It's good that your experience on a single machine is good. Those us with managed XP networks have good reason to hang back. The buzz is that a network of machines with Vista can't be properly managed until Server 2008 is out. Even then, if there are performance or compatibility hoseups then going to Vista will surely expose them. Are you impressed enough with Vista that you would rip out all the XP clients on a WAN to deploy it?
We've already encountered essential applications that won't work with "my computer at home". (jinitiator based Oracle app). It isn't exactly emboldening us to press ahead.
Another option is to install a super stripped Linux and VMWare Player. That's creaky as all get out but depending on the app, it would get the machines into service. For that matter, XP could be run in a virtual on Vista.
They probably ran into a SATA controller the XP installer doesn't know about and gave up right there. The path of least resistance is to keep an older USB floppy drive around and put the SATA driver on a floppy. The cute wrinkle here is that XP will only recognize certain older USB floppy drives. Even then, the driver could be slipstreamed onto an XP installer disc.
12 years ago or so, Apple codenamed a prototype laptop "Sagan". Carl Sagan heard about this and threatened to sue them so they changed the prototype name to "Butthead Astronomer". Of course, Mr. Billions wasn't too thrilled with that either.
I guess if Apple can call a laptop "Butthead Astronomer" then Gutsy Gibbon isn't too bad.
As near as I can tell, OOO has two major problems. Once upon a time, StarOffice actually had it's own mini-desktop from which the major pieces of the app like Writer and documents could be started from. This desktop even had its own widget set called VCL. Sun wisely did away with the goofy Desktop UI but OOO's UI is still implemented in this widget set. Whenever OOO is ported to a new environment, the major sticking point is that a binding layer has to be created from VCL to a widget set in the environment. Being a C++ widget set with more or less conventional semantics, VCL mapped well to GTK2 and Windows so Linux and Windows are easy ports in that regard. It is a very poor impedance match to Cocoa on Objective C and still appears to be hosing a truly native Mac port to this day. The NeoOffice guys use Cocoa through Java which makes a thin shim programming wise but a pig memory and resource wise as they have to have Java active and resident in memory for their VCL -> Cocoa mapper.
The other problem is that OOO isn't well divided up internally. It was designed to load as a huge glop o' code back in the StarOffice days and still does. I once argued about this until I was blue in the face with a OOO developer on NewsForge. I could not get it through his head that I wasn't talking about splitting off Writer, Calc and so-forth into separate apps. I understood that OOO's "apps" are developed from an internal common set of objects (which also means an equivalent to MS' COM system is also loaded with the main app). I was talking about being smarter about which objects to load initially and then loading others on demand. This would get the startup time and usual memory usage down. It would also make it easier to use OOO as an API the way Office is used as an API.
Some of the purpose perhaps but not the whole purpose. An entirely owner-controlled TPM would still be useful for server admins and end-user cluebies who want and appreciate what it can and can't do.
If evil vendors and media companies didn't control the whitelist and crypto keys, I'd be for it. I love the idea of a hardware accelerated tripwire verifying the integrity of a running system. But I only love this idea if I am the one who gives that hardware it's marching orders.
You've been unlucky. I routinely use external USB hard drives for backup with good speed and reliability. Perhaps you commonly deal with a flaky mobo chipset?
Not everyone who uses the GPL subscribes slavishly to everything that comes out of the FSF and RMS. To me, it is just another license on tools I'm allowed to use freely. When BSDers and FSFers start really going at each other over the word "Freedom", I start thinking Animal Mother from Full Metal Jacket might have had a point: "Freedom? Get your head screwed on straight new guy. Freedom is just a word. If I'm going to die for a word then my word is 'poontang'".
Seriously, when people get so militant over the subject of freedom when I'm looking to make pragmatic use of tools, my eyes just start glazing over. Adhere to all licenses involved and if you can't then don't use the item in question. I would also add "He who writes the code, chooses the license". Those are the only "freedoms" that truly make sense to me on this subject. If I wanted to usefully think about BSD vs. GPL then I'd call the BSD an implementation of the Golden Rule (The one about do unto others not he who has the gold....). I'd call the GPL an implementation of "tit for tat". I find both more than fair and equitable.
And I still hate to think what would happen if somebody got seriously pissed and made legal hay out the way he wants things to be. As things currently stand, I wouldn't hack on anything OpenBSD related with a ten foot pole under any license you care to name. Even if it doesn't turn ugly and legal, I wouldn't even want to begin to deal with someone like Theo. Yeah the hardcore FSF types are hard to take. The hardcore BSD types are equally intransigent and religious.
As for Donaldson, yeah, he's an excellent author, but halfway through his first series I spontaneously coughed up an entire thesaurus and by the end I was pouring milk over bowls of Paxil for breakfast. The second series I think was just a transcription of the hallucinations of a high fever...
The Gap and Mirror series were better (and Mirror only runs two books!) but you'll still have to put with characters so full of self-introspecting moral ambiguity that they can't stand themselves.
The BSD License has only only two real restrictions. 1) Don't sue us and 2) Don't remove our license or attributions.
Prior to some extremely unclassy behavior from Theo and a few others, this is the impression I had as well.
The BSDL does not do this, ever. It puts no restrictions, whatsoever, on any code that comes in contact with it. It can be licensed under any license, including the GPL. You simply cannot remove the BSDL.
Again I had a similar impression, save that the GPL only truly applied to the additions and alterations to the work once they had reached some (unfortunately vague) level of extensiveness (which some BSDers seem eager to be difficult about as well). In a sane world, the added GPLed and heavily altered BSD bits could be removed from the codebase and the remaining bits of pristine code would indeed be BSD and could be used as such. This is pointless as the original BSD code would still be available but Theo and Dillon are correct in that BSD code remains BSD for as long as the copyright holds out. There is no "relicensing" of BSD works but a composite work containing BSD code will carry all of the restrictions of the most restrictive license used in it. Composite works must practically be treated as GPL only simply in that the BSD license itself doesn't prevent additional restrictions being added to a derived work.
All of this was the understanding I had until last week or so. One fellow in this discussion is gleefully citing aspects of German copyright law that he claims make BSD as viral as the GPL. I doubt that is the case but some BSDers want so badly to confound the "Stallmanite Hippies" that they are cutting off their own nose to spite their face. Dillon isn't being unclassy but he is bringing in nebulous statements of "author intent" into the discussion that may or may not be stated in the license. As I explained to him, if prominent BSDers make a habit of that then "BSD is the one true free license" goes out the window since I may have to take those who speak like him at his word and not consider the bare text of the license the full legal story.
The BSD License itself is a remarkably clear and succinct read for a legal document. And yes, I agree that a few in the Linux Atheros project would do well to brush up on their reading comprehension. The problem is that prominent developers are muddying the water with statements that seem to go beyond the clear simple text of the license. I'm saying that I can't take the license at it's word when the developers using it give me the impression that I shouldn't. Theo and to a smaller extent Dillon risk making that impression widespread and therefore damaging to the projects they would protect.
Again, the problem here is not the license, it is that people do not know what the intent of the original author was. That is, I haven't seen an email or posting from the original authors (is there one somewhere in this mess?) clarifying their position on the matter. It is the ethics of the situation that matter the most to the open source community and the ethics that matter most to me.
Exactly. The problem isn't the license. The problem is intents and convictions not stated by the license but which are expected to be upheld as community mores. So a developer can't simply consider the license all by itself as sufficient guidance as to how the code may be employed. Irregardless of whether copyleft, dual licenses, or EULAs are going to come into it or not, what the BSD community seems to be telling me is that I can't rely on the license alone if I intend to incorporate BSD code in a product or project. It seems I must also take into account author intentions whether stated or not. I fear the BSD community is cutting off it's own nose to spite the GPL camp. This is unfortunate. It could also quell the non-copyleft uses which have been tacitly condoned by the BSD community.
I'm aware that you mean to make strictly an ethical point and not a legal one. But the two aren't as separate as all that. If one is sufficiently outraged over an ethical breach real, perceived, or otherwise then it can become a legal matter in a hurry. Prominent BSDers angrily holding forth about breached mores they haven't encapsulated in their license of choice put much of what is under the license in doubt. I shouldn't have to worry about intent and a 30 year old set of BSD community folkways and mores. I should be able to rely on the license. I doubt I'm the only one getting an impression I can't do that. When all is said and done, it isn't how hay you or I or especially Theo can make out of all of this. It is the toxic hay lawyers can make out of it and I don't think anybody wants that.
The confusing problem with this is that many BSDers seem to have no problem with proprietary derived works of BSD code. I don't see a lot of screaming about OS X for instance. How is it okay to make some changes to a BSD work and slap a EULA on the result yet not okay to make (possibly extensive) changes and add the GPL? BSDers have also held forth at length that GPL is viral and therefore evil yet the BSD license isn't. I'm starting to get the impression that the BSD license is in fact viral if for no other reason then the BSD community want it to be viral where the GPL or other copyleft licenses are concerned.
Prior to these episodes, I had the impression that you could do pretty much as you liked with BSD derivatives as long as copyright notices and the license texts were preserved. Many BSDers have also held forth about how simple and non-complicated using the code is. I'm no FSF fanatic. I was happy to accept that as a virtue in many circumstances. Now it's getting to be as confusing as the original Artistic license. The actual text isn't that confusing but what many BSD authors seem to want it to mean is. More to point, if I'm risking public temper tantrums from the likes of Theo regardless of what the licenses in question mean or say then screw it. I'll happily make end-user use of these things. OpenSSH is a very fine product indeed. But I'll actually be contributing to and developing with from elsewhere. Who needs this garbage?
The problem is that Trusted Computers will have keys built in that the owner of the machine doesn't control. These will be used by major software vendors and the entertainment industry against their own customers. If the TPM was a blank slate utterly under the owner of the PC's control then I'd agree with you that TC has beneficent uses. Unfortunately, TPM is slated to be used as a built-in universal super dongle and that overshadows any positive use of the technology; I only tend to favor technology that can be used for me rather than against me. I'm funny that way.
"just linking" means making calls into the *structure* of the GPLed code. Such calls are usually extensive enough that said GPLed code would have to be substantially replicated before the linking program would work without it which takes us well inside the realm of "derived works". Simply *using* the program would be feeding it input and processing the output somehow....even the GPL allows this. There is a difference. Look at the legal controversy surrounding "mash-ups". In a mash-up one is taking pieces of other's copyrighted works and mixing them up in new ways. You might say the mash-up is (statically) *linking* to the source material it is derived from. If someone complains and the affected piece of the mash-up is removed then substantial work would have to be done to preserve the piece's artistic integrity. For that matter a "dynamically linked" mash-up could be done by requiring the audience members to obtain (at least some of) the pieces and assemble it themselves from directions. Even the legality of that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Now one could just distribute the linking work without the GPLed piece. I suppose in that scenario your argument could carry more weight but the scope of legal viability is significantly reduced as the the linking work isn't useful without the GPLed part. That means the end user would have to obtain it in a way not tacitly encouraged by the creator of the linking work. That seems to be where the distinction in the word "merely using" truly lies. Developers are creating something new by incorporating pieces from others(linking). "Merely running" gets conflated with "merely using pieces to make something new". That is also a difference that many care about.
The only real difference between static and dynamic is that static is unambiguous with respect to GPL requirements. Dynamic linking has the same functional result as static linking but allows for ethical and legal semantics. How is it that a new program is created that requires a GPLed library to work isn't derived? How well would the possible answers to that go over with real judges in real courts?
The Chechens are at least one people where Russia really would have to kill them all if the object is political suppression. They had the nads to stand up to Stalin at the height of his purging reign of terror. If Stalin didn't scare them then I seriously doubt Putin will either. Come to think of it, Stalin DID try to kill them all. Indiscriminately blowing up people minded like the Chechens won't cause mass intimidation. It will cause mass seriously-pissedness. Your point may remain valid against some of the other peoples Russia finds troublesome.
As long as your music collection is well tagged, utilities exist that make working with music on an iPod almost as easy as files on a flash drive. Since many use mp3s rather than iTunes store AACs, the iPod is a viable device for sharing a music collection.
That won't work either. Since my entertainment dollars are basically fixed, I'll spend them on a DVD or a video game or anything else really that gives value for that money.
While legal enforcement isn't unique to the GPL license by any means, the endless ranting about it is.
Not really, some in the BSD camp have a belief system they hold forth about endlessly about as well. Figures like Brett Glass and DeRaadt can be every bit as "religious" and militant as RMS. They're probably just as pleasant to deal with.
Once you have chosen you are not free anymore. The point is that one remains much more free with BSD style licenses. That's a fact that the GPLers keep denying since "freedom" is one of their "central dogmas" and points that they "evangelize" to the world.
When BSDers and FSFers argue back and forth enough about it, I start to have sympathy for Animal Mother's point of view: "Freedom? It's just a word. If I'm going to die for a word then my word is 'poontang'."
GPL code isn't in any way self-aware. If anybody is doing polluting then it is inobservant developers. I'll agree with you to that extent: Developers must respect the license of any third-party code they use. And if you'll recall, the last time we had an incident like this on Slashdot it was some OpenBSD people who weren't behaving with class. That is not a function of what license you choose to use. It isn't that the "GPL community must observe the license damnit!" or "BSD community must observe the license damnit!". It's "Developers must behave properly." From where I sit, neither the BSD camp nor the Linux camp has any right to throw stones at the moment.
I don't give a flying hang what meaning militant BSD and FSF types assign to the word "freedom". If a piece of code solves my problem and I find the rules for it's use fair then I'll use it. I'm not interested in contorted takes on the word "fair" either. Since I have little choice but to use Apple's and MS' stuff professionally I can't say that GPL code is out to pounce on me. If I do alter code will be redistributed then I do it under the license I received it from in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
It's good that your experience on a single machine is good. Those us with managed XP networks have good reason to hang back. The buzz is that a network of machines with Vista can't be properly managed until Server 2008 is out. Even then, if there are performance or compatibility hoseups then going to Vista will surely expose them. Are you impressed enough with Vista that you would rip out all the XP clients on a WAN to deploy it?
We've already encountered essential applications that won't work with "my computer at home". (jinitiator based Oracle app). It isn't exactly emboldening us to press ahead.
Another option is to install a super stripped Linux and VMWare Player. That's creaky as all get out but depending on the app, it would get the machines into service. For that matter, XP could be run in a virtual on Vista.
They probably ran into a SATA controller the XP installer doesn't know about and gave up right there. The path of least resistance is to keep an older USB floppy drive around and put the SATA driver on a floppy. The cute wrinkle here is that XP will only recognize certain older USB floppy drives. Even then, the driver could be slipstreamed onto an XP installer disc.
Das Boot.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096/
12 years ago or so, Apple codenamed a prototype laptop "Sagan". Carl Sagan heard about this and threatened to sue them so they changed the prototype name to "Butthead Astronomer". Of course, Mr. Billions wasn't too thrilled with that either.
I guess if Apple can call a laptop "Butthead Astronomer" then Gutsy Gibbon isn't too bad.
As near as I can tell, OOO has two major problems. Once upon a time, StarOffice actually had it's own mini-desktop from which the major pieces of the app like Writer and documents could be started from. This desktop even had its own widget set called VCL. Sun wisely did away with the goofy Desktop UI but OOO's UI is still implemented in this widget set. Whenever OOO is ported to a new environment, the major sticking point is that a binding layer has to be created from VCL to a widget set in the environment. Being a C++ widget set with more or less conventional semantics, VCL mapped well to GTK2 and Windows so Linux and Windows are easy ports in that regard. It is a very poor impedance match to Cocoa on Objective C and still appears to be hosing a truly native Mac port to this day. The NeoOffice guys use Cocoa through Java which makes a thin shim programming wise but a pig memory and resource wise as they have to have Java active and resident in memory for their VCL -> Cocoa mapper.
The other problem is that OOO isn't well divided up internally. It was designed to load as a huge glop o' code back in the StarOffice days and still does. I once argued about this until I was blue in the face with a OOO developer on NewsForge. I could not get it through his head that I wasn't talking about splitting off Writer, Calc and so-forth into separate apps. I understood that OOO's "apps" are developed from an internal common set of objects (which also means an equivalent to MS' COM system is also loaded with the main app). I was talking about being smarter about which objects to load initially and then loading others on demand. This would get the startup time and usual memory usage down. It would also make it easier to use OOO as an API the way Office is used as an API.
The set of Windows gamers and Windows ricers has considerable intersection though.
Which defeats the whole purpose.
Some of the purpose perhaps but not the whole purpose. An entirely owner-controlled TPM would still be useful for server admins and end-user cluebies who want and appreciate what it can and can't do.If evil vendors and media companies didn't control the whitelist and crypto keys, I'd be for it. I love the idea of a hardware accelerated tripwire verifying the integrity of a running system. But I only love this idea if I am the one who gives that hardware it's marching orders.
You've been unlucky. I routinely use external USB hard drives for backup with good speed and reliability. Perhaps you commonly deal with a flaky mobo chipset?
I'm a Linux user who has paid for games.
Shove it troll.
Not everyone who uses the GPL subscribes slavishly to everything that comes out of the FSF and RMS. To me, it is just another license on tools I'm allowed to use freely. When BSDers and FSFers start really going at each other over the word "Freedom", I start thinking Animal Mother from Full Metal Jacket might have had a point: "Freedom? Get your head screwed on straight new guy. Freedom is just a word. If I'm going to die for a word then my word is 'poontang'".
Seriously, when people get so militant over the subject of freedom when I'm looking to make pragmatic use of tools, my eyes just start glazing over. Adhere to all licenses involved and if you can't then don't use the item in question. I would also add "He who writes the code, chooses the license". Those are the only "freedoms" that truly make sense to me on this subject. If I wanted to usefully think about BSD vs. GPL then I'd call the BSD an implementation of the Golden Rule (The one about do unto others not he who has the gold....). I'd call the GPL an implementation of "tit for tat". I find both more than fair and equitable.
And I still hate to think what would happen if somebody got seriously pissed and made legal hay out the way he wants things to be. As things currently stand, I wouldn't hack on anything OpenBSD related with a ten foot pole under any license you care to name. Even if it doesn't turn ugly and legal, I wouldn't even want to begin to deal with someone like Theo. Yeah the hardcore FSF types are hard to take. The hardcore BSD types are equally intransigent and religious.
As for Donaldson, yeah, he's an excellent author, but halfway through his first series I spontaneously coughed up an entire thesaurus and by the end I was pouring milk over bowls of Paxil for breakfast. The second series I think was just a transcription of the hallucinations of a high fever...
The Gap and Mirror series were better (and Mirror only runs two books!) but you'll still have to put with characters so full of self-introspecting moral ambiguity that they can't stand themselves.The BSD License has only only two real restrictions. 1) Don't sue us and 2) Don't remove our license or attributions.
Prior to some extremely unclassy behavior from Theo and a few others, this is the impression I had as well.The BSDL does not do this, ever. It puts no restrictions, whatsoever, on any code that comes in contact with it. It can be licensed under any license, including the GPL. You simply cannot remove the BSDL.
Again I had a similar impression, save that the GPL only truly applied to the additions and alterations to the work once they had reached some (unfortunately vague) level of extensiveness (which some BSDers seem eager to be difficult about as well). In a sane world, the added GPLed and heavily altered BSD bits could be removed from the codebase and the remaining bits of pristine code would indeed be BSD and could be used as such. This is pointless as the original BSD code would still be available but Theo and Dillon are correct in that BSD code remains BSD for as long as the copyright holds out. There is no "relicensing" of BSD works but a composite work containing BSD code will carry all of the restrictions of the most restrictive license used in it. Composite works must practically be treated as GPL only simply in that the BSD license itself doesn't prevent additional restrictions being added to a derived work.
All of this was the understanding I had until last week or so. One fellow in this discussion is gleefully citing aspects of German copyright law that he claims make BSD as viral as the GPL. I doubt that is the case but some BSDers want so badly to confound the "Stallmanite Hippies" that they are cutting off their own nose to spite their face. Dillon isn't being unclassy but he is bringing in nebulous statements of "author intent" into the discussion that may or may not be stated in the license. As I explained to him, if prominent BSDers make a habit of that then "BSD is the one true free license" goes out the window since I may have to take those who speak like him at his word and not consider the bare text of the license the full legal story.
The BSD License itself is a remarkably clear and succinct read for a legal document. And yes, I agree that a few in the Linux Atheros project would do well to brush up on their reading comprehension. The problem is that prominent developers are muddying the water with statements that seem to go beyond the clear simple text of the license. I'm saying that I can't take the license at it's word when the developers using it give me the impression that I shouldn't. Theo and to a smaller extent Dillon risk making that impression widespread and therefore damaging to the projects they would protect.
Again, the problem here is not the license, it is that people do not know what the intent of the original author was. That is, I haven't seen an email or posting from the original authors (is there one somewhere in this mess?) clarifying their position on the matter. It is the ethics of the situation that matter the most to the open source community and the ethics that matter most to me.
Exactly. The problem isn't the license. The problem is intents and convictions not stated by the license but which are expected to be upheld as community mores. So a developer can't simply consider the license all by itself as sufficient guidance as to how the code may be employed. Irregardless of whether copyleft, dual licenses, or EULAs are going to come into it or not, what the BSD community seems to be telling me is that I can't rely on the license alone if I intend to incorporate BSD code in a product or project. It seems I must also take into account author intentions whether stated or not. I fear the BSD community is cutting off it's own nose to spite the GPL camp. This is unfortunate. It could also quell the non-copyleft uses which have been tacitly condoned by the BSD community.
I'm aware that you mean to make strictly an ethical point and not a legal one. But the two aren't as separate as all that. If one is sufficiently outraged over an ethical breach real, perceived, or otherwise then it can become a legal matter in a hurry. Prominent BSDers angrily holding forth about breached mores they haven't encapsulated in their license of choice put much of what is under the license in doubt. I shouldn't have to worry about intent and a 30 year old set of BSD community folkways and mores. I should be able to rely on the license. I doubt I'm the only one getting an impression I can't do that. When all is said and done, it isn't how hay you or I or especially Theo can make out of all of this. It is the toxic hay lawyers can make out of it and I don't think anybody wants that.
The confusing problem with this is that many BSDers seem to have no problem with proprietary derived works of BSD code. I don't see a lot of screaming about OS X for instance. How is it okay to make some changes to a BSD work and slap a EULA on the result yet not okay to make (possibly extensive) changes and add the GPL? BSDers have also held forth at length that GPL is viral and therefore evil yet the BSD license isn't. I'm starting to get the impression that the BSD license is in fact viral if for no other reason then the BSD community want it to be viral where the GPL or other copyleft licenses are concerned.
Prior to these episodes, I had the impression that you could do pretty much as you liked with BSD derivatives as long as copyright notices and the license texts were preserved. Many BSDers have also held forth about how simple and non-complicated using the code is. I'm no FSF fanatic. I was happy to accept that as a virtue in many circumstances. Now it's getting to be as confusing as the original Artistic license. The actual text isn't that confusing but what many BSD authors seem to want it to mean is. More to point, if I'm risking public temper tantrums from the likes of Theo regardless of what the licenses in question mean or say then screw it. I'll happily make end-user use of these things. OpenSSH is a very fine product indeed. But I'll actually be contributing to and developing with from elsewhere. Who needs this garbage?
The problem is that Trusted Computers will have keys built in that the owner of the machine doesn't control. These will be used by major software vendors and the entertainment industry against their own customers. If the TPM was a blank slate utterly under the owner of the PC's control then I'd agree with you that TC has beneficent uses. Unfortunately, TPM is slated to be used as a built-in universal super dongle and that overshadows any positive use of the technology; I only tend to favor technology that can be used for me rather than against me. I'm funny that way.
I respectfully submit the following ideas for a more acceptable name:
I think a lightweight version ala PhotoShop Elements would be nice for casual users. We could call it:
Lightweight Image Manipulation Program.
Since a name like GIMP is offputting to professionals, let's cater to the professionals with the
Professional Image Manipulation Program
I think that is perfectly respectable myself. Perhaps we should emphasize the power and sophistication of this fine software:
Sophisticated Image Manipulation Program
With all the windows and modal dialogs it has, what could be more appropriate than the:
Windowed Image Manipulation Program
The use of any of these names would instantly bring users and credibility don't you think?
"just linking" means making calls into the *structure* of the GPLed code. Such calls are usually extensive enough that said GPLed code would have to be substantially replicated before the linking program would work without it which takes us well inside the realm of "derived works". Simply *using* the program would be feeding it input and processing the output somehow....even the GPL allows this. There is a difference. Look at the legal controversy surrounding "mash-ups". In a mash-up one is taking pieces of other's copyrighted works and mixing them up in new ways. You might say the mash-up is (statically) *linking* to the source material it is derived from. If someone complains and the affected piece of the mash-up is removed then substantial work would have to be done to preserve the piece's artistic integrity. For that matter a "dynamically linked" mash-up could be done by requiring the audience members to obtain (at least some of) the pieces and assemble it themselves from directions. Even the legality of that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Now one could just distribute the linking work without the GPLed piece. I suppose in that scenario your argument could carry more weight but the scope of legal viability is significantly reduced as the the linking work isn't useful without the GPLed part. That means the end user would have to obtain it in a way not tacitly encouraged by the creator of the linking work. That seems to be where the distinction in the word "merely using" truly lies. Developers are creating something new by incorporating pieces from others(linking). "Merely running" gets conflated with "merely using pieces to make something new". That is also a difference that many care about. The only real difference between static and dynamic is that static is unambiguous with respect to GPL requirements. Dynamic linking has the same functional result as static linking but allows for ethical and legal semantics. How is it that a new program is created that requires a GPLed library to work isn't derived? How well would the possible answers to that go over with real judges in real courts?
Okay. Then I suppose the next thing is to define "substantial". Just how many lines have to be added/changed before the changes are "substantial"?
The Chechens are at least one people where Russia really would have to kill them all if the object is political suppression. They had the nads to stand up to Stalin at the height of his purging reign of terror. If Stalin didn't scare them then I seriously doubt Putin will either. Come to think of it, Stalin DID try to kill them all. Indiscriminately blowing up people minded like the Chechens won't cause mass intimidation. It will cause mass seriously-pissedness. Your point may remain valid against some of the other peoples Russia finds troublesome.
As long as your music collection is well tagged, utilities exist that make working with music on an iPod almost as easy as files on a flash drive. Since many use mp3s rather than iTunes store AACs, the iPod is a viable device for sharing a music collection.
That won't work either. Since my entertainment dollars are basically fixed, I'll spend them on a DVD or a video game or anything else really that gives value for that money.
Well, he played a hell of lot more than just one song but only in one guitar style mind you which he admits to in his biography.
While legal enforcement isn't unique to the GPL license by any means, the endless ranting about it is.
Not really, some in the BSD camp have a belief system they hold forth about endlessly about as well. Figures like Brett Glass and DeRaadt can be every bit as "religious" and militant as RMS. They're probably just as pleasant to deal with.Once you have chosen you are not free anymore. The point is that one remains much more free with BSD style licenses. That's a fact that the GPLers keep denying since "freedom" is one of their "central dogmas" and points that they "evangelize" to the world.
When BSDers and FSFers argue back and forth enough about it, I start to have sympathy for Animal Mother's point of view: "Freedom? It's just a word. If I'm going to die for a word then my word is 'poontang'."
GPL code isn't in any way self-aware. If anybody is doing polluting then it is inobservant developers. I'll agree with you to that extent: Developers must respect the license of any third-party code they use. And if you'll recall, the last time we had an incident like this on Slashdot it was some OpenBSD people who weren't behaving with class. That is not a function of what license you choose to use. It isn't that the "GPL community must observe the license damnit!" or "BSD community must observe the license damnit!". It's "Developers must behave properly." From where I sit, neither the BSD camp nor the Linux camp has any right to throw stones at the moment.
I don't give a flying hang what meaning militant BSD and FSF types assign to the word "freedom". If a piece of code solves my problem and I find the rules for it's use fair then I'll use it. I'm not interested in contorted takes on the word "fair" either. Since I have little choice but to use Apple's and MS' stuff professionally I can't say that GPL code is out to pounce on me. If I do alter code will be redistributed then I do it under the license I received it from in the first place.