I just don't see how the price can scale linearly with the amount of space. $1000/month standing charge plus ($10/month)/gigabyte would be more reasonable.
That does sound more reasonable. It would be interesting to see a cross-section of prices from the market. A competitive market should drive prices down; it would be nice to know whether the $1000/GB price was competitive or exorbitant.
Tony Hawks was nothing like 720 and I played and loved both. Tony Hawks was a mix of several unoriginal concepts but the *combination* was one of the most original things I've seen in the past decade of gaming. There's good reason why it sold so well: it really was a brilliant game.
And your own analogy about technology running great 10 years ago shows your inexperience.
Haha. In the World According to the Director of IT merely 10 years ago it was impossible to send email, nobody wrote letters, and printers didn't print. Of course, you justify your world view by labelling anybody who disagrees with you as a luddite and/or inexperienced. Nicely done, Mr Director of IT! Do you treat people like this in real-life too?
Yeh - I made the mistake in assuming you were advocating I was an asshole because I was putting Microsoft and not a *NIX on the desktop. But now it
Not "now". Always. By saying "now" you're trying (inexpertly) to imply I'm changing my tune. The tune is the same. You're just starting to listen rather than talk.
seems you're calling me an asshole because I refuse to force on my totally non-technical users a totally unfamiliar desktop environment that they don't want, that I have neither the resources nor the time to train them on?
Windows 3.1 is unfamiliar? Word 2 is unfamiliar? Do you think your users are so stupid they couldn't figure out Works? Nooo, you have to run Windows 98 and Office 97 and then complain that the hardware isn't adequate. That's Your Own Damn Fault. If you can't change the hardware then you need to be extra careful in picking your software. Don't like the choices I gave? Pick your own, but stop bitching that you can't run Outlook and Office. You can run SOMETHING ELSE.
If you can sit there and tell us all that a 10-year old PC that ran Linux 0.99pl4's X11 with twm and associated apps with a modicum of speed (at the time) can run a recent release of Linux with X11 & Gnome or KDE with a modicum of speed (right now)
You're *still* pretending that I advocated (or even SAID) you should use UNIX or Linux. Seems your grip on reality is even weaker than I first thought. Try reading the thread again; I think you might hear the tune this time.
I've seen many projects where some manager said something like "You should use XYZZY to send messages". When asked "Why", the answer was always, "Because it's a standard!"
Well, news flash....sending messages between to programs that'll never hook up to anything else doesn't require an existing bloated standard. Sometimes it's better just to use your own messages.
Even in those cases it's better to listen to your manager and use a standard. Why? Because there's no guessing what may happen in the future. There might be a maintainer, 5 years down the track, who needs to integrate system PLUGH into your system XYZZY. Imagine his horror when he finds your hacked message protocol versus his joy if he finds something standard like CORBA.
There's another (less obvious) reason. There was lots of effort put into these standards to catch all the extreme cases. Your hacked message protocol isn't likely to be as well-thought-out as the standard. That's not an insult; it's just a fact. Using a standard lets you leverage existing libraries, existing toolkits, existing documentation, and a well-thought-out protocol without all the gotchas and dead-ends of hacked protocols.
Respect your manager. They're not always idiots (though quite often they seem that way).
I don't live in the utopian black and white world that you seem to, where it's *NIX all or nothing.
You spastic dickhead. I never advocated UNIX. I didn't even say the damn word UNIX. I suggested you stop bitching about your "old" hardware - which is less than 10 years old anyway - and simply use software that is appropriate rather than bloating your desktops into oblivion with the "latest and greatest" software.
You claim that the hardware runs slow? 5 years ago it ran fine. 10 years ago it was unobtainable power. Now it's too slow? Here's a lesson, Mr Director of IT, computers don't get slower. They stay the same speed they always were. The fault here is YOU because YOU are trying to load them with software they were not designed to run.
So I say "load appropriate software". You say "that's black and white!". I say, you're a fucking moron who wouldn't know "appropriate" if it was engraved in your head with a chisel.
Were you the one with the stupid lawnmower analogy? Let's make that analogy work. It's not as if you are advocating lawnmowers and I'm advocating scissors. The real analogy is that you're using a push mower and bitching that you need a ride-on mower. I'm saying that your lawn isn't that large and you could do with the exercise. You seem to think that's a "luddite" view and "black and white". I think you're just infatuated with technology to the detriment of your environment; LDAP in a fricking non-profit organisation? You're mucking with tech because you want to. Stop pleasing yourself. Start thinking about your USERS.
So if I hire you to mow my lawn and provide you with a small pair of scissors you wouldn't complain?...
I *need* a certain spec of machine to be able to do my job *effectively*.
So you think Windows 98 desktops and Netware fileservers and Ethernet networks aren't good enough to get your job done "*effectively*"? Are you fucking stupid? Did people not send email on those machines back in 1998? Did people not write letters on those machines? Has something magical happened in the past 5 years to make these "old" machines stop working? No! Wait! I see! You need to spend $5000 on a brand new Pentium-4 before you can work "*effectively*".
You're just as deluded as the self-proclaimed Director Of IT. He bitches about his unswitched Ethernet hubs stopping him from getting things done, and you think that writing email on Windows 98 is like cutting lawn with nail scissors. No wonder the USA is perceived as a wastrel society.
Your arguments would be perfectly well suited to being used against any form of technical progress - transport, comms, science in general.
No, you simply didn't grok my argument. I'm not against progress. I'm against whingers who complain "this computer is old, therefore I can't work". That's a load of shit. Always has been. Always will be.
Not all of them are as adept as the much smaller percentage you were working with back then (no doubt selected because they *COULD* use vi)
Actually all of them were selected to do the work they were paid to do and the vi/roff setup was what they used only because that's what they had. Once again, you missed my point, which is that administrators treat their users like stupid imbeciles who need "the latest and easiest to use Windows XP!" when the reality is that they can grok non-CDE interfaces just fine.
There's a fine line between progress and the microsoft-inspired upgrade treadmill, but you can strike that balance without resorting to being a luddite.
Pfft, I advocate using what you have rather than complaining about what you don't have, and you say that's the sign of a luddite. I think you have a very distorted view of reality.
As a UNIX zealot I already know that with OSS/Linux/*NIX there's nothing better than a free lunch. But - I also have 75 people in the office who know absolutely nothing about computers except to click Send/Receive and read their email, or use the Outlook calendar.
So? That's your own doing. You've given them Microsoft software and now that's all they know so you lose the right to bitch about your lack of alternatives.
Look at it this way. 30 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using a typewriter. 20 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using Wordstar. 15 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using WordPerfect. 10 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using Windows 3.1 and Windows Write.
Yet now it seems they need Outlook XP and Windows XP and Office XP on an Athlon 2000XP with 1GB RAM and 21" monitors. Even worse, here is their "Director of IT" proclaiming that they are so woefully underpowered because they only have Novell Netware and Windows 98 running on Ethernet networks. For god's sake, the average office couldn't afford Ethernet only 2 decades ago. Now you're complaining because it's not switched?
Your equipment is fine; it's your attitude that needs adjusting. You've managed to convince even yourself that you need the "latest and greatest" hardware. That's bullshit. Load up those computers with text-based utilities. The office workers of 20 years ago managed; what makes you think the current crop are that much dumber!?
I'll conclude my rant with an example. My first job was in an office environment using WYSE terminals. None of the office staff had significant computer experience. Yet they had no trouble logging onto their terminal, starting up *VI*, and writing letters in *ROFF*, before printing them to a shared printer. They sent email using the command-line *MAIL* tool. This was only 15 years ago. These people didn't whinge or whine about the lack of colour GUIs; they JUST GOT THEIR WORK DONE.
$100,000 (average, of course)
Those were some VERY expensive employees, don't you think?
Not particularly. Rule of thumb is that an employee costs twice as much as their salary. You need to consider the cost of the building, the equipment they use, benefits and insurance, indirect costs like cleaners and HR depts and secretaries. An employee costs a fortune. Just looking at their salary is a mistake.
In an era where hard disks cost about a buck a gig and are getting cheaper by the day, how can hosting companies charge $1000 per gigabyte per YEAR?!
Because disks are cheap but backups, power, controllers, arrays, racks, floor space and *technicians* are all still expensive. Be very wary of any company that offers "cheap" disk storage; they're almost certainly inexperienced and/or untrustworthy. $1000/gig sounds about right.
Get a clue, the code is not what's "intellectual property
All of it is intellectual property. Even the latitude and longitude markings on a map are IP. My point was that open-source developers do not give away their IP. They do retain ownership and they do defend their property. Just because you can point to examples of IP that aren't defended by law doesn't mean you have invalidated what I said. All you've done is argued on a tangent.
... it's the spec, the ideas , the design and the comments detailing corner cases, and those aren't protected by copyright.
Design and comments are covered by intellectual property laws.
Someone smart can re-develop the code without infringing the copyright.
Huh? So your argument basically boils down to "somebody smart can reimplement it, therefore open-source developers give their intellectual property away". Are you nuts? Did Apple "give their intellectual property away" when Microsoft implemented the desktop interface? Did Opera "give their intellectual property away" when Konqueror implemented tabbed browsing. What a nonsense. Get a clue, yourself.
He still doesn't "get" open source.
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30 Years of Ethernet
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· Score: 4, Interesting
He makes this rather ignorant comment:
... it is unlike open source in that competitors don't give their intellectual property away.
Open source contributors who use the GPL never "give their intellectual property away". Copyrights are very strongly defended; the recent FSF vs OpenTV story is sufficient proof of this. Trademarks are very strongly defended: Linus and RedHat have both defended trademarks. Patents are a sticky mess but even then the GPL doesn't demand that you give up patents; only that you don't use them to restrict or impede licensing. The open source movement is not so stupid as to "give away" code. Strong ownership of intellectual property is at the very core of open source.
The subtle but important distinction is that open source developers want to share their intellectual property. The philosophy is "you may use my IP if I can use yours". This is not giving anything away; it's building a community of cooperation. There is an exchange of value between two parties even though the exchange is not monetary.
I suppose it's possible to argue that BSD zealots are giving their intellectual property away. Yet another reason to avoid the BSD license.
Despite your protestations to the contrary, unlawfully copying somebody else's intellectual property is depriving them of deserved reward. Calling it anything other than theft or stealing...
When somebody takes another's life it might be due to murder, or manslaughter, or euthenasia, or state sanctioned execution. The legal differences between the 4 are huge.
When somebody takes another's money it might be due to theft, or robbery, or fraud, or embezzlement. The legal differences between the 4 are huge.
So when you claim that copyright infringement is the same thing as theft I think you're just ignorant. You can rant and rave all you like but the law doesn't agree with you.
Re:Bah, the GPL is not the "core of the ... moveme
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· Score: 4, Insightful
No, it isn't. My whole premise is that the free software "movement" (as in, the process of providing software for others to modify, use, or abuse as they see fit) would probably be chugging along just as well if the GPL never existed. Why? Because what drives the "movement" is its spirit, NOT its license! This contrasts with the article which claims (wrongly, IMHO) that this "movement" will somehow "derail" if the GPL is defeated. Bull, I say! It will be just fine, no matter what Stallman would have you believe. After all, if you believed this ridiculous premise, the BSD-derived OSs shouldn't exist, not to mention Apache and a host of other non-GPL-licensed software projects.
I disagree. The BSDs had a huge headstart and even taking into account the lawsuits they were not making significant progress. My personal belief is that the BSD license was too permissive. There were commercial derivative works (eg, BSDI) that took a lot and contributed relatively little. The problem is that people are generous but companies are not. Companies are greedy. The GPL forces companies to be generous by using the threat of lawsuits. The GPL was a catalyst that made the "free software movement" explode from a hobbyist plaything into a market force.
My only evidence I can suggest for this is the huge influx of BSD developers into Linux when BSD was clearly superior. I'll agree the problem is not black and white: there were contributing factors like the lawsuit and the core developer politics. But it doesn't explain why there is STILL a vast number of Linux developers. So all I can do is draw from my own experience; given a choice I will always contribute to a GPL project instead of a BSD project simply because I have absolutely no faith in the BSD license to deliver "returns". I don't believe that we can expect companies to play fair. This is why I'll stick with projects like Linux that are predominately GPLd; we need to beat companies with a big stick if we're to get any returns.
So, if I write XYZ including GPL'd source, I have to make source available to anyone I make binaries available to. So, if that's a single customer contract, they get the source when I deliver on the contract, along with the binaries, docs, etc. If that's anyone willing to pay a sticker price, they get the source when they buy the box (binaries, docs, etc.). But I *don't* need to post the source on a website or anything unless I post the binaries on a website, right??
You don't even need to do that. You just need to provide the source IF ASKED with costs that are not greater than the shipping and media expenses. Even then you only need to provide the source to people who have received a copy of the binaries; either directly from you or indirectly from a previous customer.
In the past there has been a trend to just put the code on a website and allow everybody to download a copy. There was no obligation for any company to do this. You might argue it was the cheapest method in the long run; a single phone call would probably waste more corporate cash than 100s of downloads off a website.
Though bear in mind that you cannot forbid the customers from redistributing the source. The GPL explicitly requires that all recipients have the same rights that you do. An uncooperative company who makes it difficult to get their source will quickly find mirrors appearing everywhere. There's nothing the company can legally do to stop this either; if they go after the mirrors then their license (the GPL) is revoked and they are guilty of copyright infringement. With our anti-piracy legal system that's a fate worse than death.
but Clockwork Orange is the single stupidest movie i have ever had the displeasure of watching. It was 2 hours of pointless vilance,
Congratulations for spotting the entire point of the movie. The point was that violence is an integral part of Alex. The attempts to "cure him" didn't achieve anything. Notice the irony (proper use of the word) present in Alex's final line "I was cured alright".
Anthony Burgess is a brilliant author. He was making a statement about the uselessness of "rehabilitation" which is still the buzzword of modern prison reform. Some people simply can't be cured. Alex was one of those people. The movie was an excellent adaptation of the book. Easily one of the top 100 movies of all time.
So let's see, there's Linus, the whole BK mess, Miguel de Icaza, etc. Do you write GPL software? Do you fear you're next? You are, if you're successfull and you don't play nice with the FSF.
So much cluelessness in such a short post. The fact that you got modded "insightful" is simply baffling. I'm convinced that there are fewer UNIX users and more Windows users on Linux than ever.
We'll start with the basics. The GPL is a license. GNU is a system with a corresponding project. Choosing the GPL for your license does NOT mean you are part of the GNU system.
The FSF is a sponsor of the GNU project. They are not the politza. They couldn't care less if your software is licensed with the GPL or not. They only care about the GNU project.
The FSF has strict guidelines about software that can be accepted into the GNU system. The Ghostscript guys have decided that they want to do things differently. No big deal. Ghostscript will still be released under the GPL. It won't affect your GNU/Linux distribution in the slightest.
The GPL does not state that corps caught with GPL'ed code in their proprietary software have to GPL their entire program.
Correct. The GPL states that if you accept the licensing agreement stated in the GPL then you are obligated to GPL the entire derivative work.
They have to EITHER GPL their entire program, or REMOVE all of the GPL'ed code from their proprietary program.
Very close. The reality is that they either GPL their entire program (aka, standard license) or negotiate something else with the owner of the GPLd code. This negotiation might result in removal of the code, it might involve money, it might involve fisticuffs and a lawsuit.
The GPL is, afterall, a license. The terms of the license are "you may use this software for any purpose, profit or non-profit, but if you do anything that would infringe on copyright then you must GPL your product". But this only applies if you agree to the license. If you don't agree to the license then you are simply guilty of copyright infringement, same as any pirate.
Sco can either pluck out its eyes or hack off its testicles. Its their choice. The GPL isn't viral because it made this choice available to them.
SCO is (possibly) in a different situation because they are alleging that Linux copied code from SCO. The GPL would not apply in this case; SCO's copyright is all that matters.
Or did you really think you could "steal" some code, place it into an existing GPL product, and somehow that made it alright:-) Perhaps you think that the GPL magically changes ownership of code:-) How amusing. You do realise that only the owner of the code gets to choose the licensing.
If SCO copied code from Linux then yes; they are in deep shit. They can make the entire SCO codebase GPL and avoid a lawsuit, or they can go into court and get their arse kicked, or they could negotiate an out of court settlement. Of course, nobody is claiming that SCO did copy GPL code, I'm just offering that as a hypothetical.
You may not like the word viral but it is a very apt description for GNU licensed works. Most commercial are not viral, they don't encourage replication or participation in it.
It has nothing to do with like or dislike. It is simply not a good description of what the GPL does. You mention the word "replication". A virus does replicate but so does bacteria, cancers, amoebas and animals. A virus does more than just replicate: you'll need to argue that the GPL infects without permission and destroys the host. Unfortunately for you, the GPL only infects WITH permission and it never destroys the "host" (aka the codebase).
On topic, If SCO is correct and portions of linux were taken from propietary SCO code then they may be subject to the Viral nature of GNU in full force.
What nonsense! SCO can just reject the GPL and revert to standard copyright infringement proceedings. They are under no obligation to accept the GPL. This is precisely why the GPL is not viral.
Get it into your head; if you copy GPL code, you CANNOT be forced by the GPL into releasing your own code. The GPL has no authority to do that. You will enter into standard copyright infringement. You'll probably lose and you'll probably pay damages.
The clever thing about the GPL is that it offers an easy escape involving no lawyers and no damages. You simply give up your codebase. But that's YOUR CHOICE to make. If you don't want to give up your codebase then the GPL can't do anything about it.
I don't need any of the fancy features found in most NAS solutions...I just want a hard drive I can FTP to.
Sure, but once you specify FTP you then need TCP, which means you need IP, and an FTP server, and a filesystem, and Ethernet, and... you've just specified a NAS.
But the problem didn't require a NAS. Your problem was "too much interference so need the hard drive 20 feet away". You could solve this problem with Fibre Channel.
Investigate an external disk enclosure with fibre channel and a DC power supply. I know Sun was selling these just 2 months ago for desktop external disks.
The Viral aspect is still very much there in that GNU hijacks other software to provide its reproduction.
The GPL never hijacks "other software". The GPL states that you can avoid the legal hassles that you've just stumbled into (by "stealing" code that didn't belong to you) by making your code free. You've still got the choice to say "fuck that" and go the legal route instead, just like you could with normal copyright.
If the GPL truly hijacked "other software" then there would never be a choice. And keep in mind that the GPL-owner is in the right; the owner of the "other software" is IN THE WRONG because they have taken code that did not belong to them. The GPL offers them an easy path out, that is all.
GNU is a viral license. If you incorporate GNU code into your projects the price you pay is the loss of control the projects.
This is not true. The GPL is an option. You are only bound by its rules by choice. You can choose to reject the GPL and then you are only bound by normal copyright.
I'll make this very clear by saying it again: the GPL is a *choice* you must make. If a small piece of GPL code accidentally finds its way into your codebase then you have two choices:
Accept the GPL, your entire codebase becomes licensed under the GPL as well.
Reject the GPL, you are now bound by normal copyright. You may be liable for damages and code "theft" under standard copyright law.
Note carefully that the second choice is the NORMAL action. It's what happens with NORMAL code under a NORMAL copyright license. You don't even get the first choice with NORMAL copyright.
The GPL is only "viral" if you accept it. That paradoxically means it cannot be viral; you don't have a choice when you catch the flu but you *do* have a choice before you "catch" the GPL.
Slashdot Mirror
That does sound more reasonable. It would be interesting to see a cross-section of prices from the market. A competitive market should drive prices down; it would be nice to know whether the $1000/GB price was competitive or exorbitant.
Tony Hawks was nothing like 720 and I played and loved both. Tony Hawks was a mix of several unoriginal concepts but the *combination* was one of the most original things I've seen in the past decade of gaming. There's good reason why it sold so well: it really was a brilliant game.
Haha. In the World According to the Director of IT merely 10 years ago it was impossible to send email, nobody wrote letters, and printers didn't print. Of course, you justify your world view by labelling anybody who disagrees with you as a luddite and/or inexperienced. Nicely done, Mr Director of IT! Do you treat people like this in real-life too?
Not "now". Always. By saying "now" you're trying (inexpertly) to imply I'm changing my tune. The tune is the same. You're just starting to listen rather than talk.
Windows 3.1 is unfamiliar? Word 2 is unfamiliar? Do you think your users are so stupid they couldn't figure out Works? Nooo, you have to run Windows 98 and Office 97 and then complain that the hardware isn't adequate. That's Your Own Damn Fault. If you can't change the hardware then you need to be extra careful in picking your software. Don't like the choices I gave? Pick your own, but stop bitching that you can't run Outlook and Office. You can run SOMETHING ELSE.
You're *still* pretending that I advocated (or even SAID) you should use UNIX or Linux. Seems your grip on reality is even weaker than I first thought. Try reading the thread again; I think you might hear the tune this time.
Even in those cases it's better to listen to your manager and use a standard. Why? Because there's no guessing what may happen in the future. There might be a maintainer, 5 years down the track, who needs to integrate system PLUGH into your system XYZZY. Imagine his horror when he finds your hacked message protocol versus his joy if he finds something standard like CORBA.
There's another (less obvious) reason. There was lots of effort put into these standards to catch all the extreme cases. Your hacked message protocol isn't likely to be as well-thought-out as the standard. That's not an insult; it's just a fact. Using a standard lets you leverage existing libraries, existing toolkits, existing documentation, and a well-thought-out protocol without all the gotchas and dead-ends of hacked protocols.
Respect your manager. They're not always idiots (though quite often they seem that way).
You spastic dickhead. I never advocated UNIX. I didn't even say the damn word UNIX. I suggested you stop bitching about your "old" hardware - which is less than 10 years old anyway - and simply use software that is appropriate rather than bloating your desktops into oblivion with the "latest and greatest" software.
You claim that the hardware runs slow? 5 years ago it ran fine. 10 years ago it was unobtainable power. Now it's too slow? Here's a lesson, Mr Director of IT, computers don't get slower. They stay the same speed they always were. The fault here is YOU because YOU are trying to load them with software they were not designed to run.
So I say "load appropriate software". You say "that's black and white!". I say, you're a fucking moron who wouldn't know "appropriate" if it was engraved in your head with a chisel.
Were you the one with the stupid lawnmower analogy? Let's make that analogy work. It's not as if you are advocating lawnmowers and I'm advocating scissors. The real analogy is that you're using a push mower and bitching that you need a ride-on mower. I'm saying that your lawn isn't that large and you could do with the exercise. You seem to think that's a "luddite" view and "black and white". I think you're just infatuated with technology to the detriment of your environment; LDAP in a fricking non-profit organisation? You're mucking with tech because you want to. Stop pleasing yourself. Start thinking about your USERS.
So you think Windows 98 desktops and Netware fileservers and Ethernet networks aren't good enough to get your job done "*effectively*"? Are you fucking stupid? Did people not send email on those machines back in 1998? Did people not write letters on those machines? Has something magical happened in the past 5 years to make these "old" machines stop working? No! Wait! I see! You need to spend $5000 on a brand new Pentium-4 before you can work "*effectively*".
You're just as deluded as the self-proclaimed Director Of IT. He bitches about his unswitched Ethernet hubs stopping him from getting things done, and you think that writing email on Windows 98 is like cutting lawn with nail scissors. No wonder the USA is perceived as a wastrel society.
No, you simply didn't grok my argument. I'm not against progress. I'm against whingers who complain "this computer is old, therefore I can't work". That's a load of shit. Always has been. Always will be.
Actually all of them were selected to do the work they were paid to do and the vi/roff setup was what they used only because that's what they had. Once again, you missed my point, which is that administrators treat their users like stupid imbeciles who need "the latest and easiest to use Windows XP!" when the reality is that they can grok non-CDE interfaces just fine.
Pfft, I advocate using what you have rather than complaining about what you don't have, and you say that's the sign of a luddite. I think you have a very distorted view of reality.
So? That's your own doing. You've given them Microsoft software and now that's all they know so you lose the right to bitch about your lack of alternatives.
Look at it this way. 30 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using a typewriter. 20 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using Wordstar. 15 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using WordPerfect. 10 years ago the average office worker had no trouble using Windows 3.1 and Windows Write.
Yet now it seems they need Outlook XP and Windows XP and Office XP on an Athlon 2000XP with 1GB RAM and 21" monitors. Even worse, here is their "Director of IT" proclaiming that they are so woefully underpowered because they only have Novell Netware and Windows 98 running on Ethernet networks. For god's sake, the average office couldn't afford Ethernet only 2 decades ago. Now you're complaining because it's not switched?
Your equipment is fine; it's your attitude that needs adjusting. You've managed to convince even yourself that you need the "latest and greatest" hardware. That's bullshit. Load up those computers with text-based utilities. The office workers of 20 years ago managed; what makes you think the current crop are that much dumber!?
I'll conclude my rant with an example. My first job was in an office environment using WYSE terminals. None of the office staff had significant computer experience. Yet they had no trouble logging onto their terminal, starting up *VI*, and writing letters in *ROFF*, before printing them to a shared printer. They sent email using the command-line *MAIL* tool. This was only 15 years ago. These people didn't whinge or whine about the lack of colour GUIs; they JUST GOT THEIR WORK DONE.
That's their own damn fault. They've behaved like spoilt pricks for more than 20 years. One act of kindness won't clean their tarnished image.
Not particularly. Rule of thumb is that an employee costs twice as much as their salary. You need to consider the cost of the building, the equipment they use, benefits and insurance, indirect costs like cleaners and HR depts and secretaries. An employee costs a fortune. Just looking at their salary is a mistake.
Because disks are cheap but backups, power, controllers, arrays, racks, floor space and *technicians* are all still expensive. Be very wary of any company that offers "cheap" disk storage; they're almost certainly inexperienced and/or untrustworthy. $1000/gig sounds about right.
All of it is intellectual property. Even the latitude and longitude markings on a map are IP. My point was that open-source developers do not give away their IP. They do retain ownership and they do defend their property. Just because you can point to examples of IP that aren't defended by law doesn't mean you have invalidated what I said. All you've done is argued on a tangent.
Design and comments are covered by intellectual property laws.
Huh? So your argument basically boils down to "somebody smart can reimplement it, therefore open-source developers give their intellectual property away". Are you nuts? Did Apple "give their intellectual property away" when Microsoft implemented the desktop interface? Did Opera "give their intellectual property away" when Konqueror implemented tabbed browsing. What a nonsense. Get a clue, yourself.
He makes this rather ignorant comment:
Open source contributors who use the GPL never "give their intellectual property away". Copyrights are very strongly defended; the recent FSF vs OpenTV story is sufficient proof of this. Trademarks are very strongly defended: Linus and RedHat have both defended trademarks. Patents are a sticky mess but even then the GPL doesn't demand that you give up patents; only that you don't use them to restrict or impede licensing. The open source movement is not so stupid as to "give away" code. Strong ownership of intellectual property is at the very core of open source.
The subtle but important distinction is that open source developers want to share their intellectual property. The philosophy is "you may use my IP if I can use yours". This is not giving anything away; it's building a community of cooperation. There is an exchange of value between two parties even though the exchange is not monetary.
I suppose it's possible to argue that BSD zealots are giving their intellectual property away. Yet another reason to avoid the BSD license.
When somebody takes another's life it might be due to murder, or manslaughter, or euthenasia, or state sanctioned execution. The legal differences between the 4 are huge.
When somebody takes another's money it might be due to theft, or robbery, or fraud, or embezzlement. The legal differences between the 4 are huge.
So when you claim that copyright infringement is the same thing as theft I think you're just ignorant. You can rant and rave all you like but the law doesn't agree with you.
I disagree. The BSDs had a huge headstart and even taking into account the lawsuits they were not making significant progress. My personal belief is that the BSD license was too permissive. There were commercial derivative works (eg, BSDI) that took a lot and contributed relatively little. The problem is that people are generous but companies are not. Companies are greedy. The GPL forces companies to be generous by using the threat of lawsuits. The GPL was a catalyst that made the "free software movement" explode from a hobbyist plaything into a market force.
My only evidence I can suggest for this is the huge influx of BSD developers into Linux when BSD was clearly superior. I'll agree the problem is not black and white: there were contributing factors like the lawsuit and the core developer politics. But it doesn't explain why there is STILL a vast number of Linux developers. So all I can do is draw from my own experience; given a choice I will always contribute to a GPL project instead of a BSD project simply because I have absolutely no faith in the BSD license to deliver "returns". I don't believe that we can expect companies to play fair. This is why I'll stick with projects like Linux that are predominately GPLd; we need to beat companies with a big stick if we're to get any returns.
You don't even need to do that. You just need to provide the source IF ASKED with costs that are not greater than the shipping and media expenses. Even then you only need to provide the source to people who have received a copy of the binaries; either directly from you or indirectly from a previous customer.
In the past there has been a trend to just put the code on a website and allow everybody to download a copy. There was no obligation for any company to do this. You might argue it was the cheapest method in the long run; a single phone call would probably waste more corporate cash than 100s of downloads off a website.
Though bear in mind that you cannot forbid the customers from redistributing the source. The GPL explicitly requires that all recipients have the same rights that you do. An uncooperative company who makes it difficult to get their source will quickly find mirrors appearing everywhere. There's nothing the company can legally do to stop this either; if they go after the mirrors then their license (the GPL) is revoked and they are guilty of copyright infringement. With our anti-piracy legal system that's a fate worse than death.
Congratulations for spotting the entire point of the movie. The point was that violence is an integral part of Alex. The attempts to "cure him" didn't achieve anything. Notice the irony (proper use of the word) present in Alex's final line "I was cured alright".
Anthony Burgess is a brilliant author. He was making a statement about the uselessness of "rehabilitation" which is still the buzzword of modern prison reform. Some people simply can't be cured. Alex was one of those people. The movie was an excellent adaptation of the book. Easily one of the top 100 movies of all time.
Apology accepted.
So much cluelessness in such a short post. The fact that you got modded "insightful" is simply baffling. I'm convinced that there are fewer UNIX users and more Windows users on Linux than ever.
We'll start with the basics. The GPL is a license. GNU is a system with a corresponding project. Choosing the GPL for your license does NOT mean you are part of the GNU system.
The FSF is a sponsor of the GNU project. They are not the politza. They couldn't care less if your software is licensed with the GPL or not. They only care about the GNU project.
The FSF has strict guidelines about software that can be accepted into the GNU system. The Ghostscript guys have decided that they want to do things differently. No big deal. Ghostscript will still be released under the GPL. It won't affect your GNU/Linux distribution in the slightest.
Correct. The GPL states that if you accept the licensing agreement stated in the GPL then you are obligated to GPL the entire derivative work.
Very close. The reality is that they either GPL their entire program (aka, standard license) or negotiate something else with the owner of the GPLd code. This negotiation might result in removal of the code, it might involve money, it might involve fisticuffs and a lawsuit.
The GPL is, afterall, a license. The terms of the license are "you may use this software for any purpose, profit or non-profit, but if you do anything that would infringe on copyright then you must GPL your product". But this only applies if you agree to the license. If you don't agree to the license then you are simply guilty of copyright infringement, same as any pirate.
SCO is (possibly) in a different situation because they are alleging that Linux copied code from SCO. The GPL would not apply in this case; SCO's copyright is all that matters.
Or did you really think you could "steal" some code, place it into an existing GPL product, and somehow that made it alright :-) Perhaps you think that the GPL magically changes ownership of code :-) How amusing. You do realise that only the owner of the code gets to choose the licensing.
If SCO copied code from Linux then yes; they are in deep shit. They can make the entire SCO codebase GPL and avoid a lawsuit, or they can go into court and get their arse kicked, or they could negotiate an out of court settlement. Of course, nobody is claiming that SCO did copy GPL code, I'm just offering that as a hypothetical.
It has nothing to do with like or dislike. It is simply not a good description of what the GPL does. You mention the word "replication". A virus does replicate but so does bacteria, cancers, amoebas and animals. A virus does more than just replicate: you'll need to argue that the GPL infects without permission and destroys the host. Unfortunately for you, the GPL only infects WITH permission and it never destroys the "host" (aka the codebase).
What nonsense! SCO can just reject the GPL and revert to standard copyright infringement proceedings. They are under no obligation to accept the GPL. This is precisely why the GPL is not viral.
Get it into your head; if you copy GPL code, you CANNOT be forced by the GPL into releasing your own code. The GPL has no authority to do that. You will enter into standard copyright infringement. You'll probably lose and you'll probably pay damages.
The clever thing about the GPL is that it offers an easy escape involving no lawyers and no damages. You simply give up your codebase. But that's YOUR CHOICE to make. If you don't want to give up your codebase then the GPL can't do anything about it.
Sure, but once you specify FTP you then need TCP, which means you need IP, and an FTP server, and a filesystem, and Ethernet, and ... you've just specified a NAS.
But the problem didn't require a NAS. Your problem was "too much interference so need the hard drive 20 feet away". You could solve this problem with Fibre Channel.
Investigate an external disk enclosure with fibre channel and a DC power supply. I know Sun was selling these just 2 months ago for desktop external disks.
The GPL never hijacks "other software". The GPL states that you can avoid the legal hassles that you've just stumbled into (by "stealing" code that didn't belong to you) by making your code free. You've still got the choice to say "fuck that" and go the legal route instead, just like you could with normal copyright.
If the GPL truly hijacked "other software" then there would never be a choice. And keep in mind that the GPL-owner is in the right; the owner of the "other software" is IN THE WRONG because they have taken code that did not belong to them. The GPL offers them an easy path out, that is all.
This is not true. The GPL is an option. You are only bound by its rules by choice. You can choose to reject the GPL and then you are only bound by normal copyright.
I'll make this very clear by saying it again: the GPL is a *choice* you must make. If a small piece of GPL code accidentally finds its way into your codebase then you have two choices:
Note carefully that the second choice is the NORMAL action. It's what happens with NORMAL code under a NORMAL copyright license. You don't even get the first choice with NORMAL copyright.
The GPL is only "viral" if you accept it. That paradoxically means it cannot be viral; you don't have a choice when you catch the flu but you *do* have a choice before you "catch" the GPL.