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User: rhavyn

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  1. Re:Freedom! on lpf Removed From OpenBSD · · Score: 1

    I am getting pretty sick of people who won't put their email address next to their name criticizing how other people license their software.

    GNU advocates are meaningless in the context of this discussion. Why don't we talk about people who write software and release it under the GNU GPL? I release my software under the GNU GPL. I have some very good reasons for doing so. The biggest is that this is *my* code. It is something that I put my time into. I want it to be protected from someone taking and closing it and selling it. I'm not interested in your freedom to do what I consider bad.

    The BSD license if no better than public domain. Sure, you're name is on it (often you need a hex editor to see it, ala Windows FTP client ... but it's there). The GPL keeps my program open forever and protects the freedoms that I'm interested in protecting.

    How's that?

    And if you'd like to respond, but a name and an email address next to it or don't bother.

  2. Re:Inquiry? on First Legal Test of the GPL · · Score: 1

    This is completely legal. It sounds like although your software uses perl and gzip, it doesn't really depend on them (you can always use a different zip tool or scripting language ... your software does it's thing regardless).

    The problem here is that the program in question doesn't most of the things it's advertised as doing without the GPL'd code. I personally would consider that a derived work.

  3. Re:A true test of the GPL on First Legal Test of the GPL · · Score: 1

    Perhaps one aught to click on a story before responding. This isn't about linking to a library, this is about taking a GPL'd program, turning it into a library and linking to that. Furthermore, the license of the GPL explicitly states if a program requires the GPL'd code to produce it's intended results then it is a derived work. Without the GPL'd code in Vidomi, it would *not* have all the features it's advertised as having. I think that makes it pretty clear that according to the GPL it's a derived work.

    The rest of your arguments are complete crap and have been explained many times in the past. First off, how could you concievable argue that my program is a derivative of the kernel ? Maybe the compiler, linker and libc, but GCC says in it's license that programs compiled with it are *not* considered dirived works and glibc is under the LGPL not the GPL (the LGPL allows linking).

    This stuff is simple copyright law. Why can't people seem to understand that?

  4. Re:GPL, Distribution, Intent and Spirit on First Legal Test of the GPL · · Score: 1

    Linus has explicitly added a clause to the GPL to allow binary modules to link to the Kernel. Under the normal GPL it is not allowed.

  5. Re:Oh look! More /. GPL alarmism on First Legal Test of the GPL · · Score: 1

    Actually, it's rather cut and dry if you actually read the license. It explicitly says that the license considers any work with requires the GPL'd code to fulfull it's intended purpose is a derivative work and must fall under the GPL. If you go and read the features that they advertise as being part of their app, it's pretty clear that without those DLL's it won't fulfill it's intended *and advertised* purpose.

  6. Re:Huh? on First Legal Test of the GPL · · Score: 2

    The GPL explicitly states that if the program requires the GPL to do its intended purpose then the program is derived from the GPL code. Now, go over and look at the website and notice how many features that are advertised as being part of this program won't work without the GPL'd code. Then come back here and tell me that it would fulfill it's intended purpose without that DLL.

  7. Re:Huh? on First Legal Test of the GPL · · Score: 1

    This has been brought up dozens of times in this thread alone. GLibc is under the LGPL. The LGPL allows linking without requiring you to release your code. The GPL does not allow you to make a derivative program without releasing the source. What is a derivative program? Anything that depends on the GPL code to perform it's intended function and/or is packaged with the GPL code.

    In this case, the software would not have all the features they are advertising without the GPL'd code. So according to how the GPL is written, it's a derived work.

    Furthermore, the GPL is a copyright license for distribution. That means that the author can say pretty much whatever he wants. If the GPL is shown to be invalid, then it will be illegal under copyright law to further distribute *any* software under the GPL. Without a license you have no rights whatsoever to distribute the software.

  8. Re:Huh? on First Legal Test of the GPL · · Score: 1

    You're confusing software licenses and copyright licenses. A copyright license explicitly states how an author for something will allow someone to distribute it. IANAL, but I don't think there is anything you can't put in a distribution license. If someone doesn't like it, they can't distribute it. No one has any rights under the law to distribute something that is copyrighted without permission.

    This has nothing to do with using the software, it has to do with the fact that the GPL says that if you *distribute* a derived program (AKA, any program that is distributed with the GPL code and needs it to perform it's inteded function), you need to release the code to your program to. And it's tough to argue that Vidomi works the way it's advertised without the GPL code that they've stolen.

  9. Re:AOL is totally cool (some corrections) on AOL And The GPL · · Score: 2

    They do need to provide the source. They don't need to provide it in the machine. The GPL requires that the text of the GPL license be included with the distributed software and that either the source comes with the software distributed or is available by some other means by the distributor.

    So, AOL doesn't need to put the source or the license in the appliance. But they do need to put the license somewhere in the box and they need to provide the source code.

  10. Re:Sheep among wolves... on AOL And The GPL · · Score: 1

    Actually, TiVo fully complies with the GPL. You might want to check out www.tivo.com/linux for more information.

  11. Re:Maybe we need a standard GPL-violation Form Let on AOL And The GPL · · Score: 1

    Not to challenge your main point but ... since when has the divx codec been illegal? AFAIK, divx is just MPEG4 compression. If I was mistaken in that, please give me details so that I can do further research.

  12. Re:secure out of the box?? on YA Microsoft Linux Screed · · Score: 1

    If you haven't tried Redhat 7.1 you really should. I stopped using Redhat from 6.0 through 7.1 because of their terrible defaults (I switched to Debian). Redhat 7.1, however, actually does most things right. By default, no services that were installed were running. The installation had a pretty simple, but effective firewalling tool that could either block everything, nothing or everything under 1024 (you could also selectively allow certain services to run). Permissions weren't perfect, but definitely better than they were. I really suggest taking a look at Rehdat 7.1 before dismissing it.

  13. Re:And in what way is that different on YA Microsoft Linux Screed · · Score: 1

    By default, I have not seen a distro that will let you remotely login as root tho. So it is impossible to for example telnet to a machine with not root password and login that way. You need a normal user account and the sudo or su -l to get a root shell. This is not true when it comes to the default admin shares on w2k.

  14. Re:In user's mind: INSTALL != EXECUTE on YA Microsoft Linux Screed · · Score: 1

    Well, Redhat 7.1 is much better in this respect. I dont think it actually turned on any of the daemons that I installed by default and it offers a nice firewalling option during the install. Check it out.

  15. Re: Red Hat: Who Needs Netscape on Red Hat: Who Needs Netscape? · · Score: 1

    One aught to do research before posting. See
    http://www.spec.org/osg/web99/results/res2000q2/
    to see how well Windows 2000 Advanced Server smokes linux.

  16. Re:Again with this "ports are crap" argument? on Ports vs. WineX, What's Best For Linux Gamers? · · Score: 1

    Just a note, myth2 does not require 3d acceleration. You can use it if you have it, but it has a software renderer (think quake1/quake2).

  17. Re:Again with this "ports are crap" argument? on Ports vs. WineX, What's Best For Linux Gamers? · · Score: 1

    The 3D games on linux (Tribes 2, quake3) won't run on that card. They also, however, wouldn't run on that card under windows or any other OS. The new 3d games require monster video cards to run. Other games (Railroad Tycoon 2, Myth 2, Simcity 3000) should all run fine tho on any card.

  18. Re:Why do you want do this? on Is Linux Losing Its SPARC? · · Score: 1

    Most IDE hard drives you buy are meant to be cheap (i.e. the stuff in a CompUSA or BestBuy or whatnot). To make them cheap, the drives often contain some pretty sub standard components. Since SCSI drives tend to be expensive anways, they usually have much higher quality components in them.

  19. Re:Provide Binaries on On the Subject of Ximian and Eazel · · Score: 1

    Perhaps if you took the time to just type that url into your web browser you would see that it's just a shell script. You can see exactly what it's doing. Try it.

  20. Re:Feel of the linux desktop on Ximian Gnome 1.4 released · · Score: 2

    If you're using xdm or gdm or kdm, look in their config file and find the line that launches the display manager and add the renice stuff.

    If you're using startx, add the renice stuff to the startx command.

  21. Re:Feel of the linux desktop on Ximian Gnome 1.4 released · · Score: 4

    Another method of making X seem more responsive that doesn't involve playing with the scheduler (which is not something that Ximian or anyone else should be suggesting) is to run X with a -10 nice value. Renicing X to -10, however, should only be done on a desktop system, on a server it will starve the background stuff from CPU time.

    That's what I do on my desktop machine and it really does make X feel more responsive.

  22. Re:Too distracted? on Ximian gets new CEO · · Score: 1

    If you unistall evolution for the time it takes to install red carpet, you can reinstall evolution from it's red carpet channel and everything works fine.

  23. Re:The Free Software Community is going too far... on Skirting AOL Checksumming -- Legally? · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't call using IM stealing their servers. As many people have pointed out, how is me using GAIM to talk to a friend that has AOL any different from me "stealing server time" from them when I send this same person email?

  24. Re:It the law people on Apple Threatens Open Source Theme Project · · Score: 2

    But in this case, their trademark isn't being infringed. They are attacking this software because it "enables trademark infringment". Not because this project is distributing (or even using, I didn't see one Apple or Mac logo on thier site ... not that I looked that hard) but that someone, somewhere might use this software and distribute a trademarked logo.

    Furthermore, they are going after them for reverse engineering because they used OS hooks that aren't published.

    This isn't a trademark case, this is an instance of a company trying to maintain complete control of it's software. It's a lot more like the MPAA and DeCSS then it is making themes.org take down themes that really did have the Apple logo on them (that was an honest trademark case).

  25. Re:That shouldn't have happened (raw devices!) on Linux Anecdotes · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure if your comment was a troll or not, but ...

    First, if you actually read this, you'd see that we're talking about Linux circa 1991 - 1992. If you took a look a 386BSD then (I don't think FreeBSD even existed yet) you'd see that it wasn't much nicer then Linux was.

    Second, /dev/hda *is* a block device. It seems that what you are talking about is accessing a block device in raw mode (in raw mode the device is accessed without going through a filesystem). Getting access to a raw disk is useful for a database (filesystem's rarely cache data in a way that useful for a database which can slow things down considerably) but it's in no way necessary. You just end up with a slightly slower database, not that a slower database is a good thing.

    And why are you spouting off about fsync ? A journaling filesystem would be doing it's own syncronization as would a database accessing a raw disk device. fsync should eventually end up calling the filesystems sync function anyways.

    And finally, yea the securelevel stuff in FreeBSD is nice, but OpenBSD is still more secure. Does that make OpenBSD a better OS then FreeBSD?