As a corollary to this, I would suggest the following:
a) a large drill b) a large spool of cat 5 cable c) a crimping tool d) electrical tape*
* One might incorrectly assume the electrical tape is just for use with the cat 5 cable, when in fact it's primary use is for tying up your wife to keep her from hurting you while you drill cable holes through the living room wall:)
Either they contribute by making their application open source (adding to the ecosystem), or they contribute financially by licensing the code.
Helix is closer to glibc than MYSQL. This has no pretty much degenerated into the same problem as we have with QT. The community wants freedom not just for users, but for corporations to also create and sell proprietary software for our free Linux desktop, without buying a licence from you. Helix needs to be LGPL'd.
The hypocracy is that Real still has their proprietary codec. Can a competitor to Real (like Microsoft), do as Real has done, and write a proprietary codec for Helix without having to GPL it or purchase a Helix Licence from Real? No.
If GStreamer becomes THE media framework for Linux... corporations are all *free* to create and sell their own proprietary codecs - it's a level playing field for all. However, if Helix becomes THE framework... corporations need to *purchase* a licence from Real. *free* vs *purchase*, see the difference?
And as far as contributions to the ecosystem...you want users of the free software ecosystem to contribute financially back to *Real*. Thats bollox. With LGPL it means if they change the framework, they must contribute their changes back to the framework, and that is the true ecosystem.
LGPL Helix - Real can still make money from it's codec, just NOT from the shared media framework.
You are dreaming! BSD for the utils and examples. Whoopie.
The main product...
We are releasing the source code for the j3d-core and vecmath projects
under separate research and commercial license. The research license
is the Java Research License (JRL). The commercial license is the Java
Distribution License (JDL), a no-fee license that allows a vendor to
ship a compatible version of Java 3D with or without modification.
I can certainly appreciate those people who like their Amiga... but why not take the Linux kernel with all it's hardware support, and a GLib/GTK base (perhaps without X [FB based]), and just write an Amiga Workbench (desktop environment, ala Gnome) clone??? (maybe even leverage parts of Gnome like XFT/Pango/Panel/Plugins)
What do you gain over commodity X86 or PPC by creating custom hardware, and by coding a whole new kernel, tcpip stack, etc? The advantage of free software is that you don't have to do it all yourself from scratch... you can leverage the existing work of thousands of others.
The best lesson any developer can learn is to make sure you have a good graphic designer on your team.
Sadly, it has been my experience that flash always beats substance. My bosses/clients have always spent all their time niggling about design, layout, and color selection, rather than the actual functionality:S
You describe a worst case scenario regarding the number of unique dialects that will sprout up ("software engineer" vs. "computer programmer" vs etc), and I don't think this will be the case. I understand what you are saying, but I think ontologies represent an adequate solution to the problem - though I agree that creating useful ontologies could be a *lot* of work. The terms being used to describe concepts are tied to a limited set of existing spoken languages - a set which is slowly consolidating.
And you metatag objects at multiple levels - media objects or fragments at the lowest level will not be context sensitive (as well as being objective moreso than subjective) - but the metadata for the html page using those objects may provide context for them - and the metadata for the site containing those html pages will provide even more context. Metadata is not just at one level... the objects themselves don't need to provide all their context... it's a layered approach.
I have slaved away for years to become a programmer who knows the tools of my trade inside out, reading books on this and that, and trying everything within my power to write great code.
Many many programmers aren't like that. They may not be CS trained, not hardcore geeks, or what have you...
Wait till your boss asks you to "dumb it down" and not to use Generics/Templates/Inner Classes/Overloading/whatever, because others are having trouble understanding/maintaining your code.
Wait till they ask you to write it in VB, because Java/C++ programmers are too hard to find.
What scares me the most is... given some of the sad skill sets I have seen in people calling themselves programmers, is that the boss might be right.
a) Fine. Go ehead. And Sun can feel quite free to tell us all to go away. The point is, vendor lockin is bad for everyone, businesses included. If Java is going to become a platform a large part of our IT infrastructure is built on, I think it needs to be free.
b) Now we do. That just changed after Apache had a fit. And I'm pretty sure this doesn't cover all Java API's (?). We are just asking Sun to save us the trouble of reimplementing it.
c) You have read too much JCP marketing literature (Sun fanboy). First, see point c in my original post... this argument doesn't stand. SWT, for example, is perfectly capable of diluting the Java standard. Secondly, Java can be a perfectly good programming language without any platform compatibility. Third, I have been using Linux since 94 - Java on Linux came out around 2000. IBM embrased Linux to combat Windows Server, not because of Java - there is also some remote possibility someone at IBM actually found a business model that doesn't rely on vendor lockin. Fourth, Microsoft has Windows development wrapped up with C# and.NET, Linux is slowly killing off all other platforms, so without Linux, *Java* dies.
That may do it for you, but it does me no good personally - I want more. If they did construct such a licence, it wouldn't ever be approved as a GPL compatible Free Software licence, which is what I want. If Microsoft buys Sun, I want the ability for IBM (or me, or anyone) to move foward and ship Java solutions without them. This means the API's too.
Gosling doesn't tackle the FSF style "Freedom" issues with Java at all - and this is what i'm concerned about. His answer shows no insight into why people might be interested in Free Sofware as opposed to Open Source.
If he tackled those issues, I would be quite satisfied - even if the answer isn't what I wanted to hear (I doubt it would be).
If you think this was a certain rebuttal, that to me says that you don't understand why people follow Free Software vs Open Source either. Do you see him tackling Freedom in his response? where?
Stallman wants a *completely* Free Software world. Personally, I think he lacks the sense of pragmatism on how to actually get there. That sense of pragmatism is why I use the LGPL, not the GPL.
I agree with you that Gosling makes valid statements regarding Java agendas, which would be fine in a standalone article.
However, I think Gosling answered a different question. I don't think he gave any arguments to really address those people, such as myself, in the Free Software community, or to rebut Stallman's point of view - which I think is the real context his comments should have been in.
I don't think Gosling understands Free Software at all.
He responds to Stallman by saying: a) The GPL is not free, it has a strong political agenda. b) Java is free in many respects (you don't pay to use the JVM, you can see the source). Java sources don't have a viral licence like the GPL. c) Giving freedom to JVM 'implementors' would be damaging to JVM 'users' (Java developers).
I will tackle these in turn:
a) Gosling implies the FSF has a 'hidden' political agenda. Their agenda is about as far from hidden as I can imagine - I don't think he has read any of the documents on the FSF web site. If you don't think the GPL promotes more freedom than, say, the Java licence, you have an extremely simplistic view of freedom. The political agenda is that the GPL strongly tries to promote a whole world of free software - and if you don't necessarily always agree with that part of the agenda, you can do as I do and use the LGPL or BSD licences. The main point is, if you currently want to ship a product based on Sun's JVM code, you need to licence the code from them to do that. If that code were GPL, it would give all of us freedom to work with the code, but possibly mean many users would no longer need to pay to licence the code from Sun (their fear) - unless of course they didn't want to give away their modifications, in which case they would be in *exactly the same* position they are in now, and could continue to pay Sun for a licence with different terms.
b) Gosling switches from Free(dom) Software to free(beer) (Open Source) software. I can use Internet Explorer for free too, but it certainly isn't Free Software. Stallman is most definitely talking about Freedom. I don't care if I can *see* the source code, the issue is, what can I *do* with that code. The Java licence gives me a *lot* less Freedom than the GPL in that regard. Goslings response has no value for the many of us who don't care too much for the Open Source movement.
c) You already have a licensing program for the term "Java" and associated logos and trademarks - we aren't asking you to give those away. As a Java developer, I would still like to see the guarantees of a licensing program - do like every other industry does and say "if you don't see logo X, you aren't getting 'Java'". If you make the JVM implementation Free Software, it doesn't mean you have to let everyone label their products built on that code as 'Java'. And as for any protections for users/developers, this is a myth anyhow. Look at the SWT toolkit (used to build Eclipse) for an example - what happens if it takes off in popularity (it's going that way), what protections do you have then? None.
And although not mentioned, most developers from the Free Sofware world will also view Java Community Process as a farce as well. Look at the lobbying Apache had to do recently to be allowed to implement JCP specs for one example of how this process does nothing to guarantee our Freedom. (I also fail to understand the communities abhorrent reaction to the W3C patent policy discussions, yet the seeming acceptance of many for the JCP.)
Moving into the information age, it is my view that the foundation technology we build our word around should not ultimately be under the control of any single group or corporation. Using Free Software provides me with a number of guarantees that the programs/code I use will always be there for me, and that I will always have the freedom to use, modify, and rely on those for myself or my business. Java, as provided by Sun, does not have those guarantees.
I am an adult, and a fan of violent video games. Rather than all the complaning and censorship, I would rather just see an adult video game section. And just like they do certain music CD's, I would also like publishers to sell two versions of games - once censored for younger consumers, and one explicit adult only version. For ex, the adult version of Medal Of Honor could have had blood then, unlike the version that shipped. You could even create dedicated online servers for adults, where trash talk is ok, vs family oriented servers.
Heh, I wrote my Java game DigZone for fun, and to give something back to the internet which has given me so much, but 50 grand would be ok too I guess:)
For the record though, the important point was that the stock 2.6 kernels do not yet handle HT in an ideal manner. The article doesn't mention if the Gentoo kernel used for the benchmarks is HT patched or not.
And with special thanks to Zack Brown, those interested can read summaries of HT issues here:
Some people on a local board I visit were complaining about inflamatory threads being deleted, cencorship, and all that... so I was searching for good info on Canadian Defamation law, and found this:
Game producers, music producers, movie producers, anyone distributing digital content, these people all need to realize the same fact:
If you can read it, you can *copy* it.
Period.
It's all just varying levels of difficulty beyond that. If people want it bad enough, it will happen (even of they have to run a wire to each pixel of their DHCPv4 enabled LCD or whatever). Any copy protection to be viable over the long term needs to be based not on media based protections, but on real cryptography. Smart companies know this, hence, Palladium.
Seven Steps to Source!
1) Click the Register link in the upper right
2) Fill in the registration form, submit it, and wait for the e-mail with your password ticket URL
3) Click that URL in the e-mail and set your password on the subsequent form
4) Review and agree to the site terms of use
5) On the left, click on either the RCSL or RPSL link in the Licenses box
6) Review the terms of whichever license you chose (and, in the case of RCSL, fill in the form), and accept the license
7) Also, click on the binary EULA license in the same Licenses box to agree to that, so you can access the compiled binaries found in the distribution project -- needed if you are going to build Helix DNA with RealAudio/RealVideo support
RealNetworks Public Source License (RPSL)
You can view the terms of the RPSL to see whether it fits your needs. To agree to this license, please register on the site -- you will then be given a chance to agree to the *actual* RPSL and gain access to the RPSL-licensed source code.
Schaa, right.
If they really want to create a developer 'community' around their player and codecs, at least one that interests me, there are only 4 letters that will do - LGPL.
I'm glad to see TBL get some more recognition. The original concepts behind html and semantic markup were well designed for their time and deserve more recognition. 99% of web designers today seem to have no idea why they should be using 'em' instead of 'b' tags, nor do many seem to even care about semantics and platform neutral markup. TBL and his semantic web ideas need all the recognition they can get.
Slashdot Mirror
Nevermind, I'm dumb. I was thinking of this, which I read two days ago. And I should look more carefully at my search results :P
Here is the last discussion, in case anyone wants to read it :)
As a corollary to this, I would suggest the following:
:)
a) a large drill
b) a large spool of cat 5 cable
c) a crimping tool
d) electrical tape*
* One might incorrectly assume the electrical tape is just for use with the cat 5 cable, when in fact it's primary use is for tying up your wife to keep her from hurting you while you drill cable holes through the living room wall
Helix is closer to glibc than MYSQL. This has no pretty much degenerated into the same problem as we have with QT. The community wants freedom not just for users, but for corporations to also create and sell proprietary software for our free Linux desktop, without buying a licence from you. Helix needs to be LGPL'd.
The hypocracy is that Real still has their proprietary codec. Can a competitor to Real (like Microsoft), do as Real has done, and write a proprietary codec for Helix without having to GPL it or purchase a Helix Licence from Real? No.
If GStreamer becomes THE media framework for Linux... corporations are all *free* to create and sell their own proprietary codecs - it's a level playing field for all. However, if Helix becomes THE framework... corporations need to *purchase* a licence from Real. *free* vs *purchase*, see the difference?
And as far as contributions to the ecosystem...you want users of the free software ecosystem to contribute financially back to *Real*. Thats bollox. With LGPL it means if they change the framework, they must contribute their changes back to the framework, and that is the true ecosystem.
LGPL Helix - Real can still make money from it's codec, just NOT from the shared media framework.
You are dreaming! BSD for the utils and examples. Whoopie.
The main product...
What I don't understand is... why bother?
I can certainly appreciate those people who like their Amiga... but why not take the Linux kernel with all it's hardware support, and a GLib/GTK base (perhaps without X [FB based]), and just write an Amiga Workbench (desktop environment, ala Gnome) clone??? (maybe even leverage parts of Gnome like XFT/Pango/Panel/Plugins)
What do you gain over commodity X86 or PPC by creating custom hardware, and by coding a whole new kernel, tcpip stack, etc? The advantage of free software is that you don't have to do it all yourself from scratch... you can leverage the existing work of thousands of others.
The best lesson any developer can learn is to make sure you have a good graphic designer on your team.
:S
Sadly, it has been my experience that flash always beats substance. My bosses/clients have always spent all their time niggling about design, layout, and color selection, rather than the actual functionality
You describe a worst case scenario regarding the number of unique dialects that will sprout up ("software engineer" vs. "computer programmer" vs etc), and I don't think this will be the case. I understand what you are saying, but I think ontologies represent an adequate solution to the problem - though I agree that creating useful ontologies could be a *lot* of work. The terms being used to describe concepts are tied to a limited set of existing spoken languages - a set which is slowly consolidating.
And you metatag objects at multiple levels - media objects or fragments at the lowest level will not be context sensitive (as well as being objective moreso than subjective) - but the metadata for the html page using those objects may provide context for them - and the metadata for the site containing those html pages will provide even more context. Metadata is not just at one level... the objects themselves don't need to provide all their context... it's a layered approach.
I have slaved away for years to become a programmer who knows the tools of my trade inside out, reading books on this and that, and trying everything within my power to write great code.
Many many programmers aren't like that. They may not be CS trained, not hardcore geeks, or what have you...
Wait till your boss asks you to "dumb it down" and not to use Generics/Templates/Inner Classes/Overloading/whatever, because others are having trouble understanding/maintaining your code.
Wait till they ask you to write it in VB, because Java/C++ programmers are too hard to find.
What scares me the most is... given some of the sad skill sets I have seen in people calling themselves programmers, is that the boss might be right.
a) Fine. Go ehead. And Sun can feel quite free to tell us all to go away. The point is, vendor lockin is bad for everyone, businesses included. If Java is going to become a platform a large part of our IT infrastructure is built on, I think it needs to be free.
.NET, Linux is slowly killing off all other platforms, so without Linux, *Java* dies.
b) Now we do. That just changed after Apache had a fit. And I'm pretty sure this doesn't cover all Java API's (?). We are just asking Sun to save us the trouble of reimplementing it.
c) You have read too much JCP marketing literature (Sun fanboy). First, see point c in my original post... this argument doesn't stand. SWT, for example, is perfectly capable of diluting the Java standard. Secondly, Java can be a perfectly good programming language without any platform compatibility. Third, I have been using Linux since 94 - Java on Linux came out around 2000. IBM embrased Linux to combat Windows Server, not because of Java - there is also some remote possibility someone at IBM actually found a business model that doesn't rely on vendor lockin. Fourth, Microsoft has Windows development wrapped up with C# and
That may do it for you, but it does me no good personally - I want more. If they did construct such a licence, it wouldn't ever be approved as a GPL compatible Free Software licence, which is what I want. If Microsoft buys Sun, I want the ability for IBM (or me, or anyone) to move foward and ship Java solutions without them. This means the API's too.
Gosling doesn't tackle the FSF style "Freedom" issues with Java at all - and this is what i'm concerned about. His answer shows no insight into why people might be interested in Free Sofware as opposed to Open Source.
If he tackled those issues, I would be quite satisfied - even if the answer isn't what I wanted to hear (I doubt it would be).
If you think this was a certain rebuttal, that to me says that you don't understand why people follow Free Software vs Open Source either. Do you see him tackling Freedom in his response? where?
Stallman wants a *completely* Free Software world. Personally, I think he lacks the sense of pragmatism on how to actually get there. That sense of pragmatism is why I use the LGPL, not the GPL.
I agree with you that Gosling makes valid statements regarding Java agendas, which would be fine in a standalone article.
However, I think Gosling answered a different question. I don't think he gave any arguments to really address those people, such as myself, in the Free Software community, or to rebut Stallman's point of view - which I think is the real context his comments should have been in.
I don't think Gosling understands Free Software at all.
He responds to Stallman by saying:
a) The GPL is not free, it has a strong political agenda.
b) Java is free in many respects (you don't pay to use the JVM, you can see the source). Java sources don't have a viral licence like the GPL.
c) Giving freedom to JVM 'implementors' would be damaging to JVM 'users' (Java developers).
I will tackle these in turn:
a) Gosling implies the FSF has a 'hidden' political agenda. Their agenda is about as far from hidden as I can imagine - I don't think he has read any of the documents on the FSF web site. If you don't think the GPL promotes more freedom than, say, the Java licence, you have an extremely simplistic view of freedom. The political agenda is that the GPL strongly tries to promote a whole world of free software - and if you don't necessarily always agree with that part of the agenda, you can do as I do and use the LGPL or BSD licences. The main point is, if you currently want to ship a product based on Sun's JVM code, you need to licence the code from them to do that. If that code were GPL, it would give all of us freedom to work with the code, but possibly mean many users would no longer need to pay to licence the code from Sun (their fear) - unless of course they didn't want to give away their modifications, in which case they would be in *exactly the same* position they are in now, and could continue to pay Sun for a licence with different terms.
b) Gosling switches from Free(dom) Software to free(beer) (Open Source) software. I can use Internet Explorer for free too, but it certainly isn't Free Software. Stallman is most definitely talking about Freedom. I don't care if I can *see* the source code, the issue is, what can I *do* with that code. The Java licence gives me a *lot* less Freedom than the GPL in that regard. Goslings response has no value for the many of us who don't care too much for the Open Source movement.
c) You already have a licensing program for the term "Java" and associated logos and trademarks - we aren't asking you to give those away. As a Java developer, I would still like to see the guarantees of a licensing program - do like every other industry does and say "if you don't see logo X, you aren't getting 'Java'". If you make the JVM implementation Free Software, it doesn't mean you have to let everyone label their products built on that code as 'Java'. And as for any protections for users/developers, this is a myth anyhow. Look at the SWT toolkit (used to build Eclipse) for an example - what happens if it takes off in popularity (it's going that way), what protections do you have then? None.
And although not mentioned, most developers from the Free Sofware world will also view Java Community Process as a farce as well. Look at the lobbying Apache had to do recently to be allowed to implement JCP specs for one example of how this process does nothing to guarantee our Freedom. (I also fail to understand the communities abhorrent reaction to the W3C patent policy discussions, yet the seeming acceptance of many for the JCP.)
Moving into the information age, it is my view that the foundation technology we build our word around should not ultimately be under the control of any single group or corporation. Using Free Software provides me with a number of guarantees that the programs/code I use will always be there for me, and that I will always have the freedom to use, modify, and rely on those for myself or my business. Java, as provided by Sun, does not have those guarantees.
Personally, I think this is a FANTASTIC idea.
I am an adult, and a fan of violent video games. Rather than all the complaning and censorship, I would rather just see an adult video game section. And just like they do certain music CD's, I would also like publishers to sell two versions of games - once censored for younger consumers, and one explicit adult only version. For ex, the adult version of Medal Of Honor could have had blood then, unlike the version that shipped. You could even create dedicated online servers for adults, where trash talk is ok, vs family oriented servers.
Heh, I wrote my Java game DigZone for fun, and to give something back to the internet which has given me so much, but 50 grand would be ok too I guess :)
You just don't get it.
.NET stuff runs on, because I wouldn't look sideways from Mono until MS *LGPL* it.
I don't give a flying monkey what platform MS
Some of us actually care about Freedom in our Free Software.
Heh, 'NaN' :P
(And if you find that funny, you are in the right field)
For the record though, the important point was that the stock 2.6 kernels do not yet handle HT in an ideal manner. The article doesn't mention if the Gentoo kernel used for the benchmarks is HT patched or not.
s /Hyperthreading.html
And with special thanks to Zack Brown, those interested can read summaries of HT issues here:
http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/topic
Some people on a local board I visit were complaining about inflamatory threads being deleted, cencorship, and all that... so I was searching for good info on Canadian Defamation law, and found this:
gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca/11/org/efc
OMG! You aren't a real geek!
Heh, well, normally I would say go Google for it, but in your case, you may feel more comfortable with an MSN Search :P
p.s. Perhaps here?
Game producers, music producers, movie producers, anyone distributing digital content, these people all need to realize the same fact:
If you can read it, you can *copy* it.
Period.
It's all just varying levels of difficulty beyond that. If people want it bad enough, it will happen (even of they have to run a wire to each pixel of their DHCPv4 enabled LCD or whatever). Any copy protection to be viable over the long term needs to be based not on media based protections, but on real cryptography. Smart companies know this, hence, Palladium.
I'm glad to see TBL get some more recognition. The original concepts behind html and semantic markup were well designed for their time and deserve more recognition. 99% of web designers today seem to have no idea why they should be using 'em' instead of 'b' tags, nor do many seem to even care about semantics and platform neutral markup. TBL and his semantic web ideas need all the recognition they can get.