Slashdot Mirror
RMS Calls to Liberate Cyberspace
Henri Poole writes "In an interview with Groklaw's Sean Daly at GPLv3 Conference in Barcelona, RMS talks with passion about the dangers of DRM. From the article: 'the point is, we shouldn't be passive victims! We should decide that it will not happen! And the way we decide that is by activism. We have to do everything possible to make sure that those products are rejected, that they fail, that they give bad reputations to whoever makes them.' He closed the interview with a far reaching goal for the Free Software Movement: 'the goal is to liberate everyone in cyberspace.'"
Was RMS wearing a Superman outfit when he made his call to liberate cyberspace.
I always enjoy it when Richard Stallman gives interviews. He was probably the first person--many, many years ago!--to fundamentally understand that we have a CHOICE of whether we want to preserve freedoms to do whatever we want with our software, or whether we're going to let other parties take those freedoms away from us.
Also, he had the guts to stand up for his freedoms and everyone else's, to be able to do what they want with their software. He's done more than just about any other single person to try and protect those freedoms for regular folks like you and me.
Can you imagine what the software landscape would look like today without the GPL, without the FSF and without all the free software that has been licensed under the GPL (both by the FSF and by many other open-source contributors)? Even if many of us continue to use non-free systems such as Windows XP, it is nice to know we have a choice. And we WOULDN'T have that choice anymore if Richard and many others had not stood up when they did.
Lots of people criticise Richard Stallman, but in my view nearly all of those people are either (1) immature kids who wouldn't pass a real civics class if they were ever put in one, (2) people who don't understand the real issues and how fundamental they are, or (3) shills or trolls or other people with an anti-freedom agenda.
There are a small number of people who understand the issues but aren't particularly concerned about them; extreme pragmatists like Linus probably fall into this category. Still, I don't often hear Linus or others from this category criticising Stallman.
The people who criticise Richard Stallman are those who are afraid of his message.
The FSF has recently launched the Defective by Design campaign. This campaign is an initiative to provide activism opportunities for free software activists and is 'new territory' for the FSF. In the last 30 days, DefectiveByDesign has received press in Reuters, Financial Times, BusinessWeek, US News and World Report, BBC and over 40 publications in the tech space. The project was launched in response to the most recent FSF members meeting earlier this year, where many FSF members discussed ideas about bringing the fight for free software into the mainstream.
I really can't say it gave all that much new information, but he definitely made some points. DRM, in any shape or form, is essentially incompatible with the idea of Free Software. When your goal is to restrict the public, there's really no room for compromise. Richard Stallman = smart man.
I think the biggest problem is educating the public about what DRM is.
:/
In my experiences, after explaining what DRM is to people that I know, they think it is the dumbest thing that they have ever heard.
I am sure the public would reject it, but the problem remains then: how do we educate the public?
Registered Linux user #421033
There is no reason a rockstar or record label or anyone else connected to the industry NEEDS to be a millionare.
Capitalism will continue to reign. The market needs new blood and we can let the people decide.
Industries change and empires fall. The music and film industry is in need of a paradigm shift. As a content creator, I am concerned over my content but if a client or the public is paying, I'd like for them to be able to determine my value.
Before liberation, shouldn't we educate the public first? Most people today know nothing about DRM, FSF, or that MP3 is a patented format. We all remember the Sony rootkit scandal, but the average consumer does not. The average consumer uses proprietary Windows formats and never considers the dangerous problems that closed systems present to free information. As long as the ignorant masses stay complacent and docile, and as long as consumers obsesquiently gobble up DRM-laced products, there is no chance that free software will win.
~ C.
At the beginning of the interview, RMS talks about the top priorities for GNU programmers. He remarks, "Flash was a high priority, but it's mostly done." Is this true? Is gnash close to being a usable Flash player?
what of the Indian peasant who, thanks to his cellphone, now has more up to date market information and, because of this, is better able to provide for his family? Should he be "liberated" from that technology because it is proprietary, non free, non gratis, owned by the evil corporate horde?
RMS says our goal should be to liberate everyone in cyberspace (whatever that is). I say our goal should be to liberate everyone on earth - from poverty and disease and whatever else needs fixin'. It may never happen, but in a world where only perhaps - at best - 20 percent of the population even has such connectivity, saying only that elite should be included in the revolution seems to me nothing more than a recipe for even greater division and oppression.
I couldn't agree more.
The fact that machines are being built to suppress what people can do with them rather than to enhance our abilities to grow and perhaps go beyond their intended purposes makes them defective by design. Imagine not being able to make a copy of your music for use in your car because you already have one at home, one at your office, and three that were made for iPods (the first two of which were lost or broken). What if you wanted to include it in a mix tape [sic]?
Or it's like buying a computer that will only run M$ software - software that purposely spies on everything you do so that M$ can "protect" you from doing something their contract (that you signed when you turned the machine on) disallows.
It's FUBAR.
The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.
-- Molly Ivins
DRM isn't dangerous... DRM is simply encryption, and encryption isn't bad. I don't think anyone here wants encryption restricted in any way. Everyone has the right to encrypt any data in any way they want, period!
What IS dangerous is the government requiring DRM or giving it special legal protection. It is dangerous if the government mandates DRM, and makes it illegal for me to circumvent DRM. If I can crack the DRM on media, and convert it to an unprotected format for myself, without any fear of legal consequences, then my rights are not being restricted in any way.
What is also dangerous is people thinking that the government should act against DRM. Seriously, that is just as bad as DRM. It is going to come back to bite people in the ass when those anti-DRM laws start restricting how you are allowed to encrypt your own data. If I create data, I want to be able to encrypt it in any way I choose... just because you find it annoying that it takes 10 seconds to run your itunes music through a utility to convert it to mp3, doesn't mean you have the right to restrict me from encrypting my data however I want.
Basicly, keep all the legal restrictions out of it, and let people do whatever the hell they want want... that is the only truly safe thing to do.
Anyone know where can I get this GNU Flash player that rocks? Anyone know where I can get a GNU Flash editor?
Thanks.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I was thinking don't buy it.
But if you want want to give an aspiring journalist somthing to write about, feel free.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I live in the United States. I spent yesterday looking at other countries and what qualities of government they have, because I am just plain sick of it here. Every week, I read at least one story about our rights and how they are being taken away through the back door. It was difficult to find a country where there weren't any drawbacks - all forms of government seem fundamentally flawed in (at least) one way or another. We don't NEED it on the Internet.
This world-wide network has gained a momentum, and there are people in power that are AFRAID of that momentum. With no REAL commercial core, with free speech and architecture giving itself power and stance... These people feel threatened that they will be disregarded. So they start fighting it in their world.
MPAA/RIAA lawsuits. DRM. Internet taxation. F*CK THAT.
How about open standards. Open SOURCE CODE. Open practice and ethics. These are all the backbone of the Internet, such as the Tier 1 Internet providers, Internet exchanges and other entities that share information freely. We *KNOW* how to govern ourselves. It's actually very inspiring, isn't it? No real central authority (except for standards and protocols, like the IEEE and DNS root servers)... These people who don't see how it works right now intend to change it so THEY are the ones calling the shots.
No thanks, I think we can do it ourselves.
He's right. We need to fight. Keep it in the hands of everyone, not a just a few corruptable, power hungry mother f*ckers who want to either make money from it or pat themselves on the back knowing that they are in control.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
If you cannot profit from your work because people upload your tv shows and music to usenet, then it will not make economic sense to make tv shows any more. So the money making scheme is. Produce shows. Encrypt with DRM. Profit.
Obviously, denouncing DRM and the products and companies that sustain it is what any fair use advocate should do. But such a strategy will never work unless the unwashed masses are also made aware of how DRM negatively impacts their lives. The anti-DRM slashdot type accounts for such a small piece of the pie compared to the workaday single mom who wants to record her soaps in HD, or the 13-year-old girl who wants to record Britney's new trailer trash offering off of the radio, or the recent business school graduate who wants to save what he hears on his new XM or Sirius radio for later. All those folks will be seriously impacted by the encroachment of DRM as the digital entertainment age emerges, but none of them are aware that their fair use liberties are in danger.
Now, if each of us told our parents and siblings about the imminent mainstream DRM fiasco, and all of them told their coworkers and fellow students, and so on, then maybe - just maybe - the public outrage would reach the critical point where Congress and the electronics companies would finally see the light and tell the copyright cartels where to cram it. Until then, the nerdiest of us will just have to sit and watch as our fair use rights are taken away one by one.
Was RMS wearing a Superman outfit when he made his call to liberate cyberspace.
Actually, Superman wears a Stallman outfit.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
There's my side, there's your side, and there's the truth. Just as from a conservative perspective the truth has a liberal bias, from a liberal perspective the truth has a conservative bias.
Sorry, but every one of thos gnome developers is the elite. Every one of those gnome users is part of the elite. Less than 1 in 5 humans is "on the net" in any meaningful way, and a great many of those 1 in 5 are connected via things like cellphones and shared terminals.
The poor need money - they need jobs, they need health, they need hope. They don't give a shit whether the internet runs on oil or gas or whether it runs at all. Making the blanket assumption all DRM = evil is just one more extremist, unproven dogma.
http://poptones.f2o.org/?q=node/8
We need to stop this now. If every slashdotter joins then we can.
http://defectivebydesign.org/join/fsf
I reserve the write to mangle english.
Boy, tough crowd tonight. I knew I should have made fun of a polician instead.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
"the goal is to liberate everyone in cyberspace."
He's right. Now what?
Time to start Anti DRM webpages that top search engines when you search HD-DVD, Blue Ray, Vista, and Itunes?
What does one do?
Hang around best buys all day and inform people?
Obviously the media, by that i mean CNN, Fox News, SONY, etc will not be getting the word out. Its in their interest that this goes through.
The people dont really have a voice anymore. The government is worthless in the matter.
Do we stick to slashdot.org and rant to like minded people? Who will see it? Who will care?
Frankly we LOST this years ago when corporations took interest in the internet and the computer boom took foot.
We're all 30+ now. The kids today all talk like we used too when we were the minority computer geeks.
Frankly its a world where we do not have a voice. Did the war protests have any effect on stopping the war? Did you see how many people showed up to the protests world wide? MILLIONS.
We dont have those numbers... and even if we did... it wouldnt make a dam difference.
Showing up to protests, writing people, writing articles... ranting on slashdot... DOES NOTHING.
The law trickles down... not up.
There isnt much anyone can do in todays world. We should get used to it.I know we wont, and we'll tell everyone about how much DRM sucks and they'll say "Well that sucks" and then we'll all buy the products despite our beleifs.
Its the way it goes.
The only real alternative is criminal. Support the hackers... and you're a criminal... Frankly thats the only real protest option left. The brilliant minds that liberate software, DVD, music... must go on.
Let the media giants push hard, and the coders have to push back harder.
Protesting, and writing your congressman is worthless. They do not care about you. That is the simple truth. They pass laws written by lobbiests paid for by the media giants. They have access and we the people do not.
Revolutions come from wars... not silly get togethers on the capital lawn.
Shouldn't we be more worried about the telcom lobby lying to and/or buying congress so that they can get the law changed to allow them to extort more money out of an Internet redesigned in the image of their maximum profit?
Start Running Better Polls
Then when you get around to reading the transcript of the interview or listening to it, you should be pleased to learn that Stallman is not with the Open Source movement. He takes pains to tell people that his movement, the Free Software movement, is older than the Open Source movement and pursues a different philosophy. Stallman doesn't speak for the Open Source movement.
In this interview he points out one of the differences between the two movements:
Digital Citizen
Since none of his ideas even remotely make any real world sense, why is he even publicized?
RMS is publicized because he initiated the Free Software movement. The GNU software license, which he and Eben Moglen created, has been used in some software projects you may have heard of: the Linux kernel, CVS, GNU Emacs, MySQL, and literally thousands of others.
More open source projects are developed under the GPL than under any other license, and companies like Red Hat, IBM, and others have built business units or entire buinesses around GNU-licensed software. When is the last time you saw IBM act out of naive idealism?
A lot of people in the open source world don't agree with everything RMS says, but he's incredibly smart, and people respect his ideas enough to pay attention to what he says. Get out from under the bridge and grapple with his ideas, instead of trolling.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
In general, I'm ambivilant to this topic. I tend to think there's extremists at both sides. I like my Tivo, and my mp3s, but I also feel people gotta be paid for their work.
However, when I see this response, I think--Are you kidding? The only way people against DRM are going to change anything is by making a stink about it. Saying "Don't buy it" is about as productive as vegitarians boycotting McDonald's because they serve meat. If you're not the target market, your opinion doesn't matter.
If only the anti-DRM crowd stopped buying the products, it would be a statistical glitch on balance sheet. It's not going to make an impression when most consumers are unaware of the DRM issue.
The Anti-DRM campaign has to make itself heard, while at the same time not coming off as shrill and fringe like PETA does.
Then our business should go to their competitors. We'll do without their hardware, if what you say is true. However Sony sells cameras that make JPEG images; from what I understand, the attempts at demonstrating JPEG patent encumberances have fallen flat. Sony also sells PCs on which one can run free software OSes. But I think the major adverse publicity they have yet to live down is the recent Sony-BMG CD scandal.
Digital Citizen
There are 3 (video) talks at http://www.rehash.nl/hollandopen/ from Eben Moglen (rms lawyer) on these topics (license_drm.mp4 too). I submitted these a few days ago but they got rejected.
Without GPL we would have a lot of free software licensed with BSD, MIT, Artistic and many more licenses. Linux would still be, just with a different license very probably a BSD one.
It is not as if the GNU movement started the open source thing, they only made open source a political campaign. I will even tell you what Linux would have been without GPL: there would be no KDE/Gnome division as that division started around the license. There would be a single API for application writers to use.
So I believe you're very wrong arguing that without GPL we would be limited to Windows XP.
However you're very right stating that RMS defends important rights that no one else seems to care about. And even if I thing that GPL3 is a very bad way to defend people against DRM, it's very important that RMS stands against DRM. It's like everything RMS cares about now, will be a very very serious issue in the future if we do nothing besides consuming our regular updates of software.
So he is right in principle, and we should get inspiration from him, but we better search other alternatives against DRM than GPL3. Yes, I do agree with Linus.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I'm not quite sure what to think about Mr Stallman. He certainly doesn't seem to be weighed down by self-doubt; but it is true that he has done a lot for those of us who enjoy computing and believe it shouldn't be yet another way for big corporations to make us pay though our noses. In that sense he is a true revolutionary: he is utterly convinced about the wrongness of the status quo and goes flat out to kick things over. When he started on the GNU project I don't think he was thinking about getting rich or famous, he just wanted to do something about what was and still is wrong. I respect that - a lot.
It's a funny thing though. He is an American, and what he does is seen as a fight for 'American values': freedom, fairness, equal opportunities etc. But to me as an un-American, this is socialism. A funny, old world, really; to you, as an American, socialism is either cruel totalitarianism or a stoned hippie-dream, but to many elsewhere it is about exactly those freedoms that you Americans value more than anything else. When I was young I used to think of it as 'Cristianity without God'; but of course the ideals are shared by most other religions. Wouldn't it be nice if people could put aside the labels of 'Christian', 'Communist' or whatever and see the person inside?
If everything's free, how's a guy supposed to have an income? It's still capitalist around here and I don't think that's changing.
Wow, you really don't get it, do you? RMS has never been talking about price, it's FREEDOM that matters to him, he has never said that the software is supposed to be gratis.
-- Linux user #369862
Free as in speech...not beer.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
He should put the banner down and get on with some programming.
We all know Sony, Microsoft, and to some degree Apple are the spawn of Satan and their products are second-rate, but they're huge and already have a massive fanbase and product line that is firmly entrenched thanks to their marketing wallets.
Everyone hates Windows, still 3/4 the world uses it, they're keyboards aren't bad though.
Everyone knows the s2n ratio on the iPod is worse than anything from Creative, iRiver or Archos, you can't get your iTunes back off of it or play them on anything else, the screens scratch like a mofo and like everything Apple you'll have to replace it next year, but still it's the #1 portable audio player of choice.
Everyone knows the PS3 will have a poor Cell implementation and be overpriced, it's still going to sell in the millions.
#include <sig.h>
Perhaps ban bribery of government officials. You have? Then start enforcing it and perhaps you won't have this garbage imposed upon you by a tax dodging Hollywood. Showing that the proposed laws make no sense achieves very little without removing the mechanisms where known nonsense gets passed with financial inducements.
great point....
Let me explain you how it works: the corporations ... they created the DRM, and then ... they sit there ... in their corporation buildings ... and they're all corporationy ... and they make money ...
Belgium decided today to adopt ODF for all goverment-related documents, starting from September 2008. Microsoft Office will no longer be allowed to be used, unless it fully supports ODF by then.
Being able to read ODF has to be implemented on all federal computersystems a year earlier.
I would provide a link to an article, but I don't find anything in english. Here is a dutch article
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
How can you possibly make a profit off of something when you can get the source code for free?
Or even better, get a binary from someone who already built it?
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
When I was a kid, I learned my electronics and computing with relays and transistors. I moved on, and now I can write reasonable algorithms for 16384-processor BlueGene complexes. No licenses for that one; European Computer Driving Licence does not really help.
But it's hard to teach the new generation; they get the idea that 'software' is something like Word and Windows that you buy from Microsoft (and you complain about when it goes down with a virus, and drop your personal computer in the trash and buy another one).
Nope. Software is something you create, something that you'd better hope someone can understand and revise when it needs revision; and if you can't find someone to do it for you, you have to be able to take the bull by the horns and do it yourself. Forget that, and as a society we're 'toast'.
So, Stallman is not the whole answer; Microsoft make a pretty good living selling Word and Windows. But he is part of the answer; I wonder where Microsoft recruit people, when they need service personnel ?
Because RMS actually cares about more than dumb profit.
DRM restricts what you can access, how to access, functions and copying features of data (information).
Traditionally, data is just data, but with DRM, some read-only meta-data will mandate what you can and can't do with that data. Then freedom is lost.
Using legislation to disallow DRM could have impact on security methods like: filesystem permissions, serial codes for products, SELinux, encrypted filesystems, trusted computing, etc. Some of these are very liberating and gives the user freedom to express personal ideas without being compromised, serial-codes are a practical way to sell shareware / cheap software, while trusted computing takes away freedom for the end-user, just like DRM. The point is that legislation should be clear in its goal, and not mention products or special technology, and not be too general as to wipe out the good stuff. Legislators just can't understand the whole scope, and new useful inventions should not be stopped by over-legislation.
Using legislations to mandate DRM puts DRM-technology at an unfair advantage in the market place. What is DRM anyways, and why should some method of it be legislated? It makes the law unreasonable complex, and quickly outdated.
Legislation should be used for national security, not for securing big companies even more profits, villifying the citizens or forcing people into an outdated bussiness-model. Not war on terrorism, that war should be abolished due to global security mind you..
What effort is there to make the law simpler, more rational and understandable? This is the direction we should be going.
People need to get a clue, and we're the people / technicians who know about this and should educate as many as possible of what we know.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I've seen a lot of attacks against RMS personally, but very, very few which try to refute his basic thesis. Even those which address his ideas tend to avoid the use of facts or logically sound arguments.
Personally, I'd like to see some quality in the counter arguments for a change.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Capitalism does not require DRM to survive.
DRM is bad and we don't need it. Amazing how much it reminds me of what was said about the MSX computer in 1983. It was seen as trying to impose an unwanted limitation on the public (ie: mostly sprite based games). Just like DRM today trying to impose other limitations that are also unwanted. Here's an interview with Design Design from Crash magazine. See the MSX section - how similar the arguments are!
http://crashonline.org.uk/08/rebirth.htm
I know it is a bit different today, what with legal stuff and all, but still.
How we liberated Europe, while they keep searching for a daddy figure.
First it was Hitler, now it's Osama.
Just wanted to use this story to ask an unrelated question: did RMS ever speak about Wikipedia in some interview or speech? I only find Wikipedia material on him with a Web search.
Stallman's gone off into senility here. The whole point about his damn license was freedom of use. If he starts adding punitive clauses into the license just to pound on his cause of the moment, he just decreased audience to whom his license is going to remain viable.
Moreover, he's going to kick off other rounds of punitive licensing schemes which would prohibit users from tying other products to his.
Common fucking sense here.
Oh wait, this is Dick Stallman.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Ask Red Hat.
-- Linux user #369862
Remember!! FREE AS FREEDOM. Free as liberty, right to do whatever we want. Not free as free beer. This is another completely different thing.
Regards.
The sad thing is that you read the same words as we do and yet interpret them so very differently.
It's only now that DRM and patents and DMCA are wreaking true havoc that people are *really* beginning to appreciate the whole magnitude and value of what RMS has been fighting for all these years.
Far from being an outsider, he is now seen as being the ethical heart of us all, even those in the Open Software community who at one point sought to divorce themselves from the ethical issues. The dangers of non-free software are now all too apparent to everyone.
The fact that you still don't see it is just a matter of statistics. Some never will.
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/
M YI' (Errcode: 28) query: SELECT DISTINCT(p.perm) FROM role r INNER JOIN permission p ON p.rid = r.rid WHERE r.rid IN (1) in /home2/clients/websites/w_nodrm/public_html/4.7.2/ includes/database.mysql.inc on line 120.
user warning: Can't create/write to file '/home2/clients/databases/b_nodrm/tmp/#sql_9f8_0.
I nominate this the soup du jour in the book of irony.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
While RMS is to be admired for many things, basic project management may not be among them.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Exactly the stuff I wanted to hear from him!
DRM is aweful, and really is NOT going to work. RMS knows that, and so do most people with at least a tiny amount of knowledge about how digital media is transferred.
Back then in the days of the Tape Recorders, you could have copied your CDs and LPs to a tape and listen to them on the road - much like iPods and ripping CDs. It's been going like that for AGES. The music industry thought that tapes were the end, they were easy to copy and one person could have made hundreds of copies for his friends, and they did the same with their friends and so on.
Apparently the world didn't end then, and music didn't end then.
Then there was Napster, and actually after they closed down Napster I started buying LESS CDs. Why? I was exposed to less music, and didn't actually feel the need to buy anything. Basically, it was a lose-lose situation. The artists didn't get any more famous, Napster got shut down, and I didn't get the music I wanted to and couldn't "try before I buy".
The music industry is a horrible thing. Trying to abuse information in order to make money out of it. Basically "give me $X and I'll tell you Y" - it's just data on the CD after all.
Just like software, music should be free. And just about anything else should.
o hai
No, I don't mean merely fully-documented hardware. I mean hardware whose wiring diagrams and/or hardware description language is available under a Free Software license. There's a group doing this. They're called the Open Graphics Project, and they've got real hardware that's going to go on sale at the end of the summer. Most hardware vendors are very resistant to publishing documentation, and they only grudgingly release it after much begging. The OGP is dedicated to designing hardware with Free Software in mind. No more begging, because now you have more documentation than you need!
If you're interested in having open hardware or even just hardware that's designed for FOSS users, with drivers that will be Free Software, stable, and fixable, then you should support the OGP. See them at http://www.opengraphics.com!
How you liberated Europe? You are Europe, remember?
Nothing but a bastard mix of every single European nation. And to say some people are proud of being American...
Look: the population of Planet Earth have all characteristics required to qualify as a chaotic system - which is to say there are too many too consider all of them individually, and that their behaviour at any given time depends both on their inputs and their state.
This has a couple of interesting implications when it comers to activism. One is that macro-scale attempts at control (which in this context would be corporate and government manipulations) are unlikely to work out as intended. The other is that the butterfly effect, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, applies. Small inputs can make a tremendous difference, and the apparently uninterested non-techie you tell about this may, in fact, go home and mull it over, and then decide to tell someone else. Who tells someone else, who tells someone else... The point being that control over the media channels is no longer enough to surpress a campaign. The story leaks out at grassroots level. Which is why so many corporations and politicians are pouring money into "astroturfing" campaigns. They recognise the power of this approach, even if the general public to not.
But I don't think any astroturfing operation can compete with the real thing - no one can afford to buy that many opinions. Whereas we don't have to. You've heard of the "many eyes" principle for free software? Well this is the "many mouths" principle. With enough people talking, we can own this debate. I propose we do just that.
So stop taking like a loser, and start spreading the word. We can do this.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
> Who really cares what RMS thinks? When did he get such a cult following? Since none of his ideas even remotely make any real world sense, why is he even publicized?
He wrote emacs, gcc and gdb (among others).
He founded the GNU movement. His ideas have of course a lot of real world sense.
He did more in 20 years (since the manifesto) than you will do in your lifetime.
Yes, you have the right to do whatever you want with your software. If you don't like DRM, then don't incorporate it into your software. Many companies like DRM because it is a strong deterrent and effectively inhibits casual copyright infringement. Maybe if you actually made a living from selling music or movies, you might have a little different perspective about the very real problem of people renting movies for the sole purpose of making illegal copies of them or teenagers who like to copy a CD and give it to 10 of their friends, none of whom paid a dime for the music. Multiply this by a few million Americans who engage in casual copyright infringement, and you'll understand why the industries like DRM.
Also, he had the guts to stand up for his freedoms and everyone else's, to be able to do what they want with their software. He's done more than just about any other single person to try and protect those freedoms for regular folks like you and me.
Utter hogwash. Most people are not software developers. I don't mind RMS promoting free software as an ideal, but he has no more right to try to force it upon people as the development model any more than anyone else has to enforce keeping software closed and proprietary. In short, yes, you have the freedom to do whatever you please with your code. I'm tired of RMS trying to tell me what to do with mine.
Can you imagine what the software landscape would look like today without the GPL, without the FSF and without all the free software that has been licensed under the GPL (both by the FSF and by many other open-source contributors)? Even if many of us continue to use non-free systems such as Windows XP, it is nice to know we have a choice. And we WOULDN'T have that choice anymore if Richard and many others had not stood up when they did.
My God... just think... we'd all be stuck using Microsoft software... Or is it, perhaps that we use Microsoft software because it's (comparatively) cheap, available, and compatible? It's not like the PC revolution happened in a vacuum. Apple had a chance with Macintosh but kept the platform closed and artificially expensive. Commodore couldn't hold on to the low end as PC clones became cheaper and add-on cards like Sound Blaster and VGA made them obsolete. Atari.. well, they were Atari. There was plenty of competition. The combination of PC + Windows was a result more of consumer choice and battle in the real marketplace than of coercion and force. Don't believe the hype! Hey, if you don't like Windows, buy a Mac. Or install Linux or *BSD. It's your choice. I used to prefer OS/2 myself. But don't kid yourself into thinking that F/OSS is the savior of computing. There was already plenty out there besides Windows. The market did not choose them and chose Windows instead. Not knocking F/OSS.. it's nice to have options. But it's software, not a religion.
Lots of people criticise Richard Stallman, but in my view nearly all of those people are either (1) immature kids who wouldn't pass a real civics class if they were ever put in one, (2) people who don't understand the real issues and how fundamental they are, or (3) shills or trolls or other people with an anti-freedom agenda.
You forgot to mention the corollary: Lots of people admire RMS, but nearly all of them are (1) immature kids who think they're super-l337 because they run Linux and stick it to "the Man" (a.k.a. Microsoft), (2) people who incredibly exaggerate the issues of free software vs. proprietary out of some translation of Marxist justice into the cyberworld, and (3) shills or trolls or religious fanatics with an anti-freedom agenda (i.e., proprietary software is evil, you must
What if the main thrust of civil rights activism were arguments that the economy is just so much more productive if minorities are not discriminated against for employment/promotion? And then what if some MLK-types talked about the inherent dignity of all people -- regardless of race -- and the ethical imperative to respect that dignity regardless of cost. And then what if the "main line" civil rights movement got all hostile against this group? Wouldn't that suck? Who would benefit from this conflict? (Hint: you probably don't need a hint)
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
There isn't anyone "in cyberspace" -- unless AI has gotten really, really good overnight.
s /3212
Everyone "in cyberspace" is a real, physical person in an actual country governed by specific laws. The same is true for the websites and services they use. Ultimately they are hosted on physical machines in specific countries, owned by real people and again, subject to the laws of the country(ies) they belong to.
I realize that this isn't central to the argument, but it bugs me every time I see it.
Oh and the whole car analogy argument:
With modern cars you often can't work on the car without the ability to talk to the
car's computer which often has an undocumented interface. The dealer has the tools and correct codes, but you might not.
http://www.righttorepair.org/
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/item
They don't need to weld the hood shut.
-- I browse at +5 with stripped sigs
The choice is between buying hardware with open driver support or without.
Charities tend to be expected to use donated hardware. They can't choose which hardware people choose to donate to them.
DRM isn't dangerous... DRM is simply encryption, and encryption isn't bad.
Er, no. DRM is a consumer device preventing its owner from accessing or using some information stored inside it, in order to enforce corporate policy (or laws, contracts, etc.).
The fact that DRM systems use encryption is just an implementation detail, and opposition to DRM does not imply opposition to encryption.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Give me a break. This is the worst FUD I have ever seen! No one is talking about preventing you from copying any file. DRM is about protecting copyright. If the files on your hard drive are copyrighted or were licensed by you (in other words, you paid for the privelege to use them--you don't own them), then DRM is indeed fair. It will never be used to limit what you can do with your own files. People spread all this FUD about DRM because it either: (A) offends their agenda of software anarchy or concept of private ownership, or (B) prevents them from doing the very (illegal) things that DRM prevents them from doing. Get over it and get a a life. I'm sick and tired of this post-modern crap where people fill in the void that religion used to occupy in their lives with whatever particular cause they decide to devote themselves to. It's software, not a religion!
Just like RMS refusing opportunities to 'spread his message' because the people offering him the opportunity don't talk about GNU/Linux and Free Software, very few people will actually hear this interview because they chose not to provide an mp3-encoded version.
Perhaps Richard has come up with some great new ideas or a really compelling argument. Unfortunately, nobody is listening because he's only available in Ogg this time.
Oh, and if you needed any further proof that the people running Groklaw don't live on planet earth, here is what they link to as a Free Ogg player:
SVG? You mean SVG+SMIL+Ogg Vorbis. Most uses of Macromedia Flash that aren't animated banners or gratuitous flashy UI use sound, and SVG needs SMIL in order to do sound.
Forget emacs. Tell me when the next useful HURD kernel will be available. It seems they can spend time translating their webpages into Esperanto, but they can't get useful code created.
None. One of the biggest lobbies in the United States, if not the biggest, is trial lawyers. Complicated statues and regulations are job security for trial lawyers.
And be sued by the established songwriters who wrote songs from which the artist inadvertently copied when writing the music. If an artist hears a copyrighted song on DRM'd radio or any other radio, he or she is tainted for life with knowledge of that song. See Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music and Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton.
If I go into the only grocery store in town (now a Wal-Mart), or if I go onto public transportation, I am forced to listen to the music played over the speaker system, and I am forced to pay for the products sold in the store or bus fare whose revenues go toward the overhead used to lease the performance rights to the music. I am also forced to pay by tainting myself with "access" to the music, which bans me for life from even inadvertently writing any music that turns out to be substantially similar.
But what happens when there is no alternative product available because eh-vee-bah-dee else is using DRM?
As far as I know, in Stallman's world, there is no place for WindowsXP. "Live free or die!" Don't get me wrong, I would be very happy if there were no WindowsXP. But, my understanding is that Stallman wants to break down all proprietary walls.
I wonder what Stallman thinks of Software-As-A-Service. It's not really proprietary, other than you don't give out your code. It's a service, which he feels should be paid for. So would it exist in Stallman's vision of the future? What has he said about SAAS? That is the direction I would like to go with a small company.
I have worked for companies that develop proprietary software. I strongly support the use of FOSS, and I use it whenever I can. I wish that it were easier to make a living developing FOSS. I'd be right there on the front lines with RMS. I do have to feed my wife and children, and keep them in shoes in the winter. Please show me a definitive way to make a good living with FOSS.
As a filmmaker I have seen no real advantage with any type of copyright. Even for the many movies/TV shows/music where the producers/publishers are running scared/suing people I don't think they are losing much revenue over copyright thefts. I am waiting for research to prove that the so-called revenue losses from copyright infringements are non-existent or minimal. The same applies to software.
Most of the popular Indian films are versions of Western/European/Korean/Chinese/Japanese films - how can you prevent someone from copying your work when your base idea to begin with was taken from elsewhere and usually without permission?
Tat Tvam Asi
They very well might argue it, if it was practical to make a copy of said car in 20 seconds and start giving it away for free to anyone who wanted it.
Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun -Troy McClure
I understand, and agree with what he is saying, but what about the majority of non-tech people? I doubt they even know (or care) who Richard Stallman is, and don't know about or get DRM. They just care that everything works.
So his statements are futile unless this can be spread to the common man in a form they can comprehend. Otherwise he is just seen as "another damn activist".
Sorry. Got the address wrong. The open graphics project is at www.opengraphics.ORG.
But I am forced. I can hear that song and then if I create a song like it, I am breaking the law. The DMCA and Broadcast flag cost money to obey that I pay in higher prices, whether I use them or not.
But, shall we take your idea and work with it?
If I say I am not willing to buy your product as you wish to sell it and proffer an alternative, you can refuse, yes? However, if I then crack the work so I have it not under your required restrictions, then what? You definitely haven't lost a sale, because we could not agree on the terms of the deal. Being civil action, you cansue for damages, but we have just reasoned that is nil. I am not making any money from it, so no profiting from your work.
Or am I being forced?
God, I hate that I'm using this joke formula:
The 1600s called, they want your conception of the makeup of America back.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
they need money -= work, and a means of recoupment for that work. "Cellphone farmers" play the grain exchange and take their money home via the same cellphone network that allows them to keep up to date on commodity prices. This is enabled by "proprietariness" and encryption - "secrets." Without that "evil" DRM these would still be at the mercy of their own ignorance and the local commodity sharks who could afford the relatively expensive "internet connections" and such. The proprietariness of the worldwide cellphone network has allowed the companies behind it to expands service into corners and crevices "the internet" can only dream of occupying, all the while getting more affordable... enabling more and poorer people to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by modern telecommunications.
t ml
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0712-rhett_butler.h
A dogmatic demand that "all technology is free" is every bit as "evil" as the demand it all be proprietary. Balance is what is needed, not a radical ideological monoculture.
Support contracts would appear to be a big part of this.
Huh? So you're saying the armed forces of the USA didn't do squat for European countries during WW1 and WW2?
You're so delusional it's amusing.
Frammin' on the jim-jam, frippin' at the krotz!
Why does everyone keep crapping on HD DVD and BluRay for their DRM and then give DVD a free pass?
AACS (the DRM on HD DVD/BluRay) is just an extension of CSS (on DVD).
It is people's support of DVD that put money in the movie companies' pockets and told them that DRM on video media was clearly acceptable to the public. And so they did it again, just tightening it up a bit this time.
See, that's the problem with buying DRMed content. You encourage companies to release only DRMed content. And yeah, you might break the DRM this time, but eventually they'll make a DRM you can't crack. And then where you will be?
CSS still makes it impossible to legally make a video iPod where you "rip your own". Sure, there are plenty of shady solutions out there, but it restricts fully-supported commerical solutions. It was the integration that made rip-mix-burn easy and made the iPod a success by expanding its reach to many more people. We can't have this with video.
DRM is killing us, and the people who cracked (like DVDJon) aren't actually helping the problem. We need a real solution, and that means governmental.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The lack of DRM is what is creating these headaches. The world is a better place when content creators and distributors can work within some established, standardized API or hardware spec to enforce their license terms rather than having to resort to things which are totally proprietary, hackish, and incompatible.
The goal of the activist drive described by the article is turn people who don't care into people who do care.
I don't see what this has to do with Peter Noone, but if an urban or suburban resident does not go to the grocery store, he does not eat and will starve. If he does go to the store, he pays for groceries, and part of that money goes toward a performance license for background music played over the store's speaker system. Thus, shoppers are forced by necessity to pay for and listen to music, whether they want to listen or not. The same thing happens with public transportation such as buses and trains in many cities. Now who isn't forced to pay for copyrighted music?
The Emperor realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes were either (1) immature kids who wouldn't pass a real civics class if they were ever put in one, (2) people who don't understand the real issues and how fundamental they are, or (3) shills or trolls or other people with an anti-freedom agenda. And he stood stiffly on his carriage, while behind him a page held his imaginary mantle.
RMS might be right or he might be wrong, but attacking his critics proves nothing.
And ironically, you will find many of them on Slashdot. We call them libertarians, and they believe that government inevitably slides into lethargy and corruption and therefore cannot be entrusted to run such institutions; that competition in the open market is what makes such things viable in the long term.
I am not one of these people, but I just wanted to point out that it's a fallacy that the only people who are against socialism are red-faced, fanatical Christian Republicans.
Breakfast served all day!
Support contracts would appear to be a big part of this.
From a consumer's perspective that is the problem. As a software engineer I work for whoever can pay me, so in that regard FOSS changes nothing. Given that, the next question is "Who can afford to pay me?" and that anwser also remains unchanged, businesses. Most consumers just can't afford to pay a development team to make or modify software to meet their needs, and now using a FOSS model there is no inscentive for a business to make consumer software since the software is only worth what the single highest bidder is willing to pay for it, and consumers usually motivate businesses through many people paying a lower price.
Perhaps there's a simple resolution to this that I'm not seeing, but until that solution is widely known, FOSS really isn't in the consumer's direct best interest. If you've got a solution, please let me know.
There are several business that are hard to make as free software. One example are the small developers, other is sotware that gets old fast, like games. Its a giant effort to make a game, and it doenst last for very long. And a good game wont get revenue from support.
Stallman wants all software to be free. He doesnot want anyone to continue using the LGPL. So, in his world vision, all SO libs will be GPLed, and there will be no commercial software possible. Perhas Windows will never die if the community follow this path.
Qt is a good example. Today its possible to make commercial software with their commercial license. But any day someone other than tolltech start changing it, it will never be good for anything commercial anymore. The GPL and Trolltech controlling it at the same time is something that wont last forever.
The key quote, "give bad reputations to whoever makes" DRMed products, made me wonder about the effects of the Sony rootkit fiasco on its stock. The story broke in the blogosphere in late October, 2005. So what was the effect on Sony stock? A brief, very small drop, followed by a 45-50% increase over the next six months. I can't imagine a worse black eye than what happened to Sony's reputation viz bloggers, so how effective a tool is reputation sullying? Has it ever worked?
Subject sums this thread up.
A file containing a song is different to a toaster because the file is significantly more easily copied than the toaster; so much so that in recent years there has been widespread violation of the conditions imposed by those who hold copyrights on digital music. DRM is a natural solution to the practical concern of how to enforce music licencing agreements for file-based music.
Recently I invested under $20 in Allofmp3.com download store. The files I chose were MP3. They had no DRM and although poorly tagged (everything was marked Blues and the artist was the album name) and not available as a group zip file...at least there wasn't DRM. Is it a good long-term solution? No.
Wake me up when this affects things that aren't completely unnecessary for life, like food and water.
It's amazing what we humans have become that we treat listening to music or watching a movie as an inalienable right and yet don't even recognize the right to life, shelter, food, or dignity of the most vulnerable among us.
Because of curiosity, because I'm some kind of open-source mono-maniac, and because I didn't initially find a way to get the Flash plugin working for 64bits mozilla on a AMD64 (recent opensuse 10.1 seem to have found a way around that problem).
/.ers, I think too this is a high priority too, because Flash is used ubiquitously. But before gnash, flash was a proprietary and very closed solution that splited the web population into two groups : the happy few that are blessed with approriate plugins (only a couple of browser/OS/CPU combination) and the rest that couldn't access to flash pages because of this. ...on the other hand, lacking Flash also means being spared from all this stupid anoyingly blinking ads.
Streaming from the net doesn't work, so you won't be able to use gnash for Youtube, google Video or anything alike.
Most of the other functions seem to work, and I can get most of flash animation work (the few one I tried from weebl stuff - like badgerbadgerbadger - worked).
There are still some audio/animation synch issues, the player relies on OpenGL (for which monomaniac like myself encounter difficulties to get good open-source drivers) and uses a deprecated GTK GL widget (it falls-back to SDL). Also, sometimes, it Segfaults/SDL-Parachutes on my AMD64.
But appart from those issues, it's surprisingly well functionning, specially for a software that's still at an alpha stage (0.7.1).
Given the fast progress, I think we could hope to soon have a decent Gnash 1.0.
----
On the countrary of other
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I have a problem with this.
Just because RMS is right about some things, has a point about some things, and has some some good things (GPL) doesn't mean we should always have to agree with him on everything.
He is too extreme on some subjects and is unwilling to bend. Another poster points out that he isn't extreme because something MORE extreme exists. Bah. Who cares? That isn't the point. The point is he's more extreme than what I'm willing to put up with on those subjects. He wants us to be able to do what ever we want and he does it by telling us what we can and can't do? He's a walking contradiction.
And back to my point. Just because he has done a lot of things that I like and has some opinions that I agree with doesn't mean I don't think he's an idiot and it doesn't mean I have to agree with every damn thing he says.
He has the kind of personality as a revolutionist who wants to get rid of a dictator only to end up replacing it with another (him self).
I do agree with his point on DRM and has a way for us to accomplish this task, but is it really going to work? There are more people out there who don't care than there are who do care. If the product is good (iPod + iTunes) people are going to buy it. It's going to get good reviews. Even most of us slashdotters own an iPod. It has DRM. So we're already losing the war.
Do I hate DRM? Yes. Am I going to quit using my iPod? No. Sorry.
Except in this case, the incumbent music publishers will likely sue anybody who comes up with something new, alleging that the n00b subconsciously copied something that was first published a decade ago and played on the radio. George Harrison lost such a case (Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music) regarding a track from his solo debut album.
The proprietariness of the worldwide cellphone network has allowed the companies behind it to expands service into corners and crevices "the internet" can only dream of occupying, all the while getting more affordable... enabling more and poorer people to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by modern telecommunications.
The dream is on the way, thank you. As $100 laptops start shipping, your cellphone network is going to look expensive. Those laptops, of course, will also get cheaper and cheaper.
You don't need secrets to make a communications network. Really, secrets are the exact opposite of communications. A lack of control is bad, any way you look at it. Governments and companies that impose such things on their customers should be ashamed of themselves. As gadgets with networking get cheaper, they will be routed around like the damaged goods they are.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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You're probably right about that, at least to a certain extent. It's the whole problem with "scratch an itch" software development, isn't it? Only the software that the programmers want is going to get written. I don't think that software for the home user is going to be a problem, as it's what you might call a common itch. Plenty of programmers need a word processor.
I'm a little confused about what you mean by "consumer software" though. Is that software meant to be used in the home, or is it the sort of thing that small businesses who can't afford custom software would use? They seem to be the ones who are in the most trouble, as they have uncommon needs but insufficient resources to fill them.
How do you think those imaginary $100 laptops will get connected to the internet? I don't know of many third world countries with pervasive wifi presence.
Having a bunch of cheap PCs connected on a local WAN is valuable, but it still doesn't get the latest commodities prices to the impoverished farmer living 100 miles from the nearest internet cafe.
A lack of control is bad, any way you look at it.
Really? You don't seem to mind the notion of separating those who built the worldwide cellphone network from their control over it - oblivious to the fact it is that control that makes it robust, pervasive and relatively cheap. Ironically, one of the most expensive places for so called 3G service (where it is even available) is in the US, where those oligopolies have less control (due to massive regulation) than in those "underdeveloped" places where they are essentially given carte blanche, often in collusion with the state.
If the path to pervasive, cheap, relaiable service is "free" and "voluntary" then where is a working example? We have had more than a decade now to develop something like that, so far all we have are smattering of "hot spots" in the larger cities that all serve as a gateway to... a huge, privately owned, essentially proprietary collection of networks. Who owns the internet? The bells, the cable corporations, the telcom providers... we are but squatters - or, at best, renters - of our space in "the cloud."
I'll say it like this. There are many developers than can start programming projects that have amazing benefit to the users, but after the project reaches a certain point, although the idea is still valid, the initial developer is incapable of understanding the topics and writing the code to make the package evolve any further. Therefore, you hire developers that are able to specialize and use more dynamic implementation strategies to evolve the project further. The initial star coder is still respected for his/her achievements and can even in many circumstances be praised for them, but in most cases, their knowledge of the underlying product would be better used to help steer the team of developers actually implementing the finished product.
Stallman's messages are often very good and right on. What he started was an amazing project that has massive international implications. The UN itself has spent time dealing with issues regarding GPL and FSF interpretations of how things really should be. At this point in time, the GPL/FSF/EFF way is extremely important to how we live our lives and the liberties we hope to secure for ourselves and future generations.
The problem is Stallman himself. He is simply out of his league. He lacks the diplomats tounge and speaks down to people. He stands on soap boxes and shouts his feelings and demands that people listen no matter who they are. FSF/EFF/GPL is no longer a matter of industrial politics, it is an issue of international politics and he's not a good enough man for the job. He is a thinker and his ideas by some would be considered revolutionary and by others simple logic. If this man were to step down and simply hold his tounge in public and let professional lobbiests and diplomats representing FSF/GNU/EFF do the job instead under his guidance, he could accomplish far more.
A simple rule about people and in my experience, especially politicians is that they will respond either indifferently or even hostile to a person that speaks down to them and calls or makes them feel stupid. This is why organizations such as NASA and the NSA are often run by bumbling idiots that have the gift for politics instead of skills in engineering. Yes, we all agree (and many politicians as well, I have friends in some state senates, not national) that politicians are a bunch of self serving idiots. In fact, I can name at least fourty I that I've at least wondered if they can tie their own shoelaces. It is true that the politicians that have true merit as leaders are rare. The politicians that genuinely try to represent the people are rarely given respect within their own tier of government by their peers.
The politicians that have to be sold on ideas are in fact the self serving bastards we hate passionately, they are the power hungry and the ones with real power. They have to be nursed and educated in a way that serves their own interests before changes are really going to happen. After all, the corporations that get their way in the government use lobbiests and influence such as promises of jobs in the future. If FSF/GNU/EFF genuinely want to be taken serious by the self serving pigs that can in fact make changes happen, it would require playing the game and doing it right.
Stallman although he may be right, and in his case, he's scoring better than 50/50 on most peoples radars, he's loud, obnoxious, and he radiates a "I'm smarter than you" aura whereever he goes. This itself is what makes him an idiot. So long as he thinks he should be given special priviliges such as short notice audiences with leaders of states, especially when high level diplomats are often denied this same privilige, then instead of fostering and helping the movement, he in fact damages it.
Stallman is a bull in a china shop. He rampages through and smashes everything in his path until he reaches a special item that he'd like to receive a discount on. When he asks the clerk for the discount, the clerk, knowing he is important simply asks him to leave instead of calling the police to h
Software is not a product.
It is a process of thought.
That can be offered only as a service. Software companies (lead by MS, thanks to the infamous, well publicized rants of the hypocrate Bill Gates, who was always happy to benefit from the work of others while giving nothing in return) fell into the tramp of trying to sell software as you sell watermelons or shoes.
We can't show you how to make a good living out of FOSS. But nobody can't show you how to make a good living out of selling flowers, polishing flagpoles, or making Germany flags. But ths does not mean it can't be done.
The 2nd best thing one can do is to point you in the direction of companies that are making business using FOSS products (Red Hat, MySQL) or individuals that exploit FOSS to make a living (Google for this, don't be lazy).
What you really need to make a living out of FOSS is a bussiness plan, without an strategy all the rest is immaterial.
With FOSS you have several options:
-Create products that then you support.
-Create solutions that use existing FOSS and then provide maintenance.
-Becom consultant in popular FOSS products and then branch out from there.
Were I work we have bunches of programmers using Perl, KDE, Apache and Linux.
Heck, I administer Linux. I guess that counts as making a living out of FOSS.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... Microsoft provides the source code for WindowsXP.
Given the complexity of Windows, MS would be the best positioned company to sell services around their baby.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
WW1 was always safe anyway, Britain was a superpower at that point and the Germans were already on the back foot when the USA joined. The real breaking point was the invention of the tank which broke the trench stalemate.
;). I wouldn't doubt that post WW2 Britain would have be a more difficult place had the US not driven the Nazis from France (and hence stopped the Red army at Berlin). It's not as if there wasn't 1.9m British soldiers fighting during the later stages of WW2 either (not to mention millions from other areas of the old empire).
WW2 was different though Britain had still secured its front and our factories were outproducing the Germans at the time, remember it was 2 years between the RAF holding off the Luftwaffe and the US entering the war, if the Germans could have invaded they would have but the British Navy was still huge and would have made such an invasion difficult in the extreme. No Nazi soldier ever set foot on British soil as a free man. The real result of the US entering the war is the USSR stoped at Berlin rather than having a situation where their borders extended all the way to the Channel.
So by all means the French owe their existence to the US and you could call it returning the favour for when they blockaded the ports during the American war of independance though
off topic?
You English are so predictably excited to talk about irrelevant subjects. My point: People who believe in freedom are not hippies. It is simple, really. The details of the Revolutionary War are an issue for another discussion.
I always find it interesting that the English are so incapable of understanding the language they were supposed to have invented.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Well by consumer software I basically meant software whose sponsors arn't among its primary users, consumer, off the shelf software (COTS) is an acronym applied equally to a a consumer buying a video game and a business going out and buying a prefab RDBMS. That's immaterial though because my real point was that FOSS might (would) change the way software projects are selected.
The effect on small businesses with unusual needs might be bad, but it won't be any worse than it is now. If a small business has needs that can't be met by conventional consumer, off the shelf software packages and they can't afford to pay software engineers of their own, they're still screwed.
Many small to mediums sized businesses actually do have limited programming resources at their disposal. this is often either a consultant who works for and bills them on demand, or a single, cave-troll style programmer.
Which brings up another area of concern with 'scratch an itch' software of any kind, particularly if you're expecting it to be used by consumers under FOSS, the software process. All the things that go into software development that are not programming tasks. Requirements engineering, software architecture, verification and validation, documentation and training materials, those kinds of things. I'm not blind, I'm well aware that many commercial software projects lack good software process and that some F/OSS projects have pretty good process. "Scratch an itch" software doesn't tend to be among the projects with good process on either side, and when you intend for consumers to use it, that's a problem.