Regardless of whether you like QPL or not, it was not deliberately incompatible with other licenses. The fact that it was incompatible with the GPL is entirely due to the deliberate incompatibility of the GPL.
You're right, duplication of work is a Bad Thing. That's why I allow my code to be used in closed-source derivative works as well as in open-source derivative works.
Apparently you talked to somebody because this clause seems to be to patch a legal hole in this idea: c) The license under which the derivative work is distributed must expressly prohibit the distribution of further derivative works. I suspect you are granting too many rights to the code to prevent it from being extended with GPL code legally, and that possibly this clause fixes it.
Huh? I have absolutely no clue what you're trying to communicate here.
A huge problem with using your idea to promote standards is that Microsoft and maybe others can "embrace and extend".
Ah, but you're missing the lesson which TCP taught us. Standards can no longer be legislated; people grab free code whenever possible, and thus whatever is free becomes the standard. Of course a monopolist can be as non-standard as they like -- source code licenses can't change that. But my license ensures that attached code has at least the potential to become standard, by ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to take advantage of it.
Rabbits are not dogs or cats. For starters, they chew
It's not just rabbits which chew. A certain cat of my acquaintance is very good at chewing speaker cables. Keyboard, mouse, video, power, and network cables are fine -- it's only the really thin (1mm?) speaker cables which he would attack.
it explicitly discriminates against open-source developers
Not at all. Open source derivative works are fine, as long as they are under *my* license -- which is exactly the same condition as the GPL imposes.
Essentially, you're saying "Do what you like with this code, as long as you don't return it to the community."
No, I'm saying "Do what you want with this code, but if you're going to return it to the community, return it to the *entire* community, not just your small part of it."
The problem of GPL license taint is why I came up with a new license for my code.
People can take my code, modify it, redistribute the modifications, et cetera, but they can't add any sort of "taint" which would block future closed-source derivatives.
While this is presumably meant as a joke, it does raise an interesting point. Rocket and ballistic technology is becoming far more available now than it ever was in the past. In a couple decades, ICBMs will probably be within the reach of citizens, rather than restricted to governments; the entire global context of (dis)armament is going to have to change.
The stated problem with leap seconds is that some software gets confused by them. Guess what? That same software probably gets confused if the time zone changes, or when it moves into daylight savings time.
The Right Way to solve this problem is for computers to work with TAI internally, and treat the difference introduced by leap seconds as part of the time zone, for human consumption only. Instead of defining PST to be UTC - 08:00, define PST = TAI - 08:00:22.
Computers can keep their straightforward time system, humans can keep our astronomically synchronized system. No need to lose either of those qualities.
I've lost count of the times I've run into problems with transparent caches feeding me stale data; the last place I want to see stale data is when fetching security updates.
If you think it wastes too much bandwidth, think about the bandwidth which could be wasted by a network full of machines which were compromised due to not fetching the latest securty updates.
It's not quite that simple. Internet access has some demonstrated benefits in the third world -- if a community has access to the internet, they immediately gain access to information which would be too expensive to provide them with otherwise. Information like how to recognize and treat disease, when and how best to plant their crops, et cetera.
Putting a computer in every home in the third world is absolutely unnecessary at this point; but putting a computer in every community has benefits far exceeding those which could be obtained by spending a similar amount on a water supply.
Something more to the point would be test driving a car before buying it
If the RIAA could give out free "test drives" of their songs, they would. That's part of the motivation behind DRM -- they want to be able to let people test drive their product, without actually giving away the product itself.
In the case of both rental cars and apples, we have a case where an unlimited supply of the "advertising" eliminates the motivation to purchase the "advertised" product. Self-rightous slashdotters aside, *most* people would not go out and buy a CD once they already have the unlimited ability to listen to all the songs from that CD.
that songs are really just ads for CDs, and thus should be freely traded
By the same logic, rental cars are just advertising for the automobile company, so we shouldn't have to pay to rent cars. And apples (the fruit, not the computers) are just advertising for apple trees, so we shouldn't have to pay for apples.
If AOL doesn't want to accept your mail, that's their choice. It's their network, and their mail servers. Of course, when AOL customers find that they can't receive any email, AOL might lose business.
Like all other spam blocking attempts, there will be collateral damage. They try to keep their customers happy, and the market decides if they succeeded.
... are not quite as high one would think. Competing in the search engine business does not require having the largest network on the planet.
For that matter, you don't even need to have the largest index. Not all sites are created equal -- an index of even just 10% of the web would satisfy most people, as long as it is the right 10% and is searched effectively. There are some advantages to being complete (non in googlis est, ego non est) but for common place searches it isn't necessary. While indexing the entire web may be very expensive, indexing a small *useful* part of the web is much less so.
The largest barrier to entry is simply the problem of coming up with a better way to search. Google has a very effecting algorithm, and they've got lots of smart people.
"The most effective diet in the world is the only-eat-foods-you-don't-like diet."
All these fad diets, when they are successful at all, are only successful because they make people eat less. If the only thing you're allowed to eat is spinach, well, it probably won't take very long before your caloric intake has dropped significantly. Humans are wired to like a diversity of foods, but we're also very bad at counting calories (because over evolutionary timescales, more calories was always better).
If that is it...then good grief, what are we talking about here?
Courts have ruled in several instances that if something is to be considered available, it must be available anonymously. Freedom of speech implies freedom of anonymous speech, because otherwise people will self-censor out of fear of retribution; access to abortions implies anonymous access to abortions, because otherwise the social stigma could stop people seeking abortions; access to public libraries implies anonymous access to public libraries, because otherwise people will avoid reading "subversive" material.
You're right, it is unlikely that the ability to access these records would be abused; but it has been abused in the past, so many people are very wary of giving law enforcement that ability again.
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless of whether you like QPL or not, it was not deliberately incompatible with other licenses. The fact that it was incompatible with the GPL is entirely due to the deliberate incompatibility of the GPL.
You're right, duplication of work is a Bad Thing. That's why I allow my code to be used in closed-source derivative works as well as in open-source derivative works.
So we can deduce Robin Hood, clue the name, had a better publicist than Napster?
No, it just means that the RIAA is more powerful than King John was.
Apparently you talked to somebody because this clause seems to be to patch a legal hole in this idea:
c) The license under which the derivative work is distributed must expressly prohibit the distribution of further derivative works.
I suspect you are granting too many rights to the code to prevent it from being extended with GPL code legally, and that possibly this clause fixes it.
Huh? I have absolutely no clue what you're trying to communicate here.
A huge problem with using your idea to promote standards is that Microsoft and maybe others can "embrace and extend".
Ah, but you're missing the lesson which TCP taught us. Standards can no longer be legislated; people grab free code whenever possible, and thus whatever is free becomes the standard. Of course a monopolist can be as non-standard as they like -- source code licenses can't change that. But my license ensures that attached code has at least the potential to become standard, by ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to take advantage of it.
Rabbits are not dogs or cats. For starters, they chew
It's not just rabbits which chew. A certain cat of my acquaintance is very good at chewing speaker cables. Keyboard, mouse, video, power, and network cables are fine -- it's only the really thin (1mm?) speaker cables which he would attack.
it explicitly discriminates against open-source developers
Not at all. Open source derivative works are fine, as long as they are under *my* license -- which is exactly the same condition as the GPL imposes.
Essentially, you're saying "Do what you like with this code, as long as you don't return it to the community."
No, I'm saying "Do what you want with this code, but if you're going to return it to the community, return it to the *entire* community, not just your small part of it."
The problem of GPL license taint is why I came up with a new license for my code.
People can take my code, modify it, redistribute the modifications, et cetera, but they can't add any sort of "taint" which would block future closed-source derivatives.
Nowadays they use T-Shirt cannons.
While this is presumably meant as a joke, it does raise an interesting point. Rocket and ballistic technology is becoming far more available now than it ever was in the past. In a couple decades, ICBMs will probably be within the reach of citizens, rather than restricted to governments; the entire global context of (dis)armament is going to have to change.
Anything that prints a time already has to find out what time zone the user is in. That's what localtime(3) is for.
The stated problem with leap seconds is that some software gets confused by them. Guess what? That same software probably gets confused if the time zone changes, or when it moves into daylight savings time.
The Right Way to solve this problem is for computers to work with TAI internally, and treat the difference introduced by leap seconds as part of the time zone, for human consumption only. Instead of defining PST to be UTC - 08:00, define PST = TAI - 08:00:22.
Computers can keep their straightforward time system, humans can keep our astronomically synchronized system. No need to lose either of those qualities.
Canada harbours Freedom talking people now.
Those poor geeks... that's only 200kbps per person. Even my cable modem is faster than that.
I've lost count of the times I've run into problems with transparent caches feeding me stale data; the last place I want to see stale data is when fetching security updates.
If you think it wastes too much bandwidth, think about the bandwidth which could be wasted by a network full of machines which were compromised due to not fetching the latest securty updates.
If research is truly dangerous then classify it.
Yes, because we all know that nobody would ever leak classified research to a foreign government.
It's not quite that simple. Internet access has some demonstrated benefits in the third world -- if a community has access to the internet, they immediately gain access to information which would be too expensive to provide them with otherwise. Information like how to recognize and treat disease, when and how best to plant their crops, et cetera.
Putting a computer in every home in the third world is absolutely unnecessary at this point; but putting a computer in every community has benefits far exceeding those which could be obtained by spending a similar amount on a water supply.
Something more to the point would be test driving a car before buying it
If the RIAA could give out free "test drives" of their songs, they would. That's part of the motivation behind DRM -- they want to be able to let people test drive their product, without actually giving away the product itself.
In the case of both rental cars and apples, we have a case where an unlimited supply of the "advertising" eliminates the motivation to purchase the "advertised" product. Self-rightous slashdotters aside, *most* people would not go out and buy a CD once they already have the unlimited ability to listen to all the songs from that CD.
It's mostly an urban legend.
that songs are really just ads for CDs, and thus should be freely traded
By the same logic, rental cars are just advertising for the automobile company, so we shouldn't have to pay to rent cars. And apples (the fruit, not the computers) are just advertising for apple trees, so we shouldn't have to pay for apples.
If AOL doesn't want to accept your mail, that's their choice. It's their network, and their mail servers. Of course, when AOL customers find that they can't receive any email, AOL might lose business.
Like all other spam blocking attempts, there will be collateral damage. They try to keep their customers happy, and the market decides if they succeeded.
... are not quite as high one would think. Competing in the search engine business does not require having the largest network on the planet.
For that matter, you don't even need to have the largest index. Not all sites are created equal -- an index of even just 10% of the web would satisfy most people, as long as it is the right 10% and is searched effectively. There are some advantages to being complete (non in googlis est, ego non est) but for common place searches it isn't necessary. While indexing the entire web may be very expensive, indexing a small *useful* part of the web is much less so.
The largest barrier to entry is simply the problem of coming up with a better way to search. Google has a very effecting algorithm, and they've got lots of smart people.
"The most effective diet in the world is the only-eat-foods-you-don't-like diet."
All these fad diets, when they are successful at all, are only successful because they make people eat less. If the only thing you're allowed to eat is spinach, well, it probably won't take very long before your caloric intake has dropped significantly. Humans are wired to like a diversity of foods, but we're also very bad at counting calories (because over evolutionary timescales, more calories was always better).
The while(1){screen(blue);} part?
They use C++. That would be
while(1){screen.blue();}
If that is it...then good grief, what are we talking about here?
Courts have ruled in several instances that if something is to be considered available, it must be available anonymously. Freedom of speech implies freedom of anonymous speech, because otherwise people will self-censor out of fear of retribution; access to abortions implies anonymous access to abortions, because otherwise the social stigma could stop people seeking abortions; access to public libraries implies anonymous access to public libraries, because otherwise people will avoid reading "subversive" material.
You're right, it is unlikely that the ability to access these records would be abused; but it has been abused in the past, so many people are very wary of giving law enforcement that ability again.
But a petabyte. Wow. 1.5 million CDs. That's just... Just... *shrug*
Think of it as being about a quarter of a Google.
(I don't know exactly how big Google is now, but they were at 1.5PB a couple years ago, so they're probably somewhere around 4PB now.)
That's why they hand out the same work to several different machines.
There's a simple solution to that problem: Don't give people credit for returning incorrect results.
As long as people are returning the correct answers, it doesn't really matter how they get there.