Spec98 (www.spec.org) is a much better, much more compelte test of the entire system.
However I STRONGLY recommend when I speak on this topic that you take ALL standardized synthetic benchmarks with a healthy dose of salt.
(1) They don't behave like real apps.
(2) ALL the manufacturers trick their systems out to do unnaturally well on these tests. That one manufactuer can trick its VM out for a particular stadnardized benchmark then another says NOTHING about how it will run your app.
To paraphrase Mark Tawin, there are 3 kinds of lies: "Lies, Damn Lies, and Benchmarks." The only real test is the speed of your own applications.
On the bright side, since Java is a standard, if you stay away from VM specific tricks 9aa bad idea for many reasons) you can plug a different VM under your app and test it with no effort at all.
I think you HAVE to blame C (and even more C++) for bad memory allocation. All system-side memory allcoatio nis lousy. Anyone who has done high performance programming knwos this.
Modern Java VMs supports highly advanced memory handling algortihms (again, see the Hotspot docs at java.sun.com), so they can do much better at memory related tasks.
Sure there is NOTHING Java does that C++ couldn't with a similar byte-code->run-time-compiler and VM system, but thats nto the point. If C or C++ have to become MORE like Java to compete with it, that says a lot about the performance of java technologies as oppsoed to C/C++ technologies today.
A well seasoned benchmarker always does so by comparison. You could argue about what to chose as your baseline, but I think Chris's choice of gcc -o was reasonable, myself.
The problem with "real" benchamrks is that, sicen they are a fixed and rpecitable test suite, all the vendors trick out their systems to do maximally well on them.
The BEST benchmarks actually are randomly selected real world programs. Unfortunately they can be tricky to measure, and none exist for the cross-platform type of tests Chris is doing.
It does exactly what you ask for and Java pummels C a whole lot worse:)
In general, the clsoer benchmarks get ot "real world' problems, the better Java performs. The mdoern VMs are tuned to watch for and deal with real world situations.
>>Java requires a JVM interpreter, C does not >>require anything of the sort.
Java does not need to be interpreted in the classic sense, rather it is compield at run-time. Thsi is a common misunderstanding.
>C is compiled for the target CPUs own machine >code. Java needs an extra translation layer at >run time.
Actually the opposite is true. Windows code for instacne needs to be compiled for a lowest common denominator (Pentium, multi-processing). The JIt on the other hand looks at the siutatio nat run-time and compiels for that specific situation. (Hotspot for instacne generates PII code on a PII, and different code on single and multi-processor machines.)
>The C integer types change with the CPU, so >the "int" type is always the fastest integer >about. Java integer types are fixed.
Hardly significant on a modern machine. You're talkign about a few more CPU instructions at most. In fact, since Java expects 32 bit integers, it matches well the machiens in use today by and large.
Alright, as it happens my parents are authors so I grew up kind of "in this world."
A few realistic facts:
(1) Steven King is a "household name." Thats why he was able to sell copeis of a novel sight-unseen in an encrypted file. You are unlikely to be able to do the same.
(2) As a new author, you need to build a reputation. The only way to do that is to reach the audiance and youa re much more likely to reach that audiance with the respurces of a book publisher pushing your book/
(3) As a new author, frankly, you're unlikely to have had gold flow from your pen. Sad, and humbling but true. A publisher does much mroe then print books. By working with a major experienced publisher you will also get to work with an experienced editor. Even if you have the skills and experience, it is VERY difficult to get enough distance from your own labors to do a decent editing job. My folks have been writing for 40 years and they still don't edit their own stuff. (Since they both are quite experienced they take turns, one writes and the other edits.)
(4) Its worth noting that there are a few web-based publishing houses that have spring up specificly to publish eBooks. In these cases, they handle the download and charging off people's credit cards and send you a percentage (usually better then a typical print royalty.) You might consider these in order to avoid the hassles of billign and distribution yourself.
(5) IF you stll think you want to try to 'self-publish', then for a new author I would suggest share-ware format. Publish a few chapters (enough to get the reader hooked) as a free download and make people send you a check or other payment to get the rest.
(6) Lastly, but probably most important, don't expect to make much money off this no matter how you do it. A first novel is for proving you have talent and an audiance. Very very few authors ever make much money at all, and of thsoe that do almost none make it on their first book. If you build a loyal readership, that puts you in the position to negotiate better deals and, if youare both very talented and very lucky, maybe someday make decent money off it. In general, if money is your goal, go into something else.
Computers are far better then people at repetitive tasks and similarly repeition is the least valuable use of the unqiuely human ability to reason.
My entire career has consisted, to one degree or another, of taming computer systems such that neither others nor myself would have to work at that level again.
Anything you find yourself doing twice, you should be teaching the machine to do for you.
The wonderful thing about this endevour is that, for every job you eliminate, you open up three new even more exciting ones that build on what you have already done! Its all about eliminating drudgery and expanding possability!
He's saying that piracy is a crime against the author, and that the Open Source movement does itself a disservice when it allows its name to be wielded and its goals perverted by those seeking a justification for their crimes.
A few comments. First off, the incentive for professors (and Universities) to engage in basic research has not always been, and need not be, to gain patents. Successful reseach == academic prestige for both the researcher and the Unioveristy. This pays off in many ways (in the professor's case, in how much he or she can command in salery.)
My secodn comment is I'm not sure uts as clear cut as you lay out. There is enough of an issue that my alma mater (University of Wisconsin) has invented a dodge. They do basic research wioth government money. If it looks like its going to turn into anything patentable WARF, the Wisconsin Alumni Research foundation, steps in and takes over the funding thus insuring all righst belong to WARF and all proceeds go to the Unviersity.
This DOES however point out the enforcmenet problems inhearent in trying to prevent this sort of "privitization" of public research.
If you need legal advice, go ask a lawyer, don't ask posters to a public forum.
I am NOT a lawyer.
Having said that, let me tell you what I THINK I know.
(1) ANYTHING you do on company time is Copyright to the compnay. This is a so called "work-for-hire" situation-- the only situation in which an author does not own the Copyrights to a new piece of authorship.
(2) Anything you do using company resources, even on your own time, may be partially owned by the compnay.
So no, anything you do at work is owned by them and may only be destriubted with their okay. To make matters worse, ocne you've done it at the company, it becoems a lot harder to rpove that youyaren't copying yourself if you try to duplciate it at home.
OTOH if you've already DONE the work on your own time and equiptment, you can do work for the compnay based on that previous work wityhout losing an yrighst to the previous work (but you get no rights to the enw work.0
I understand Nortel has a test VIOP in Spain running on SUN hardware.
A number of the cable-modem manufacturers also have voice over IP systems ready for deployment if/when the FCC alows cable companies to be phone service providers.
First let me congardulate you o nyour innovative reading of copyright laws.
Now lets address your two points:
(1) Slashdot is a common carrier and thus only a conduit. This fails on two counts, at least. First, slashdot DOES edit submitted articles. the submission form says as much. If they do any cutting of submissions at all they are immediately liable for what they chose not to cut.
Secondly, the poster does NOt have the pwoer to remove somethign ocne posted at Slashdot. Only Slashdot management does. Therefor they ARE the point you must attack witha suit to get a copyrighted post removed.
(2) Fair use. A few problems here. First off, to claim fair use you are already admitting infringement. Frankly, thats a legally undebatable point anyway but as people here seem to want to debate it I thought i shoudl mention it.
The second problem is that slashdot is a money making venture. That ad box at the top means they are generating revenue off of posts such as the one in question. It is very hard to argue fair use wher that use is generating a profit.
You brign up journalism, which certainly CAn make a profit, but it is not journalism to reprint a work in its entirety. it is jorunalism to quote a few lines and then, in the majority of the text, analyze it.
In general to my knowledge it has NEVER been held by a court to be fair use to reprint a document in its entirey.
The sad thing is that this was a good diea done badly. Or sloppily. I applaud the idea, but the RIGHT legal thing to do is to re-write the document in your own words and organization. At that point it is YOUR work of authorship. MS though has as much right to control the rules under which their document is replicated as Stahlman has to control his with the GPL.
Unfotunately, but necessarily, the law is equitable.
You are free to act in our society, so long as you do not break the law in doing so. You are free to write in our society, so long as you do not break the law in doing so.
Copyrights are critical to the free software movement. Without copyrights, and enforcement of copyright, the GPL would have no meaning. This whole thing reminds me too much of people who think the law should be tougher... as long as it's target is someone else. Free societies don't work that way, rather you end up with the righst you are willing to grnat others-- no more and no less.
The big mistake posters made was infirnging MS's copyright. It was also an UNNECESSARY mistake. Having reached the material without having to agree to a restrictive lciense, theyw er free to do with the infromation ( NOT the text, note the difference) whatever they wishd. What they SHOUDL have done is write their own documentation and post that.
I udnerstand the word "paraphrase" has been kicked around here. Please realize this is NOT what I am suggesting:
A paraphrase has a specific legal meaning in cases like this and refers to what is bascily a mechanical change of words and pharses for their synonymns. A paraphrase is derivative work and as such is still udner the copyright control of the author being parphrased.
What I AM suggesting is a new work of authroship. That is where you start from the raw information and explain it your way, in your organization. Any new work of authorship is copyright to that author.
The key to remember on all of this that Copyright protects the work of writing something that communcates ideas and NOT the ideas themselves. Do your own work and its your own product.
Advertisers pay per imrpession BUT the value you can charge per impression is based on the statistical likelyhood of that impression generating a sale (or eye-pull if all your looking for is product-recognition.)
Currently the most prevalent, and certainly least intrusive, metric is click-through.
I helped get a wonderful little start-up rollign that provided great internet play for on-line games. It died because the market decided that they preferred half-assed, ad sponsored, free play. So maybe I'm a touch bitter and its showing BUT.....
Ya Can't Have It Both Ways Folks!!!
Its eitehr pay the freight for the internet and i-services yourselves, or let advertiser pay for it. The public in general have made their preference clear for an ad sponsored internet.
IF anyone DID manage to get a browser out there that successfully blocked ads all that would happen is all the "free" services would go away and it all would become subscriber-fee based.
I have to admit... I had a simialr though slightly different first reaction.
My first reactionw as "Red Hat is dumping their imaginary IPO-generated money into other things before people realize its imaginary."
But I have to be slightly fairer to Red Hat. Given the number of people I've seen usign the red Hat name I assume they are actually making SOME kind of money in license fees... which is more then can be said for most Linux companies.
Still, I read their stated interests as two-fold: (1) Encourage open software == hope to create more products they can sell without having to do actual development work themselves.
(2) Internet Infrastructure -- A relatively safe-haven for high tech IPO money against the day investors realize comapneis need to turn real profits to be worth anything.
In re 2... I have a saying based on 20 years in bleeding edge development.
"In any gold rush, the guys gauranteed to get rich are the ones selling shovels."
I feel a need to correct a legal assumption thats being made here.
There are some good arguments for FSF owning copyright to works they destribute. (Although I too am struck by the irony and potential hypocracy-- thats aother point, see below.)
BUT you do not need to give up your ownership of Copyrights to give Copyrights to another. There is a concept under Copyrigtht law calls "joint copyright." This leaves your rights intact escept for the fact that it gives the joint tennent equal rights to modify,license, destribute, etc. I can't see a good argument why this would not qork for FSFs stated aims. Can anyone suggest one?
Also, its worth nothing that book publishers can and DO proetct their books, even though they don't own the copyrights outright. The contracts they have with the authors take care of granting them the right to pursue infringers. Although I dopn't know the details of those arrangments, they can and do exist.
On that second subject I promised to touch on. It is ironic, and perhapse hypocritical to some degree, that the FSF could not exist as it is without Copyrights. If FSF REALLY believed in 100% free, no restrictions software, they would not license but rather put the software into the public domain.
Instead, Stahlman developed the GPL as a way of attempting to bribe/cooerce others into the same release rules fro their software as hee wanted for his own.
Is requiring subscription to a poltiical agenda really any less intrusive then requiring cash payment?
Great post, thanks:) The IBM unsafe stuff is aprticualrly inetresting ebcause I happen to knwo Sun is workign on something similar to solve a different problem. It would be great if we could get a standard mechanism that both Sun and IBM use, and that thrid parties could use as well. Yep, btw, games are a great example of where "unsafe" stuff like elimianting bounds checking or direct memory access could be very useful...
Slashdot Mirror
For all the reasons already mentioned.
Spec98 (www.spec.org) is a much better, much more compelte test of the entire system.
However I STRONGLY recommend when I speak on this topic that you take ALL standardized synthetic benchmarks with a healthy dose of salt.
(1) They don't behave like real apps.
(2) ALL the manufacturers trick their systems out to do unnaturally well on these tests. That one manufactuer can trick its VM out for a particular stadnardized benchmark then another says NOTHING about how it will run your app.
To paraphrase Mark Tawin, there are 3 kinds of lies: "Lies, Damn Lies, and Benchmarks." The only real test is the speed of your own applications.
On the bright side, since Java is a standard, if you stay away from VM specific tricks 9aa bad idea for many reasons) you can plug a different VM under your app and test it with no effort at all.
www.
I think you HAVE to blame C (and even more C++) for bad memory allocation. All system-side memory allcoatio nis lousy. Anyone who has done high performance programming knwos this.
Modern Java VMs supports highly advanced memory handling algortihms (again, see the Hotspot docs at java.sun.com), so they can do much better at memory related tasks.
Sure there is NOTHING Java does that C++ couldn't with a similar byte-code->run-time-compiler and VM system, but thats nto the point. If C or C++ have to become MORE like Java to compete with it, that says a lot about the performance of java technologies as oppsoed to C/C++ technologies today.
They are too system dependant to be of any value.
A well seasoned benchmarker always does so by comparison. You could argue about what to chose as your baseline, but I think Chris's choice of gcc -o was reasonable, myself.
The problem with "real" benchamrks is that, sicen they are a fixed and rpecitable test suite, all the vendors trick out their systems to do maximally well on them.
The BEST benchmarks actually are randomly selected real world programs. Unfortunately they can be tricky to measure, and none exist for the cross-platform type of tests Chris is doing.
Java does not refernce count.
Anotrhr common misunderstanding.
Java Garbage Collects, but no VM I have ever heard of uses reference counting for that.
Go to the java.sun.com page and read up on the Hotspot compiler if you want to get a bit of a picture of how mdoern garbage colelction works.
Look at Chris's "Infinite life."
:)
It does exactly what you ask for and Java pummels C a whole lot worse
In general, the clsoer benchmarks get ot "real world' problems, the better Java performs. The mdoern VMs are tuned to watch for and deal with real world situations.
A few thinsg to think about...
>>Java requires a JVM interpreter, C does not >>require anything of the sort.
Java does not need to be interpreted in the classic sense, rather it is compield at run-time. Thsi is a common misunderstanding.
>C is compiled for the target CPUs own machine >code. Java needs an extra translation layer at >run time.
Actually the opposite is true. Windows code for instacne needs to be compiled for a lowest common denominator (Pentium, multi-processing). The JIt on the other hand looks at the siutatio nat run-time and compiels for that specific situation.
(Hotspot for instacne generates PII code on a PII, and different code on single and multi-processor machines.)
>The C integer types change with the CPU, so >the "int" type is always the fastest integer >about. Java integer types are fixed.
Hardly significant on a modern machine. You're talkign about a few more CPU instructions at most. In fact, since Java expects 32 bit integers, it matches well the machiens in use today by and large.
Remote X performance is a known problem. Its not a question of the speed of the lagnuage/JIT though but of the way the 2D libraries were implemented.
e dition/Additional_Material/additional_mate rial.html
There are people workign on this. In teh mean-time, there are thinsg you can do to imrpove your remote X performance. Take a look at the document at:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/performance/1st_
recursive in-lining.
Hotspot inlines recursion. Many other compilers do not.
In general if you expect the Hotspot JIt to asct liek a C compiler you WILL find the results strange.. its much more advanced, frankly.
The needs of Java have been pushing the JIT makers out into brand new territory. Thsi is aprt of the whoel point of the comparision.
Alright, as it happens my parents are authors so I grew up kind of "in this world."
A few realistic facts:
(1) Steven King is a "household name." Thats why he was able to sell copeis of a novel sight-unseen in an encrypted file. You are unlikely to be able to do the same.
(2) As a new author, you need to build a reputation. The only way to do that is to reach the audiance and youa re much more likely to reach that audiance with the respurces of a book publisher pushing your book/
(3) As a new author, frankly, you're unlikely to have had gold flow from your pen. Sad, and humbling but true. A publisher does much mroe then print books. By working with a major experienced publisher you will also get to work with an experienced editor. Even if you have the skills and experience, it is VERY difficult to get enough distance from your own labors to do a decent editing job. My folks have been writing for 40 years and they still don't edit their own stuff. (Since they both are quite experienced they take turns, one writes and the other edits.)
(4) Its worth noting that there are a few web-based publishing houses that have spring up specificly to publish eBooks. In these cases, they handle the download and charging off people's credit cards and send you a percentage (usually better then a typical print royalty.) You might consider these in order to avoid the hassles of billign and distribution yourself.
(5) IF you stll think you want to try to 'self-publish', then for a new author I would suggest share-ware format. Publish a few chapters (enough to get the reader hooked) as a free download and make people send you a check or other payment to get the rest.
(6) Lastly, but probably most important, don't expect to make much money off this no matter how you do it. A first novel is for proving you have talent and an audiance. Very very few authors ever make much money at all, and of thsoe that do almost none make it on their first book. If you build a loyal readership, that puts you in the position to negotiate better deals and, if youare both very talented and very lucky, maybe someday make decent money off it. In general, if money is your goal, go into something else.
Three days in a row, you walk out your front door and a red car drives by.
Does this mean that walking out your front door attracts red cars?
"Study" is way to strong a word fopr this kind of nonsense. it impleis that tehre is soemthing scientific to it, which there isn't.
I'm not a big Napster fan, Piracy is Piracy even if it has wonderful side effects. But this kidn of nonsense in support of ANYTHING just annoys me.
Americans by and large all need a refresher in basic scientific method.
Is to make yourself obsolete.
Computers are far better then people at repetitive tasks and similarly repeition is the least valuable use of the unqiuely human ability to reason.
My entire career has consisted, to one degree or another, of taming computer systems such that neither others nor myself would have to work at that level again.
Anything you find yourself doing twice, you should be teaching the machine to do for you.
The wonderful thing about this endevour is that, for every job you eliminate, you open up three new even more exciting ones that build on what you have already done! Its all about eliminating drudgery and expanding possability!
He's saying that piracy is a crime against the author, and that the Open Source movement does itself a disservice when it allows its name to be wielded and its goals perverted by those seeking a justification for their crimes.
Hey Dave,
A few comments. First off, the incentive for professors (and Universities) to engage in basic research has not always been, and need not be, to gain patents. Successful reseach == academic prestige for both the researcher and the Unioveristy. This pays off in many ways (in the professor's case, in how much he or she can command in salery.)
My secodn comment is I'm not sure uts as clear cut as you lay out. There is enough of an issue that my alma mater (University of Wisconsin) has invented a dodge. They do basic research wioth government money. If it looks like its going to turn into anything patentable WARF, the Wisconsin Alumni Research foundation, steps in and takes over the funding thus insuring all righst belong to WARF and all proceeds go to the Unviersity.
This DOES however point out the enforcmenet problems inhearent in trying to prevent this sort of "privitization" of public research.
If you started getting a lot of them, you could filter spamcop.
Talk about you ironies...
JK
If you need legal advice, go ask a lawyer, don't ask posters to a public forum.
I am NOT a lawyer.
Having said that, let me tell you what I THINK I know.
(1) ANYTHING you do on company time is Copyright to the compnay. This is a so called "work-for-hire" situation-- the only situation in which an author does not own the Copyrights to a new piece of authorship.
(2) Anything you do using company resources, even on your own time, may be partially owned by the compnay.
So no, anything you do at work is owned by them and may only be destriubted with their okay. To make matters worse, ocne you've done it at the company, it becoems a lot harder to rpove that youyaren't copying yourself if you try to duplciate it at home.
OTOH if you've already DONE the work on your own time and equiptment, you can do work for the compnay based on that previous work wityhout losing an yrighst to the previous work (but you get no rights to the enw work.0
I understand Nortel has a test VIOP in Spain running on SUN hardware.
A number of the cable-modem manufacturers also have voice over IP systems ready for deployment if/when the FCC alows cable companies to be phone service providers.
It's coming... fast...
First let me congardulate you o nyour innovative reading of copyright laws.
Now lets address your two points:
(1) Slashdot is a common carrier and thus only a conduit. This fails on two counts, at least. First, slashdot DOES edit submitted articles. the submission form says as much. If they do any cutting of submissions at all they are immediately liable for what they chose not to cut.
Secondly, the poster does NOt have the pwoer to remove somethign ocne posted at Slashdot. Only Slashdot management does. Therefor they ARE the point you must attack witha suit to get a copyrighted post removed.
(2) Fair use. A few problems here. First off, to claim fair use you are already admitting infringement. Frankly, thats a legally undebatable point anyway but as people here seem to want to debate it I thought i shoudl mention it.
The second problem is that slashdot is a money making venture. That ad box at the top means they are generating revenue off of posts such as the one in question. It is very hard to argue fair use wher that use is generating a profit.
You brign up journalism, which certainly CAn make a profit, but it is not journalism to reprint a work in its entirety. it is jorunalism to quote a few lines and then, in the majority of the text, analyze it.
In general to my knowledge it has NEVER been held by a court to be fair use to reprint a document in its entirey.
The sad thing is that this was a good diea done badly. Or sloppily. I applaud the idea, but the RIGHT legal thing to do is to re-write the document in your own words and organization. At that point it is YOUR work of authorship. MS though has as much right to control the rules under which their document is replicated as Stahlman has to control his with the GPL.
Unfotunately, but necessarily, the law is equitable.
The legal disctinction is clear and has been sicne the first Copyright laws were passed.
Copyright laws specificly target only TANGIBLE expression. An idea is by definition an intangible.
A piece of software embodies the ideas behind it the same way a novel embodies the idea of the story, no more and no less.
If your going to be a socialist and argue "propety is theaft" at least be honest about it... and give up YOUR property.
That IS the real issue.
You are free to act in our society, so long as you do not break the law in doing so. You are free to write in our society, so long as you do not break the law in doing so.
Copyrights are critical to the free software movement. Without copyrights, and enforcement of copyright, the GPL would have no meaning. This whole thing reminds me too much of people who think the law should be tougher... as long as it's target is someone else. Free societies don't work that way, rather you end up with the righst you are willing to grnat others-- no more and no less.
The big mistake posters made was infirnging MS's copyright. It was also an UNNECESSARY mistake. Having reached the material without having to agree to a restrictive lciense, theyw er free to do with the infromation ( NOT the text, note the difference) whatever they wishd. What they SHOUDL have done is write their own documentation and post that.
I udnerstand the word "paraphrase" has been kicked around here. Please realize this is NOT what I am suggesting:
A paraphrase has a specific legal meaning in cases like this and refers to what is bascily a mechanical change of words and pharses for their synonymns. A paraphrase is derivative work and as such is still udner the copyright control of the author being parphrased.
What I AM suggesting is a new work of authroship. That is where you start from the raw information and explain it your way, in your organization. Any new work of authorship is copyright to that author.
The key to remember on all of this that Copyright protects the work of writing something that communcates ideas and NOT the ideas themselves. Do your own work and its your own product.
Well thats not entirely true.
Advertisers pay per imrpession BUT the value you can charge per impression is based on the statistical likelyhood of that impression generating a sale (or eye-pull if all your looking for is product-recognition.)
Currently the most prevalent, and certainly least intrusive, metric is click-through.
Okay, fair warning.
I helped get a wonderful little start-up rollign that provided great internet play for on-line games. It died because the market decided that they preferred half-assed, ad sponsored, free play. So maybe I'm a touch bitter and its showing BUT.....
Ya Can't Have It Both Ways Folks!!!
Its eitehr pay the freight for the internet and i-services yourselves, or let advertiser pay for it. The public in general have made their preference clear for an ad sponsored internet.
IF anyone DID manage to get a browser out there that successfully blocked ads all that would happen is all the "free" services would go away and it all would become subscriber-fee based.
One way or another, the piper has to be paid.
I have to admit... I had a simialr though slightly different first reaction.
My first reactionw as "Red Hat is dumping their imaginary IPO-generated money into other things before people realize its imaginary."
But I have to be slightly fairer to Red Hat. Given the number of people I've seen usign the red Hat name I assume they are actually making SOME kind of money in license fees... which is more then can be said for most Linux companies.
Still, I read their stated interests as two-fold:
(1) Encourage open software == hope to create more products they can sell without having to do actual development work themselves.
(2) Internet Infrastructure -- A relatively safe-haven for high tech IPO money against the day investors realize comapneis need to turn real profits to be worth anything.
In re 2... I have a saying based on 20 years in bleeding edge development.
"In any gold rush, the guys gauranteed to get rich are the ones selling shovels."
I feel a need to correct a legal assumption thats being made here.
There are some good arguments for FSF owning copyright to works they destribute. (Although I too am struck by the irony and potential hypocracy-- thats aother point, see below.)
BUT you do not need to give up your ownership of Copyrights to give Copyrights to another. There is a concept under Copyrigtht law calls "joint copyright." This leaves your rights intact escept for the fact that it gives the joint tennent equal rights to modify,license, destribute, etc. I can't see a good argument why this would not qork for FSFs stated aims. Can anyone suggest one?
Also, its worth nothing that book publishers can and DO proetct their books, even though they don't own the copyrights outright. The contracts they have with the authors take care of granting them the right to pursue infringers. Although I dopn't know the details of those arrangments, they can and do exist.
On that second subject I promised to touch on. It is ironic, and perhapse hypocritical to some degree, that the FSF could not exist as it is without Copyrights. If FSF REALLY believed in 100% free, no restrictions software, they would not license but rather put the software into the public domain.
Instead, Stahlman developed the GPL as a way of attempting to bribe/cooerce others into the same release rules fro their software as hee wanted for his own.
Is requiring subscription to a poltiical agenda really any less intrusive then requiring cash payment?
Something to think about.
Great post, thanks :) The IBM unsafe stuff is aprticualrly inetresting ebcause I happen to knwo Sun is workign on something similar to solve a different problem. It would be great if we could get a standard mechanism that both Sun and IBM use, and that thrid parties could use as well. Yep, btw, games are a great example of where "unsafe" stuff like elimianting bounds checking or direct memory access could be very useful...