly free is also much higher.
I sometimes wonder what the consequences to the Linux kernel today would be if Linus had taken a few weeks off to write the revision control system he wants and needs, rather than to deploy Bitkeeper. He'd have to stop accepting patches to the Linux kernel for that period of time, of course, but the submitters of the patches in question could certainly sit on them until he was ready, no?
In any case, I agree with RMS that there's a lesson here: if you use proprietary software for mission-critical work, you're essentially giving control over that mission to someone else. Think about that carefully before you choose.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
He doesn't mince his words and he clearly gets his point across.
Personally, I agree with him. It makes NO sense to lock open source software up into propietary closed source control systems.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Nothing more to see here, move along everybody. And please, can we get some other news?
IE is free once you get above software.
No matter what tool or code you cite, I can cite closed code that is very cheap or no cost.
We are not in this just to save money, if that is what you are thinking you have missed the entire point of free software.
In other words, BitMover Inc. spent money and did research to determine what features were needed. Now Andrew Tridgell will simply implement thoses features.
Now, equivalent free software is better than non-free software (you get the source code, and many more rights), but we have to accept that kind of incident reduces the motivation of software firms to write software in the GNU niche of the market (unless they can figure a way to make money which does not involve selling the software see SuSE or Red Hat). If I discovered that people running GNU/Linux needed some kind of software, and tried to write it and make money by selling the software itself, RMS (or someone else) would instantly sponsor a "free software alternative". Thus I'd have two options: make the software free from the start (donating the programming effort with no gain) or not write it at all.
In the GNU world, both alternatives are good. The ecology of this market drifts towards all-free software, the holy grail of the FSF. For myself, since this kind of ecology does not always guarantee the software I want being available, I'd love to buy proprietary software when the alternative is no software at all.
For diverting countless talented volunteer programmers towards his own agenda rather than cool projects. Linus is already working full time on free software under RMSes favorite license. Let him use Visual Studio, SourceSafe and Word to do it if he wants. If someone else wants to write a free source control system, word processor and so on, let them go ahead and Linus can try those tools if he chooses.
I know RMS technically didn't force BitMover to revoke the free license, but he sure encouraged free software developers and OSDL in particular to show hostile attitude that led to that event. OSDL should have recognized that Linux is a more important project than reverse-engineering BitKeeper and told their employees not to do that on company time/servers or get fired.
This is not the first time RMS screwed things up. As I understand, he encouraged creation of Gnome because KDE was somehow not free enough for him. Now there is a massive duplication of effort when everyone could be working on making one thing better. The end effect of any zealot's actions is to hurt their own cause more than any enemy.
Right. Because RedHat has no incentive to try and use free software as a business model.
Oh, wait...
Redhat's business model is of providing services.. not on development.
They do do some development, but if all of that software was released under the GPL (I believe some of it is not), ANYONE could simply take Redhat Linux, rebrand it as something else, and sell it or give it away for free.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
I'm pretty sure that the BitKeeper adventure has been, overall, good for kernel development. Linus and a lot of the others liked it, and felt productive using it.
More importantly, the switch to something else seems to go quite swiftly. git and cogito are already good enough to manage the kernel (if a little rough around the edges yet).
In other words, the price for dumping BitKeeper was pretty low. And so was the risk taken by using it.
And that's exactly the point of free software: nobody can take it away from you. That keeps the risk in using it low.
The risk and cost of using non-free software might be ok if you can live without it. But use free software for important stuff.
How many years did "the community" have to code a replacement for BK again? Does anyone think that Linus would not have switched to it in a heartbeat if it was "free as in everything" and did what he wanted? No. But where was it?
I love RMS. This is all McVoy's fault. "Look, the evil man has been defeated! yay Free Software!" I guess he forgot that no one held a gun to Linus' head to force him to use BK.
And the "GNU/Linux" name dropping? Classic.
Great stuff.
Like him, or don't; support him or don't, but don't piss in his vision of the future until you've made a fraction of his contributions
Blah blah blah.
I'm a free software bigot.
Blah blah blah.
just go away.
I suppose he's going to try to claim credit for bitkeeper as well?
We should not forget the lesson we have learned from it: Non-free programs are dangerous to you and to your community. Don't let them get a place in your life.
Heaven forbid a company charges for software to help employees make a living. RMS is completely out to lunch if he believes what I do for an honest living destroys his community .Einstein said: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
For the same reason you get to vote for your President. Do you want to be in control of your environment or do you want to trust someone? The Constitution provides an assurance that you will never have to blindly trust a leader, because in the end this trust is always broken.
Likewise for software - the GPL is an insurance policy against someone else controlling what happens on your computer in a way that requires your trust.
Non-free programs are dangerous to you and to your community. Don't let them get a place in your life.
He sounds like he's trying to run a Cambodian re-education camp.
As Gunnery Sergeant Hartman said "What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?"
I have had two commercial software projects stall and one cancel because of the lack of co-operation of suppliers of non-free software.
In the first case we were developing on an open platform so we switched to a free(dom) replacement and were able to complete the project.
In the second case we were also developing on a non-free platform so after stalling for 18 months the project was cancelled at the expense the development time and loss of expected revenew. (This is a real loss as the development time would have been used on another revenue generating product)
I have come to appreciate the value of free(dom) software in the world of commercial software.
I see that you haven't.
I observed nothing bullying in RMS post there, in fact I thought it gave a clarity, which is needed to eradicate the confusion about "free(dom)" that many people suffer.
In the end it comes down to how much you value of free(dom) in software. I have been bitten twice. The bites were not quick, lasting 6 months and 18 months. I have begun to guard my freedom.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Let's wait and see, shall we?
...at how much? 250 pounds, 300 pounds, 350 pounds? :D
disclaimer: i'm a fatass too.
do() || do_not();
Capitalism when unchecked tends to devolve to monopoly/oligarchy/facism. Since governmental regulation of M$ has failed (Pensfield-Jackson's breakup order was shelved), the GPL is the only tool available to the market to blunt the monopoly power of M$.
Even devoid of monopoly conditions, there is still ample justification for GPL/BSD software. All of us have invested time in proprietary systems that vendors have desupported or withdrawn. Free software liberates your career from these conditions. Proprietary software will always die regardless of users; free software only dies when abandoned by users.
Proprietary software is crippleware.
So let me get this straight. If I work hard, charge for the fruits of my labors, I'm the bad guy. Well that just puts every FOSS fan right in the same camp as my less savory former employers. "Why should I pay for what you're doing?"
"Why should I do it?"
"Because I pay you to."
"So your question was again?"
Except in the case of FOSS, the reason I should do it is because the users simply insist I should. WTF have they done for me lately? Stroked my ego? Read the docs I custom tailored to their intelligence level? Nope. "Code should be free!"
Fine, you invent it then. I won't write anything. I'll simply schlep others' code around, fixing your machines instead of improving on them.
No? Well then, pay me what I'm worth.
What I want to know is where did we suddenly decide that shareware should go the way of the dodo, and we instead of being upstanding and honorable decided to go with stingy grubbing, however open and honest the gimme gimme mentality is?
If you like to put out work for free, give it some protection, but otherwise let anyone use it for nothing, that's your right. I would do it myself in some situations. But Free != Good. Sometimes Free == Tyranny of the Mob.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Yep, well said, start the publicity campaign.
"Linux distributions" are now "GLX distributions"
I run GLX at home.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
I like what RMS has done. There is a good deal of good software that is out there because of what he started and continues to support.
On the other hand it is often easy for a leader to go too far. This shows up in the GPL where it is not allowed for any non-compatible GPL or any non-GPL software to link to GPL software. The GPL even had to make an exception to some fundamental Linux libraries so that it was possible for non-GPL software to legally run on Linux.
There may be a good reason for this no dynamic linking clause but I have not seen it yet.
who would have thought the founder of the Free Software Foundation (and its subsequent movement) would be against Non-Free Software?
And when you derive a moral equivalence between slavery and proprietary software---that's real mainstream.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
How is open source software ever supposed to grow beyond the realms of the geek if lunatics like this continue to represent it?
We'll see Stallman going into MS with a bunch of C4 strapped to his chest.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
I think he felt he couldn't release it earlier else it would feel like he was gloating. Now things have calmed down abit and people have had time to think things over.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Not really, but just the general attitude of RMS (root mean square ;))
I mean can't we have the "freedom" of choosing which software to use?
Or, does everything have to adhere to this "free" way of thinking, which is definitely not free as choices have been laid upon you
To relate this I have tried blender3D and its interface just does not adhere to standard 3D packages and will not get pro 3d artists to use it because of this limitation, gimp does have a 2D imaging interface but PS is cheap in it's suite after all and for design professionals you'll have to use it. (if you're a programmer it is not worth it, use gimp), what I mean: choose the best tools for the job.
On the same wings3D is less featured than blender but has interface compatibility and I do use this since i only need a modeller.
This is like vi vs emacs vs imadeabettereditor etc.
Choose the right tool or be a one
I like opensource but feel that you must be able to have choice and "freedom". Any orginisation will detoriate to it's lowest common denominator.
...he withdrew permission for gratis use by free software projects
I don't recall reading this before, but let's assume that McVoy DID deny access to his software to people to whom he had once granted access.
THIS is the reason why non-free software, in its current form, is a scary thing. Most licenses can be modified at any time, without notice, by the licensor. Bill Gates could, in theory, tell the whole world tomorrow "You can no longer use Windows."
Stallman promotes four freedoms; of those, the freedom to run programs as you wish for any purpose is what most consumers are interested in. Consumers could EASILY be persuaded to pursue this freedom through the political process, since this is the one that, if abused, would affect them the most. We have here a classic case of abuse of this freedom: McVoy takes away access to his software that he had once granted.
I would have preferred to see RMS saying "See? SEE? THIS is why I emphasize freedom!I Instead of emphasizing this evidence, he berates those too foolish to believe his dogma. I place myself firmly in the camp of those who believe his dogma, but only because I have seen and believe the evidence that his dogma is correct. Burying that evidence, as he has done, does no one any good.
RMS... he cetainly polarises opinions in here... distinct lack of any middle ground from the posters...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
drumroll please...
YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE!!!
No, seriously, the OP just said he liked RMS. He made absolutely no speculation about anything you drummed up out of your dumb ass.
I like RMS too. I often don't agree with him, but I sure as hell respect the guy and even, *gasp* like him. And whadoyaknow, I'm a software developer. Proprietary software is not a necessity for developers to get paid for their work. Quite the opposite, actually; proprietary software often has other people getting paid far more for developers' hard work than the developers themselves get.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
This for me is an important point. I may be an eccentric, I am certainly a slightly lapsed Quaker, but for me one of the most important things in an ethical business is price transparency.
Before any libertarian gets started, this is not an anti-business attitude. The object of stock markets, for instance, is to provide price transparency as well as liquidity. This is one of the things that makes markets trustworthy: things take place in the light of day, not by private agreement.
I do not have a problem with charging for software and support: I do believe that it should be standard business practice for software companies to have a clean and transparent pricing model so that it is possible both to compare products by TCO, and to know that by using XYZ software you are not paying through the nose while XYZ is doing a cheap deal with your competitor.
My beef with MS, for instance, is that I cannot buy Windows alone for the same price as buying it bundled with a PC, plus the belief that the price of the various Microsoft offerings is related to negotiating ability. It is not a level playing field, and this is probably worse than being a monopoly. A monopoly that screws everybody equally at least encourages everybody to look for a way round it, rather than seeking to produce power alignments that keep it in place.
By following this "the price is what you negotiate" approach. Bitkeeper cannot avoid the suspicion that people who advocate its use might be in a visible industry position and be getting a special deal.
To anyone who says that this is excessive idealism, I would suggest that I do not have a problem with price variation or special offers provided they are freely and openly advertised. I am not in favor of limiting the ability of companies to respond to market conditions. I am opposed to secret deals.
Anybody who questions this might compare the laser printer and copier markets. Historically printers have been engineer-driven and tend to sell to a price. Copiers have been salesman-driven and the vendors have tried to hide the real costs in complex leasing and contract details. It isn't surprising that, as buyers become more aware, power starts to shift to the printer manufacturers. Nobody likes copier vendors.
Scott Adams (who is an economist as well as the creator of Dilbert) has summed it up well by using the term "confusopolies" to describe the vendors of mobile phone contracts etc. who seek to conceal the true costs.
So, in summary: Bitkeeper's business practices as regards the cost of their products causes me not to want to buy them.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I create free software to:
( ) Stick it to the man.
( ) Promote my ideologies.
( ) Solve a problem.
( ) Enjoy myself.
( ) Enjoy CowboyNeal.
I suspect 3 and 4 are the top choices. RMS seems to think 2.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Stallman Feeds Self Whole Chicken
Richard Stallman stunned a conference on Open Source Software and the Free Software Movement when he took the stage with what appeared to be a whole rotisserie chicken. As shocked attendees watched, he then proceeded to eat the entire chicken with his bare hands pausing only to wipe the grease on his shirt while mumbling "microsoft wants you to use a fork and napkin". Upon completion of his one-man chicken eating demonstration he demonstrated the features of EMACS to an audience that could only be described as disguested.
He's nothing but an extremist. And he's no better than an extremist in any of the following groups: theists, atheists, conservatives, liberals, gays, straights, and damn near any other group of people in existence.
And unfortunately, the extreme looneys always are the most heard, so much so that they begin to 'represent' the above groups in the public's eye.
RMS is the software industry's equivalent to Michael Moore. And he might even be fatter and uglier.
When people realize that the vast majority of the world holds a position closer to middle/moderate, then we might be able to advance as a people. But until then, we'll be stuck arguing with each other, with the extremists continuing to hog the public's attention span.
'nuff said. Trivia: emacs = Editor MACroS
"he decided to go home and take his ball with him"
RMS has a nice sense of humour actually.
RMS will still be thought of as just as loony, or more so if that's possible.
And yet, you think RMS is the bad guy. Wow.
Please RTA (no "fucking"). After reading the summary, at least read these two paragraphs:
My gratitude is limited, since it was McVoy that created the problem in the first place. But I still appreciate his decision to clear it up.
There are thousands of non-free programs, and most merit no special attention, other than developing a free replacement. What made this program, BitKeeper, infamous and dangerous was its marketing approach: inviting high-profile free software projects to use it, so as to attract other paying users.
What I'm trying to say is, RMS is not saying "Thanks for killing the governer, now you'll wake up the authorities and make them take some action about the crime rate" which is what some slashdotters would say in their comments. I mean, RMS not being sarcastic. He's actually thanking McVoy for stopping BK ("free" version) and thus making Linus look for some free tool etc etc (read the paragraphs). The summary almost makes him look like a hardass (almost).
WE GET IT
As they used to say in BBS times -
"you have to start learning not to speak for everyone"
Thanks
Except you can do this with a GPL'ed program as well. If you are the sole copyright holder of a program, even if you have only ever released it under the GPL, you can revoke that license. The GPL does not preclude this. You can revoke all users license at any time, and even replace it with a non-free license, if you so desire.
For example, take a look at the 'acknowledgements.rtf' file in Mac OS X. Many different open-source projects are credited there. There are even two that specifically grant Apple a DIFFERENT license. CUPS, for one, is GPL. But they have granted Apple a non-GPL licensed version that means that Apple does *NOT* have to release their changes. This is a 'retro-active' license change. CUPS is/was GPL. CUPS decided later that they would give a different (and more restrictive, in one sense) license to someone else. This does not violate the GPL at all.
Linus Torvalds could say, tomorrow, that he revokes everyone's right to use the parts of the Linux kernel he wrote. That's his right as copyright holder. He could declare those parts to be under a completely different, closed, license, and insist on a $100 per copy charge. And he would be legally entitled to it.
THIS is why the FSF promotes assigning free software copyrights to them. They have promised to never revoke or change the license, so someone can't decide later to change their mind and close-source something that's been assigned to them.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I once asked RMS in a conference what he thought about products with a short shelf life value, like games. There are not too many ways to create a profit out of a game if you make it open source.
His answer was that in those cases they can have it closed source for a few months (3?) and then release it open source.
I guess a trend that might be possible today would be to have open source engines and pay-for content.
Reply . . . let's get it over with.
I don't if you were trying to be insightful and sarcastic or not but if you were straight then:
Mandrake was a RH clone that included KDE. It developed from there to being a separate if mostly compatible distro. Yellow dog was originally RH compiled for PPC if I am not mistaken. Sun's Java Desktop and previous Linux distros, are just RH underneath. And lastly there are the current clones CentOS and WhiteBox. There were other clones too, but these are the ones I can remember.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
The parent was merely pointing out that economics isn't the only factor to consider when making decisions.
Since when is "much" a verb?
RMS uses the phrase himself. Possibly he introduced it. But after reading his Free Software Definition again, it contradicts the phrase. It sounds more like the definition of Free = Free Speech = Free Beer.
Why? Because how can you offer your software's source code to the public (free as in speech) without essentially making it free (no cost/free as in beer) especially when other people are free to duplicate and distribute it. The value of software is primarily the IP not the distribution or packaging. Sure you can charge for those and other auxilary things but that still means (re-using the analogy) the beer is free -- just not the cup (packaging) it comes with or the bartender fees (service) you pay... The fact remains if you offer source code your software itself becomes free, as in speech and beer.
So that phrase is misleading at best...
Thin skinned today? How's Hurd coming along? Hahahahaha.
That's it in a nutshell: RMS says that it is unethical to license software other than under a FSF-approved license. That is, it is unethical to profit from your labor, if you are a software developer (please do not try to throw up the straw man about software support and services). Comrade Lenin would be most pleased.
What do we want!?
What ever meets our needs at the time
When do we want it?!
At a time that is convenient to both parties!!
Somehow it really doesn't have the same ring to it.
ANYONE could simply take Redhat Linux, rebrand it as something else, and sell it or give it away for free.
You mean like Mandriva (formerly Mandrake formerly MacMillan) or White Box Linux?
Doesn't seem to have deterred RedHat.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Stallman specifically differentiates between "free as in beer" and free/libre in the article. He has no problem with people earning money from software...as I've tried to explain before...he has just always done a lousy job of differentiating between free/libre and free/beer...which is the entire reason why ESR and co invented the term Open Source. Hence, people continually have misconceptions, just like yours.
Mind you, I don't condone Tridgell's decision to trample on McVoy's license.
"This license doesn't have the blessing of my Messiah, RMS...therefore McVoy is evil. Therefore I get to do whatever the hell I want with this code, and can still claim I'm doing the right thing afterwards," was basically Tridgell's thinking from what I saw.
I think free/libre licenses are a good thing...but unlike RMS and his mujahadeen, I do not agree that *forcing* people to use a free/libre license is part of the definition of freedom...Nor do I necessarily agree with the idea that any code/software under a non-free license is automatically fair game. Nor again do I believe that proprietary software is *always* harmful. Stallman is a fanatic, with a fairly well-demonstrated Messiah complex, (which his followers have done nothing to discourage, sadly) and such types have a tendency to think in absolutes.
In my more balanced moments I'm willing to concede that I agree with Stallman on a few points...but I've always had a problem with his attitude.
What has he ever done for me? Why the FUCK should I care what he thinks? I use OS X, which is a FAR FAR better operating system than Linux (or GNU/Linux as he and his idiotic minions would say), and despite not being free it is a) more secure, b) faster and c) far more usable than *ANY* "open sores" operating system ever made.
The guy is a psycho hack who lives in the past and makes a living attacking people and companies who add real value to the industry, rather than his communist idiot friends.
Here is a good Nikon related example. Nikon makes its money by selling cameras/lenses. So, in 1994 they introduced an advanced amateus camera called the N90s, which was supposed to be almosta professional camera (and actually was in its day).
But, they needed ways in which they could sell more hardware. So, here is what they did:
(1) You want to do multiple exposures? you have to buy an "optional" component costing a couple hundred bucks.
(2) There are cutting edge features you can set - like "Does the camera beep or not when focus is achieved" - but you have to buy a primitive Ipod type thing (made by Sharp I think - but I forget)
to set such features. Cost - a couple 100 bucks.
(3) Unfortunately, the company that made the gadget that would connect to the camera stopped production. So, what would Nikon do? Release software for accessing these custom functions - but you now have to pay Nikon to buy the *cable* that connects your PC to the camera. Cost - about a 100 bucks.
That's why you don't show your source code if you are into fleecing your customers - you can make them come back to you for every single bit.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I hate to agree with him, but if all of the free software developers had used 'convienient' tools instead of creating them, linux would never be where it is today.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Since people keep saying the same things, I'll keep responding with the same too:
It's a bit silly to say 'I told you so" - especially since I didn't actually say it. I thought the arguments made by Linus had some logic behind it too (the technical-merit-before-anything-else approach). Often I thought both sides (Stallman and Linus) had some valuable viewpoint on it, and it was difficult to say who actually was right on the matter.
It seems now, after all, it was R.Stallman all along. Yes, Linus has a good point in chosing for technical superior alternatives...BUT, in the end, as is clearly shown now, you can't just devide the political/ideological/proprietary issue from the mere technical one. When push comes to shove, an alternative that isn't really free, isn't really an alternative. You are always dependend on the goodwill of whomever owns the product- even when buying it, I may add.
So, it would seem the viewpoint of Linus, in this instance, is the weaker one, because now he doesn't have a 'tecnological superior' product anymore, and what is he going to do? Go for another proprietary product, because it's technologically better? And have the same thing happen to him again? I don't think so. I think he learned his lesson, and he will go for the really free alternatives that R.Stallman suggested, which, albeit not as good, at least allow you to continue with it as you see fit.
Stallman can be a nag sometimes because of his gnu/linux diatribe, but in this instance, he was right.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Again RMS sticks to his ``principles''. And there is some reality to his comments about McVoy. Looks like he's the only one who profited from the whole BK issue. Now, if Linus wants to move away from BK, he can move away - or so I guess. It's his kernel afterall. But wait! It's no longer his ``own'' kernel, isn't it?
Linus Torvalds could say, tomorrow, that he revokes everyone's right to use the parts of the Linux kernel he wrote. That's his right as copyright holder.
No, he can't.
From the FAQ
Linus can redistribute code he has written under another license, but he cannot revoke the rights he has already provided. He can also make it so future releases are under a more restrictive license, but someone would just end up forking the last GPLed version.
A good example of this is XFree86. Version 4.4 was released under a more restrictive license that the community did not like. Next thing you know, the last 4.4 prerelease under the old license was forked as X.org.
RMS isn't in this to save money, he is in it to preserve freedoms that are important to him.
Linus Torvalds could say, tomorrow, that he revokes everyone's right to use the parts of the Linux kernel he wrote. That's his right as copyright holder. He could declare those parts to be under a completely different, closed, license, and insist on a $100 per copy charge. And he would be legally entitled to it.
Who the fuck modded this up? Torvalds *cannot* withdraw the GPLed copy of the code he has released. He is free to relicense his code under whatever license he likes, but he can't retract the GPLed version. The CUPS developers just granted Apple a copy of their code under a different license (presumably because they paid for it)... it does not affect the GPLed version.
Dickhead.
In other words, BitMover Inc. spent money and did research to determine what features were needed. Now Andrew Tridgell will simply implement thoses features.
I feel this is a little misleading. Andrew Tridgell only wrote a client that emulated only a tiny subset of the already free client. This is only a tiny scratch in making a full client/server BitKeeper clone.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
"Except you can do this with a GPL'ed program as well"
Read the licence. There is no provision for retroactive modification or revocation of the license. It is an outright grant of permission. It cannot be be withdrawn, because there is no basis in the license for doing so.
HOWEVER (and this is the point you seem to be making) an author may license his software to different people under different licenses. If I license my program to you under the GPL and to Apple under a Microsoft-style EULA, you will still have all the GPL rights granted to you. In fact, Apple could have gotten the software from you under the GPL (which is the only license YOU can distribute my program under, since you license it and do not own it). Apple could then distribute the software under the GPL (and the people who got it from Apple...ad infinitum), but Apple would be bound by the GPL with regard to modifications that they distribute. Apple doesn't like that, so they come to me with money and a request for a different license.
But no matter what happens between me and Apple, between me and you was the GPL. You still have the GPLed copy of my software, and if I go capitalistic nuts tomorrow and begin demanding $1000/day before I'll distribute any more copies of my program, you would still be able to use, copy, modify, and redistribute the copy of my program that I gave to you.
I realize at this point that I am arguing by repeated assertion, so I encourage you again to go read the license yourself. Note that there is NO basis for revocation or modification of the license. It is a contract, and American contract law doesn't permit unilateral modification of contracts. (If it did, I might modify my mortgage contract.)
Huh? The EULA for Windows XP says no such thing. I think you've confused typical "terms of service" for web sites, which often do say things like this (Yahoo, for example, has clauses like this). This is because Yahoo is essentially a service, not a product. Shrink-wrapped products that don't need to connect to anything else almost never have clauses like this. Why? Because nobody, except for a true sheep, would agree to such a license, for one thing.
Maybe BK did have a clause like this, but most licenses do not.
Our RMS which art in free software, hallowed be thy name. Thy free software come. Thy will be done in free software as it is in free software. Give us this day our daily free software. And forgive us our use of non-free software, as we forgive them that create non-free software against us. And lead us not into temptation to use non-free software. But deliver us from non-free software. Amen.
That's easy.. Pick any private, airman, or seaman that puts their life on the line because they DO care enough about freedom to do so. :-) True love for freedom is in self-sacrifice, not in making others sacrifice. Military, police, firemen... or Free Software Evangelist..
Isn't development a service? Aren't programmers really in a service industry?
The Free Software and Open Source groups -- at the extremes -- have distinctly different views.
Both are correct, though. While I put myself in the 'Open Source as is practical -- this isn't politics' category, there are times I am quite glad that RMS is there to advocate the 'Free Software or you will regret it' faction.
I find myself saying time and time again...that both perspectives are dead smack on target. Being a pragmatist, I balence both though I can't deny the amazing pragmatic benifits that have come from RMS's strict stance on these subjects. Freedom is a necessity and honoring it has made the world a much better place.
... ESR was arrested on Sunday evening, after repeatedly shooting McVoy's office window with an M4 rifle he purportedly grabbed from a trespasser's dead, cold fingers.
Really, the best thing about that whole GNU/Linux stuff is the zealots.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
With all due respect: Nope.
A license dictates the terms under which certain actions can be performed. If the license does not say it can be revoked, or has a limited term, etc., then it jest keeps on a-goin'.
What someone can do is change the license under which software is released in the future. That does not change the licenses that have already been granted. In particular, in the case of the GPL, it does not change the rights of previous licensees to redistribute the same (or modified) code under the GPL.
Nah, EMACS = Escape Meta Alt Control Shift
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I'm so sick of hearing this tired misunderstanding of the FOSS movement. I beginning to think that no one really knows what the FOSS movement is about.
PLEASE go read the ACTUAL position of the FSF on selling software: Selling Free Software. Come back when you have something insightful to say.
I like extremists. Not in the direct sense, but in a lot of other ways.
Firstly, they force me evaluate my own beliefs and principles. Why is democracy good? Why is Free Software worth bothering with? What could possibly be wrong with drinking alcohol?
Secondly, most movements in history was seen as radical or just plain whacky. Don't think you are allowed to sit at the front of the bus, woman. Oh no, the sun is clearly rotating around the earth, Mr. Astronomer. Without them, we would still be living in caves and killing our food with spears. No, not even spears, because that guy or gal probably got ridiculed a lot at first. We would be throwing rocks.
Third, the limits of our society are shaped by the extremes on each side of it -- the nuttier the sidelines, the more stable it is in the middle.
Also, some of these dudes are really entertaining, and it is always completely unintentionally...
Uhm, this line of reasoning probably died out somewhere in, oh, 1990.. is it worth it to debunk? Who knows. Let's see..
So let me get this straight. If I work hard, charge for the fruits of my labors, I'm the bad guy.
No, you've got it wrong. Where do you see that in the GPL or any free software site? You're describing a free market. We like those around here. The problem shows up when you try and charge more than once for something (per copy). Nothing inherently wrong with that, but the only you can do it effectively is to take some rights away from me that I'd rather not give away.
Just like, say, a toaster that explodes in my face if I try and make breakfast, I'm probably not going to be interested in your product, no matter how nice it is.
I think the issue is, you don't want to compete with free, you really *don't* like free markets because you can be undersold.. is that about right?
Except in the case of FOSS, the reason I should do it is because the users simply insist I should.
No, you obviously haven't worked with Free software, there are many reasons to do it, such as: you have a problem to solve, and you write a piece of code to solve it. Your client has a problem to solve, and he pays you to solve it. You have a problem to solve and it will take 1 month from scratch, or 1 week with an open source package. And so on.
All of these give you benefits, in exchange for labor.
I work with free software, and I *never* do anything that that doesn't benefit me. For instance if I have to fix a bug in a free software package, I send the bugfix in simply to avoid having to merge it into the code every time a new version comes out.
No? Well then, pay me what I'm worth.
Well, since I only pay people for Free software, I'm afraid you're not worth very much. And since when do you get to demand that I pay you? Do you have a contract with me?
What I want to know is where did we suddenly decide that shareware should go the way of the dodo, and we instead of being upstanding and honorable decided to go with stingy grubbing, however open and honest the gimme gimme mentality is?
Ahh, *shareware*, I think see where you're coming from. Can't comprehend the rest of this paragraph though.
But Free != Good. Sometimes Free == Tyranny of the Mob.
Wow, that's some good doublespeak. Let's see. You use something with no strings attached, that lets you make your own decisions to solve your own business problems. And that's "tyranny of the mob"? You totally lost me on that one. Why not just say "communist" and get it over with? Then I would know just to ignore the whole post from the get-go.
The question is not HOW TO SELL what's already GPL'ed, the question is HOW TO WRITE something that would both sell and be possible to release under GPL. Come back when you have something insightful to say.
However, a thing like this wouldn't have happened with Free Software. By that, I don't just mean something like the free software attitude would have prevented it or anything -- this would actually have been impossible if BitKeeper had been free software.
This is, of course, because even if McVoy had been the only developer and he decided to move to a non-free license for a new version for whatever reason, someone would just have had to fork it. Therefore, things like this cannot happen with free software.
The same, of course, goes with all proprietary software. Now, I don't believe that Microsoft will go out of business anytime soon (no matter how much I'd want it to), but imagine if it did! Suddenly, Windows would be completely unsupported and would never be developed further. Smaller companies can probably go bankrupt for lesser things than that. With GNU/Linux, that literally cannot happen. Someone will always go on working on it, and even if noone does voluntarily, you can always hire someone to do so.
That might be an interesting question for another thread but that's not the question raised by the grandparent post. I'm not sure I understand what point you're trying to make here...?
The fact that you and many others have a problem with "This whole 'ethical' line of argumentation" vs. a "mainstram economic argument" is probably the biggest single reason we have debacles ranging from the Enron debacle to the scandal plaguing the Canadian government at present. Please explain how an economic argument "holds more water" than an ethical/ideological one.
/. discussion so I had to add it).
It doesn't matter what sort of political or economic philospohy you subscribe to, when pure economics takes precedence over "ethics" then the said economic or political system becomes corrupt and vulnerable to collapse. Slavery did not end in America because someone had a convincing "mainstram economic argument" against it. Nazi Germany did not fall because it had an inferior economy. We triumphed over both because they were morally reprehensible (sorry, but I didn't spot the pre-requisite reverence to Nazis in this
I recently came across an interesting example of a compelling argument for "ethics" in business. The "Chik-fil-A" fast-food chain was founded and is headed by a very conservative, evangelical Christian. This man and much of the staff wear their religion on their sleeves, and unlike most visible personalities of the "religious right" they seem to actually practise whay they preach--their beliefs, faith, religous observances and family are of the highest priority--more so tham profits. The head of this company insists on not doing business on Sunday and on directing a portion of profits towards philanthropic activities as a sort of "tithe". While I do not subscribe to his brand of religious conservatism, I respect him highly for following his beliefs because they are the "right thing to do" even when there was no "mainstram economic" argument to do so. It is in some way like Google's well-known policy (at least in this forum) to "do no evil".
The result? Chik-fil-A has undergone rapid growth and has virtually the best employee retention and customer satisfaction in the industry. And we all know how Google turned out.
As for the maturity exhibited by the "unbunched panties of the BSD community"--what has that achieved for them? The many variants of BSD are certainly excellent from a technical perspective and are popular for web hosting and security, but there is a reason for the "BSD is dead" jokes--it is invisible to the general public and has no presence at all on the desktop. RMS and others might come across as wingnuts at times, but it is their dedication to ther beliefs and their inthusiasm for the free software movement that has made GNU/Linux as successful as it is.
You may view RMS' idealism as giving ammo to the opposition, but I prefer to think of it as a kevlar vest. The key is to stick to your principles while being informed and aware so you don't shoot yourself in the foot.
You confusing the "no cost" (or gratis) kind of freedom with the "use in any way" (libre) kind of freedom. They're not saying you shouldn't get paid for your work. Hell, charge as much as you can get away with. They're saying you shouldn't restrict the person who gets the results of that work from doing whatever they want with it (change the code, distribute the code, etc.).
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
RMS is a complete and utter asshole.
He says that Larry McVoy "created the problem in the frist place" by producing a tool so useful that it could "entice free software projects to use and promote his non-free software".
I suppose that Eastern Europe should lay the blame on Western Europe for creating societies so free and productive that they could entice citizens of socialist countries to want to become citizens of non-socialist countries.
RMS would make a great totalitarian dictator.
EMACS = Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping Fortunately newer computers can run it easily now. I suspect most people that have worked as unix admins know vi, mostly because it was already on the computer.
==
> If I work hard, charge for the fruits of my labors, I'm the bad guy.
Incorrect. If you try to screw your users over by denying them the ability to modify and redistribute your software, then you are the bad guy.
You mean, Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping? I thought so.
Face the facts Jack, we're all running this guy's software so many times every day. I even used his software in the course of two commands to show you the file he fucking wrote.
Personally I wouldn't mind buying him a beer, rapping a few words with the dude, say Thanks a lot and then go about my way.
WTF?
I'd say he's done plenty.
I wonder if this scene ever happened: Scott McNealy struts down the hall toward Gosling's office, with an entourage of Fast Company and Wired Magazine writers in tow, hoping for them to hear pearls of object oriented wisdom rolling forth, but only to walk into the middle of yet another round in the eternal argument: Emacs! VI! Emacs! VI! No, Emacs!!! No, VI!!! -Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
"Personally, I agree with him. It makes NO sense to lock open source software up into propietary closed source control systems."
No. It doesn't make sense to lock your data up in proprietary data formats. Closed or open source software doesn't make a difference in that scenario.
Wouldn't that be EMACSF?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Making the conscious decision to give up your freedom to avoid a little inconvenience isn't a shade of gray. Unless you have a very specific interoperability need, choosing proprietary software to do a job that could be accomplished by Free code isn't good, logical, or pragmatic.
:)
This is just your opinion, so it wouldn't hurt to prefix it with "I think". Quality metrics like good, logical and pragmatic are relative to the coordinate system, and you seem to believe that everyone shares yours. Well, you probably guessed it - not everyone does.
PS. Name's Linus, not Linux
Perhaps you can first tell me how your reply is relevant to the original post ?
Free is better if it's available, meets the user requirements, and the overall costs of the non-free - dollars, political, and otherwise - don't exceed the benefit.
Any state where non-free is preferable is usually and should be an unstable state:
Either free software will be made, and non-free will no longer be preferred, or free software will be made and the non-free software will improve, so the new, better non-free software becomes preferred.
In the free market, the "more cost effective" product will carry the day. Non-Free products carry several costs, including political costs - particularly when it's a tool used for FOSS-development, the cost of not being able to modify the source when needed, and the costs of vendor lock-in. These, plus licensing fees if any, must be weighed when deciding to use non-free software.
In this context, free is as in freedom, not as in beer.
I think Linux was right to use BitKeeper at the time he made the decision. I think he was wrong to discourage the use of Tridge's work, but given the aftermath, he was right to move to an open-source solution. The time is ripe to use an open-source code management system for the Linux Kernel. One could easily argue this work should've been started a year or two ago.
By the way, there's still non-free code being used to develop Linux, albeit indectly and not under the control of the developers:
When a developer checks in code, his code travels over routers, some of which use non-FOSS code. I'm sure there are many such examples of how non-FOSS code is used to further the Linux kernel.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You know, RMS had a job at MIT before he quit to work on the GNU system...
Luke-Jr
The way BK handled it was indirect -- upgrades were made mandatory, and the upgrade was made available under the most recent "enhanced" version of the license.
DNA just wants to be free...
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146845&t hreshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=185&tid=106&mode=thr ead&pid=12301807
7 301&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=117&tid=156&tid =198&tid=106&mode=thread&pid=12340497
The above is my answer to the BK issue. Everyone's pointing fingers and avoiding the core issue, which the OP touched upon.
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14
Also open file formats would have worked as well.
As you are very well aware, most projects get by with centralized SCM.
And the dig at Alan Cox? Classic.
Great stuff.
(Win? 'Gnu) => T
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
RMS may be a brilliant programmer but he's a complete idiot when it comes to anything else other than maybe playing that flute of his. If it weren't for commercial software, we'd still be in the comparative stone age of computing as to what we have today. What do you think fuels the industry? It's money. Money encourages development in both software and hardware. More software encourages more hardware and vice versa.
Every decision, business or otherwise, involves ethics in one form or another.
It is ethics that guides us and such qualities which define us, and, of course, what we produce.
Clearly, those who do not understand the ethics involved, cannot hope to actually understand the underlying issues involved.
Indeed, those who oppose openess do so for unethical reasons.
Words to men, as air to birds.
I know I'm supposed to represent LMCO in a positive light when I talk about them in public, but honestly I can't see why they made this choice. It's hurt us in so many ways... it's hard to even express. It was a dumb decision, especially in light of this EOL news.
Despite that, I'll defend them a little. Often LMCO's decisions on what to deliver are direct results of the Air Force's mandates. They are the customer, and you know the contract worker's age-old adage: "Customer Is Always Right. Especially When They're Rich, Wrong, and Willing To Sign a Cost-Plus Contract."
So in LMCO's defense, the Air Force wanted AIX or a Windows Flavor. We gave them the lesser of two evils.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
How is this a problem?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Thank you for your rich, diverse, and utterly offtopic contributions. Please return to your shack in the woods and await further repression. We'll be waiting for that manifesto.
This will probably sound insane to the skeptics among us, but I've actually tried to consult the I Ching a few times recently because, my other flippant and arguably vindictive comments on this thread notwithstanding, I am in all seriousness genuinely curious about Stallman's motivations.
The answers I've had back have been somewhat uncanny...but have essentially been that, despite the usual flaws that we all have, RMS is a man with fundamentally positive intentions. However, although many of his contributions have been positive, like all of us, not *all* is positive...and therefore it is necessary to use discernment and seperate the useful from the not-so-useful. Stallman is someone whose writing seems to evoke strong emotional responses in me...as it does in many of us...but when I try and balance my emotions and get clear of the temptation to make juvenile comments, I realise that it's necessary to see him simply as a fellow traveller. Not God...because he isn't...but not as a crackpot, because in all objectivity I don't really believe he is entirely that either...he's simply another human being. I think those who venerate him excessively need to remember that as much as those of us who dislike him...he has some valuable things to say, as well as things which annoy us at times.
Again, in short, he's simply human.
What are you worth?
Prove to me that you're worth $1 an hour.
The value of money is just a figment of your imagination. Its all based on dynamic economic models, like supply/demand. These are changing all the time. Don't you think the hurricanes in Florida or the War on Terrorism or Global Warming are going to affect your worth? What happens when these businesses can buy your type of labor for less than $1 an hour. What are you going to do when you can't find a job?
Sometimes Free == Tyranny and sometimes Money == Tyranny. But we agree to act tyrannical for this money. Its a contract. Like.. I choose to join the military and kill innocent people because they pay me to do it. If that happens to be tyranny who's fault is it?
Money is a social contract we've all decided to participate in. It grants those people with all the money the power to use the rest of us how they see fit. If their actions are corrupt, then so are those of the people who work for them. It doesn't take a country full of psychos to build a Nazi Germany. What's so surprising about Germany is that most people where normal average folks who just watched too much TV and got carried away on the party line.
If we're so easy to manipulate with money, then maybe we should seek alternatives that might help us maintain our sanity a little. Just look at advertising and how it has affected our culture here in the US. It isn't pretty.
"If I work hard, charge for the fruits of my labors, I'm the bad guy. Well that just puts every FOSS fan right in the same camp as my less savory former employers. "Why should I pay for what you're doing?""
Your savoury and unsavoury employers should pay you for your hard work, because you have an agreement with them that says so. You work hard in exchange for money, which is what both parties agreed to.
Working hard by itself does not entitle you to a reward. You need an agreement between parties to describe what exactly entitles you to a reward.
Now what kind of agreement did you reach with the FOSS camp?
So let me get this straight. If I work hard, charge for the fruits of my labors, I'm the bad guy. Well that just puts every FOSS fan right in the same camp as my less savory former employers. "Why should I pay for what you're doing?"
You've got it wrong. Free software is not about whether the creator should get paid for their work, it's about freedom of the users. A free software advocate would respond to the above that it's fine for you to get paid for your time (services), but not the product, but only because the latter reduces the freedom of users. The idea is that restrictions on use, distribution, and modification of the program tend to exert control over users. A seller of proprietary software can raise the price, reduce its functionality, etc., with negative effects on the user community. Free software is about programs that users can choose with the confidence that the investment won't later turn into a restriction.
The free software model allows people to charge for the service of creating new software and upgrading existing software. What it doesn't allow is the creation of monopolies on who can improve and distribute a program.
Ya know, although I agree with you entirely, I think you're being dishonest by not mentioning that one of the things your users can do is sell the code for less than you are selling the code for (including putting it on their web site with absolutely no charge). When the vast majority of your users have access to the internet charging "as much as you can get away with" quickly becomes zero.
The way to actually charge money for the development of software is to charge your users for voting rights over what you develop next, and charge for access to "premium" download servers. In a few months you will see unofficial servers pop up where people who are not paying can get the software, but there's nothing you can do about that (and you shouldn't want to). So unless your servers are really good people will not pay to have access to them, but they will still pay to have voting rights, especially if you ignore all requests made by users who are not paying you.
How we know is more important than what we know.
David Bowie once said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Artists determine culture, not the critics."
The above seems pretty analogous to tech in some ways. It's the programmers who determine software culture, not the critics.
My point is that there's a lot of flaming of Linus and his supposed hypocrisy that I'm a little curious. So his stance on bitkeeper falls short of some people's vision of ideological perfection. So what? Do we flame William Faulkner because we didn't like his choice of typewriter*? Does everybody who's going anti-Linus right now running computer hardware that's totally open-specced? Are the drivers powering their video cards open sourced? How about their bioses? Hey! Maybe they eat meat from time to time. If I'm a vegetarian, can I flame them for that? In the end, it's just as relevent.
* I'm so certain that some people out there read the WF analogy and want to respond saying that it's a flawed analogy because the typewriter is closer to hardware than software. If that's you, well, you're making my point for me. You're so caught up in the analysis of this situation that you're failing to see how the analogy is prefect from the point of view of the software writer. Bitkeeper was a tool. Now the tool has been taken away from him. He's gotten a little pissed about it. Frankly, it interrupted the productivity of one of the greatest computer science products of all time. Let him be about it. Artists get temperamental. Why not OS-writers?
Look, I like Linus and RMS both. But Linus getting lectured by RMS on the proper way to do software development is like Stanley Kubrick getting lectured by Roger Ebert on how to make a movie. In other words, I'll take RMS's word for it when I see him give the world an operating system (emacs jokes aside). His point may have some merit, but it doesn't magically have more merit just because he's RMS.
There are people who still maintain, track, and use the Linux 2.2 kernels, even to this day. There are also people who make linux distributions that are stripped right down to the bare minimum, and then add software on as needed.
As a platform for millions of dollars worth of software, this is the only sane way to go.
As for MS extended support? They offer it for some things, not others. And it's very expensive. FOSS OS's would help the Air Force mitigate the long-term expense of keeping their mini-linux distro up to date, because other groups (probably within the government itself!) would be working on similar problems.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Linus could only re-release code under a more restrictive license if it's code he's written. He can't take the GPLed code of others and re-release under another more restrictive license.
I usually disagree with most of what comes from RMS but this time I am forced to agree with him wholeheartedly. It was a bad move to begin with and ended in a total mess.
-Lord Shadow
you run a chance of getting burned... your reply seems to answer the idea that we should fork a commercial code base... did someone say that?
-pyrrho
I've tried using this RCS after Linus endorsed it, but something seems awfully wrong with it. Is it normal for a "pull" of the Monotone sources to take over 2.5 hours??! I killed the process and erased the Monotone source tree. What good is a source code control system that takes the better part of a day to update?
it's all trickle down logic.
the idea is that if you let people get really rich of something, it'll trickle back down to the people they need to do their business (e.g. close shrinkwrap software).
But they might trickle on India instead, or go into another business, etc. etc.
Engineers should prefer what's good for engineering (and by extension, science which feeds it all), and have some modicum of faith that benefits follow from that.
there are many reasons to expect the benefits to follow if you do good engineering, so it's not -merely- faith.
-pyrrho
OSDL should have recognized that Linux is a more important project than reverse-engineering BitKeeper and told their employees not to do that on company time/servers or get fired.
tridge didn't do it on OSDL time/servers.
Please acquaint yourself with the history before flaming.
Who the hell cares what RMS thinks on the subject? Oh /.'ers do.
I agree with you that contracts cannot be unilaterally changed (unless, perhaps, the contract explicitly allows it). But one of the authors of the GPL, Prof. Eben Moglen, says repeatedly that the GPL is not a contract, it's a plain copyright license. Not much prevents you from revoking a plain (bare) license, even one that you say is perpetual. If you put up a sign saying "you can walk through my back yard forever", you can take down the sign later and revoke the permission -- because it is not a contract.
If, however, you make a contract with your neighbors on the issue, e.g. they pay you $100 right now, and in exchange may walk through your back yard forever, then you cannot revoke the permission without risk of being sued for breach of contract.
Similarly, if you post a program on your website and say "Here, you may, until the sun burns out, copy this program, make derivative works from it, and distribute them, as long as you provide source code, etc." [i.e. implement the GPL], you can later take it down and revoke your permission. Then people will no longer be able to distribute their derivative works. Too bad for them. They should have made a contract with you: e.g. paid you $5 for a written license allowing all of the above.
I am not a lawyer, but that's what I learnt from reading Larry Rosen's informative book _Open Source Licensing_, as well as a few snippets on the subject of contracts. I'd be interested to know of any corrections or additions to the above. It's an interesting issue that divides the experts in free-software licensing: whether to use a contract-based license (the Open Software License and many others) or a bare license (such as the GPL).
You're an idiot.
Free software is not called Free software because everyone gets something for nothing. It's just a different business model from the current artificial scarcity ('ransomware') model. Which is invalid in the long run because software is not scarce.
If you want to think of it in terms of the free market:
The Free software business model means someone gets employed to create code that a company or individual needs. It's just that once it's created they don't ransom it away*. Lots of money can also be made by supporting/improving this software.
The same results would be achieved, of course, because of supply and demand. Software needs to be created, so it would be. However, the whole system of software production would be far more efficient because of the amount of code reuse that could be done.
Would this lead to lower employment in IT fields? Possibly. But why would that be a bad thing? Should a society strive to be as inefficient as possible just to create employment? In a similar vein, an argument in favour of using windows everywhere would be that it would massively increase employment in support roles. Does that make it a good idea?
* Which is what happens now, most of the time the software creator deciding to put wacky license & usage restrictions on their software that often leaves users high & dry.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
"no longer spread the message that non-free software is a good thing if it's convenient." Its about damn time that people started realizing that computers dont just exist to make YOUR life easier. Selfish bastards...think of the computer's feelings once in a while. If everyone used commercial software because of the convenience then the only people around to stroke the egos of OSS developers would be other OSS developers.
So does capitalism, to an extent. Coders in richer countries are starting to lose out to coders in poorer countries. As more smart people become available in the IT labour market, their average value to the market will decline. That's capitalism. (I'm a socialist by the way.)
It destroys the small software company in favor of large services, hardware and tech conglomerate shops.
So does capitalism, but do I hear you complaining about that?
It kills entrepreneurship and innovation in the software industry, which I believe benefits society as a whole by encouraging said smart people to come up with new ideas and produce stuff that otherwise might not get produced.
So do software patents. The difference is, free software innovation can be addressed by government funding. Whereas the owner of a software patent has a monopoly and can charge prohibitively high licensing fees to prevent competition.
Female Prison Rape in NY
It's either this -
.. shouldn't restrict the person ..[snip].. want with it (change the code, distribute the code, etc.).
.. well, I prefer to code rather than to enforce the law.
Hell, charge as much as you can get away with
- or this -
You may succeed charging for the services or code customization, but the only way to build a business around (or make a living off) selling GPL'd code is through dual licensing. This clearly would work either when other people voluntarily comply with GPL or when you actively enforcing this compliance. Former is simply NOT HAPPENING and latter
So - thanks, but no. Trying to sell GPL'd code is just plain dumb. I'll let you do it.
"If we all carried the same devotion to good cause that RMS does, the world would be a much better place."
So which "good cause" should people get behind? Why that one? What about the others It's easy to talk about nobility. It's far different living it.
Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a "good cause", and all others are second class to it.
RMS has his, and everyone else has theirs. Problem is when they conflict. Now who's "good cause" is the "right one" and who's wrong? Not so simple is it?
You all can get behind RMS. Lord knows geeks have few heros. Just don't be surprised if people don't agree with him, and more importantly. He doesn't get his way. Maybe he's stubborn? Maybe we are? But who's right will only come out in the end.
It truly saddens me that you were modded as a troll. Hopefully metamoderation will ensure that whomever did that will not receive mod points again for some time.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"The original idea was for every citizen to be a yeoman farmer."
I guess I missed that part of the Constitution.
EMACS is a recursive acronym- Emacs Makes All Computing Simple!
"And yes, you can make money from free software."
You're not making money from free software. You're making money from surrounding activities, that are sometimes only tangially related to open source.
Plus your community has yet to prove that this "making money" is a significent factor in the whole OSS experience. It doesn't make a strong argument for OSS if "making money" consist of 5 out of a 100 making a living. while the remander have to take out second mortgages, and work two or three jobs to make a living.
Poverty is great for prophets. Sucks for the common man.
"This ideology breaks down in today's corporate condition. As we saw back in the 90's, Microsoft was in a position to regulate the market itself. Its regulation was much more targeted and efficient than the government could have *ever* been."
Really? I wasn't aware Microsoft had a monopoly in the bread market? The problem with your argument isn't that it's wrong. But that it's expected to be a universal condition. There are large swaths of the market were there is no monopoly, and what the OP you responded to do exist in large part.* However free will means that no one can make you do something for your own good (generally).
*I say in large part because there really is no free market in the ideal sense. There is always going to be some influence. Some from government. Some from investors. No business is an island.
"Yes, he is saying the same things as always. The same things he's been saying twenty years ago. And still, the rest of the world keeps behaving in exactly such ways that his words apply perfectly, again and again."
Maybe because the humans of Rome are pretty much the same as now. There's really not that much insight in RMS's position. Being observent of the human condition generally will lead an individual to some of the same conclusions.
The thing that distinguishes him from most others is his "sticking to his guns" as it were.
It does speak volumes! Where is the link to FOX News? RMS needs to be fair and balanced there.
Cheers,
e.
It's actually Extensible MACroS. Or Emacs Makes A Computer Slow... that's my favorite. In soviet russia computer makes emacs slow... ah.
My other car is first.
Some people have to work for a living unfortunately since money does not grow on trees and we don't all have rich parents and we cannot all live on welfare.
Software is worth paying for if it performs the job well and is easy to use. I'm sorry but most OSS have craptastic UI's and no offline documentation. Some software does not even have up to date documentation online.
Many of those proprietary software companies (Apple, Adobe etc...) employ usability experts to test the functionality of the UI. They know what works and what does not. You are not going to see many programmers with a knack for UI design working on an Open Source project. They are motivated by "scratching their own itch" rather than creating software for the public at large.
Can you honestly say that you would spend your own valuable time developing a useful UI for everyone to use when a "good enough" craptastic interface only you can understand would suffice?
Where is the motivation to create a better UI for other people?
I grew up poor and so I understand the value of a dollar and the value of work.
Don't give me that "freedom" and "free speech" bullshit. I can exercise my freedom and free speech by releasing software as a closed source binary if I so choose. If I do not provide adequate documentation, a good UI and value added features, people may choose to use an OSS alternative. It's called competition people. If I can provide a better user experience and functionality, I should be able to expect monetary compensation for my efforts.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
So has Bill Gates.
because it was economically impractical. The South had all it's capital tied up in slaves, which they were encouraged to treat at least as well as a horse. The North was busy utilizing a steady influx of imigrant labor they could treat far worse (not that I'm saying slaves were better off. That might be true only in select cases and in the short run, but they could never improve their situation without violent social upheaval). In any case, freedom gave the North had more free capital to spare for the Industrial Revolution.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The original free office suite is coming along nicely. OOo is ahead, but only because it was closed source for 15-20 years. Koffice is nice (better than OOo in many fundamental ways, though clearly lacking in features), and doesn't fall into the Java Trap.
Linus cannot revoke the license for Linux. He can't even change them, because he is not the only copyright holder. The copyright is held by a few thousand individual developers (and a few companies) who each have to agree to licenses changes, or their code removed before the license can change.
In the ridiculously big picture, all energy is precious. We will all be long dead before the heat death of the Universe, but heat death will happen. There is a limit to the amount of useful work that can be done in the Universe. Why is it pragmatic to spend this precious energy duplicating effort creating software that has already been created (e.g. creating a free SCM to replace BitKeeper)? Why is it pragmatic to rediscover the knowledge locked up in the BitKeeper sourcecode when said knowledge already exists and could be known by all? Why is it not pragmatic to work for a world where such duplication of effort is unnecessary (e.g. a world of free software)?
And I'm only half-kidding. We've created a magical machine that, once constructed a first time, may be duplicated any number of times at no cost. And the first thing we do is throw that magic away...
I use Pico. Emacs is my therapist.
I'm a big fan of your .sig there, and I even happen to be Christian. Granted, whether or not I claim to be religious is a different story all together... Mind if I steal it?
When "Freedom of Choice" no longer includes the freedom to choose a proprietary solution instead of a non-existant free solution, then it is no longer freedom, but a restriction.
Of all the people in the world, RMS is one of the most technically qualified to write a replacement for BK. But instead of choosing to do the right thing and set an example, he chose to go off on yet another holy rant which will amuse many, but will achieve nothing.
I love it when people do this. Your post doesn't specifically address me, but you did reply to me instead of the parent... Let's line-by-line!
"BK was used for kernel development. The Linux kernel. Hence, RMS calls it "Linux", because that is its name."
No one will disagree that Linux is a kernel. No one will disagree that its name is "Linux".
"In order for RMS to write "GNU/Linux" development, he would have to mean that the ENTIRE OS (meaning, kernel and all above components) used BK, which would be impossible and silly."
Note, "HE would have to mean". RMS has naming conventions, and he follows them strictly. I neither agree or disagree with HIS naming conventions, I merely note what would have to transpire for the parent's assessment to be correct.
"He also name drops GNU/Linux, mentioning that Linux has such visibility that it is often mistaken for the entire GNU/Linux OS."
Again, I'm paraphrasing RMS here.
"Whether you agree or disagree with RMS's naming conventions, he was not in any way inconsistent here."
I make sure to end on a neutral tone, hoping that no one could possibly mistake my post for an endorsement or a criticism of RMS's naming convention, an emotional topic throughout all of nerdtopia.
But, personally, I don't like RMS's move to rename the OS. I understand that he started a movement, organized, worked his ass off, and did it all for everyone, for principle, and also for fame (he's still a man, after all, and wants and deserves recognition for his life work- he certainly didn't get rewarded with billions of dollars here). It *IS* unfair that people say "Linux" while actually meaning a lot of GNU utilities (and other non-Linux things). There was first a "Lignux" thing, which I've never seen the details on, but it strikes me as sort of petty. And then to call it by a slash delimited name... well, it's not helping anyone.
People give things the names that they want. Corporations have found this out, as their trademarks become genericized and such. Language works like that. Microsoft has a billion versions of their OSes, but people know what you mean when you say "Windows". "Linux" is similar.
But the GPL doesn't give Stallman the right to try to persuade people to give it a name that lets his organization share the kudos that it deserves: he's ALWAYS had that right.
I would be a lot happier if Linus and RMS could just agree on a name. But, they don't really get along, and I'm not about to take sides on an issue that I know maybe 7% of what's going on about.
It's all names and ideas, and seems silly to an outsider, but the entire universe these programs exist in is names and ideas. Seeing graphics that portray the GNU as a mighty hero and a tiny Tux as a mascot can't be viewed as fair, either.
It' sa complex issue, and I don't wanna take sides on it. Hence the neutral post above.
That there was an article by an Open Source guy on the relevant website. Basically, the claim was that RMS was making up the division between them, and that they were really the same- except that RMS was dragging his heels about things.
The idea was that Free was just a certain type of Open, a subset in practice and not an upper level division like he implied.
I just didn't want to make a post that could be seen as inflammatory by someone who thinks that RMS has gone to far, or whatever.
Anyway, I didn't agree with the article when I read it. But making a neutral post when so many givens are disputed by *someone*, *somewhere*, is hard.
Except GPLed code isn't like being able to take apart your clock radio, it's like insisting your clock radio comes with a complete set of detailed schematics, how to make all the individual components (eg: exact formulas for the plastic, etc) such that anyone who purchases one could recreate it completely from scratch *without having to do any work themselves*.
But that's almost exactly like a car with a good shop manual, which is really the best analogy. Similarily auto makers are trying to shut out small repair shops by making more parts of care proprietary. The only difference is that software is slowly moving towards a form of freedom while cars are slowly moving away... but autos are much easier to understand and the whole amll auto-mechainc industry actually has a pretty good lobby to stop auto makers from going too far. Simialrily (again) FSF and the EFF serve the same need for software, trying to protect freedom of users in the computer space. They have more of an uphill battle though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Furthermore, it strikes me as strange that RMS focuses on the ethical issues to the exclusion of all others, when the very reason for the success/adoption of the GPL is pure economics - it creates a "you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours" community of participants who contribute back improvements in exchange for the right to make use of a large library of infrastruture components avaialable under these common licensing terms. Forgive my oversimplification, but I don't think that's a radical claim I'm making.
You can't scratch someone else's back when you cant reach it, or even see it.
I would argue strongly that indeed the success in adiption of much open source software is not just ecenomic but exactly because it offered the freedom to customize in-house and also the freedom to examine internals to review what you were really getting. This force has been storng enough to force many companies into code escrow arrangemnents when buying third party software, I'm not sure that would have happened without pressure from software where you had such ready access to the source.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He's talking about the kernel, hence he respects the name it was given--Linux. He asks people to do the same when speaking of the OS in which the Linux kernel is most commonly used so that both projects get a share of the credit--GNU/Linux.
Time to read the GNU/Linux naming FAQ, perhaps.
Digital Citizen
Anyway.. So far Red Hat has been working on compiling the parts of OOo that do work (or can be made to work) with GCJ for shipping with their distro. I suspect Debian and so on will do something similar. So in that sense, it's already forked.
Actually that could end up being quite good. It's possible the pressure to use OO2.0 on a totalyl Free system might well be the impetus required to really beef up GCJ! So in that sense it could end up being quite beneficial that OO2.0 has a mcuh stronger dependancy on Java.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And yes, I understand it's a perfectly valid tool when you want your software to be less freely usable, but that's not the path I choose, maybe because I don't view people that want to sell software as evil and I value their contribution to the further development of my code regardless of their motivations or benefit from that.
Is it more practical to settle into one version control system and use it over a long period of time, or to shift between proprietary version control systems that flake out from underenath you and require you to change systems on THIER terms, not yours?
That is pretty much at the heart of what RMS is trying to say, all the time. That ultimatley the only "Practical" software is software YOU control, not another company.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
THIS is the reason why non-free software, in its current form, is a scary thing. Most licenses can be modified at any time, without notice, by the licensor. Bill Gates could, in theory, tell the whole world tomorrow "You can no longer use Windows."
No, he can't. This is completely established in copyright law. An author's control is limited to when a work can be copied, and when it can be distributed- and after it's been distributed once, his control is gone (by the Right of First Sale)
Maybe if you believed that EULAs were legally binding contracts, then you might think Bill Gates could revoke Windows at a whim. But indeed, the fact that binding EULAs would lead to such a ludicrously disasterous possibility is one of the reasons why they CANNOT be held valid by a sane court.
There are many, many reasons that EULAs aren't binding. In fact, the argument for EULAs is a circular one: if Gates had the ability to revoke Windows from you, then he'd have leverage to push you into agreeing with the EULA. But since he has no leverage, you don't have to sign the EULA, and he gets no revokation right.
If I use some GPL software that I get tied to for one reason or another, and it breaks or stops being maintained, and I don't have time to learn and fix the code, I'm almost as screwed as I would be basing on a commercial product that gets discontinued.
This isn't an argument for commercial products, just a reason why OSS isn't a panacea for people that buy too heavily into a particular product. This is one reason why I like using the file system as a database, textual file formats for storage, etc, whenever possible. Keeps the overhead low if I need to move my data. It's also an argument for the unix philosophy of small interacting programs rather than big environments like OpenOffice, although unix (ok, linux) itself is somewhat of a gilded cage for me.
Someone, please, mod this as funny
Similarly, if you post a program on your website and say "Here, you may, until the sun burns out, copy this program, make derivative works from it, and distribute them, as long as you provide source code, etc." [i.e. implement the GPL], you can later take it down and revoke your permission. Then people will no longer be able to distribute their derivative works. Too bad for them. They should have made a contract with you: e.g. paid you $5 for a written license allowing all of the above.
Nope. Only if you failed to download a copy of the permission to your own computer would that work.
In realistic situations, the author has no legal way to destroy the offer they made when the code was given to you, and must honor it if presented.
So instead of bowing down and thanking the proprietary companies for letting me use thier software, I should instead bow down to some loony long hair who now decides to tell me what my code can be licensed under
Yes.
And if you weren't so blinkered in your anti-Stallmanism, you'd realize that he's done you an immense service thus far. "You ungrateful bastard" was very appropriate.
Of course, if you have a better solution, please do implement it and show us that it yields as good results as RMS's. But do that in practice, as he has done, not just in empty talk.
Except you can do this with a GPL'ed program as well. If you are the sole copyright holder of a program, even if you have only ever released it under the GPL, you can revoke that license. The GPL does not preclude this. You can revoke all users license at any time, and even replace it with a non-free license, if you so desire.
Wrong. Twice wrong. First, the GPL specifically precludes that. Second, the copyright laws of most countries (including the USA, where Linus lives) also forbids it.
Linus Torvalds could say, tomorrow, that he revokes everyone's right to use the parts of the Linux kernel he wrote. That's his right as copyright holder.
If you have a shred of reference supporting that, I'd love to see it. But you won't be able to find any. (Australian laws or "moral rights" DON'T count)
It means that you should consider another line of work that doesn't make you do unethical things to make a living. There's nothing "interesting" about posing an argument that frames the debate as though you can do nothing but program computers to write non-free software.
Digital Citizen
Huh? The EULA for Windows XP says no such thing. I think you've confused typical "terms of service" for web sites, which often do say things
EULAs don't matter, because they're not legally binding (I'm talking about for PC software, not access to an online service).
But if you did, hypothetically believe in EULAs, then the current text of the Windows XP EULA should give you no reassurance. Microsoft can force upgrades of WinXP one way or another (automatic installation of an update, or simply not patching a critical security hole without an update), and those upgrades can include new EULAs that must be clicked-through to proceed. And you can be pretty sure that thousands of people will click-through before even one of them slows down to read it.
Because nobody, except for a true sheep, would agree to such a license, for one thing.
Hypothetically, if clicking "Yes" under an EULA constituted agreement, then you'd be demonstrably wrong. Fortunately it's non-binding, or Microsoft could decide to randomly extract $10,000,000 from every millionth customer of Windows XP.
I'm so sick of people saying that the FOSS movement is "misunderstood". The reality is that people are cheap. If they can get something for FREE (as in cost) they will. You can wax poetic all day about the virtues of Freedom Software but at the end of the day the VAST majority of people use it because it has no monetary cost.
This idea that you can charge whatever you want for it is a fallicy, especially in the FOSS world. FOSS people will deliberatly undermine your ability to make money from the selling of the software by providing it free of charge if for no other reason that just to prove that they can.
Let's stop the semantic non-sense and call a spade a spade.
You are not in the same position with non-free software as you are with free software. Free software can be fixed by the user themselves (obviously, this requires skill) or by hiring someone to do the work. If those dormant Sourceforge projects are not developing fast enough for you, you can do something about that.
Freedom is not the same as skill. This is not about getting people to do your work for you any time you want it done without paying them to do it (if that's the level of support you want, pay a programmer and get them to work on your schedule with your priorities in mind). And this is not about "OSS" which RMS does not represent and has taken much effort to distinguish himself from. It's about the pragmatic idealism which the open source movement rejects, giving users the freedom to decide how their software is improved.
Digital Citizen
You're trying to chastise the idealism of the man who proved by existence that his idealism was practical. Twenty years of history would seem to suggest such admonition is unwise.
Digital Citizen
the purchaser is really buying an MRI unit or in ABS system - the fact that it comes with software is mostly beside the point
Yeah, until the system crashes and the vendor finds it "unprofitable" to recall/repair. Or until there is a great new braking or imaging algorithm, and instead of a flash upgrade, you have to buy a new car or new MRI because a director of marketing thought "bundling" is the easiest way to beat earnings (aka snort a bigger bonus).
The FSF may not care if five hospitals get screwed out of $10M and pass their cost on to RMS when he visits the ER. Regardless, the fundamental reality of software means that "black box with source and docs" is better than "black box". Companies with technology buyers who understand that have an economic edge.
Like a model capitalist, I enjoy fucking more than getting fucked.
Just saying that slavory wasn't a good econimic model for an Industrialized society. The problem with slavery isn't that the labor isn't cheap, it's that you tie up your capital in slaves, and that makes it tough when it's time to build a new factory that makes the new widgets. With poorly paid laborers, you can hire 'em and fire 'em whenever needed, and keep your capital free for expansion. Slavery's great in the long run, but short run it's hard to get the money together to build a factor and man it with slaves.
I can't imagine the average imigrant working thinking that far ahead anyhow (try getting even a well educated American today to do something about outsourcing and compare them to an Irish dirt farmer from the 1800's). Unless the idea was being drummed into their heads by weathly Northernors for their own purposes, which I could see happening, but it's a moot point. Slavery just doesn't make sense in a dynamic economy. Slaves are too expensive, and too easily replaced with machine labor. Hell, think of how many slaves a cotton gin replaced.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
d_jedi is a nut who has no idea of how the software industry works.
First of all, the vast majority of all programmers work on in-house projects, for which license doesn't matter a squat one way or another. The vast majority of the rest work on vertical markets, for which switching to an pay-for-development model rather than pay-for-code model would not be a major change.
So students job opportunities would not be affected.
A very small minority work on mass-produced shrink wrap software for which a world in which "RMS's way" would require some rethought.
[ Actually, d_jedi is not a not, he is just very young and inexperienced. The mass-produced is far the most visisble, so if you avoid putting thought into what "mass-produced" actually means, you will conclude tat is also where most people work. ]
Businesses usually have support contracts, so mass produced software development financed through support contract is quote viable.
The leave the "home entertainment" industry, which is the only place where I don't believe "RMS's way" would work. There would off-course stil be games, because hobbyist programmers love games, but the finished movie-like play-once game wouldn't survive.
1) You don't see it. You see the GUI.
2) It is Mach kernel with a BSD personalty (cf Linux Kernel Personality does not make SCO Unix Linux)
Ta.
> Except in the case of FOSS, the reason I should do it is because the users simply insist I should.
What on Earth give you that impression? I write free software because I'm paid to do so. If you look at the succesful free software projects, you will see that most of the code is contributed to people who are paid to do so.
I have said it a zillion times, and I'll say it again: My code is free, my time isn't!
When people need to code functionality and they can't develop it inhouse, they have two options:
1) Pay someone to develop the code and license it from them under a proprietary license.
2) Pay someone to develop the code and publish it under a free license.
The first option is often cheaper on the short timescale, but the second option is cheaper on a longer timescale. If you want any further changes, the free software allows you to choose the cheapest bidder, while the propritary software developer will have a monopoly and can set the price as they wish.
Smart organizations are therefore increasingly prefering option 2 over option 1. However, smart is rare, business rarely think further ahead than the next quarterly report, and municipal and givernment organization have at most a time horizon spanning to the next election.
The third option is to develop inhouse or buy ownership in which case license doesn't matter, and is still far the most common. Option 1 & 2 only really has an advantage if others can use the code as well, and thus contribute to the development.
RMS has been a visionary for a long time. Linux wouldn't be too usable without his foresight so many years ago, and most of the current Free Software (and what some people call Open Source) wouldn't be here either. Most likely, a lot of great websites like CreativeCommons.org wouldn't be around either, and our rights would be on even shakier ground than they are now.
Basically, the people here insulting RMS are akin to unappreciative children insulting the father that gave them a home for so many years.
But the GPL lets you relicense, so it can't really be taken away. Yesterday I gave my brother a copy of the linux kernel under the GPL. The GPL I got from Linus says I can do that. Now, if today Linus says he's revoking my license, my brother still has his license, because I gave him a license while I still had permission to, and I'm not revoking it. So there will still be plenty of GPL copies of linux.
I am trolling
Many enterprise software companies have a considerable market power, even when they have competitors, and so they act accordingly. One thing such companies do is price discrimination. There is no one price. Witness Oracle. They won't tell you the price outright on their web site (when they do it's usually an upper bound, above the price many companies pay). They'll look at you and then try to estimate how much cash you have. They won't attempt to have the cash that you don't have but they WILL try to extract as much of your cash as possible through licensing and support fees.
Is normally 'how much the client can afford to pay' balanced against 'how much do i want my bonus to be for selling it to them' vs 'did we make any sales last year' as well as 'we can screw it back out of them with the service plan'
ie: price varies.
Yay me!
So I fail to see what he is going on about. Linus had very specific requirements and quite obviously cast around for open source tool that met them. They didn't, so pragmatism took over and he found a good commercial tool that he could use for free. The net result of this horrifying turn of events? Linus was free to write more code because the tools were better and everyone else got their kernels faster and sooner. So the lead kernel developer was much more productive than he would have been otherwise.
It's not like all that work has to be thrown away or anything either. All the patches, meta info etc. has been retrieved.
If RMS was so concerned about BitKeeper way back when, perhaps he should have lit a fire under the GNU Arch folks, or sent out an appeal to produce a tool that worked for distributed development.
Oy, you really need to read up on this. There are a lot areas of American law where you can argue based on what you think the answer is, but in this case there are specific statutes at work, and you are wrong. Mr. Moglen is a copyright professor at Columbia Law School, as well as being the author of the GPL and the general counsel for the FSF. I don't know who you are, but I'm pretty sure you're less qualified on this question than he is.
I ususally don't mind what RMS says, often he will say things simply and concisely.
However in this case he doesn't add anything to the debate, except perhaps come to the aid of the developer who reverse-engineered some of the BK protocol.
He could have remained silent. The debacle speaks for itself loud and clear.
Now _that_ is funny.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Obvious missing option. I create free software for:
.
.
(*) Beasts!!
The irony is that deep pockets sometimes get the best deals.
I know somebody who works for a Fortune 500 and in dealing with a niche-market software vendor they got good software deals since the vendor could then claim them as a customer. In the niche markets (where there are no Oracle's, Microsoft's, CA's, IBM's, etc) often the best advertisements are your customer reference lists. Often you will almost give your product away to a few big high-profile companies and then make your money off of the million 500 employee companies in the same market.
Why do supposedly free market thinkers think you need government monopolies to make money?
I can build (assemble) my own PCs and I used to do just that. These days I let a few local companie do that for me. I can wash my own car, but I often pay ssomeone to do that for me as well. I grow some of the things I eat and buy some. We cook some of our meals at home and buy some out. And, wonder of wonders, no monopolies.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
"Have you *read* the GPL? It says I can redistribute it all I want. I don't need to modify anything!"
Here is a business plan for you:
Do a survey of all the top notch GPL programs and get rich selling them.
Don't bother writing any software, I mean why spend money developing software to sell when people like me are writing software and releasing it under the GPL? Just take our GPL programs and market them for fun and profit!
Don't forget to send me my cut when you become rich using this idea. That goes for all of you who read this by the way! ~;-)
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I wonder if Microsoft has internal battles like this. The great thing about "open" source is that we get to see all this. :-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Typical moron who just does not get it.
r eedom.html
Linus Torvalds did more in 10 years to popularize open source software than GNU did in double that...
Well, DUH!
Stallman goes out of his way to make the point that he has little to do with the Open Source movement.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-f
QUOTE: "We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we created this community, and we want people to know this. We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy, not with theirs. We want to be heard, not obscured behind a group with different views. To prevent people from thinking we are part of them, we take pains to avoid using the word ``open'' to describe free software, or its contrary, ``closed'', in talking about non-free software.
Also, if you are going to replace the GNU userland, are you going to write your own compiler as well?
When RMS was first developing the GNU stuff, did he at any point rely on "non free" software? Or did he write everything from scratch? (Including the kernal and shell he used for development?) Was it convenient then for him to use non-free software?
No offense meant, but Pico is by far the worst choice you could make for an edit. Emacs fanboy here, but pico? Try vi?
I don't know who moded this down , Its 100% correct .
. .Rushing the point and ending up with quite the oposite to what was desired . .
We need to constantly balance these things and if we let the whole ethical thing sway us too far in one direction we could tip over(equaqly the same if we let all decisions be made on a fiscal basis).
Balance is the most important thing we can strive for , not to drop our ethics but also not to forget the world outside
Take head from other reveloutions that went so very wrong by letting fanatcism control the helm
If we keep our heads and keep our thoughts focused (on all sides of the argument) we will have far greater success
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
... where would we be today?
Running FreeBSD?
RMS did not invent free software. It existed before him and exists outside of him.
I'll be nice and not make any GNU HURD in 2084 jokes...
I haven't installed XP, so I haven't read the EULA; I am indeed going on older memories.
However, I followed your link and found this:
6. TERMINATION. Without prejudice to any other rights, Microsoft may cancel this EULA if you do not abide by the terms and conditions of this EULA, in which case you must destroy all copies of the Product and all of its component parts.
Are you of the opinion that you, the user, get to decide if you've abided by the terms and conditions of the EULA? Or do you think Microsoft makes that determination? If you fight it, of course, a court gets to make the determination. But note this text in section 1:
You may permit a maximum of ten (10) computers or other electronic devices (each a "Device") to connect to the Workstation Computer...
Have you connected your workstation to the internet? Then a sufficiently strict reading of that clause means you've violated the EULA. Of course, Microsoft has no intention of enforcing it like that, which is why they put it in the EULA.
Am I getting a bit paranoid at this point? Of course. My point is simply that the terms of the EULA give ALL the power to the owner of the copyright, and NONE to you. You can use the product for as long as Bill Gates makes money at it.
More pragmatically, what Bill would probably do rather than yanking everyone's license is to move to an annual licensing fee and to refuse to provide security patches to the old perpetual licenses. (He can do this; note section 11 - 90 days after you purchase the product, you have NO warranty (ie quality) rights at all). After denying security patches to you, he sets a couple hundred programmers to finding security flaws and releasing patches for the ANNUAL licensees, followed a few days later with detailed instructions for exploiting the flaws. In essence, he can, at will, render the product useless unless you give him more $$$.
An author's control is limited to when a work can be copied
Nope. Bill Gates doesn't SELL you a copy of Windows - he LICENSES it. It's the difference between your right to smash all the walls in a house you own , and your utter lack of rights to smash all the walls in a house you rent.
Maybe if you believed that EULAs were legally binding contracts
Actually, I don't, and I advise people to behave as if they bought a copy. You raise a valid point. I will counter that Gates is rich enough to effetively buy a decision in his favor. He is also powerful enough to force people to make the change. I posted this argument elsewhere in this thread, but it would boil down to refusing to supply security patches to people who didn't accept his modified EULA, and publicizing the multitudinous security flaws MS would find in the "old" versions of Windows. Six months of that would see all Windows boxes rooted unless they paid their annual Microsoft tax.
The reason the analogy falls down is because with OSS software #3 is really:
3. Source code that lets you *duplicate* the software *at (effectively) no cost*.
FIrst of all you always have a cost - electricity, time, what have you. The cost is greater for physical parts of course.
But even then the analogy still holds because people do make third party parts for cars that you can use as replacements. This is equivilent to "duplication", though it starts to get a little wierd.
But fundamentally you are stretching things beyond where they need to go. The simple goal is to have software that people can at least modify in ways similar to how other physical things can be owned and modified. That is a worthy goal, and if not followed you end up never owning or being able to change anything - like renting an apartment your entire life vs. owning a home. A lot of people might be OK with that but I am not OK with that as the only option. Would you like it if the state owned all housing and you could never modify a property you bought?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, I think that the user can decide for himself whether he's violated the EULA (just as the person who distributes software written under the GPL can decide if this distribution is allowed under the GPL). As you note, if the user's decision is different than the copyright holder's (Microsoft's, in this case), a court may end up deciding.
I'm not trying to defend the MS EULA as a good thing. I think it sucks (except for the part about the refund - there are some very interesting ideas about that). But it's bad enough on its own - we don't need to spread FUD about how it says that MS can update it at any time without any notice, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Shut the fuck up. You are a nerd.
plenty of reputable
historians would argue that the Allies defeated
the Nazis precisely because they _did_ have a better
economy.
It's easy to say that in hindsight, but if you were the in the US in the 1940's I'd be willing to bet the economic benefits were not exactly on the radar when they made the decision to go to war. Actually, the high cost of the war in both lives and money was basically why they didn't participate in WWII sooner.
The whole reason that the US became so superior economically and had so much output was the same reason that Britons persevered so well during Nazi attacks--a firm commitment to their country and their beliefs. The reason so many jeeps and planes came out of the US was because of the sacrifice on the home front--wives went to work at a time when they were expected to stay at home, everything was rationed, whole factories dedicated all their output to the war instead of domestic demand, etc. None of that made sense form an economic standpoint, it was all driven by determination and resolve to fight for what was right.
As for RMS, I don't think he would be the right choice to run my comapny, but I'd definietly like to have someone that committed to his ideals to provide vision and direction.
I was probably modded troll for saying, "or his he too much of a tool to?" Oh well. I just don't understand why Stallman could've been writing a better tool for the job, but instead he chooses to complain about others choosing the best tool for the job.
Nope. Bill Gates doesn't SELL you a copy of Windows - he LICENSES it.
You are alleging that the computer stores across America are committing thousands of cases of fraud per day. Every time they give out a "Sales Reciept" with "Microsoft Office" on it, they certifying that it has just been legally sold.
If you disagree, phone your state District Attorney!
It's the difference between your right to smash all the walls in a house you own , and your utter lack of rights to smash all the walls in a house you rent.
Microsoft has suggested they might someday move to renting out software, but it hasn't happened yet.
AC: I don't know who you are, but I'm pretty sure you're less qualified on this question than he is.
Yes, I am less qualified. So, that's why I'm giving my answer based on repeating what he's written. If you respect Mr. Moglen, you therefore agree I'm correct. Or if you still disagree, you need to reread whatever you think you saw.
If you believe the EULA, they ARE renting their software. They only demand one rent payment, and the agreement lasts indefinitely. In Microsoft's opinion, they aren't selling you a copy; they are providing you with permission to use a copy. There is an unsubtle legal difference between ownership and usage, and the best real-property example I can think of is the difference between owning a house and renting a house.
I suppose a closer (but unrealistic) analogy would be paying a builder $100,000 for a house with the provision that if he doesn't like what you do with the house, he will take ownership of the house and evict you.
we don't need to spread FUD
True. Well put.
Please do tell us where we can find recordings, transcripts, or other descriptions of these arguments, I would love to read them and learn more about exactly what was asked and what RMS said in response.
Is this one of the "semantic" points you refer to--getting the name of the movement and its philosophy wrong? RMS didn't start the open source movement and he has spent considerable time telling people he has nothing to do with that movement. A major chunk of his speech on how the GNU Project began is a patient explanation of the relationship his movement, the free software movement, has to the open source movement. He started the free software movement over a decade before the open source movement began. The two movements stand for different philosophies. And that essay shows that RMS is remarkably respectful when discussing the differences, unlike the Open Source Initiative which reduces the free software movement to "ideological tub-thumping" in its FAQ.
And why should he choose to attend a group which chooses to give far more credit to one man and that man's project than that project is due while simultaneously giving no credit at all to the GNU Project which has had such a tremendous effect? I happened to give LUGRadio another listen today and the people who host that show got into this argument on the show. Apparently they didn't realize how they shot down their own logic when one of them gave a list of 3 or 4 things RMS had contributed (an incomplete list to be sure) and then insisted that RMS would be exerting power over them if he were to reject their request for an interview on the basis that they give the GNU Project no credit (and give "Linux" all the credit). RMS has the right to determine where he will speak and there's no reasonable explanation for not giving GNU its fair share of credit. He would be endorsing the view to give Linux all the credit if he attends and speaks. RMS has already addressed this issue in some detail, with far better logic, and again, quite respectfully; far more respectfully than you or the LUGRadio people appear to have done:
Digital Citizen
Quoting RMS, "We should not forget the lesson we have learned from it: Non-free programs are dangerous to you and to your community. Don't let them get a place in your life." All right all you parents with grade-school aged kids...The Jumpstart series is dangerous to your kids. It teaches them to do things like read, write, add, subtract and oh...it teaches them to think. Yes, RMS is right once again.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Forgive me for being slow to reply. I'm trying to throw off the wicked shivers you've given me.
Wait, you're a troll! Oh man, how did I not see that?
Man, you trolls get me good every time.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
This is extremely true, and it's something which I wish a lot more people would acknowledge. RMS claiming to be the father of free software is the equivalent of Gates claiming to be the father of operating systems in general. In other words, it's quite simply not true.
Thank you for the confirmation of my argument. Too bad /. mods are so biased that any anti-GPL argument gets modded down to -1, even when it has valid arguments...
:-)
Larry's book is where I got my argument, I just couldn't REMEMBER that's where I got it, otherwise I would have referenced it.
Yes, indeed, my point was that Linus is the copyright holder, and unless you have signed a contract with the copyright holder granting you specific legal rights, you are bound by the copyright holder's whims in regards to the license.
AOL is a great example. An AOL employee released a piece of software under the GPL, which AOL then revoked. That was AOL's right as copyright holder. (The employee thought he was the copyright holder, he was wrong. His employment contract with AOL gave AOL the copyright.) I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the software, I do remember it was by the authors of WinAMP, after AOL acquired them. (I'm pretty sure the software ended up being re-written free of AOL's influence, because I remember it was a fairly major piece of anti-establishment software, P2P, I believe.)
P.S. I love your analogies.. Great stuff.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
"in this case there are specific statutes at work"
True. According to the US copyright code, if you grant a non-exclusive license (e.g. a license using the GPL) and then transfer the copyright to someone else (e.g. sell it to a company), the license survives the transfer only if "evidenced by a written instrument signed by the owner of the rights licensed or such owner's duly authorized agent" [17 USC 205(e) http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/205.html]. Is the GPL a signed, written instrument? It's written, but where's the signature (digital or otherwise)? So I would not like to rely on how a judge would rule.
The FSF does not worry about revocation or transfers for GNU software because it requires contributors to transfer copyright to the FSF, and the FSF will not revoke the GPL (though they may relicense under the GPLv3 when that license is drafted and ready). Probably the FSF's incorporation charter would forbid it from doing something dubious anyway, e.g. revoking the GPL license and making a project purely closed-source.
But should others, who use the GPL without getting copyright assignments, worry? I do a bit and lean towards contract-based licenses. The main argument against them is that they are mostly incompatible with the GPL, under which most free software is licensed.
"Mr. Moglen is a copyright professor at Columbia Law School"
He is a professor of law and legal history, not copyright. However, I have no doubt that Prof. Moglen knows more about copyright law than I or than most people who read and post to slashdot know. However, he is busy and not easily available for these discussions, and the same goes for others with similar expertise. Furthermore, it is an issue on which the copyright experts are divided. Partly because there is so little case law on the subject. Most licenses are not to the public at large, and are about limiting rights, whereas the GPL and its cousins grant huge rights to everyone, and courts have not faced the new issues that this situation creates. Are these licenses gifts? Courts usually refuse to enforce gifts, so they will not force a copyright holder to stick by his or her license. Is it a contract? If so, was it validly formed (offer, acceptance, consideration)? If not, did the licensee reasonably rely on the contract terms (e.g. in forming a company), which might now be revoked and thereby destroy the company?
Without court cases and law review articles addressing these issues (or sections in Nimmer on Copyright), one must think through these issues oneself and guess how courts will rule, and try to cover the bigger loopholes -- even if there is a significant chance of being wrong.
?Shut the fuck up. You are a nerd.
Shut the fuck up. You are an AC with nothing to say.
And in case you didn't notice, slashdot is where the nerds hang out. Moron.
My other car is first.
No, it doesn't, and no, it doesn't.
The GPL contains no provisions whatsoever stating that the licensee has a permanent license. Like any other license, it can be revoked at any time. One of the writers of the GPL even sees this as a major impediment to the GPL.
Copyright law says the copyright holder has final say, unless he has specifically granted someone else some permissions. The GPL does this; but again, the GPL doesn't say it can't be revoked. The copyright holder doesn't have to RESERVE rights, he has to GRANT them. It's a 'positive' system, not a 'negative'. I don't have to tell you what you CAN'T do with my stuff, I just have to tell you what you CAN do. And the GPL doesn't say your license lasts forever.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Without resorting to google, the company was NullSoft.
I'm led to believe they whip the llama's ass.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
No, they couldn't (round here) due to restrictions on what can and can not be included in a non-negotiable contract.
Writers imply. Readers infer.