Easy fix: Throw up a URL at the end of the credits which points to a tarball on the movie's website of all GPL software you see during the movie.
Re:Chappelle's Show
on
Linux in Movies?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The actual quote was more like: "If they bring in a Windows disk, say we only support Macintosh. If they bring in a Mac disk, tell them we only support Windows. If they bring in both, tell them we only supportLinux. If they've got that, tell them the computers are down."
Just because your favorite way of cutting and pasting isn't seamless by default doesn't mean X is broken. I have never had difficulty with highlight->middle click accross any toolkits, although some few legacy applications have not responded.
If at any time the employees decided to leave to start a new company, they would be able to take with them all the GPL'd IP that exists. The original company (let's say RedHat) would have no business advantage over the new company, and in fact be at a significant disadvantage if they were to lose their best engineers to the new company.
And this is a bad thing? I thought one of the major points of Free software was just this, that if a company becomes tyrannical the competent doers of said company can ditch their bad situation, regroup and keep going.
Sure, there will be some cases of employees who are not victims of tyrannical corporations defecting to their own companies. Usually these people will be disgruntled, and likely their companies will not do well. The sort of people who leave a good situation to start their own competing company are not the sort who are likely to start from scratch and build a more successful company, even if the products don't have to be started from scratch.
It's like ESR said about open source projects. If one goes bad, the source is still there to be forked and continued. But forking wont happen often, because the forkers don't have a chance of grabbing a big enough piece of the noosphere (or market, in the case of corporations).
The only "bad" I see in the sort of corporate environment you describe is that it is not traditional. I see "We've never done it that way before, so it must not work" syndrome. I don't see a problem.
The clear indication that all open source/free software advocates and zealots do not have the same idiology is that it is impossible to find substantial agreement in any slashdot thread concerning politics. We all may agree on free software, but that's about it.
This is a pro-Linux site, get used to it. Around here it's *normal* for people to assume Linux is superior. If you want objective news, go to CNN... er, I mean Fox... no, I meant MSNBC--oh, wait... dude, I guess you're screwed, huh?
Number one, shortcut navigation buttons do not exist. Typing ~/ only might take me to my home directory, it also might select the current directory (this seems to vary). A button would go a long way. An extra button for/tmp would not go amiss.
A related problem is that the "location" pulldown does not allow typing. I must type full paths rather than modifying existing ones. Yes I could use relative paths in the input box, but this is hardly intuitive for the majority and often not convenient.
While I'm at it, there's no guarantee of a way to create a new directory while browsing with a GTK dialog. I don't care how it's done, but this is a useful feature. Some GTK file dialogs have it... some just don't.
The text-labeled buttons you describe are ugly.
I cannot view file size or meta information inline. It's annoying to pop up a terminal for this purpose.
Most of the time the file dialog is not resizable, confining me to a tiny viewable area.
I cannot sort the viewable area by different things. I can only sometimes successfully use shell-style patterns to liit the file listing.
It might be nice if I could drag and drop files to move them into subdirecories.
These problems should all be solved at the toolkit level. Some GNOME developers have said that they are waiting for a toolkit solution.
A lot about the GTK dialogs makes sense, like tab completion (even though this technically breaks a function that is considered "normal" throughout the windows/macintosh (and now KDE) worlds). You just can't call it good. It's passably functional at best.
The point is not to solve this problem in the simplest way possible, but in the coolest way possible. It would be uber-spiffy to set up a P2P thing for this, and coolness outweighs the extra time involved.
Besides, once you had the network set up, I'm sure other uses for it would manifest themselves.
There's is nothing wrong with giving 'em one on the chin when it is the right thing to do. It sends a message,"We're not going to just swallow every boat load of crap you're shoveling."
Quite so. I'm in favor of giving them one on the chin, but not stabbing them in the back.
Part of standing on the higher ground is being in a position of integrity. Allowing organizations to bully you down undermines your position and in effect empowers them. Is that what you are ask us to do? How can open software be superior if our backbone weakens every time company XYZ launches a jihad?
And how can company ABC trust open source software if it has a history of going for the jugular?
Understand most of all what they're trying to do: Kill free software, or make it extremely costly to use. They aren't pulling the punches with us, why should we take the beating without getting our lick in?
They aren't pulling ay punches because they don't expect to live through this one. When it's all over they expect to be dead or absorbed, or something. They wont have to deal with the long term consequences of being real bastards.
I expect free software to survive this, and I expect the community to go on afterwards, existing in and interacting with the world. We have to take the longer view and consider the consequences.
A nation facing imminent destruction might nuke its enemies, because it does not expect to survive otherwise (or anyway). The enemy cannot nuke it back, because even though it would win that battle, it would have to face the rest of the world afterwards.
Reacting any other way is foolish, and just opens up the room for more of the same trouble from other avenues. If there are consequences to treating the open software community in this way it would make other people think twice about doing the same.. wouldn't it?
And it would make people think twice about entering in to any kind of agreement with the community. Would you sign a deal with Microsoft? I wouldn't.
I'm not saying we should all go to their office with torches either.
What an absolutely intriguing idea!
I'm simply saying that we should retaliate in the most civil of ways; drop support for them, and quit developing for them. They'll get the clue.
We are not developing for them, we are as always developing for ourselves. Free software can be all things to all people, I'd hate to see it be only all things to those people we approve of.
I disagree. I think by continuing to support SCO after its actions, the FSF could (validly) be looked upon as being hypocritical. In fact, I'd say that the FSF would be violatng its (albeit unwritten) social contract with its financial contributors by continuing to expend resources on support for the SCO platform. One of the primary purposes of the FSF's is to support the free software movement, and supporting SCO is currently contrary to that purpose.
The FSF is not a company, they do not have shareholders to satisfy. That being said, you are probably correct. The FSF takes the all-software-free-or-no-software-at-all stance, and it is perfectly correct for them to view this as a bitter war in which no holds are barred.
On the other hand the free software community, however closely held our ideals, must consider also our place in the larger technology and world communities. Currently, I believe, we have a certain kind of respect, although perhaps it's sometimes pitty for the insane. How ever much the FSF must defend their ideal (by every tactic availible) more so must we defend our society and our community. To attack SCO like this does defend the absolute ideal in the short term, but in the long term doing so undermines the moral underpinnings and philosophies, especially as seen from external parties, on which the free software movement is built.
And users of software generally don't care about the 'moral high ground'. They are keen on getting some standards into software and getting away from manufacturer lock in (both of which are moral), but most users of Linux would see a viewpoint that says "i will not support an aggressor against me" (which is what supporting software on SCO means) as acceptable.
I'm not talking about users, I'm talking about developers and companies who employ them. It's not that we have to take this lying down, it's that we should not play dirty. Don't buy SCO, encourage everyone not to buy SCO, decry their tactics and products. Doing these things is not petty or mean, it is fairs-fair. Cutting off the SCO platform at the knees is not fair, it is monopolistic; it's very Microsoftish. It's sends the message that if we don't like your business, we will starve you out and cut you off. This is very counter productive to the open source movement.
We can and will win by being better, not by force. As soon as we apply force a lot of support and potential support evaporates.
Free software is about community. SCO is attempting to destroy that community. Why should community authors help SCO sell their wares and fund the holy war against, essentially, themselves?
The reason OSS is being successful is our reputation. Not only do we have the moral high ground when it comes to software, but we are percieved to have the moral high ground.
Developers out there may rave aout how it will never work, and they can't make money at it, but they'll all admit it's a really nice idea if only it would work. That's good will we've got going for us. That's more valuable than any money.
If we, as a community, start fighting dirty, then we lose. On the surface it seems like a good idea, but a little while down the road the OSS community will no longer be seen as morally upright. We will be vindictive little bastards, and people (and companies) working with us will forever be wary, waiting for that knife in the back.
Confidence, that's the game we're playing. SCO undermines ours by this case of theirs, but we undermine our own even more so if we hit back like this.
The OSS definition states one cannot descriminate against people or organizations. How can you suggest it is right to exclude our enemy from the benefits of Free software? Sure, they will take and take from us, but eventually they will be overtaken as well and will become part of our community. If we exclude them, it is no longer Free for anyone, it becomes something only for a privileged few.
This fight isn't about SCO, or the people who may be harmed by not having the latest GCC. This fight is about our reputation in the future and the spirit of the movement.
This is it, it's the long-awaited test of the GPL in court. SCO isn't backing down, and IBM isn't forcibly backing them down. The GPL, before this case is over, will have been tested in court, and that is absolutely good... if we win. If the GPL is not upheld in court then this is very, very bad. Since none of us know for sure how it will go, this whole suit is very potentially-good.
But, c'mon, this is IBM here. If anyone can win a court battle, it's IBM.
One way or another we'll know whether the GPL is valid by, say, 2008.
I wonder this "accusation" of billg's could be from some MS monkey taking a look at some Linux code that we both inhereted from BSD, and saying "OMG! They stole our IP!"
The only problem with having a leisure class and a sort of aristocracy is that they inevitably oppress a large working class into something like slavery to maintain themselves in high luxury.
What happens when a machine replaces a mans job is that those men find new jobs. Today factories are run largely mechanically, and as a result we have more people for other lines of work. Suppose all farm and farm-related tasks could be done by machine, with only a handful of supervising humans. Suddenly all you need to feed a country is to pay for the upkeep of the machines and the salaries of the humans--a small price.
The value of the goods produced is at that point no longer important. Give them away, whayever.
What happens to displaced farm hands? They go on to find something better to do; they become artists, the lot of them. Sure, some may do other things, or sink into misery and death, but most will take up persuits that can be appreciated by the newly-emerging leisure class--a class of people whose position is supported on the backs of robots.
Let us not forget the origin of that term.
In the future we can all live like kings, compared to today, because we will have to do little and we will be given much. This is not a fantasy, it has happened already. How many of you work back-breaking labour from dawn till dusk, with little to no spare time? Damn few, I'd say. Even the american working poor live like kings from past times, mostly thanks to automation technology.
And a socially progressive government, but let's not go there. It's almost incidental.
This is the future,m or will be when we get there, one way or another (though perhaps not as dramatically as I might wish). This will be the future until someone establishes robot rights. What happens then will be hard to predict; something between the Matrix and Futurama, I expect.
Slashdot Mirror
Easy fix: Throw up a URL at the end of the credits which points to a tarball on the movie's website of all GPL software you see during the movie.
The actual quote was more like: "If they bring in a Windows disk, say we only support Macintosh. If they bring in a Mac disk, tell them we only support Windows. If they bring in both, tell them we only supportLinux. If they've got that, tell them the computers are down."
Just because your favorite way of cutting and pasting isn't seamless by default doesn't mean X is broken. I have never had difficulty with highlight->middle click accross any toolkits, although some few legacy applications have not responded.
Better yet, freenet. This is what freenet is for.
If at any time the employees decided to leave to start a new company, they would be able to take with them all the GPL'd IP that exists. The original company (let's say RedHat) would have no business advantage over the new company, and in fact be at a significant disadvantage if they were to lose their best engineers to the new company.
And this is a bad thing? I thought one of the major points of Free software was just this, that if a company becomes tyrannical the competent doers of said company can ditch their bad situation, regroup and keep going.
Sure, there will be some cases of employees who are not victims of tyrannical corporations defecting to their own companies. Usually these people will be disgruntled, and likely their companies will not do well. The sort of people who leave a good situation to start their own competing company are not the sort who are likely to start from scratch and build a more successful company, even if the products don't have to be started from scratch.
It's like ESR said about open source projects. If one goes bad, the source is still there to be forked and continued. But forking wont happen often, because the forkers don't have a chance of grabbing a big enough piece of the noosphere (or market, in the case of corporations).
The only "bad" I see in the sort of corporate environment you describe is that it is not traditional. I see "We've never done it that way before, so it must not work" syndrome. I don't see a problem.
And seem to recal that W was supposed to be a replacement for V. So Y is in a good long tradition, nice and seperate from the BCPL dynasty.
The clear indication that all open source/free software advocates and zealots do not have the same idiology is that it is impossible to find substantial agreement in any slashdot thread concerning politics. We all may agree on free software, but that's about it.
Yeah but Trinity would kick her ass.
To add to the confusion, here are the words rendered in my own personal mostly-useless semi-phonetic notation, which you can't find anywhere:
k'n|O|piks
g'n|O|piks
Technically Giga-noppix = 1000 * Kilo-noppix.
However, Gibi-noppix is 1024 x Kibi-noppix.
A common mistake.
This is a pro-Linux site, get used to it. Around here it's *normal* for people to assume Linux is superior. If you want objective news, go to CNN... er, I mean Fox... no, I meant MSNBC--oh, wait... dude, I guess you're screwed, huh?
You could submit it as a story to Slashdot.
Yep, that cookie cost me $50. Didn't even finish the damn thing.
Then it cost you $50 and half a cookie.
The GTK file dialog is bad for several reasons.
/tmp would not go amiss.
Number one, shortcut navigation buttons do not exist. Typing ~/ only might take me to my home directory, it also might select the current directory (this seems to vary). A button would go a long way. An extra button for
A related problem is that the "location" pulldown does not allow typing. I must type full paths rather than modifying existing ones. Yes I could use relative paths in the input box, but this is hardly intuitive for the majority and often not convenient.
While I'm at it, there's no guarantee of a way to create a new directory while browsing with a GTK dialog. I don't care how it's done, but this is a useful feature. Some GTK file dialogs have it... some just don't.
The text-labeled buttons you describe are ugly.
I cannot view file size or meta information inline. It's annoying to pop up a terminal for this purpose.
Most of the time the file dialog is not resizable, confining me to a tiny viewable area.
I cannot sort the viewable area by different things. I can only sometimes successfully use shell-style patterns to liit the file listing.
It might be nice if I could drag and drop files to move them into subdirecories.
These problems should all be solved at the toolkit level. Some GNOME developers have said that they are waiting for a toolkit solution.
A lot about the GTK dialogs makes sense, like tab completion (even though this technically breaks a function that is considered "normal" throughout the windows/macintosh (and now KDE) worlds). You just can't call it good. It's passably functional at best.
The point is not to solve this problem in the simplest way possible, but in the coolest way possible. It would be uber-spiffy to set up a P2P thing for this, and coolness outweighs the extra time involved.
Besides, once you had the network set up, I'm sure other uses for it would manifest themselves.
makes management bulk at it.
That's a nice trick...
That doesn't stop em asking, it just makes it more annoying.
There's is nothing wrong with giving 'em one on the chin when it is the right thing to do. It sends a message,"We're not going to just swallow every boat load of crap you're shoveling."
Quite so. I'm in favor of giving them one on the chin, but not stabbing them in the back.
Part of standing on the higher ground is being in a position of integrity. Allowing organizations to bully you down undermines your position and in effect empowers them. Is that what you are ask us to do? How can open software be superior if our backbone weakens every time company XYZ launches a jihad?
And how can company ABC trust open source software if it has a history of going for the jugular?
Understand most of all what they're trying to do: Kill free software, or make it extremely costly to use. They aren't pulling the punches with us, why should we take the beating without getting our lick in?
They aren't pulling ay punches because they don't expect to live through this one. When it's all over they expect to be dead or absorbed, or something. They wont have to deal with the long term consequences of being real bastards.
I expect free software to survive this, and I expect the community to go on afterwards, existing in and interacting with the world. We have to take the longer view and consider the consequences.
A nation facing imminent destruction might nuke its enemies, because it does not expect to survive otherwise (or anyway). The enemy cannot nuke it back, because even though it would win that battle, it would have to face the rest of the world afterwards.
Reacting any other way is foolish, and just opens up the room for more of the same trouble from other avenues. If there are consequences to treating the open software community in this way it would make other people think twice about doing the same.. wouldn't it?
And it would make people think twice about entering in to any kind of agreement with the community. Would you sign a deal with Microsoft? I wouldn't.
I'm not saying we should all go to their office with torches either.
What an absolutely intriguing idea!
I'm simply saying that we should retaliate in the most civil of ways; drop support for them, and quit developing for them. They'll get the clue.
We are not developing for them, we are as always developing for ourselves. Free software can be all things to all people, I'd hate to see it be only all things to those people we approve of.
I disagree. I think by continuing to support SCO after its actions, the FSF could (validly) be looked upon as being hypocritical. In fact, I'd say that the FSF would be violatng its (albeit unwritten) social contract with its financial contributors by continuing to expend resources on support for the SCO platform. One of the primary purposes of the FSF's is to support the free software movement, and supporting SCO is currently contrary to that purpose.
The FSF is not a company, they do not have shareholders to satisfy. That being said, you are probably correct. The FSF takes the all-software-free-or-no-software-at-all stance, and it is perfectly correct for them to view this as a bitter war in which no holds are barred.
On the other hand the free software community, however closely held our ideals, must consider also our place in the larger technology and world communities. Currently, I believe, we have a certain kind of respect, although perhaps it's sometimes pitty for the insane. How ever much the FSF must defend their ideal (by every tactic availible) more so must we defend our society and our community. To attack SCO like this does defend the absolute ideal in the short term, but in the long term doing so undermines the moral underpinnings and philosophies, especially as seen from external parties, on which the free software movement is built.
And users of software generally don't care about the 'moral high ground'. They are keen on getting some standards into software and getting away from manufacturer lock in (both of which are moral), but most users of Linux would see a viewpoint that says "i will not support an aggressor against me" (which is what supporting software on SCO means) as acceptable.
I'm not talking about users, I'm talking about developers and companies who employ them. It's not that we have to take this lying down, it's that we should not play dirty. Don't buy SCO, encourage everyone not to buy SCO, decry their tactics and products. Doing these things is not petty or mean, it is fairs-fair. Cutting off the SCO platform at the knees is not fair, it is monopolistic; it's very Microsoftish. It's sends the message that if we don't like your business, we will starve you out and cut you off. This is very counter productive to the open source movement.
We can and will win by being better, not by force. As soon as we apply force a lot of support and potential support evaporates.
Free software is about community. SCO is attempting to destroy that community. Why should community authors help SCO sell their wares and fund the holy war against, essentially, themselves?
The reason OSS is being successful is our reputation. Not only do we have the moral high ground when it comes to software, but we are percieved to have the moral high ground.
Developers out there may rave aout how it will never work, and they can't make money at it, but they'll all admit it's a really nice idea if only it would work. That's good will we've got going for us. That's more valuable than any money.
If we, as a community, start fighting dirty, then we lose. On the surface it seems like a good idea, but a little while down the road the OSS community will no longer be seen as morally upright. We will be vindictive little bastards, and people (and companies) working with us will forever be wary, waiting for that knife in the back.
Confidence, that's the game we're playing. SCO undermines ours by this case of theirs, but we undermine our own even more so if we hit back like this.
The OSS definition states one cannot descriminate against people or organizations. How can you suggest it is right to exclude our enemy from the benefits of Free software? Sure, they will take and take from us, but eventually they will be overtaken as well and will become part of our community. If we exclude them, it is no longer Free for anyone, it becomes something only for a privileged few.
This fight isn't about SCO, or the people who may be harmed by not having the latest GCC. This fight is about our reputation in the future and the spirit of the movement.
...but only if we win.
This is it, it's the long-awaited test of the GPL in court. SCO isn't backing down, and IBM isn't forcibly backing them down. The GPL, before this case is over, will have been tested in court, and that is absolutely good... if we win. If the GPL is not upheld in court then this is very, very bad. Since none of us know for sure how it will go, this whole suit is very potentially-good.
But, c'mon, this is IBM here. If anyone can win a court battle, it's IBM.
One way or another we'll know whether the GPL is valid by, say, 2008.
Who is ESR? ESR is Eric S Raymond. For all the juicy details, ask your friendly neighborhood Google.
I wonder this "accusation" of billg's could be from some MS monkey taking a look at some Linux code that we both inhereted from BSD, and saying "OMG! They stole our IP!"
The only problem with having a leisure class and a sort of aristocracy is that they inevitably oppress a large working class into something like slavery to maintain themselves in high luxury.
What happens when a machine replaces a mans job is that those men find new jobs. Today factories are run largely mechanically, and as a result we have more people for other lines of work. Suppose all farm and farm-related tasks could be done by machine, with only a handful of supervising humans. Suddenly all you need to feed a country is to pay for the upkeep of the machines and the salaries of the humans--a small price.
The value of the goods produced is at that point no longer important. Give them away, whayever.
What happens to displaced farm hands? They go on to find something better to do; they become artists, the lot of them. Sure, some may do other things, or sink into misery and death, but most will take up persuits that can be appreciated by the newly-emerging leisure class--a class of people whose position is supported on the backs of robots.
Let us not forget the origin of that term.
In the future we can all live like kings, compared to today, because we will have to do little and we will be given much. This is not a fantasy, it has happened already. How many of you work back-breaking labour from dawn till dusk, with little to no spare time? Damn few, I'd say. Even the american working poor live like kings from past times, mostly thanks to automation technology.
And a socially progressive government, but let's not go there. It's almost incidental.
This is the future,m or will be when we get there, one way or another (though perhaps not as dramatically as I might wish). This will be the future until someone establishes robot rights. What happens then will be hard to predict; something between the Matrix and Futurama, I expect.