Yes, you did. -- " no matter how "nifty" it is for you graphics guys."
That's it? The word nifty in double quotes? How thin is your skin? For crying out loud, you're crying that I'm demeaning your profession over the word "nifty". You sad sack of... spuds.
Adobe is free to release the software that way. Why does my 'freedom to muck with the source code' take priority over their freedom to release the software their way?
Nobody is telling Adobe what to do. Nobody is trying to take away their freedom. Don't make up bullshit.
I will happily "rent" if I get better software which allows me to do better work (make more money).
In other words you'll happily trade your freedom for shiny coins. Ok, that's your choice to make, as long as you realise that's what you're doing.
That's the real price of Free which you don't understand.
I do understand it. I understand it very well. I know full well that freedom comes at a high price. So don't condescendingly tell me that I don't understand.
What I think you don't understand is the true cost of using non-free software. I'm even more amazed that you, an American, could so easily have forgotten that freedom is more important than material wealth.
What good is "owning" (and that verb is too strong) something if it isn't as good?
What a strange question. Do you honestly not know?
What benefits do you think Free gives you other than price (because you didn't want to talk about that issue)?
I'm more interested in letting you discover that for yourself. Everybody gets a different set of benefits.
It's hard to be anything but dismissive when it's clear you have no respect for my profession and how Photoshop attained it's popularity.
Oh, get off your high horse. I did no such thing.
I know quite well how Photoshop attained its popularity; it's the best photo-editting software there is. That doesn't change the fact that it's a non-free piece of software.
As I said, I don't think there's a problem with that. I don't believe "everything must be free". I just know that some software is free and some software isn't. Photoshop most definitely isn't.
ISPs are companies. They have the right to refuse you service AT ANY TIME. That means that if you go over their bullshit, invisible, meaningless number of a download limit then they can shut you off.
No if, ands, or buts about it.
You can scratch this, scratch that, write this, write that, sue, complain, whine to the worthless BBB, whatever. IT DOES NOT MATTER.
I take it you failed law school.
Just being a company does not give them the right to "refuse you service AT ANY TIME". They entered into a contract with you. The terms of the contract must be obeyed by both parties.
They can't kick you off just because they feel like it. They have to honour the contract.
The tricky bit is, what does the fine print in the contract actually say. In my experience, it often says something along the lines of "we can kick you off whenever we feel like it";-)
I mean, other than the dolts that may actually be paying the licensing fees. But, I don't see any steep declines in RedHat, Suse, or Mandrake sales.
Perhaps there is no decline but it is possible that sales have been harmed anyway. Maybe RedHat would have sold 10x as many boxes this year if it wasn't for SCO. Everybody - and I mean everybody, not just the advocates - has been saying that this was the "boom year" for Linux. Sales have been disappointing for a "boom year". Maybe SCO was a factor in that.
People don't believe these guys
Unfortunately some people do. That's entirely the problem. If nobody believed them then they wouldn't have lawyers working at 2/3 their normal rates and banks giving them millions of dollars and analysts singing "rah rah SCO".
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you value freedom then you don't want PhotoShop, no matter how "nifty" it is for you graphics guys.
That is a rather extreme and ill-thought point of view.
On the contrary, it is a rather extreme but well-thought point of view.
I don't have a problem with non-free software - my rented PS2 games (I own the media but the use of the software is a time-limited rental) are all non-free - but I'm not blind and I do recognise the loss of freedom. That's not ill-thought. It's a statement of fact.
On a side note, consider your own dismissive attitude. You think one thing and I think the opposite. In your mind, this means you're correct and I must have an "ill-thought point of view". Have you ever considered that I am correct and you have the ill-thought point of view?
The point is, if you care about Free, like handing out copies of GIMP is important to you or something,
I've never handed out any copies of any software. That's not important to me. It never has been. Your condescending attitude is unwelcome.
It's like, I'm going to suffer through using this operating system without an complete desktop experience merely because it's not proprietary. There's something wrong with that logic.
There's something wrong with paying a vendor to rent the mere use of software. That's effectively what you're doing whenever you "buy" a copy of Photoshop or Windows.
Or if you're like 90% of the Windows and Photoshop users out there, you simply steal it. Free software must be a baffling concept to the hordes of thieves who have never paid for their proprietary software.
I hope you enjoy renting (or stealing) your software for the rest of your life. I intend to own my software, even if that means joint ownership with millions of other users.
Does Adobe have the right to prohibit you from "giving it to your friend" in order to make money? Yes.
Nobody is disputing they have the right to do that.
Why doesn't Adobe just make Photoshop opensource? Because how much money does Photoshop produced compared to the GIMP project?
If all you can see are the dollar signs then you're never going to understand. It's not about money. It's about freedom.
If you want Free, you get what you pay for.
And it's very clear that you still don't understand. I'm not going to repeat it. Go back and read the previous post. Read it twice. Read it three times. Read it until you realise that Free Software has nothing to do with the price.
Oh, I see what you mean. I agree, it's a very overrated argument. Even if Photoshop did have its source code available, I don't know a single person who'd actually look at the source code. We want to get our work done, not tweak.
Which just demonstrates that you're young. You haven't been in a position where an application you depend upon has been discontinued by the vendor and you were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Look at software history; many giant companies that would "never" die have disappeared into obscurity. Do you think that won't happen to Adobe? Think again.
It's not about tweaking. It's about not being beholden to the whims or fate of the vendor.
How much "hacking the code" have you done on Linux? Be honest. Have you ever needed to significantly modify your operating system's source code? Do you even know how?
And how many times have you needed to exercise your Miranda rights? How many times have you been thankful you are innocent until proven guilty?
The thing about rights is that you don't appreciate them until you need them. With software there are three obstacles to contributing:
Time
Skill
Legality
RMS can't help you with the first two, but he wants a world where no software is encumbered by that third obstacle.
Now you might not have the skill or time to contribute to Linux. That's a shame. But there's never a problem with that third obstacle: the legality. With Linux you are legally permitted to contribute. With other software, no matter how skilled you are and no matter how much time you have, you will never be allowed to contribute. That's because that third hurdle - the legality - stops you.
If you can't understand that RMS is trying to solve just one problem - the legality - and you somehow think that your lack of skill refutes his vision, then you are dumber than I thought.
Free Software Camp: But Photoshop isn't Free. so "bzzt" to you too."
Sadly, I see this argument all too often. Price isn't everything, folks.
And Free Software is not just about the price (if you ask RMS, it's not anything to do with the price). It's about me being able to do what I want with the software I paid for. Can I run PhotoShop on Linux? No. Ok, can I port it? No. Can I give it to my friend? No. Can I modify it? Extend it? Fix it? No. No. No. That's why it's not free as in freedom. It's encumbered software. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you value freedom then you don't want PhotoShop, no matter how "nifty" it is for you graphics guys.
If you harp on about the price then you merely demonstrate that you Don't Get It.
It is neither obvious nor trivial. Tell me who did real-time time shifting of TV shows (including watching the beginning of a show while the end of that same show is still recording) prior to TiVo. You couldn't do that with a VCR, and nobody was using PC's to time-shift at that time (and if they were, they didn't patent that feature - TiVo did).
Perhaps it isn't obvious or trivial, but Tivo shouldn't have a patent on the idea. A patent is granted for the process or the method, not to the idea itself.
Either Tivo is suing over the idea - which is unethical and means negative karma for Tivo - or Echostar has nicked the method that Tivo uses in which case more power to Tivo.
I personally find it hard to believe that there are NO skeletons in the Linux kernel closet. That is perhaps one of the advantages of closed source. Deeper closets...
But it's not the case that a single skeleton would destroy Linux. Judges don't say "wow, in this code base of 17 million lines there are 150 lines that belong to SCOX... SCOX now owns all of Linux". It doesn't work like that. The judge will do his or her best to award fair compensation but revoking the rights of 1000s of Linux developers isn't fair.
SCOX wants an outcome that isn't fair. That's the #1 piece of evidence that what they want is not going to happen. Judges don't like unfair! A contract can even be revoked if the judge thinks the outcome is unfair. There are special legal words like "equitable" that come into play and I admit I don't understand the finer details. But I'm certain that a fair outcome won't involve the judge revoking the rights of 1000s of Linux developers just to uphold the rights of 1 little Utah company.
If there is a skeleton and if it is significant and if the code isn't already in the public domain and if SCOX can prove they have clean hands and if there is no way to remove the code without destroying Linux... only then should we worry. Right now, we haven't even gotten past the first if statement. But that's what SCOX has to prove by Jan 11 (court order, no more delays) and we'll all find out about it roughly 2 weeks after that.
"If you show a man sucking a woman's breast you get an R rating. But if you show the same man shooting the woman's breast off with a shotgun you get M."
So then the next suggestion above is to hire someone. With what money? And how can I justify spending ten times or more the cost of some proprietary software package hiring programmers to improve (or create) a free software competitor? Especially when my hypothetical freelance business probably isn't exactly rolling in the dough.
Right, so you're screwed.
Now imagine that you're a company with 10,000 graphics artists. You could license 10,000 copies of Photoshop or you could pay 1 programmer for 1 month to implement the feature in Gimp that you'd need to put Photoshop and Gimp on equal footing.
The market should be allowed to decide which model should prevail (or if both should coexist), without being tainted by some sort of acquired "morality".
Oh yes? So the North and the South should have let the market decide whether slavery should prevail, without being tainted by some sort of acquired "morality"?
I don't want to be the one dissin' RMS, but I think he needs a sanity check or just stop being a "spokesperson" for the Free software community.
There are no "spokespersons" for the free software community. There are just people who speak their mind and other people who listen. More people want to listen to RMS than to you. Deal with it.
and with him on the forefront, Free software will never be part of corporate america
If software developers should work for free, why not electronic engineers, architects, every profession?
Don't confuse the software being free with the software developer working for free. They are not the same thing. Developers can charge as much as they like to produce free software.
Why shouldnt someone charge for their software if its good and useful,
They do. Red Hat charges $1399 for a copy of Red Hat Enterprise 3.0 but it's still free software. Sun charges $100 per copy of the Java Desktop but it's just GNOME running on Linux.
Once again, don't confuse free software with no income.
But I suspect you're a troll, so no more food for you.
Gets progressively louder until snoozed. Starts louder with each successive snooze.
Max volume slightly painful, but not physiologically dangerous. An air compressor and train whistle is probably overkill.
Easy to snooze, but hard to accidentally turn off completely. Bonus points if turning it off means being cognizant enough to operate a screwdriver or tool of some kind.
Snooze time gets geometrically shorter each iteration (e.g., half as long as the previous) so that there's a maximum total snooze time that can be approached assymptotically.
Has battery backup so that it will operate during a power outage, at least to keep time. (I _could_ just stick it on the UPS, but do I really want to spend a UPS outlet for an alarm clock?) This is a feature my current clock has (takes a nine-volt battery), but even better would be a rechargeable that will even operate the alarm during a power outage.
Can be set to always go off at the same time every day, so I don't have to remember to set it at night unless I need to get up at a different time than usual.
Has some kind of cool feature with geek appeal -- but not binary time display; I need to be able to read the time when mostly asleep.
I said that "Copying code would be a breach of contract, which is what SCO's legal case is based upon." "Which" refers to "breach of contract," not "copying code."
Even with your clarification, they still read the same way to me.
Not if the code is not copyrighted!
Hey, that was my point. Shenanigans.
No, your point was that SCO will lose if the code is not copyrighted. My point was that copyright law and contract law are two completely different animals.
You're going to have to be clearer. Small ambiguous snippets like "Not if the code is not copyrighted!" aren't very helpful. In this case you apparently meant it to mean "copyright law is not the same animal as contract law" but I don't think that was very obvious. I might as well say "flizzle flazzle floo" and expect you to realise that I meant "[insert argument that convinces you that you are wrong]".
In any event, I don't see that this new point was worth mentioning because nobody had claimed they were the same animal. Nor do I see that your point contradicts mine.
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Oh, I'm sorry, is the appropriate debating style to complain that everybody is demeaning your profession? You're a silly person.
That's it? The word nifty in double quotes? How thin is your skin? For crying out loud, you're crying that I'm demeaning your profession over the word "nifty". You sad sack of ... spuds.
Nobody is telling Adobe what to do. Nobody is trying to take away their freedom. Don't make up bullshit.
In other words you'll happily trade your freedom for shiny coins. Ok, that's your choice to make, as long as you realise that's what you're doing.
I do understand it. I understand it very well. I know full well that freedom comes at a high price. So don't condescendingly tell me that I don't understand.
What I think you don't understand is the true cost of using non-free software. I'm even more amazed that you, an American, could so easily have forgotten that freedom is more important than material wealth.
What a strange question. Do you honestly not know?
I'm more interested in letting you discover that for yourself. Everybody gets a different set of benefits.
Oh, get off your high horse. I did no such thing.
I know quite well how Photoshop attained its popularity; it's the best photo-editting software there is. That doesn't change the fact that it's a non-free piece of software.
As I said, I don't think there's a problem with that. I don't believe "everything must be free". I just know that some software is free and some software isn't. Photoshop most definitely isn't.
And I'm still not talking about cost.
I take it you failed law school.
Just being a company does not give them the right to "refuse you service AT ANY TIME". They entered into a contract with you. The terms of the contract must be obeyed by both parties.
They can't kick you off just because they feel like it. They have to honour the contract.
The tricky bit is, what does the fine print in the contract actually say. In my experience, it often says something along the lines of "we can kick you off whenever we feel like it" ;-)
Perhaps there is no decline but it is possible that sales have been harmed anyway. Maybe RedHat would have sold 10x as many boxes this year if it wasn't for SCO. Everybody - and I mean everybody, not just the advocates - has been saying that this was the "boom year" for Linux. Sales have been disappointing for a "boom year". Maybe SCO was a factor in that.
Unfortunately some people do. That's entirely the problem. If nobody believed them then they wouldn't have lawyers working at 2/3 their normal rates and banks giving them millions of dollars and analysts singing "rah rah SCO".
On the contrary, it is a rather extreme but well-thought point of view.
I don't have a problem with non-free software - my rented PS2 games (I own the media but the use of the software is a time-limited rental) are all non-free - but I'm not blind and I do recognise the loss of freedom. That's not ill-thought. It's a statement of fact.
On a side note, consider your own dismissive attitude. You think one thing and I think the opposite. In your mind, this means you're correct and I must have an "ill-thought point of view". Have you ever considered that I am correct and you have the ill-thought point of view?
I've never handed out any copies of any software. That's not important to me. It never has been. Your condescending attitude is unwelcome.
There's something wrong with paying a vendor to rent the mere use of software. That's effectively what you're doing whenever you "buy" a copy of Photoshop or Windows.
Or if you're like 90% of the Windows and Photoshop users out there, you simply steal it. Free software must be a baffling concept to the hordes of thieves who have never paid for their proprietary software.
I hope you enjoy renting (or stealing) your software for the rest of your life. I intend to own my software, even if that means joint ownership with millions of other users.
Nobody is disputing they have the right to do that.
If all you can see are the dollar signs then you're never going to understand. It's not about money. It's about freedom.
And it's very clear that you still don't understand. I'm not going to repeat it. Go back and read the previous post. Read it twice. Read it three times. Read it until you realise that Free Software has nothing to do with the price.
Which just demonstrates that you're young. You haven't been in a position where an application you depend upon has been discontinued by the vendor and you were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Look at software history; many giant companies that would "never" die have disappeared into obscurity. Do you think that won't happen to Adobe? Think again.
It's not about tweaking. It's about not being beholden to the whims or fate of the vendor.
And how many times have you needed to exercise your Miranda rights? How many times have you been thankful you are innocent until proven guilty?
The thing about rights is that you don't appreciate them until you need them. With software there are three obstacles to contributing:
RMS can't help you with the first two, but he wants a world where no software is encumbered by that third obstacle.
Now you might not have the skill or time to contribute to Linux. That's a shame. But there's never a problem with that third obstacle: the legality. With Linux you are legally permitted to contribute. With other software, no matter how skilled you are and no matter how much time you have, you will never be allowed to contribute. That's because that third hurdle - the legality - stops you.
If you can't understand that RMS is trying to solve just one problem - the legality - and you somehow think that your lack of skill refutes his vision, then you are dumber than I thought.
And Free Software is not just about the price (if you ask RMS, it's not anything to do with the price). It's about me being able to do what I want with the software I paid for. Can I run PhotoShop on Linux? No. Ok, can I port it? No. Can I give it to my friend? No. Can I modify it? Extend it? Fix it? No. No. No. That's why it's not free as in freedom. It's encumbered software. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you value freedom then you don't want PhotoShop, no matter how "nifty" it is for you graphics guys.
If you harp on about the price then you merely demonstrate that you Don't Get It.
I wonder if that's because it's been repeated at least a kojillion times.
We've heard it before. Get a new quote. That one has been done to death.
Perhaps it isn't obvious or trivial, but Tivo shouldn't have a patent on the idea. A patent is granted for the process or the method, not to the idea itself.
Either Tivo is suing over the idea - which is unethical and means negative karma for Tivo - or Echostar has nicked the method that Tivo uses in which case more power to Tivo.
But it's not the case that a single skeleton would destroy Linux. Judges don't say "wow, in this code base of 17 million lines there are 150 lines that belong to SCOX... SCOX now owns all of Linux". It doesn't work like that. The judge will do his or her best to award fair compensation but revoking the rights of 1000s of Linux developers isn't fair.
SCOX wants an outcome that isn't fair. That's the #1 piece of evidence that what they want is not going to happen. Judges don't like unfair! A contract can even be revoked if the judge thinks the outcome is unfair. There are special legal words like "equitable" that come into play and I admit I don't understand the finer details. But I'm certain that a fair outcome won't involve the judge revoking the rights of 1000s of Linux developers just to uphold the rights of 1 little Utah company.
If there is a skeleton and if it is significant and if the code isn't already in the public domain and if SCOX can prove they have clean hands and if there is no way to remove the code without destroying Linux... only then should we worry. Right now, we haven't even gotten past the first if statement. But that's what SCOX has to prove by Jan 11 (court order, no more delays) and we'll all find out about it roughly 2 weeks after that.
"If you show a man sucking a woman's breast you get an R rating. But if you show the same man shooting the woman's breast off with a shotgun you get M."
De Niro, I think.
Right, so you're screwed.
Now imagine that you're a company with 10,000 graphics artists. You could license 10,000 copies of Photoshop or you could pay 1 programmer for 1 month to implement the feature in Gimp that you'd need to put Photoshop and Gimp on equal footing.
RMS has never tried to claim credit for Linux. Not. Once. Ever. I challenge you to find a single writing or speech of his that says otherwise.
Oh yes? So the North and the South should have let the market decide whether slavery should prevail, without being tainted by some sort of acquired "morality"?
There are no "spokespersons" for the free software community. There are just people who speak their mind and other people who listen. More people want to listen to RMS than to you. Deal with it.
I fail to see the problem.
Don't confuse the software being free with the software developer working for free. They are not the same thing. Developers can charge as much as they like to produce free software.
They do. Red Hat charges $1399 for a copy of Red Hat Enterprise 3.0 but it's still free software. Sun charges $100 per copy of the Java Desktop but it's just GNOME running on Linux.
Once again, don't confuse free software with no income.
But I suspect you're a troll, so no more food for you.
Which constant would that be? Windows 98? Windows NT? Windows XP? Windows CE?
Server edition? Professional edition? Home edition? They're all freaking different.
Even between service packs, Windows undergoes fairly radical changes.
Constant? Not on this planet.
I'm not new around here and neither is that joke.
Children meet all the above requirements.
Even with your clarification, they still read the same way to me.
No, your point was that SCO will lose if the code is not copyrighted. My point was that copyright law and contract law are two completely different animals.
You're going to have to be clearer. Small ambiguous snippets like "Not if the code is not copyrighted!" aren't very helpful. In this case you apparently meant it to mean "copyright law is not the same animal as contract law" but I don't think that was very obvious. I might as well say "flizzle flazzle floo" and expect you to realise that I meant "[insert argument that convinces you that you are wrong]".
In any event, I don't see that this new point was worth mentioning because nobody had claimed they were the same animal. Nor do I see that your point contradicts mine.