Cool, that's sort of what I meant... sigh, I typed my first post a little awkwardly. But I think you might be right in the case of redistribution, just taking out the sensitive parts. I'm not planning on "redistributing" this software package, but I might install it and customize it for a few other purposes. PHP scripts are sort of a weird one, when it comes to the GPL, aren't they? Since they are all server-side processed, it becomes very difficult to GPL them, since the binary (if there is such a thing) never gets distributed.
Anyway, thanks for your take on it; I'm gonna sleep a little better now I think.;-)
Lol, well, first off, it's not my proposition. What part of my post didn't you understand? Secondly, I think it's a valid question, because the flip side of this is:
As a programmer building a set of GPL'ed PHP scripts for instance, how are you supposed to make sure that nobody takes your code, and uses it to build a closed-source project?
Couldn't somebody make a website out of a derivitive work and never have to open or disclose their code? This type of thing would go against the spirit, if not the letter of the GPL.
And I hope that clarifies it well enough for you to see that TTNAT.
Speaking of licensing issues, my web site was put together using a GPL'ed PHP package. The collection of scripts, as well as PHP, the dev language, fall under Open Source licenses. I installed the software about a week ago.
Since installing the package and configuring it, I have already had visitors ask me for the source, which I gladly provided of course. However, I provided them the source to the original package, --not-- the altered PHP scripts (which incidentally contain sensitive information such as my MySQL database name and password.)
My main concern is this; if I use this software to create a web site, and it is GPL'ed, I do not want to redistribute the exact files that are in my HTML directory, for obvious reasons. Am I in violation of the GPL, if someone decides they want to enforce it? Are they subsequently entitled to a tarball of my web site root directory? If they are, there is no possible way I can continue using this package, and therefore could not continue to support Open Source for this project.:-(
I have already find a few minor bugs and have been submitting them back into the CVS tree, so I'm still contributing to the development of the package; however, some people are now talking about the GPL being modified to encompass web sites being made with Open Source tools. If the GPL is changed to encompass web sites as opposed to binary distributions, could mean some serious problems for me.
Any advice that anyone has about this matter would definitely be something I would appreciate. Thanks!
USWest shipped me a box a year and a half ago with nuthin' but a plastic Dixie cup with CISCO written in magic marker on it, a handful of resistors and capacitors pulled (with a pliers, evidently) from an old TV set, a slightly used piece of tin foil, an AOL version 3.0 diskette, and an ethernet card (BNC connector only.).
I glued the stuff together, plugged it into my Gigabit Ethernet hub, and I was up and running within 15 minutes! Haven't looked back.
They've really gone to a lot of trouble to emulate the hardware correctly. The ROMs play back almost exactly like the original arcade machines. I've lately been trying to best my record on the original Mario Brothers (heh, most of you l33t kiddies out there think I mean the Nintendo version, I'm sure.)
Now, what would really be interesting and entertaining would be an entirely 100% Java implementation of MAME. If you created a web site that could serve up the Java applet and a selection of, oh, I don't know, maybe 1000 games or so (don't think there are that many? Check out the MAME compatibility list, sucker!), you'd pretty much be able to own a huge amount of web traffic.
You throw muliplayer compatibility in there, an IRC add-on, and I bet you'd really have something. A wall of fame, for high scorers, guilds (I'm the leader of the Blood-Sucking Ms.Pac-Clan, how 'bout you?) and prizes, and you'd pretty much be GOD of the web.
Alas, it will never happen, though, thanks to the fookin' Mickey Mouse copyright laws. *sigh*. Hmmm... *thinks for a moment...* I've got it; how about a Gnutella-type open-source distributed app?;-)
Doesn't the BSD style license permit the adaptation and incorporation of the code into new products, even commercial and (oh, the horrors!) closed source products, as opposed to the GPL "viral licensing" provision, which prohibits the closing of the source in a later branch?
Anyway, it's a nice article, and well worth reading if you run database-backed web sites.
While I am happy they decided to sell it outright rather than impose restrictions on what can and cannot be done with it, I feel that the $399 price is a bit high, with things like that NIC available.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but wasn't the reason the first run of those successful that they were around $100? Anyway, hopefully they will go on sale; I wouldn't mind picking one up for the kitchen....mmmm recipes online...
Thank you! I'm glad to see some informed opinions about this topic, since I personally find it so interesting.
This is not to say I'm going to switch, but it does answer many of my questions (most of which have gone unanswered for years) regarding why Microsoft (bleeech) came out on top in the desktop market, while Apple quietly wasted away.
Anyway, thank you again for taking the time to give the other side of the story. It's rare (and getting rarer on/.) to see such a well-considered response. I still have problems with some of Apple's quirks as a company, but at least I now understand them a bit better.
My apologies; I misinterpreted your response as being in relation to my post (which was #8, I knew I shouldn't have been reading this thread in flat mode. My bad.
I, too, am concerned about the flooding on Slash; I think it's important now to try to diversify to other forum-driven sites if possible. Slashdot reached critical mass, recently having over 200K registered users, so perhaps smaller forums are more productive, and might have a higher signal-to-noise ratio.
Again, sorry for the misguided flame; I'll be sure and read more carefully (in threaded mode) next time.;-)
Well, it's certainly interesting that my "troll" has sparked so much interesting debate. If anything, your petty little meta-comments, which of course add nothing to the discussion, only add to the status of this particular thread. For that, I thank you, sir.;-)
P.S. If you're interested, there is a parallel discussion thread to this topic over on Junebug. But then again, I'm not sure that I want you mucking up my server.
I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Hypercard was a brilliant product. It's a shame that Apple makes their developers pay through the nose, when they could have done so much better if they had been a bit more open.
As for OS X, it is Apple's last chance to impress me. I must admit I still have a tiny bit of sentiment for Apple as a company, so I truly, truly hope that OS X lives up to the hype.
I don't mean that Apple will fail if OS X bombs; this only applies to my personal interest in Apple as a tech company.
For me, the reason why the Mac was never interesting as a development system was simple. When they released the first Mac, Apple had done their best to create a line of computers that were consumer products, not the hobbyist-oriented, upgradeable, easy-to-learn, read-one-book-on-BASIC-and-you're-programming machines that had made them popular in the first place.
Imagine my surprise, as an Apple II, II+, and IIe user, when I first looked at a Mac. "How do you open this (*&$ thing?" It was the single most disappointing thing that I'd ever seen in the world of computers.
That is, until I tried to figure out how to program for them, and found out that
1. There was no command line.
2. You had to buy additional software, as far as I could tell, just to program the damn things.
3. Apple didn't want you developing for the Mac unless you werre a commercial licenser.
4. Hardware upgrades? Pshaw!
5. There were 15 books you had to read in their damn developer's guide.
In fact, Apple put up so many barriers to entry, relative to the Apple II line, that I'm surprised that anyone ended up programming for their sealed-box, crappy-spec'ed, proprietary bull&(*t.
It was shortly thereafter I switched to x86, and so far, I have no regrets whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, Apple is basically the antithesis of everything the Open Source philosophy represents.
You think Realplayer's lack of Linux support is a drawback of Linux? I thought it was a feature.
As for devices not working properly as advertised, well; shouldn't we boycott companies who use false advertising? Shouldn't be that hard to start a gnew web site that tracked Linux device support, and logged, tracked, and publicized companies who failed to live up to their promises.
Let me get this straight. You actually think the only reason people create music is so they can make money??? What a sad world you must live in.
Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy creating music because they derive pleasure from it. Some people even enjoy creating music, because other people derive pleasure from their creations.
Sheesh; I'm almost happy that I heard you say that; it just made my life seem so much fuller by comparison.;-)
I was just thinking about how cool it would be to get WINE running under BeOS. I think, if it got to be stable and fast enough, it just might enable me to completely drop Windows from my network...
I like Linux, but I don't really need a multi-user OS for my desktop. I like BeOS, but I would really like to have backwards compatibility with some of my Windows apps. I like Macs, but I really need multi-tasking and I am unconvinced OS X will be the answer. And I like PalmOS, but it hasn't seemed to scale particularly well yet.;-)
Does anyone know of an effort to port WINE to BeOS? I would be so glad if I could, once and for all, get rid of this buggy, unreliable mess.
lol! Hehe, I wasn't trying to say, "oh, look at the funny lookin' man, Mamma," I was just pointing out the interesting (and, I thought, sort of bizarre) little quirks about this...
Heh, guess people have different senses of humor...
Also, thanks for the flame. I love it when people call me dumb for trying to make someone laugh.;-)
Now, if they can just figure out a way to get the man pages to work better. Their online documentation for MySQL (Which I've been trying to use to develop for my BSD web server) is totally down right now; its been around 7 hours now, and their site has been flaky and slow for at least a week.
I know this is probably related to the heavy traffic at their site today, but still; shouldn't they be able to keep their manual section up and running a little better? Hopefully the investment from VA Linux will go towards upgrading their 486 33sx web server.;-)
Anyways, I am happy about this; I'm just grumpy because I hate missing deadlines. Documentation is HUGE in this field, so I hate it when companies skimp.
Yeah, they shoulda been running on OpenBSD, where the default MySQL install runs as its own user. I was pleasantly surprised when I didn't have to lock MySQL down...as much as before, at least.;-)
Myself, I am using a combination of Perl, Apache, Apache mod_include, PHP3, and MySQL on OpenBSD for my web database. It was slightly more difficult to get them to interoperate on OpenBSD, but the added security acts as a soothing balm on my (possibly paranoid) mind.
Er... perhaps that's not quite the right sounding phrase...
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, thanks for your take on it; I'm gonna sleep a little better now I think. ;-)
As a programmer building a set of GPL'ed PHP scripts for instance, how are you supposed to make sure that nobody takes your code, and uses it to build a closed-source project?
Couldn't somebody make a website out of a derivitive work and never have to open or disclose their code? This type of thing would go against the spirit, if not the letter of the GPL.
And I hope that clarifies it well enough for you to see that TTNAT.
Since installing the package and configuring it, I have already had visitors ask me for the source, which I gladly provided of course. However, I provided them the source to the original package, --not-- the altered PHP scripts (which incidentally contain sensitive information such as my MySQL database name and password.)
My main concern is this; if I use this software to create a web site, and it is GPL'ed, I do not want to redistribute the exact files that are in my HTML directory, for obvious reasons. Am I in violation of the GPL, if someone decides they want to enforce it? Are they subsequently entitled to a tarball of my web site root directory? If they are, there is no possible way I can continue using this package, and therefore could not continue to support Open Source for this project. :-(
I have already find a few minor bugs and have been submitting them back into the CVS tree, so I'm still contributing to the development of the package; however, some people are now talking about the GPL being modified to encompass web sites being made with Open Source tools. If the GPL is changed to encompass web sites as opposed to binary distributions, could mean some serious problems for me.
Any advice that anyone has about this matter would definitely be something I would appreciate. Thanks!
I glued the stuff together, plugged it into my Gigabit Ethernet hub, and I was up and running within 15 minutes! Haven't looked back.
Now, what would really be interesting and entertaining would be an entirely 100% Java implementation of MAME. If you created a web site that could serve up the Java applet and a selection of, oh, I don't know, maybe 1000 games or so (don't think there are that many? Check out the MAME compatibility list, sucker!), you'd pretty much be able to own a huge amount of web traffic.
You throw muliplayer compatibility in there, an IRC add-on, and I bet you'd really have something. A wall of fame, for high scorers, guilds (I'm the leader of the Blood-Sucking Ms.Pac-Clan, how 'bout you?) and prizes, and you'd pretty much be GOD of the web.
Alas, it will never happen, though, thanks to the fookin' Mickey Mouse copyright laws. *sigh*. Hmmm... *thinks for a moment...* I've got it; how about a Gnutella-type open-source distributed app? ;-)
Anyway, it's a nice article, and well worth reading if you run database-backed web sites.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but wasn't the reason the first run of those successful that they were around $100? Anyway, hopefully they will go on sale; I wouldn't mind picking one up for the kitchen....mmmm recipes online...
This is not to say I'm going to switch, but it does answer many of my questions (most of which have gone unanswered for years) regarding why Microsoft (bleeech) came out on top in the desktop market, while Apple quietly wasted away.
Anyway, thank you again for taking the time to give the other side of the story. It's rare (and getting rarer on /.) to see such a well-considered response. I still have problems with some of Apple's quirks as a company, but at least I now understand them a bit better.
I, too, am concerned about the flooding on Slash; I think it's important now to try to diversify to other forum-driven sites if possible. Slashdot reached critical mass, recently having over 200K registered users, so perhaps smaller forums are more productive, and might have a higher signal-to-noise ratio.
Again, sorry for the misguided flame; I'll be sure and read more carefully (in threaded mode) next time. ;-)
P.S. If you're interested, there is a parallel discussion thread to this topic over on Junebug. But then again, I'm not sure that I want you mucking up my server.
As for OS X, it is Apple's last chance to impress me. I must admit I still have a tiny bit of sentiment for Apple as a company, so I truly, truly hope that OS X lives up to the hype.
I don't mean that Apple will fail if OS X bombs; this only applies to my personal interest in Apple as a tech company.
Imagine my surprise, as an Apple II, II+, and IIe user, when I first looked at a Mac. "How do you open this (*&$ thing?" It was the single most disappointing thing that I'd ever seen in the world of computers.
That is, until I tried to figure out how to program for them, and found out that
1. There was no command line.
2. You had to buy additional software, as far as I could tell, just to program the damn things.
3. Apple didn't want you developing for the Mac unless you werre a commercial licenser.
4. Hardware upgrades? Pshaw!
5. There were 15 books you had to read in their damn developer's guide.
In fact, Apple put up so many barriers to entry, relative to the Apple II line, that I'm surprised that anyone ended up programming for their sealed-box, crappy-spec'ed, proprietary bull&(*t.
It was shortly thereafter I switched to x86, and so far, I have no regrets whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, Apple is basically the antithesis of everything the Open Source philosophy represents.
As for devices not working properly as advertised, well; shouldn't we boycott companies who use false advertising? Shouldn't be that hard to start a gnew web site that tracked Linux device support, and logged, tracked, and publicized companies who failed to live up to their promises.
Just a thought.
Thankd god that somebody bothered to design an OS with decent security. Lordy knows Microsoft, Red Hat, and Solaris can't seem to do it.
Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy creating music because they derive pleasure from it. Some people even enjoy creating music, because other people derive pleasure from their creations.
Sheesh; I'm almost happy that I heard you say that; it just made my life seem so much fuller by comparison. ;-)
I like Linux, but I don't really need a multi-user OS for my desktop. I like BeOS, but I would really like to have backwards compatibility with some of my Windows apps. I like Macs, but I really need multi-tasking and I am unconvinced OS X will be the answer. And I like PalmOS, but it hasn't seemed to scale particularly well yet. ;-)
Does anyone know of an effort to port WINE to BeOS? I would be so glad if I could, once and for all, get rid of this buggy, unreliable mess.
I did download some docs, they have been helpful.
But Yahoo News isn't that far-fetched as a news source; isn't Yahoo! one of the top ten most visited sites on the web?
Anyway, I'd probably trust Yahoo! before I'd trust ZDNet for technical skills, but that's just me.
Heh, guess people have different senses of humor...
Also, thanks for the flame. I love it when people call me dumb for trying to make someone laugh. ;-)
First, there are a few lines that appear to be truncated, as if the editor didn't have any coffee this morning.
But what really made me snicker was this line, quoted verbatim from near the bottom of the article.
Notebooks ain't all
That's it; no period, no ending, just the single crystalline thought "Notebooks ain't all"
Which kind of makes me want to go run right now and change my sig.
I know this is probably related to the heavy traffic at their site today, but still; shouldn't they be able to keep their manual section up and running a little better? Hopefully the investment from VA Linux will go towards upgrading their 486 33sx web server. ;-)
Anyways, I am happy about this; I'm just grumpy because I hate missing deadlines. Documentation is HUGE in this field, so I hate it when companies skimp.
Myself, I am using a combination of Perl, Apache, Apache mod_include, PHP3, and MySQL on OpenBSD for my web database. It was slightly more difficult to get them to interoperate on OpenBSD, but the added security acts as a soothing balm on my (possibly paranoid) mind.
Er... perhaps that's not quite the right sounding phrase...