Re:The guys behind EXTJS are terrible
on
Learning Ext JS
·
· Score: 1
"Linking", under the gpl, refers to compiled code only.
Linking, perhaps yes. But as for being a derivative work? Well, I googled around and couldn't find a definite answer on this point. There's a thread on stackoverflow that provides some commentary, but doesn't give a definite answer as to whether a javascript program that calls into a javascript library is a derivative work. There's also some commentary on Rock Star Apps. Amusingly, this same question was brought up in an article last year about ExtJS moving to the GPL.
The upshot? I wouldn't bet any money either way. In fact, I'm going to go ask the SFLC right after I post this comment.
If you're going to use a library, and you're going to modify it, why not share the benefits of your mods, and reap the benefits of other people fixing any bugs you may have introduced?
The issue here is that you have a company distributing software Foo under GPLv3 and under a proprietary license. I don't think they'll take your patches unless you assign copyright so that they can distribute the change in both versions.
Of course, if you don't assign copyright, then others who pull from the official GPL'd branch won't get them either. And even if you are contributing (indirectly) to proprietary software by assigning copyright, you're supporting a company that GPLs their software, so... which choice is better for Free Software in general? Well, that's a darn good question.
I mean, yes, it is insightful, but given that you've got a pick-just-one situation when moderating/. comments, I think that the humor mod would have been a bit more appropriate.
When writing a comment that uses subtle humor, perhaps authors should add an "X-Moderator-Aid: Humor" line.
A few people have replied that web apps can't be closed since you have to send the source. I know this is a common argument, but things are changing.
If you send javascript code (obfuscated or not) to the browser, then users can take a look at the code and might try to reuse it. If the code is not licensed for end user reuse, then it probably won't be used as much, but people might still try.
Web apps are really becoming apps now. Look at the speed improvements in FF3.5 and Chrome. Things are changing. The days of believing that JavaScript implies openness are ending.
I don't think that anyone ever believed that all JavaScript code was open-licensed. Admittedly, most of the JavaScript in the past was just snippets here and there for various widget tricks, and so people didn't as aggressively defend their proprietary developments, but the licensing options have remained roughly the same.
As the apps get bigger companies are going to be protecting their code, and not just by copyright. There will even be algorithms in the JS that they want to protect.
With software patents, perhaps. Yes, it's quite unfortunate.
They may be limited to obsfucation as a technique, but that can be pretty decent. I think the people who believe that JavaScript is open since you are sending the source will be changing their minds in the next few years as people do incredible in browser things that took them a lot of time to do, and want to protect their assets.
Individual companies are free to write code and license it as they please, however as I noted in a previous comment, all companies need to respect FOSS licenses, such as the version of Ext JS licensed under the GPLv3. If a company uses a copy of the Ext JS library and links their code against it, then they'll need to be prepared to give un-obfuscated copies of their source code to any user who downloads an obfuscated version.
Re:The guys behind EXTJS are terrible
on
Learning Ext JS
·
· Score: 1
Web client code...isn't something you can hide. Any obfuscation can be de-obfuscated given enough incentive...They HAVE to have the source to run it.
To build on what someone else said, just because a user is given the obfuscated code doesn't mean that the application writer/hosting company has fulfilled all of their GPL obligations.
For example, let's say you take the Ext JS (using a GPLv3-licensed copy), build an application A on top of it and throw it up online. So A is a derivative work and thus must be GPLv3-licensed as well.
If a user U loads one of your web pages and in the process downloads a local copy of A, then not only do you need to provide a way for them to get a copy of the original source code to Ext JS, but you would also need to provide the regular, non-compressed, non-obfuscated source code to whatever parts of A you have served up online to the user.
The reason why the non-obfuscated code must be provided to the user is that the GPLv3 clearly states how the source code for a piece of work should be conveyed:
The "source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
The right to source code in this "preferred form" is granted the moment that code is downloaded to the user's browser.
Re:The guys behind EXTJS are terrible
on
Learning Ext JS
·
· Score: 1
they claimed that it never was released under the LGPL. They tried some silly technicality where they said it was only released under the LGPL under some other terms. The LGPL itself clearly says any added terms can be removed, but they insisted it couldn't.
As you point out, the LGPL 2.1 (to pick an older version of the LGPL) states:
You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
Wikipedia's blurb on the licensing problem states:
the authors claimed Ext was available under an LGPL license as long as you "plan to use Ext in a personal, educational or non-profit manner" or "in an open source project that precludes using non-open source software" or "are using Ext in a commercial application that is not a software development library or toolkit".
Obviously, not everyone believes that this stance is legally defensible. As you state,
I strongly believe they are wrong about the "never being under LGPL" thing, but we weren't going to be wasting time dealing with lawyers and fighting them.
Next time, toss the question over to the Software Freedom Law Center. Even if you personally don't want to go forward with the issue, I feel like the SFLC is great at trying to resolve questions like this so that developers can just write code and leave the legal issues for the lawyers. They're really gung-ho about dealing with license violators and are dedicated to helping clear up licensing issues.
I guess you should get an OpenMoko. They are relatively cheap these days.
Well to answer the second part, the cheapest price for the OpenMoko Freerunner is currently $250 in the US. That's cheaper than $400 for the HTC Dream. The Palm Pre is only $100 with a 2-year contract, but no carrier-free GSM phone prices are available yet. So the Freerunner is a bit cheaper, but with much less hardware.
As for the phone itself, last I heard the development was continuing slowly and people were having issues with phone calls and getting the phone to hold a charge longer than a day. I mean, maybe, maybe I could be persuaded to use a phone without SMS, but if the battery has no life, and the thing isn't even meeting basic phone call levels, that's just too big a hurdle.
I'm really excited about the Palm Pre Challenge that's currently going on. It's a directed, focused push to get working phone calls with FSO on the Pre within a month:
What: Working voice call with FSO on the Palm Pre within one month.
When: As soon as the Palm Pre GSM is available in Germany. (2009-10-13)
Who: Daniel, Jan, Mickey, Simon and Stefan. Who else?
2009-09-17 First draft for Challenge.
2009-09-24 Palm an O2 announced the 2009-10-13 as Palm Pre launch date in germany. That means our challenge has a start date now.
2009-09-25 Kick off some OE work for kernel and rootfs images.
This seems like a good, focused, reasonable goal that can be attained. I wish them luck!
This is why I'm so excited for the N900. I'm sure the base install has some proprietary stuff, but...
Bingo!
I think that the n900 is going to have the same issue as we have with Android phones and the Pam Pre: There's proprietary software in the base install.
If the only proprietary software on the device is games or some non-essential application, then that's not going to be a problem. Someone can just make a replacement image for the device with those non-free apps removed. But if bits of the OS or base applications like SMS, calendaring, email, etc... are under a proprietary license, that might be a big block to using the phone with only Free Software.
I'm hopeful about the n900, but I'm not holding my breath.
Google is sending a C&D because someone is distributing closed-source Google apps (like GMail, Google Maps, etc...) without a license.
This is why I want a phone that runs only Free Software in the base install. If I know that the base functionality is open and free, that means I can take that base set of software and modify it and distribute it to other people without worry of getting a C&D letter like this one.
Free Software licenses are a great way to CYA. Sure, they do a number of other things for you as well, and they aren't always the best at dealing with software patents, but they CYA a lot more than most proprietary licenses I've seen.
Oh, great. The Barrelfish article isn't on the front page anymore, and the url for it just redirects to the red-light-cameras url.
Maybe the barrelfish article was supposed to be secret and CmdrTaco just got visited by the suits in black helicopters. This breakdown on/. is probably his subtle way of cluing us in to the shadowy government conspiracy.
Or, you know, some kind of computer failed somewhere. But the conspiracy thing is so much sexier.
I think that somehow/. just got rebooted into single-article mode. All the comments and all the stories are merged together. Maybe it's a cost-saving measure, cutting down on use of electrons and such...
Isn't a faster boot into windows like a faster elevator into Hell?
Yeah, but if you're headed there anyway, you just want to get there and be done with it. No sense in sitting around in the elevator worrying about what it's going to be like in the deepest pits of hell.
"if you want to sync with iTunes, stop spoofing our USB ID and write your own plugin using the published API for iTunes sync".
I think the real question here is: Is Apple providing a level playing ground so that independent companies can provide equivalent functionality?
It's just like Microsoft and their (alleged) undocumented Windows APIs used by their Office suite for better performance. If Apple is providing an equivalent playground for Palm and other companies so that they can create the same kind of syncing software provided by Apple to the iPhone and iPod hardware, and if Apple's public interfaces are the same as the ones used by Apple's own hardware/software, then Palm should just use that route.
My hunch is that Apple is not revealing all of their APIs. Perhaps they're leaving some undocumented, or they've set up the interfaces such that Apple handheld devices get a better syncing interface. Perhaps by using Apple's USB id Palm can save a lot of development work by using an interface that Apple has decided not to make available to 3rd party developers.
Think about it: Why in the world would Palm want to make their device look like one of Apple's devices if they could get the same, easy-to-use sync from iTunes while indicating that the handheld device was a Palm Pre? There's no good reason. No good reason, that is, unless somehow the Pre pretending to be a piece of Apple hardware was giving Pre users a better experience than announcing themselves openly as Palm hardware.
It sounds like Palm broke some contract with the Grand High Council of USB Lords when they spoofed Apple's id. Okay, fine. So what if they did? I mean perhaps the rules of the USB consortium allow no leeway in these cases, but this situation is just discrimination, plain and simple. There's one interface for Apple, and a separate one for everyone else. Kind of like having one drinking fountain for white people, and one for black people. Sure, Palm pretended to be an iPhone, but that's because they had no other choice.
Let's say that in 2 years someone realizes that some super-popular application they wrote in 2009 was compiled with the wrong flags and will only talk to USB vendor ids in a static list compiled into the binary. Is the USB Council of Poo-Bahs going to try to tell us that Palm, or Apple, or Joe's Open Hardware Hackitorium may not pretend to be one of the USB vendors in the static list in a hack to make it possible to interoperate with said application? That's just f*cking insane!
If you're supposed to be sequestered, I assume that they remove access to communication devices like phones, PDAs, laptops, etc..., the same way that they don't give you newspapers.
If you're not sequestered, I'm going to assume that the judge/court already instructs you not to read or look up outside information about the case and explains to you exactly what the punishment is for breaking the court's instructions.
Now given the extent to which the court tracks the actions of jurors, I'm going to assume that it's difficult if not impossible to enforce these rules. If courts are having problems with jurors disregarding these instructions, then signing a piece of paper seems like a silly step to take. Just ask the legislature to increase the penalty for breaking the rules and start enforcing the rule when it is broken.
Of course, that doesn't fix the underlying problem of people not wanting to serve on a jury. If the court increases the onus on jurors, I can imagine that many more citizens will try to get out of jury duty. I don't think anyone has a solution for an apathetic citizenry!
Even if it is proprietary software, it's an interesting discussion to have on how developers interact with each other when they're not sure that the legal system is the right place to take the fight, sociologically speaking. I mean, Twitter? Really? I guess whatever floats your boat...
Aside from that part of it, I agree: why yammer about Apple and their proprietary goodies? Let them do their thing and let's do our own thing. They have marketshare and power because we give it to them. Just say no.
I just format my external disks as ext3, reserving a small partition (maybe 2-3GB out of 1TB) as a FAT32 partition.
Throw the installers for Ext2FSD, an "Open source ext2/ext3 file system driver for Windows (NT/2K/XP/VISTA, X86/AMD64)" on the FAT32 partition. This allows you to bootstrap any Windows machines you come across to access the EXT partition(s).
It seems like the best solution would be to have external drive enclosures be able to act like disks or like little servers. If you want them to just be a disk, then they can have direct access, but if you're trying to access an ext3 disk on a Vista or OSX machine that doesn't have support for that file system, the hardware could just run a little ftp or sftp server and the host machine could just access it over ip.
Hmm.. did they forget to thank? It's quite common to cry about this and that... when the only think needed is to shut your mouth and THANK for the little help.
If you're here to build me a bridge, then tell me so and build it. If you're here to bring me a stone, then don't tell me you're here to build me a bridge.
You said "completely". Which laptop do you recommend for use with coreboot (free BIOS replacement) and gNewSense (free OS with no "fair use" drivers)?
Just to clarify, I did use "completely" to refer to the n900, not to the laptop in that paragraph...:-)
Last I checked, coreboot isn't running on any laptops. Laptop manufacturers are unwilling or unable to give developers specs for some or all of the hardware in their machines, so it's a non-starter. Get the hardware docs released and we might get somewhere.
The OLPC has a FOSS stack, including OpenFirmware, but I believe that the wireless card may use a closed firmware, so you'd have to stick an external wireless card in there for complete freedom.
Stallman is using a Lemote laptop with a MIPS processor that runs only Free Software.
The Pre is nifty, but a large chunk of the OS and all of the base applications are proprietary Palm stuff. So it's pretty darn close, but we're just not quite there yet.
Is there any chance of having the base install for the n900 be completely FOSS? I wish I had the time to hack on phones and write this stuff myself, but (like a lot of other people) I keep on finding my schedule too busy to get started.
It's 2009 and I can buy a laptop that runs a FOSS OS and FOSS applications pretty much perfectly. When can we have the same for a phone?
a proprietary OS for 30 bucks deserves 5 points on price.
Sure, $30 isn't much money, but would you pay $30 for the latest release of Debian or Ubuntu? I mean, the use of having a powerful operating system on a new laptop is certainly worth $30 in productivity after only a day or two of work. I don't know if you use or fund FOSS, but it's funny how in general how people are so willing to pay $30 for a proprietary piece of software, and so reticent to donate even $10 to a Free Software project whose program they use every day.
Saying that a proprietary OS for $30 deserves 5 points on price is like saying that a $30 b.j. from a prostitute with STDs deserves 5 points on price: Sure, you get temporary happiness really cheaply, but in the end you might end up with an itch you just can't scratch.
I still have to use proprietary OSes to test and develop some software at my lab, and it bites us in the a** just as hard as everyone else. At least I have some small comfort in knowing that I can use a nice chunk of my salary to fund Free Software development.
Slashdot Mirror
Has Nintendo legally gone after anyone for homebrew?
Naw, last I heard they keep their lawyers super busy going after people who mention their favorite Nintendo games in their online profiles.
"Linking", under the gpl, refers to compiled code only.
Linking, perhaps yes. But as for being a derivative work? Well, I googled around and couldn't find a definite answer on this point. There's a thread on stackoverflow that provides some commentary, but doesn't give a definite answer as to whether a javascript program that calls into a javascript library is a derivative work. There's also some commentary on Rock Star Apps. Amusingly, this same question was brought up in an article last year about ExtJS moving to the GPL.
The upshot? I wouldn't bet any money either way. In fact, I'm going to go ask the SFLC right after I post this comment.
If you're going to use a library, and you're going to modify it, why not share the benefits of your mods, and reap the benefits of other people fixing any bugs you may have introduced?
The issue here is that you have a company distributing software Foo under GPLv3 and under a proprietary license. I don't think they'll take your patches unless you assign copyright so that they can distribute the change in both versions.
Of course, if you don't assign copyright, then others who pull from the official GPL'd branch won't get them either. And even if you are contributing (indirectly) to proprietary software by assigning copyright, you're supporting a company that GPLs their software, so... which choice is better for Free Software in general? Well, that's a darn good question.
What, does the neq operator have higher precedence than whitespace?
Okay, fixed that for you:
Also, (open source) != (free software)
Who modded this sucker insightful?
I mean, yes, it is insightful, but given that you've got a pick-just-one situation when moderating /. comments, I think that the humor mod would have been a bit more appropriate.
When writing a comment that uses subtle humor, perhaps authors should add an "X-Moderator-Aid: Humor" line.
3. Web apps can be closed source
Sure...
A few people have replied that web apps can't be closed since you have to send the source. I know this is a common argument, but things are changing.
If you send javascript code (obfuscated or not) to the browser, then users can take a look at the code and might try to reuse it. If the code is not licensed for end user reuse, then it probably won't be used as much, but people might still try.
Web apps are really becoming apps now. Look at the speed improvements in FF3.5 and Chrome. Things are changing. The days of believing that JavaScript implies openness are ending.
I don't think that anyone ever believed that all JavaScript code was open-licensed. Admittedly, most of the JavaScript in the past was just snippets here and there for various widget tricks, and so people didn't as aggressively defend their proprietary developments, but the licensing options have remained roughly the same.
As the apps get bigger companies are going to be protecting their code, and not just by copyright. There will even be algorithms in the JS that they want to protect.
With software patents, perhaps. Yes, it's quite unfortunate.
They may be limited to obsfucation as a technique, but that can be pretty decent. I think the people who believe that JavaScript is open since you are sending the source will be changing their minds in the next few years as people do incredible in browser things that took them a lot of time to do, and want to protect their assets.
Individual companies are free to write code and license it as they please, however as I noted in a previous comment, all companies need to respect FOSS licenses, such as the version of Ext JS licensed under the GPLv3. If a company uses a copy of the Ext JS library and links their code against it, then they'll need to be prepared to give un-obfuscated copies of their source code to any user who downloads an obfuscated version.
Web client code...isn't something you can hide. Any obfuscation can be de-obfuscated given enough incentive...They HAVE to have the source to run it.
To build on what someone else said, just because a user is given the obfuscated code doesn't mean that the application writer/hosting company has fulfilled all of their GPL obligations.
For example, let's say you take the Ext JS (using a GPLv3-licensed copy), build an application A on top of it and throw it up online. So A is a derivative work and thus must be GPLv3-licensed as well.
If a user U loads one of your web pages and in the process downloads a local copy of A, then not only do you need to provide a way for them to get a copy of the original source code to Ext JS, but you would also need to provide the regular, non-compressed, non-obfuscated source code to whatever parts of A you have served up online to the user.
The reason why the non-obfuscated code must be provided to the user is that the GPLv3 clearly states how the source code for a piece of work should be conveyed:
The "source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
The right to source code in this "preferred form" is granted the moment that code is downloaded to the user's browser.
they claimed that it never was released under the LGPL. They tried some silly technicality where they said it was only released under the LGPL under some other terms. The LGPL itself clearly says any added terms can be removed, but they insisted it couldn't.
As you point out, the LGPL 2.1 (to pick an older version of the LGPL) states:
You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
Wikipedia's blurb on the licensing problem states:
the authors claimed Ext was available under an LGPL license as long as you "plan to use Ext in a personal, educational or non-profit manner" or "in an open source project that precludes using non-open source software" or "are using Ext in a commercial application that is not a software development library or toolkit".
Obviously, not everyone believes that this stance is legally defensible. As you state,
I strongly believe they are wrong about the "never being under LGPL" thing, but we weren't going to be wasting time dealing with lawyers and fighting them.
Next time, toss the question over to the Software Freedom Law Center. Even if you personally don't want to go forward with the issue, I feel like the SFLC is great at trying to resolve questions like this so that developers can just write code and leave the legal issues for the lawyers. They're really gung-ho about dealing with license violators and are dedicated to helping clear up licensing issues.
FreeBSD rather ends up taking a wallop to Ubuntu Linux, but there are a few areas where FreeBSD 8 ran well.
Apparently taking a wallop to != bringing the hurt.
Perhaps it would be clearer to say For the most part, Ubuntu beat FreeBSD, or perhaps FreeBSD got walloped by Ubuntu.
I guess you should get an OpenMoko. They are relatively cheap these days.
Well to answer the second part, the cheapest price for the OpenMoko Freerunner is currently $250 in the US. That's cheaper than $400 for the HTC Dream. The Palm Pre is only $100 with a 2-year contract, but no carrier-free GSM phone prices are available yet. So the Freerunner is a bit cheaper, but with much less hardware.
As for the phone itself, last I heard the development was continuing slowly and people were having issues with phone calls and getting the phone to hold a charge longer than a day. I mean, maybe, maybe I could be persuaded to use a phone without SMS, but if the battery has no life, and the thing isn't even meeting basic phone call levels, that's just too big a hurdle.
I'm really excited about the Palm Pre Challenge that's currently going on. It's a directed, focused push to get working phone calls with FSO on the Pre within a month:
What: Working voice call with FSO on the Palm Pre within one month.
When: As soon as the Palm Pre GSM is available in Germany. (2009-10-13)
Who: Daniel, Jan, Mickey, Simon and Stefan. Who else?
2009-09-17 First draft for Challenge.
2009-09-24 Palm an O2 announced the 2009-10-13 as Palm Pre launch date in germany. That means our challenge has a start date now.
2009-09-25 Kick off some OE work for kernel and rootfs images.
This seems like a good, focused, reasonable goal that can be attained. I wish them luck!
This is why I'm so excited for the N900. I'm sure the base install has some proprietary stuff, but...
Bingo!
I think that the n900 is going to have the same issue as we have with Android phones and the Pam Pre: There's proprietary software in the base install.
If the only proprietary software on the device is games or some non-essential application, then that's not going to be a problem. Someone can just make a replacement image for the device with those non-free apps removed. But if bits of the OS or base applications like SMS, calendaring, email, etc... are under a proprietary license, that might be a big block to using the phone with only Free Software.
I'm hopeful about the n900, but I'm not holding my breath.
Google is sending a C&D because someone is distributing closed-source Google apps (like GMail, Google Maps, etc...) without a license.
This is why I want a phone that runs only Free Software in the base install. If I know that the base functionality is open and free, that means I can take that base set of software and modify it and distribute it to other people without worry of getting a C&D letter like this one.
Free Software licenses are a great way to CYA. Sure, they do a number of other things for you as well, and they aren't always the best at dealing with software patents, but they CYA a lot more than most proprietary licenses I've seen.
my brain booting into blinding, skull-rattling hangover mode
Did you have an oktoberfest party last night, too?
Oh, great. The Barrelfish article isn't on the front page anymore, and the url for it just redirects to the red-light-cameras url.
Maybe the barrelfish article was supposed to be secret and CmdrTaco just got visited by the suits in black helicopters. This breakdown on /. is probably his subtle way of cluing us in to the shadowy government conspiracy.
Or, you know, some kind of computer failed somewhere. But the conspiracy thing is so much sexier.
Oh, goody, my account thinks that my previous comment is attached to the Microsoft Releases Prototype of Research OS "Barrelfish story. Brilliant!
I think that somehow /. just got rebooted into single-article mode. All the comments and all the stories are merged together. Maybe it's a cost-saving measure, cutting down on use of electrons and such...
Agreed. Something is really, really messed up.
To note more broken things, first link in the summary gives me a insert-cursor mouse-over, but no action on click.
Isn't a faster boot into windows like a faster elevator into Hell?
Yeah, but if you're headed there anyway, you just want to get there and be done with it. No sense in sitting around in the elevator worrying about what it's going to be like in the deepest pits of hell.
"if you want to sync with iTunes, stop spoofing our USB ID and write your own plugin using the published API for iTunes sync".
I think the real question here is: Is Apple providing a level playing ground so that independent companies can provide equivalent functionality?
It's just like Microsoft and their (alleged) undocumented Windows APIs used by their Office suite for better performance. If Apple is providing an equivalent playground for Palm and other companies so that they can create the same kind of syncing software provided by Apple to the iPhone and iPod hardware, and if Apple's public interfaces are the same as the ones used by Apple's own hardware/software, then Palm should just use that route.
My hunch is that Apple is not revealing all of their APIs. Perhaps they're leaving some undocumented, or they've set up the interfaces such that Apple handheld devices get a better syncing interface. Perhaps by using Apple's USB id Palm can save a lot of development work by using an interface that Apple has decided not to make available to 3rd party developers.
Think about it: Why in the world would Palm want to make their device look like one of Apple's devices if they could get the same, easy-to-use sync from iTunes while indicating that the handheld device was a Palm Pre? There's no good reason. No good reason, that is, unless somehow the Pre pretending to be a piece of Apple hardware was giving Pre users a better experience than announcing themselves openly as Palm hardware.
It sounds like Palm broke some contract with the Grand High Council of USB Lords when they spoofed Apple's id. Okay, fine. So what if they did? I mean perhaps the rules of the USB consortium allow no leeway in these cases, but this situation is just discrimination, plain and simple. There's one interface for Apple, and a separate one for everyone else. Kind of like having one drinking fountain for white people, and one for black people. Sure, Palm pretended to be an iPhone, but that's because they had no other choice.
Let's say that in 2 years someone realizes that some super-popular application they wrote in 2009 was compiled with the wrong flags and will only talk to USB vendor ids in a static list compiled into the binary. Is the USB Council of Poo-Bahs going to try to tell us that Palm, or Apple, or Joe's Open Hardware Hackitorium may not pretend to be one of the USB vendors in the static list in a hack to make it possible to interoperate with said application? That's just f*cking insane!
If you're supposed to be sequestered, I assume that they remove access to communication devices like phones, PDAs, laptops, etc..., the same way that they don't give you newspapers.
If you're not sequestered, I'm going to assume that the judge/court already instructs you not to read or look up outside information about the case and explains to you exactly what the punishment is for breaking the court's instructions.
Now given the extent to which the court tracks the actions of jurors, I'm going to assume that it's difficult if not impossible to enforce these rules. If courts are having problems with jurors disregarding these instructions, then signing a piece of paper seems like a silly step to take. Just ask the legislature to increase the penalty for breaking the rules and start enforcing the rule when it is broken.
Of course, that doesn't fix the underlying problem of people not wanting to serve on a jury. If the court increases the onus on jurors, I can imagine that many more citizens will try to get out of jury duty. I don't think anyone has a solution for an apathetic citizenry!
Even if it is proprietary software, it's an interesting discussion to have on how developers interact with each other when they're not sure that the legal system is the right place to take the fight, sociologically speaking. I mean, Twitter? Really? I guess whatever floats your boat...
Aside from that part of it, I agree: why yammer about Apple and their proprietary goodies? Let them do their thing and let's do our own thing. They have marketshare and power because we give it to them. Just say no.
Anyhow, mod parent up. I would if I had points.
I just format my external disks as ext3, reserving a small partition (maybe 2-3GB out of 1TB) as a FAT32 partition.
Throw the installers for Ext2FSD, an "Open source ext2/ext3 file system driver for Windows (NT/2K/XP/VISTA, X86/AMD64)" on the FAT32 partition. This allows you to bootstrap any Windows machines you come across to access the EXT partition(s).
There are some instructions for ext3 access on OSX on various sites online, but I haven't tried any out myself.
It seems like the best solution would be to have external drive enclosures be able to act like disks or like little servers. If you want them to just be a disk, then they can have direct access, but if you're trying to access an ext3 disk on a Vista or OSX machine that doesn't have support for that file system, the hardware could just run a little ftp or sftp server and the host machine could just access it over ip.
Hmm.. did they forget to thank? It's quite common to cry about this and that... when the only think needed is to shut your mouth and THANK for the little help.
If you're here to build me a bridge, then tell me so and build it. If you're here to bring me a stone, then don't tell me you're here to build me a bridge.
Oh, cry me a river...
You said "completely". Which laptop do you recommend for use with coreboot (free BIOS replacement) and gNewSense (free OS with no "fair use" drivers)?
Just to clarify, I did use "completely" to refer to the n900, not to the laptop in that paragraph... :-)
Last I checked, coreboot isn't running on any laptops. Laptop manufacturers are unwilling or unable to give developers specs for some or all of the hardware in their machines, so it's a non-starter. Get the hardware docs released and we might get somewhere.
The OLPC has a FOSS stack, including OpenFirmware, but I believe that the wireless card may use a closed firmware, so you'd have to stick an external wireless card in there for complete freedom.
Stallman is using a Lemote laptop with a MIPS processor that runs only Free Software.
So how open is the n900 going to be?
The Pre is nifty, but a large chunk of the OS and all of the base applications are proprietary Palm stuff. So it's pretty darn close, but we're just not quite there yet.
Is there any chance of having the base install for the n900 be completely FOSS? I wish I had the time to hack on phones and write this stuff myself, but (like a lot of other people) I keep on finding my schedule too busy to get started.
It's 2009 and I can buy a laptop that runs a FOSS OS and FOSS applications pretty much perfectly. When can we have the same for a phone?
Okay, okay, we'll give you a seat at the table...keyboard...whatever. Just don't invite the ASSociation of Hunt And Typers School, whatever you do.
30 bucks..
a proprietary OS for 30 bucks deserves 5 points on price.
Sure, $30 isn't much money, but would you pay $30 for the latest release of Debian or Ubuntu? I mean, the use of having a powerful operating system on a new laptop is certainly worth $30 in productivity after only a day or two of work. I don't know if you use or fund FOSS, but it's funny how in general how people are so willing to pay $30 for a proprietary piece of software, and so reticent to donate even $10 to a Free Software project whose program they use every day.
Saying that a proprietary OS for $30 deserves 5 points on price is like saying that a $30 b.j. from a prostitute with STDs deserves 5 points on price: Sure, you get temporary happiness really cheaply, but in the end you might end up with an itch you just can't scratch.
I still have to use proprietary OSes to test and develop some software at my lab, and it bites us in the a** just as hard as everyone else. At least I have some small comfort in knowing that I can use a nice chunk of my salary to fund Free Software development.