Notice how the gold kept its value, but the paper did not. By constantly printing more-and-more money the Federal Reserve is erasing people's wealth.
While it's true that the effects of inflation are more apparently obvious when you look at the price of gold, it's ridiculous to say that it's "erasing people's wealth". Most people live relatively paycheck to paycheck, and income inflates just like everything else. If the dollar had remained tied to a fixed price of gold, it's easy to think that you'd be insanely rich--but in reality you'd just be making orders of magnitude less. Even people who actually save money typically don't keep it in dollars under their mattress. They invest it, and the interest rates they make take inflation into account. So that 5% money market account that is nominally in dollars would probably be making 1-2% if there were no inflation.
Today you have $100k. If you invest that money, or if you use it to buy a house, or do pretty much anything with it other than stick it in your mattress (or your checking account, which is basically equivalent), then next year, its value will still be about $100k adjusted for inflation. This nonsense about "erasing wealth" is complete rubbish.
Yeah, of course what happened after that was people started having to resort to bartering for goods using small amounts of Gold, Kinda like what they did TWO-Thousand years ago. So you take an economy and you screw it up so badly that you have to reset it back to the pre-roman levels of commerce.
I've heard lots of news reports of Zimbabweans bartering goods or using foreign currencies, but I've never heard any reports of them using gold. Do you happen to have a citation handy?
Splitting a bill evenly is remarkably easy. Getting separate checks ahead of time is remarkably easy, though a bit of a hassle for the waitstaff. Splitting a bill unevenly is a bit more of a hassle - "Mr. Waiter, please take these cards: Joe will pay $14.51, of which $2.37 is tip; Frank will pay $12.97, of which $2.06 is tip; George will pay $13.61, but refuses to tip because he's a jerk; Ed will pay..."
We typically write on the back of the bill everyone's first name followed by the amount they're paying, and hand that to the waiter with the stack of credit cards (and sometimes a wad of cash). We don't bother to split it up by tip/not tip--all the waitstaff cares about is that the total amount over what the total bill is is a tip. I'm not sure why you'd want to deal with the hassle of writing that down. Works pretty easily in my experience.
There have been frivolous lawsuits, definitely true. The scalding coffee was not. Other coffee vendors around the city were, at the highest temperature, 20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than McDonald's coffee.
The National Coffee Association of the USA recommends serving at 180-190 degrees; another article suggests industry standard is 160 to 185 degrees.
According to a Sep. 1, 1994 Wall Street Journal interview with Reed Morgan, Liebecks attorney, he measured the temperature at 18 restaurants and 20 McDonalds, and McDonalds was responsible for nine of the twelve highest temperature readings. Which means that, even before one accounts for conscious or unconscious bias in the measurements, at least three, and probably more (what about the other eleven McDonalds?), restaurants were serving coffee at a higher temperature. And Starbucks serves at a higher temperature today, and faces lawsuits over third-degree burns as a result (Jan. 2, 2004).
I didn't mod you troll, but I do think you're full of it.
Look at the term. Passwords are a form of DRM. CHMOD is a form of DRM.
No, they are not. DRM is when you give the key and the content to someone, and expect them to only be able to view that content under certain circumstances.
If I password-protect something, then I have two choices: (a) give you the password, (b) don't give you the password. If (a), you can't access the content at all. If (b), you can do anything with the content you want. Period. DRM is the foolish attempt to do both.
If a chmod a file, I have two choices: (a) give you read access, (b) don't give you read access. If (a), you can do anything with that content you want. You can read it, you can copy it, you can run it on another machine, whatever. If (b), you can't do anything with the content. You can't read it, you can't copy it, you can't run it on another machine. Again, DRM is the idea that you can have your cake and eat it too.
I am aware that this next statement might seem like trolling but I've been wanting to ask/say it for a while now.
Go ask all those people who claim that information wants to be free what their social security number is if they have one and, if they don't, then ask for their local equivalent.
This is either trolling or completely misunderstanding the issue. I will be generous and assume the latter.
This falls perfectly in line with the other two categories above. I have two choices with my SSN: (a) I can tell you what it is, (b) I can keep it secret from you. If (a), you have full access to my SSN and can copy it, tell others about it, post it on the interwebs, etc. If (b), then you can't do anything with it, you can't copy it, you can't use it to screw over my credit rating, etc. DRM is the idea that you can, given enough technology, tell someone what your SSN is and, at the same time, prevent them from doing anything bad with it. I hope it is obvious to you why this is impossible.
You might think that DRM would be a good thing in some cases if it were technologically feasible, such as being able to give people your SSN and ensuring that they can't do anything bad with it. But DRM is not anything like passwords or chmod or "normal" access restrictions that do not give people access to the content and then expect to control it.
If you don't know a better way to do something when you have finished it that proves is that you have stopped learning.... Everybody who slings code worth anything once started a project they were in no way equipped to complete.
I completely agree with this--but the OP's goal wasn't to become someone who could code. If it was, then I'd echo the suggestion to try it himself. But his goal is to get a working piece of software--and the best way (IMO) for him to do that is to hire someone to write it for him.
If I want a model airplane built, then the best way for that to happen, if I'm not interested in becoming a model airplane builder, is to hire somebody who's experienced at building model airplanes. That might look silly from the perspective of someone who builds lots of model airplanes, since they know that after a few smaller, simpler models, I'll have the skills to build the model I'm interested in. But if I'm just after the final creation (for whatever reason), and I don't care about gaining those skills, I'll have an easier and faster (and probably cheaper) time hiring somebody who already has those skills.
While I agree with you that the OP's "great idea" may not be such a great idea after all, and may not even be implementable, he'll find that out just as well (if not better) by trying to hire someone else, than if he tries to do it on his own. If he tries it on his own, he may end up failing spectacularly, whereas someone with experience in that area would have succeeded easily. He has no way of knowing whether his failure was due to a lack of coding expertise, or whether it was due to some fundamental problem with the idea itself.
The problem is that ideas are cheap; it's high-quality implementation that's difficult to achieve. That means that starting a SourceForge idea will never work if all you have is the idea. All the competent programmers who may even like your idea are already working on something else.
If you think this can be implemented by a wizard in under a week, it shouldn't take you more than a few months if you start learning now.
The first part is true, but I don't agree that you should start learning how to do it yourself. If this is a "learning" project, then you're going to come up with a crappy implementation.
I'd recommend hiring a developer to write it for you. How you go about doing this is based on how you can best find interested developers--rent-a-coder may be your best shot, or sites like Slashdot, or friends you know in the software industry. If you can find someone who's interested in the project, and likes open source, then you can probably get them to do it relatively cheaply if you make the results OSS.
That's really going to be your best bet. You may feel your idea isn't worth it when you discover the cost of development, but that's life--not all ideas are worth spending the time and money required into writing software around them.
And as a librarian, I'm appalled if they listen to you. Is it easier? Yes. Is it still copyright infringement if you aren't very strict? Yes.... Maybe I misunderstood the way your librarians are using the books on tape/CD, though. I assumed you were using one book on CD to make multiple copies on multiple mp3 players to lend. Maybe that isn't the case. If not, I apologise.:)
"fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies... for purposes such as... teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use)... is not an infringement of copyright." (US Code, Title 17, 1:107. Emphasis added.)
It seems like the iPhone is fully-featured enough to completely support a full, first-class JVM. Why are they porting a crappy pared-down Micro Edition version? That limits a lot of developers in what they're able to do. Maybe that's all they could get Apple to agree with?
I will use my home state of Kansas as a good example of "Gerrymandering." Here is a map of our congressional districts. As you can see, the third district is, by area, the smallest, but it contains an equal amount of people when compared to the other districts, as the Kansas City/Overland Park area is the most populated. It also houses almost all the Kansas Democrats. How would you redistribute the voting districts? If you did it by horizontal or vertical stripes of population distribution, the Democrats would not get a say in many votes, as they would be overpowered by the Republicans populating the rest of the state. In fact, the current solution is the only way Democrats get any say. Should the Democrats get a vote? Kansas has been a red state for a very long time. What I'm saying is there isn't really a good solution to the voting district problem (based on how we currently elect officials, anyway).
Unfortunately they didn't answer the big question I have:
Why do they think all the additional complexity of the GPLv3 is needed? After all, wasn't that one of the biggest complaints about the GPLv2, that it was too complex to understand? And now you have all this extra language and extra penalties and extra permissions that, in my estimation, don't give you a better license. It doesn't prevent Tivo-ization (and I don't think you really can without even worse side effects), it doesn't prevent Microsoft/Novell-type deals, it doesn't prevent software patent FUD against Free Software... what really do third-party developers gain from licensing their software GPLv3 over v2? Nothing but a bunch of headache, in my opinion.
Perhaps it's impossible for Dlugar, but it's not impossible for TiVo or Microsoft or Sony or Apple. That's the point of GPLv3.
The TiVo is not a computing device that allows development at all. Development for it has to happen on a separate, non-TiVo general-purpose device, and the once development is finished, that image is placed onto a TiVo. It is just plain impossible to develop on a TiVo-like device that will not run arbitrary code.
Furthermore, that's not "the point of GPLv3". The GPLv3 has explicit exceptions in it for devices like TiVo.
We're there right now. Try to mod your new TiVo.
Perfectly simple. Grab the source for TiVo's site, compile on my own hardware that I purchased myself, and voila! Software development based on TiVo's Linux code is possible.
If you can afford custom hardware in that hypothetical future, it's not an issue for you.
Like I've said several times in this thread, I don't think it's the role of a software license to guarantee that my code will run on a given piece of hardware, or to guarantee that general-purpose hardware is cheap and plentiful. As long as I have the freedom to build my own hardware, and the source code to run derivative works of my code on that hardware, I'm happy.
There are plenty of examples of words that have no equivalent in English -- until they're co-opted into the language (eg gestalt, bungalow, oy vay, etc). While the ideas may be expressible in English, it may take dozens of words to get close to the meaning, and so at the least, there is a price to be paid in terms of inefficiency if we lose a language. And sometimes it will be impossible to describe the difference in English. A good example is how different languages treat colours. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language for more.
From Douglas Hofstadter in GEB:
Although we should recognize the depth to which culture affects thought, we should not overstress the role of language in molding thoughts. For instance, what we might call two "chairs" might be perceived by a speaker of French as objects belonging to two distinct types: "chaise" and "fauteuil" ("chair" and "armchair"). People whose native language is French are more aware of that difference than we are--but then people who grow up in a rural area are more aware of, say, the difference between a pickup and a truck, than a city dweller is. A city dweller may call them both "trucks." It is not the difference in the native language, but the difference in culture (or subculture), that gives rise to this perceptual difference.
"Blue" and "green" are the same way. The difference isn't in the language, it's in the culture. If it were important to our culture to more finely distinguish colors, or types of love, or bugs or medicinal plants, then we'd create or borrow words or phrases to describe them. (In many cases, we have, we just don't recognize it.)
So rather than lamenting languages going extinct, simply start using different words or phrases for the nuances or concepts that you think are missing in English. If enough people think those distinctions are important, then English will contain all the expressivity of any other language on the planet.
That's exactly the point. What good does it do you to have free software if you don't have hardware on which to run it?
GPLv3 is forward thinking. Today, commodity PCs are cheap and plentiful. In 20 years, that may not be the case.
Describe for me a computing device that will run code that I write for it, but not run code that is a derivative work of code that I wrote, but for which I have the source and can legally modify? It's impossible. There's no such thing.
For us to get to the stage where "you don't have hardware on which to run it," we also have to get to the stage where software development is impossible at all. I find it difficult to believe that will ever happen, but if it does, I don't think the GPLv3 will be of much help at that point.
Finally, I think your statement would be more accurate as, "What good does it do you to have free software if you don't have cheap and plentiful hardware on which to run it?" I could always build uncrippled hardware myself or commission others to do so. It might be very expensive, but I don't feel that a software license should be trying to guarantee cheap and plentiful hardware. It should simply make sure that the source is available, and that I can run it on for any purpose on my own hardware, even if that hardware is expensive and custom-build.
So I agree with you on a lot of this stuff, and I certainly think GPL3 seems to stretch beyond the bounds of copyright and software licensing (meaning, it's moving beyond the purpose of the original GPL and GPL2), but I believe it does guarantee a certain measure of choice, control, and freedom to the end users of the software that GPL2 doesn't. Do I like that it limits the choices of device vendors? No. You've convinced me that it's less free than GPL2 in that respect (thanks for that, I wasn't so clear on it). But I think the customers need more defending than the corporations.
I think I agree with you as well. The GPL3 moves beyond the scope of copyright and software, in an attempt to guarantee other freedoms (such as that in your mobile device example). This is not necessarily an intrinsically good or bad thing, it just depends on what you're after.
It's kind of like the difference between the BSD license and the GPL license. The BSD is "more free" in some respects, but at costs to others further down the chain. Similarly, the GPL2 is "more free" than the GPL3, but again at costs to others further down the chain.
I personally only want to guarantee the "Four Freedoms" both to my code and all its derivatives, hence the GPL2 makes the most sense for my own licensing. As a developer, I am more concerned with source code availability than hardware issues. But others who feel that other freedoms are important (such as their software not being shipped with crippled hardware) should be free to license their works under the GPL3 or a similar license.
I do, I must admit, have some doubts about whether some of the clauses intended to draw a distinction between the GPL2 and GPL3 are even enforceable, but that's a different issue altogether. Whether the goals of the GPL3 are achievable is a different question from whether they're desirable; the latter, I think, depends on your aims.
I can really understand your point of view. It seems ludicrous to dictate what hardware can be distributed with your software at first, but I see it this way: If the hardware affects the behavior of your software, it conceptually may as well be a part of the software.
(I already said some of this in another response.)
Tivoization is a modification to hardware that makes the hardware incapable of running certain code. But it doesn't really have anything to do with the software at all.
I could construct a piece of hardware that will only run an unmodified RHEL3 image, but never actually distribute that image myself. By building and selling that piece of hardware, have I somehow removed any freedoms of all the people running RHEL3? Not at all. They still have access to the source code, they can modify it and distribute their modifications, they can run the code for whatever purposes they want, etc. The only restriction is to the hardware, not the software. Furthermore, there may be very legitimate reasons why somebody might want to ship a piece of crippled hardware that can only run a single image. Even the FSF has recognized that in their DRM exceptions in the GPLv3.
If the hardware has the ability to alter the fundamental behavior of the software, I think it's fair and logical for the software license to protect its self from the abuse of that ability.
I can certainly accept that some people might want to attempt to protect their code from this sort of behavior. But I believe it's beyond the concepts outlined in Stallman's original "Four Freedoms", and is certainly a restriction that I don't feel necessary in my code. If somebody wants to distribute my code or derivatives of it, all I ask is that they give me the freedom to do whatever I want with it on my own hardware--not on theirs.
Tivoization clearly infringes on the first freedom as it prevents you from running the program for certain purposes.
I disagree. Tivoization is a modification to hardware that makes the hardware incapable of running certain code. But it doesn't really have anything to do with the software at all.
I could construct a piece of hardware that will only run an unmodified RHEL3 image, but never actually distribute that image myself. By building and selling that piece of hardware, have I somehow removed any freedoms of all the people running RHEL3? Not at all. They still have access to the source code, they can modify it and distribute their modifications, they can run the code for whatever purposes they want, etc. The only restriction is to the hardware, not the software. Furthermore, there may be very legitimate reasons why somebody might want to ship a piece of crippled hardware that can only run a single image. Even the FSF has recognized that in their DRM exceptions in the GPLv3.
I could agree that some people might interpret Tivoization as an infringement of the first freedom, but a statement so strong as "clearly infringes" I have to disagree with.
So why don't you use the usual trick of specifying GPLv2 or later? That way you don't force anybody into agreeing with the further restrictions of GPLv3 that they don't agree with, but you aren't needlessly incompatible with those people who do choose to use GPLv3.
This is an intriguing idea, but I'll repeat my goals regarding software licenses: "Any software I write I want to have [Stallman's] four freedoms protected, both for what I distribute as well as derivative works, but have no other restrictions, either for developers or users."
If someone were to take my code, and extend it with GPLv3-only code, then the derivative works would have more restrictions than Stallman's four freedoms, which is something I don't want to have happen. I would be unable to take their changes back, for example, and use them at a company who was worried about the patent retaliation clauses, or other restrictions that aren't present in v2.
Er... how does this fall in line with your previous "I'm much more in the BSD camp" sentence? The "GPL is Evil!" is not something that has been uttered only since the GPLv3 but at least since the early 90's when BSD appeared in it's free form. Since you talked about patent protection being something that should be out of scope of a licence I don't think the GPL (v2 or v3) is really the ideal licence for you, but then again you are the one who own your code and I'm sure you know what licence you prefer (perhaps there are probably other reasons for your choosing the GPLv2 that you didn't mention).
Sorry, I was being unclear. I meant that I felt that patent retaliation clauses should be out of scope for a general-purpose software license.
My requirements for a software license center around Stallman's original Four Freedoms. Any software I write I want to have those four freedoms protected, both for what I distribute as well as derivative works, but have no other restrictions, either for developers or users.
The GPLv3, I feel, unnecessarily limits Freedom 0, as well as containing additional clauses that do more than protect the four freedoms. The BSD license doesn't preserve these freedoms for derivative works, so it's not my ideal license either. The patent clauses of GPLv2 simply say, "any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all", which adequately protects the four freedoms, but doesn't make any further restrictions. It's not what I would call an "anti-patent" provision in the same sense as the GPLv3.
Regarding DRM: it is impossible, in my opinion, for DRM to infringe upon the Four Freedoms in a software sense. Software-based DRM cannot prevent users from exercising any of their Four Freedoms, because since they have access to the source code, they can simply remove the DRM portions of the software. For DRM to work at all with open-source software, the DRM must be entirely hardware-based, and, in every case, that exact software will run on modified or alternate hardware. Thus, I believe anti-DRM provisions are out of scope for a software license, because it attempts to dictate what sort of hardware you are allowed to distribute with your software.
What it really comes down to for me is the four freedoms: anything the license does that is above and beyond those four freedoms is something I don't want. Any of the four freedoms it fails to protect is a deficiency. And that's why I've chosen the GPLv2 for my software.
As I understand it, the GPLv3 is actually much more compatible with other Open Source licenses than the GPLv2 was.
Are there any it's compatible with that the GPLv2 isn't, that v3 doesn't have a special exception for? That would be news to me.
I honestly don't know of anything I would consider a downside to the GPLv3. I think it's all around a better license than the GPLv2.
I think the biggest downside to the GPLv3 is for those who simply want to protect the four freedoms, and don't feel like a general-purpose software license is the right place for combating anything else that they disagree with (e.g. software patents, DRM, etc). I'm much more on the BSD-camp side of letting people do whatever the hell they want with the code that I write. All I ask in return is that derivative works don't become closed-source. I don't care what you do with the derivative works, as long as you give others the freedom to do whatever they want too.
The increased complexities, nuances, DRM and patent clauses of the GPLv3 are simply dead weight that I don't want attached to my source code. The GPLv2 does exactly what I want it to and no more. I fully respect the right of others to choose greater restrictions for the source code they right, but at the same time I regret their decision to do so.
I dislike the GPLv3, but I use GPLv2 for everything I write myself. I know there aren't many out there like me, but if there are enough, I think it might cause yet another regrettable split. Are the benefits of the GPLv3 over v2 (which seem very minimal if existant at all) worth the downsides? Only time will tell.
Try Opera on Linux. You get full resizing (of both text and images) with single buttons (plus and minus, no modifiers needed). With Linux you can put work into locking down everything else, so e.g. you can only have a single, full-screen version of Opera running.
Slashdot Mirror
Does ... not ... compute ...
Dlugar
While it's true that the effects of inflation are more apparently obvious when you look at the price of gold, it's ridiculous to say that it's "erasing people's wealth". Most people live relatively paycheck to paycheck, and income inflates just like everything else. If the dollar had remained tied to a fixed price of gold, it's easy to think that you'd be insanely rich--but in reality you'd just be making orders of magnitude less. Even people who actually save money typically don't keep it in dollars under their mattress. They invest it, and the interest rates they make take inflation into account. So that 5% money market account that is nominally in dollars would probably be making 1-2% if there were no inflation.
Today you have $100k. If you invest that money, or if you use it to buy a house, or do pretty much anything with it other than stick it in your mattress (or your checking account, which is basically equivalent), then next year, its value will still be about $100k adjusted for inflation. This nonsense about "erasing wealth" is complete rubbish.
I've heard lots of news reports of Zimbabweans bartering goods or using foreign currencies, but I've never heard any reports of them using gold. Do you happen to have a citation handy?
Dlugar
We typically write on the back of the bill everyone's first name followed by the amount they're paying, and hand that to the waiter with the stack of credit cards (and sometimes a wad of cash). We don't bother to split it up by tip/not tip--all the waitstaff cares about is that the total amount over what the total bill is is a tip. I'm not sure why you'd want to deal with the hassle of writing that down. Works pretty easily in my experience.
Dlugar
Ridiculous. Try another source:
http://overlawyered.com/2005/10/urban-legends-and-stella-liebeck-and-the-mcdonalds-coffee-case/
Actually, yes, I have the crappy /. AJAXy stuff turned off, so it properly POSTs my form and does a "page refresh".
Tell me again why this is A Bad Thing[tm]?
Dlugar
I didn't mod you troll, but I do think you're full of it.
No, they are not. DRM is when you give the key and the content to someone, and expect them to only be able to view that content under certain circumstances.
If I password-protect something, then I have two choices: (a) give you the password, (b) don't give you the password. If (a), you can't access the content at all. If (b), you can do anything with the content you want. Period. DRM is the foolish attempt to do both.
If a chmod a file, I have two choices: (a) give you read access, (b) don't give you read access. If (a), you can do anything with that content you want. You can read it, you can copy it, you can run it on another machine, whatever. If (b), you can't do anything with the content. You can't read it, you can't copy it, you can't run it on another machine. Again, DRM is the idea that you can have your cake and eat it too.
This is either trolling or completely misunderstanding the issue. I will be generous and assume the latter.
This falls perfectly in line with the other two categories above. I have two choices with my SSN: (a) I can tell you what it is, (b) I can keep it secret from you. If (a), you have full access to my SSN and can copy it, tell others about it, post it on the interwebs, etc. If (b), then you can't do anything with it, you can't copy it, you can't use it to screw over my credit rating, etc. DRM is the idea that you can, given enough technology, tell someone what your SSN is and, at the same time, prevent them from doing anything bad with it. I hope it is obvious to you why this is impossible.
You might think that DRM would be a good thing in some cases if it were technologically feasible, such as being able to give people your SSN and ensuring that they can't do anything bad with it. But DRM is not anything like passwords or chmod or "normal" access restrictions that do not give people access to the content and then expect to control it.
Dlugar
I completely agree with this--but the OP's goal wasn't to become someone who could code. If it was, then I'd echo the suggestion to try it himself. But his goal is to get a working piece of software--and the best way (IMO) for him to do that is to hire someone to write it for him.
If I want a model airplane built, then the best way for that to happen, if I'm not interested in becoming a model airplane builder, is to hire somebody who's experienced at building model airplanes. That might look silly from the perspective of someone who builds lots of model airplanes, since they know that after a few smaller, simpler models, I'll have the skills to build the model I'm interested in. But if I'm just after the final creation (for whatever reason), and I don't care about gaining those skills, I'll have an easier and faster (and probably cheaper) time hiring somebody who already has those skills.
While I agree with you that the OP's "great idea" may not be such a great idea after all, and may not even be implementable, he'll find that out just as well (if not better) by trying to hire someone else, than if he tries to do it on his own. If he tries it on his own, he may end up failing spectacularly, whereas someone with experience in that area would have succeeded easily. He has no way of knowing whether his failure was due to a lack of coding expertise, or whether it was due to some fundamental problem with the idea itself.
The first part is true, but I don't agree that you should start learning how to do it yourself. If this is a "learning" project, then you're going to come up with a crappy implementation.
I'd recommend hiring a developer to write it for you. How you go about doing this is based on how you can best find interested developers--rent-a-coder may be your best shot, or sites like Slashdot, or friends you know in the software industry. If you can find someone who's interested in the project, and likes open source, then you can probably get them to do it relatively cheaply if you make the results OSS.
That's really going to be your best bet. You may feel your idea isn't worth it when you discover the cost of development, but that's life--not all ideas are worth spending the time and money required into writing software around them.
"fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies
(US Code, Title 17, 1:107. Emphasis added.)
Dlugar
It seems like the iPhone is fully-featured enough to completely support a full, first-class JVM. Why are they porting a crappy pared-down Micro Edition version? That limits a lot of developers in what they're able to do. Maybe that's all they could get Apple to agree with?
Dlugar
Check out this algorithmically-drawn map:
http://www.rangevoting.org/SSHR/ks_final.png
It doesn't seem like that would be any worse than what you currently have today? See here for more details:
http://www.rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html
Dlugar
... in the parallel dimension? He saw beans, lots of beans, lots of beans, lots of beans, ...
Dlugar
Unfortunately they didn't answer the big question I have:
... what really do third-party developers gain from licensing their software GPLv3 over v2? Nothing but a bunch of headache, in my opinion.
Why do they think all the additional complexity of the GPLv3 is needed? After all, wasn't that one of the biggest complaints about the GPLv2, that it was too complex to understand? And now you have all this extra language and extra penalties and extra permissions that, in my estimation, don't give you a better license. It doesn't prevent Tivo-ization (and I don't think you really can without even worse side effects), it doesn't prevent Microsoft/Novell-type deals, it doesn't prevent software patent FUD against Free Software
Dlugar
Furthermore, that's not "the point of GPLv3". The GPLv3 has explicit exceptions in it for devices like TiVo.Perfectly simple. Grab the source for TiVo's site, compile on my own hardware that I purchased myself, and voila! Software development based on TiVo's Linux code is possible.Like I've said several times in this thread, I don't think it's the role of a software license to guarantee that my code will run on a given piece of hardware, or to guarantee that general-purpose hardware is cheap and plentiful. As long as I have the freedom to build my own hardware, and the source code to run derivative works of my code on that hardware, I'm happy.
Dlugar
Although we should recognize the depth to which culture affects thought, we should not overstress the role of language in molding thoughts. For instance, what we might call two "chairs" might be perceived by a speaker of French as objects belonging to two distinct types: "chaise" and "fauteuil" ("chair" and "armchair"). People whose native language is French are more aware of that difference than we are--but then people who grow up in a rural area are more aware of, say, the difference between a pickup and a truck, than a city dweller is. A city dweller may call them both "trucks." It is not the difference in the native language, but the difference in culture (or subculture), that gives rise to this perceptual difference.
"Blue" and "green" are the same way. The difference isn't in the language, it's in the culture. If it were important to our culture to more finely distinguish colors, or types of love, or bugs or medicinal plants, then we'd create or borrow words or phrases to describe them. (In many cases, we have, we just don't recognize it.)
So rather than lamenting languages going extinct, simply start using different words or phrases for the nuances or concepts that you think are missing in English. If enough people think those distinctions are important, then English will contain all the expressivity of any other language on the planet.
Dlugar
For us to get to the stage where "you don't have hardware on which to run it," we also have to get to the stage where software development is impossible at all. I find it difficult to believe that will ever happen, but if it does, I don't think the GPLv3 will be of much help at that point.
Finally, I think your statement would be more accurate as, "What good does it do you to have free software if you don't have cheap and plentiful hardware on which to run it?" I could always build uncrippled hardware myself or commission others to do so. It might be very expensive, but I don't feel that a software license should be trying to guarantee cheap and plentiful hardware. It should simply make sure that the source is available, and that I can run it on for any purpose on my own hardware, even if that hardware is expensive and custom-build.
Dlugar
It's kind of like the difference between the BSD license and the GPL license. The BSD is "more free" in some respects, but at costs to others further down the chain. Similarly, the GPL2 is "more free" than the GPL3, but again at costs to others further down the chain.
I personally only want to guarantee the "Four Freedoms" both to my code and all its derivatives, hence the GPL2 makes the most sense for my own licensing. As a developer, I am more concerned with source code availability than hardware issues. But others who feel that other freedoms are important (such as their software not being shipped with crippled hardware) should be free to license their works under the GPL3 or a similar license.
I do, I must admit, have some doubts about whether some of the clauses intended to draw a distinction between the GPL2 and GPL3 are even enforceable, but that's a different issue altogether. Whether the goals of the GPL3 are achievable is a different question from whether they're desirable; the latter, I think, depends on your aims.
Thanks again,
Dlugar
Tivoization is a modification to hardware that makes the hardware incapable of running certain code. But it doesn't really have anything to do with the software at all.
I could construct a piece of hardware that will only run an unmodified RHEL3 image, but never actually distribute that image myself. By building and selling that piece of hardware, have I somehow removed any freedoms of all the people running RHEL3? Not at all. They still have access to the source code, they can modify it and distribute their modifications, they can run the code for whatever purposes they want, etc. The only restriction is to the hardware, not the software. Furthermore, there may be very legitimate reasons why somebody might want to ship a piece of crippled hardware that can only run a single image. Even the FSF has recognized that in their DRM exceptions in the GPLv3.I can certainly accept that some people might want to attempt to protect their code from this sort of behavior. But I believe it's beyond the concepts outlined in Stallman's original "Four Freedoms", and is certainly a restriction that I don't feel necessary in my code. If somebody wants to distribute my code or derivatives of it, all I ask is that they give me the freedom to do whatever I want with it on my own hardware--not on theirs.
Dlugar
I could construct a piece of hardware that will only run an unmodified RHEL3 image, but never actually distribute that image myself. By building and selling that piece of hardware, have I somehow removed any freedoms of all the people running RHEL3? Not at all. They still have access to the source code, they can modify it and distribute their modifications, they can run the code for whatever purposes they want, etc. The only restriction is to the hardware, not the software. Furthermore, there may be very legitimate reasons why somebody might want to ship a piece of crippled hardware that can only run a single image. Even the FSF has recognized that in their DRM exceptions in the GPLv3.
I could agree that some people might interpret Tivoization as an infringement of the first freedom, but a statement so strong as "clearly infringes" I have to disagree with.
Dlugar
If someone were to take my code, and extend it with GPLv3-only code, then the derivative works would have more restrictions than Stallman's four freedoms, which is something I don't want to have happen. I would be unable to take their changes back, for example, and use them at a company who was worried about the patent retaliation clauses, or other restrictions that aren't present in v2.
Dlugar
My requirements for a software license center around Stallman's original Four Freedoms. Any software I write I want to have those four freedoms protected, both for what I distribute as well as derivative works, but have no other restrictions, either for developers or users.
The GPLv3, I feel, unnecessarily limits Freedom 0, as well as containing additional clauses that do more than protect the four freedoms. The BSD license doesn't preserve these freedoms for derivative works, so it's not my ideal license either. The patent clauses of GPLv2 simply say, "any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all", which adequately protects the four freedoms, but doesn't make any further restrictions. It's not what I would call an "anti-patent" provision in the same sense as the GPLv3.
Regarding DRM: it is impossible, in my opinion, for DRM to infringe upon the Four Freedoms in a software sense. Software-based DRM cannot prevent users from exercising any of their Four Freedoms, because since they have access to the source code, they can simply remove the DRM portions of the software. For DRM to work at all with open-source software, the DRM must be entirely hardware-based, and, in every case, that exact software will run on modified or alternate hardware. Thus, I believe anti-DRM provisions are out of scope for a software license, because it attempts to dictate what sort of hardware you are allowed to distribute with your software.
What it really comes down to for me is the four freedoms: anything the license does that is above and beyond those four freedoms is something I don't want. Any of the four freedoms it fails to protect is a deficiency. And that's why I've chosen the GPLv2 for my software.
Dlugar
The increased complexities, nuances, DRM and patent clauses of the GPLv3 are simply dead weight that I don't want attached to my source code. The GPLv2 does exactly what I want it to and no more. I fully respect the right of others to choose greater restrictions for the source code they right, but at the same time I regret their decision to do so.
Dlugar
I dislike the GPLv3, but I use GPLv2 for everything I write myself. I know there aren't many out there like me, but if there are enough, I think it might cause yet another regrettable split. Are the benefits of the GPLv3 over v2 (which seem very minimal if existant at all) worth the downsides? Only time will tell.
Dlugar
Try Opera on Linux. You get full resizing (of both text and images) with single buttons (plus and minus, no modifiers needed). With Linux you can put work into locking down everything else, so e.g. you can only have a single, full-screen version of Opera running.
Dlugar