As far as I can see, they only counted the author or maintainer for each package, not the many contributers. The later would require digging through ChangeLog and CREDITS files, and perhaps even mailing list archives.
Iff someone did that, I think we would see many more shared developers between projects. Being the official maintainer can be stressful, I can understand why most people will only do that for one project. Contributing to someone elses project is less demanding, you can work when you want to, and ignore the project when your interest is elsewhere. It would also be interesting to examine how many one-man projects there, how many that are essentially developed by teams, and how many which are based on many one-patch contributions. Looking for cliques could also be interesting, are there cliques formed around Gnome and KDE where the same developers contribute to the same projects?
It would be a lot more work than examining LSM files, and t would probably be necessary to limit the number of projects examined. But there might be a nice bachelor project in studing the contributer dynamics.
I suspect the "horrific" is simply a redundant word for effect, to whoever wrote that sound bite the thought of teenagers having sex is per definition horrific.
The QPL allows linking with any open source code. It is the GPL that doesn't allow linking with Qt, and therefore need a special exception. So, while I'd prefer it if Qt was using a GPL compatible license, it is not fair to claim they are at fault.
As for RMS being too radical, he _has_ acknowledged that Qt is free software, and _has_ said suggested that authers of GPL software include a special exception if someone wants to link it with Qt, even though he dislikes the QPL.
I don't think he has that kind of influence. Now if Nokia somehow could be converted to a strong open source advocate, that would possibly sway the government.
It seems to me that freedom would imply choices... "Requiring" something does not imply freedome.
Well, the government should be able to decide what kind of software it would use itself. It already does, by requiring it to conform to various standards. I hope you do not consider that anti-freedom.
It should not, of course, demand that the public only use software that conform to specific standards, or are distributed under an open source license.
These people are selected because they are believed to be competent and willing to work for the best of the net as a whole. They are not representing their country, if any of them feel that way, they should be thrown out immediately!
I have no problem believing a US senator would be stupid or amoral enough to make an issue of the nationality of the board members, but it saddens me to see/.'ers fall for it. What next? Should we ensure that different races, genders, religions, income groups, hair colors, and intelligence levels all have a fair and propertional "representation" on the board?
Sigh, as I write this, I realize that there will be people who will claim all these groups should be "represented". One particular clueless./'er even advocated that the board should be elected democrately. That, at least, will ensure that competence will no longer be overrepresented on the board. Sarcasm is hard in the modern world.
Trade secrets are moraly preferable, since, unlike patents, they don't limit the freedom for other people to use information they have found for themselves.
In this case they are also practically preferable, since the human genome project will make the information available to everybody.
Not really. The oppresion in 1984 was based on a mixture of fear and surveilance. This program will brand people for things they haven't done. It is much more scary.
> The software is meant to be used as a tool, not > a decision maker
True. However, imagine having to defend yourself in court if you went against the "tools" advice. ``So you were noticed that he was a potential risk, but did nothing?'' Ordinary CYA procedure -- which is part of any administration -- will mean you have to take action when the tool claims there is a risk.
Expectations means _a lot_ to most people, especially kids. If they are branded "the violent type" by a computer (and we all know computers don't lie) the teachers will expect them to be violent and look for signs of violent behaviour. At some point they will find those signs (everybody gets angry), and confirm their suspicions. And at some point the kids will stop trying to act contrary to everybodys expectations, and use violence.
It doesn't really matter if the program is any good or not, by using it the schools will _create_ violent kids.
There is nothing revolutionary about Java. It is basically C++ without the hard-to-implement parts, which outputs pseudo-code like the old P-code compilers from UCSD. Integration with Web wasn't new either, tcl, Perl and Pyhton all were there first. The only thing that makes Java special is the incredible amount of hype. And the only development in the Java community that makes it useful, is the generation of batch-optimized native code.
Gcc was the first commercial succesful compiler that combines multiple front-ends with multiple backends. Previous efforts were research projects.
CVS was the first useful merge based version control system with distributed workspaces that worked ov
Emacs was the first IDE with a lot of the features that only recently have found its way into commerciel IDE's, such as context sensitive help, quick indexes, language knowledge, file merging, version control, and the whole rcd cycle.
There are plenty of University research projects distributed under the GPL, look at the fsf home page for some of them. This is not surprising, as the university researchers for a large degree (and industry researches as well, but less so) are _part of_ the free software community, and the academic ideals are so similar to the free software ideals.
Compare this with the absolute zero level of inventions you have demonstrated in the Java/SCSL community. Typically, the people motivated by greed don't innovate, they merely package the innovations done by the people motivated by ideas.
"Batch optimized native machine code" is simply the most important thing that happened to Java, ever. And it happened in the GPL'ed version, which mean that your main point is nil and void.
The rest of your post is similarly lacking in facts or sense. The GPL is designed to keep innovations free, not proprietary. The GPL has attracted lots of non-GNU developers, while you have been unable to mention a single non-Sun contribution to SCSL.
That most new ideas come from researchers, mostly at universities, and mostly government founded, can hardly be a suprise. That is what they are paid to create.
Re:Hosted applications a challenge to GNU GPL term
on
Can Marc Do it Again?
·
· Score: 2
> I suppose it's too simple, but what would be > wrong with requiring each *user* of the > software to have rights to the source?
Copyright law. It only restricts copying, not use. A license that required each user to get the source would thus require a signed contract, as copyright law doesn't apply.
Bill Joy is a "leading technology guru" for Sun, yet he apparently is unfamiliar with the shift key? Ouch!
Actually, I have noticed that a lot of the old Unix-hacks tend not to use capital letters. I believe it is a cultural thing, rather than a question of bad writting skills. There are plenty flawed ideas in the article, no reason to attack him based on his writing style. Of course, you may want to flame him for inventing csh and vi;-)
Microsoft's patent is pretty good, considering they actually did something no-one had done before. They took the Bayesian network principle and applied it to user-interactive systems, mainly help systems. I worked for a company (Hugin Expert) between 1991 and 1993, who were specializing in using Bayesian networks for inteactive systems (expert systems). So it is definitely not a new idea. I don't remember us doing any help systems though, it was mostly medical or mechanical diagnostics. The original mathematical breakthrought which made it possible to use Bayesian networks for interactive systems was made in the 80'ies.
"Free for non-commercial use" is way old, but doesn't provide the kind of freedom open source gives you, since you are still dependend on a single company for commercial support.
Alladin Ghostscript is a lot more free than that, though. You are free to make money using Alladin Ghostscript, and even distribute it commercially under some circumstances. The _real_ win with the Alladin Ghostscript license is the time-out clause. After some time it reverts to a true open source license, which mean your dependency on Alladin isn't forever.
...but then he would be in bad taste, because he makes fun of (a specific category) of poor people.
Read it like a "grumpy-old-man"-style parody, this time with a "grumpy-poor-man" instead. Yes, obviously everything he wrote is wrong, the keyword being "obviously". But if someone actually believed what was written, that would be sufficient to explain why that person would stay poor. Which makes it a pretty good self-referential piece of satire.
> The next version of gcc, or any other software > which has had its copyrights transfered to the > FSF, could be released under fee-licensing > only.
That happens not to be the case, unless the FSF rewrote all contributed code. When you contribute code to the FSF, you get in return a signed contract, which basically states that the FSF must only use the code in free software. If the FSF releases a gcc under a fee-license only, they would be breaking hundreds of such contracts.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can see, they only counted the author or maintainer for each package, not the many contributers. The later would require digging through ChangeLog and CREDITS files, and perhaps even mailing list archives.
Iff someone did that, I think we would see many more shared developers between projects. Being the official maintainer can be stressful, I can understand why most people will only do that for one project. Contributing to someone elses project is less demanding, you can work when you want to, and ignore the project when your interest is elsewhere. It would also be interesting to examine how many one-man projects there, how many that are essentially developed by teams, and how many which are based on many one-patch contributions. Looking for cliques could also be interesting, are there cliques formed around Gnome and KDE where the same developers contribute to the same projects?
It would be a lot more work than examining LSM files, and t would probably be necessary to limit the number of projects examined. But there might be a nice bachelor project in studing the contributer dynamics.
I suspect the "horrific" is simply a redundant word for effect, to whoever wrote that sound bite the thought of teenagers having sex is per definition horrific.
It took me some time to figure out what they were doing. It is not really an office suite, but a set of applications running on a web site.
The QPL allows linking with any open source code. It is the GPL that doesn't allow linking with Qt, and therefore need a special exception. So, while I'd prefer it if Qt was using a GPL compatible license, it is not fair to claim they are at fault.
As for RMS being too radical, he _has_ acknowledged that Qt is free software, and _has_ said suggested that authers of GPL software include a special exception if someone wants to link it with Qt, even though he dislikes the QPL.
I don't think he has that kind of influence. Now if Nokia somehow could be converted to a strong open source advocate, that would possibly sway the government.
It should not, of course, demand that the public only use software that conform to specific standards, or are distributed under an open source license.
I have no problem believing a US senator would be stupid or amoral enough to make an issue of the nationality of the board members, but it saddens me to see /.'ers fall for it. What next? Should we ensure that different races, genders, religions, income groups, hair colors, and intelligence levels all have a fair and propertional "representation" on the board?
Sigh, as I write this, I realize that there will be people who will claim all these groups should be "represented". One particular clueless ./'er even advocated that the board should be elected democrately. That, at least, will ensure that competence will no longer be overrepresented on the board. Sarcasm is hard in the modern world.
> With trade secrets nobody can know about your
> process.
Wrong, with trade secrets, two groups can know about it.
1. Those willing to sign a NDA.
2. Those capable of reinventing it theselves.
The effect of patents is to exclude the second group.
Patents are a form for legal lobotomy. It denies people the right to utilize their own ideas.
Trade secrets are moraly preferable, since, unlike patents, they don't limit the freedom for other people to use information they have found for themselves.
In this case they are also practically preferable, since the human genome project will make the information available to everybody.
Not really. The oppresion in 1984 was based on a mixture of fear and surveilance. This program will brand people for things they haven't done. It is much more scary.
> The software is meant to be used as a tool, not
> a decision maker
True. However, imagine having to defend yourself in court if you went against the "tools" advice.
``So you were noticed that he was a potential risk, but did nothing?'' Ordinary CYA procedure -- which is part of any administration -- will mean you have to take action when the tool claims there is a risk.
Expectations means _a lot_ to most people, especially kids. If they are branded "the violent type" by a computer (and we all know computers don't lie) the teachers will expect them to be violent and look for signs of violent behaviour. At some point they will find those signs (everybody gets angry), and confirm their suspicions. And at some point the kids will stop trying to act contrary to everybodys expectations, and use violence.
It doesn't really matter if the program is any good or not, by using it the schools will _create_ violent kids.
There is nothing revolutionary about Java. It is basically C++ without the hard-to-implement parts, which outputs pseudo-code like the old P-code compilers from UCSD. Integration with Web wasn't new either, tcl, Perl and Pyhton all were there first. The only thing that makes Java special is the incredible amount of hype. And the only development in the Java community that makes it useful, is the generation of batch-optimized native code.
Gcc was the first commercial succesful compiler that combines multiple front-ends with multiple backends. Previous efforts were research projects.
CVS was the first useful merge based version control system with distributed workspaces that worked ov
Emacs was the first IDE with a lot of the features that only recently have found its way into commerciel IDE's, such as context sensitive help, quick indexes, language knowledge, file merging, version control, and the whole rcd cycle.
There are plenty of University research projects distributed under the GPL, look at the fsf home page for some of them. This is not surprising, as the university researchers for a large degree (and industry researches as well, but less so) are _part of_ the free software community, and the academic ideals are so similar to the free software ideals.
Compare this with the absolute zero level of inventions you have demonstrated in the Java/SCSL community. Typically, the people motivated by greed don't innovate, they merely package the innovations done by the people motivated by ideas.
"Batch optimized native machine code" is simply the most important thing that happened to Java, ever. And it happened in the GPL'ed version, which mean that your main point is nil and void.
The rest of your post is similarly lacking in facts or sense. The GPL is designed to keep innovations free, not proprietary. The GPL has attracted lots of non-GNU developers, while you have been unable to mention a single non-Sun contribution to SCSL.
That most new ideas come from researchers, mostly at universities, and mostly government founded, can hardly be a suprise. That is what they are paid to create.
> I suppose it's too simple, but what would be
> wrong with requiring each *user* of the
> software to have rights to the source?
Copyright law. It only restricts copying, not use. A license that required each user to get the source would thus require a signed contract, as copyright law doesn't apply.
cat makefile.
(Using makefile instead of Makefile is valid and used in a lot of old Unix code.)
Uh? How many other java compilers do you know, which compiles directly to batch-optimized native machine code for a zillion platforms?
And what kind of proprietary innovation are you talking about, that the SCSL compiler allows and the GPL compiler doesn't?
We are in particular interested in girls who believe what they read Weekly World News. That proves they are both smart and critical.
Microsoft's patent is pretty good, considering they actually did something no-one had done before. They took the Bayesian network principle and applied it to user-interactive systems, mainly help systems. I worked for a company (Hugin Expert) between 1991 and 1993, who were specializing in using Bayesian networks for inteactive systems (expert systems). So it is definitely not a new idea. I don't remember us doing any help systems though, it was mostly medical or mechanical diagnostics. The original mathematical breakthrought which made it possible to use Bayesian networks for interactive systems was made in the 80'ies.
"Free for non-commercial use" is way old, but doesn't provide the kind of freedom open source gives you, since you are still dependend on a single company for commercial support.
Alladin Ghostscript is a lot more free than that, though. You are free to make money using Alladin Ghostscript, and even distribute it commercially under some circumstances. The _real_ win with the Alladin Ghostscript license is the time-out clause. After some time it reverts to a true open source license, which mean your dependency on Alladin isn't forever.
It is more likely to be bug-compatible, since they use the original Win32 code.
...but then he would be in bad taste, because he makes fun of (a specific category) of poor people.
Read it like a "grumpy-old-man"-style parody, this time with a "grumpy-poor-man" instead. Yes, obviously everything he wrote is wrong, the keyword being "obviously". But if someone actually believed what was written, that would be sufficient to explain why that person would stay poor. Which makes it a pretty good self-referential piece of satire.
Yeah, they could sue. But they won't get any money that way, because we haven't got them.
Bhahahaha!
> The next version of gcc, or any other software
> which has had its copyrights transfered to the
> FSF, could be released under fee-licensing
> only.
That happens not to be the case, unless the FSF rewrote all contributed code. When you contribute code to the FSF, you get in return a signed contract, which basically states that the FSF must only use the code in free software. If the FSF releases a gcc under a fee-license only, they would be breaking hundreds of such contracts.