Besides the fact that your exe contains GPL'd headers,
I'm not distributing the exe. I'm distributing code, which follows a published API (the interface to the readline library). Now, anyone who wants to use my code, and not the GPL'd readline, can go and do a cleanroom implementation of the API, download my source and do whatever she wants with it. No GPL'd components, no problem. And who is to say that someone, somewhere hasn't a proprietary API compatible non-GNU readline implementation?
your program is still a derivative of this library
By following the API, I can write a readline-compatible program, without ever touching readline sources, headers or binaries. I can't compile it, but I don't want to, I'm just going to distribute the source. I can't be infected by the GPL if I've had no contact with GPL'd materials.
(Don't get me wrong, I like the GPL, I just don't think they're legally very solid on this.)
But on the desktop... whew! The TCO of Linux is huge. There's support costs, training and re-training costs, application development costs... it's just a killer.
This research you're citing sounds very interesting. Can you give me a reference?
Basically, the compiler links your code to a GPLed library. Therefore, by the terms of the GPL, you are required to GPL your own app.
... except no one actually believes this to be enforceable, if I distribute my source code rather than binaries.
If I distribute code containing function calls that need to be resolved at link time, there is no way the license of my code can be governed by the license of libraries against which others may (or not) care to link it.
For example: Suppose code happens to work if you link it against the GPL'd "readline"; theres no way of knowing that I didn't intend it to be linked against, say a public domain replacement for readline, so the GPL cannot possibly govern my code. Theres no guarantee I've used readline, I may have never seen the code, or the license, let alone agreed to their conditions, so they can't possibly apply to me.
the information can also be sold to private companies for even more road improvement monies
Actually, thats unlikely. We have much stricter data privacy laws in the UK than the US, and the Data Protection Act would make selling this data, without an explicit opt-in, illegal.
this is quite different because whatever these "criminals" are doing, it almost certainly does not involve any bodily harm coming to anyone.
Yours is quite different, I agree. I would never (and did not) equate hacking with anything involving physical harm, let alone something as brutal and horrific as rape.
I regularly get emails saying "A person has been seen acting suspiciously on campus, and ran away when challenged. There has been a spate of robberies by extra vigilant," and nothing is made about it. It doesn't mean we're not to be vigilant the rest of the time, just a timely and worthwhile heads up.
What makes this different except the criminals involved are 'l33t and say stuff like "Mad propz".
Thats not how I interpreted it. I read him as saying "People would rather use Win than Lin, 'cos the latter gives you cryptic error messages." I was observing that this was true of both. Giving meaningful ones is a hard problem, and would require hardware drivers to become self-diagnosing expert systems. Not gonna happen, I'm afraid.
When the sh*t hits the fan and Joe User tries to understand why his drive won't respond, won't he feel weird getting those SCSI errors ?
Right... we should try to emulate those clear and concise Windows error messages like "General Protection Fault" or "Error Reading Drive". Better yet, go down Apple's road and just print a sad looking penguin, or a bomb, with a hexadecimal error number.
Clicking alternated with typing is even worse. Tab completion is one of my favorite interface inventions ever.
Amen, brother. I would also like to vote for
for i in *.jpg do something ${i} something quite complicated `basename ${i}.jpg`.processed.jpg done
as the most time efficient user interface ever developed. Not simple, or intuitive, but by crikey it doesn't half make your life easier.
I once watched my sister start to convert 1000 jpegs into pngs by loading them individually into photoshop and using "Save As..." (her employers couldn't afford any more specialist conversion software. I let her do about 50, just for comedy value...
Automating, dull repititive tasks. When I was growing up, thats what the told me machines were for...
Java supports Unicode, so it's really too complicated to display briefly
Is there any compelling reason for UniCode identifiers? Besides the fact that you can now have to different ids with the same external appearance, to obfuscate your code better. Ugh. What the hell do they think you gain?
One minute the W3C are complaining about people who don't stick to their standards, and the next they're stating that using the standards might cost you money. Its madness.
The web was built on open and unrestricted standards, yet the people in charge seem keen to bow to pressure from a few special interest groups (and does anyone believe the proposers of this licensing aren't massive corporations with deep pockets) and cut off the thing that made it grow in the first place. I despair, sometimes.
Good point. As I remember, he also said that traditional record sales wouldn't be as badly affected as some suggest because people liked the "fetish and fondlement" value of the original packaging, a point repeated by Janis Ian.
Also he wrote :
"I never ate shit on stage. The closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in North Carolina"
The next generation unseated its elders and is making its own culture
And is being spoonfed by Stan Lee, rather than George Lucas
balked at mega-hype
settling instead for only maxi-hype
Rediscovered... the love story
... discovered they preferred their mawkish, cliched love stories without laughably bad dialogue
some patriotism
Decided that the idea of a corrupt politician talking up his enemies (why not just call the Trade Federation "the axis of evil" and have done) and manipulating the senate to curtail civil liberties and increase defence expenditure was too close to home, compared with "Hooray! Super Heroes! We're #1! Ra! Ra! Ra!"
I should use an inferior product because of a philosophical position? How is this any different from the mindset of any organized religion?
Because you've reached that principle through reason, and searching your personal morality, rather than having it dictated to you by a bloke in a dress.
Slashdot Mirror
(Don't get me wrong, I like the GPL, I just don't think they're legally very solid on this.)
If I distribute code containing function calls that need to be resolved at link time, there is no way the license of my code can be governed by the license of libraries against which others may (or not) care to link it.
For example: Suppose code happens to work if you link it against the GPL'd "readline"; theres no way of knowing that I didn't intend it to be linked against, say a public domain replacement for readline, so the GPL cannot possibly govern my code. Theres no guarantee I've used readline, I may have never seen the code, or the license, let alone agreed to their conditions, so they can't possibly apply to me.
nd will probably make it into Debian stable by 2007...
I regularly get emails saying "A person has been seen acting suspiciously on campus, and ran away when challenged. There has been a spate of robberies by extra vigilant," and nothing is made about it. It doesn't mean we're not to be vigilant the rest of the time, just a timely and worthwhile heads up.
What makes this different except the criminals involved are 'l33t and say stuff like "Mad propz".
Thats not how I interpreted it. I read him as saying "People would rather use Win than Lin, 'cos the latter gives you cryptic error messages." I was observing that this was true of both. Giving meaningful ones is a hard problem, and would require hardware drivers to become self-diagnosing expert systems. Not gonna happen, I'm afraid.
Remains the fact that their beer is really, really, nasty...
for i in *.jpg
do something ${i}
something quite complicated `basename ${i}
done
as the most time efficient user interface ever developed. Not simple, or intuitive, but by crikey it doesn't half make your life easier.
I once watched my sister start to convert 1000 jpegs into pngs by loading them individually into photoshop and using "Save As..." (her employers couldn't afford any more specialist conversion software. I let her do about 50, just for comedy value...
Automating, dull repititive tasks. When I was growing up, thats what the told me machines were for...
More importantly: what no loop variables called i
[_A-Za-z][_A-Za-z1-9]* would be better, i feel...
One minute the W3C are complaining about people who don't stick to their standards, and the next they're stating that using the standards might cost you money. Its madness.
The web was built on open and unrestricted standards, yet the people in charge seem keen to bow to pressure from a few special interest groups (and does anyone believe the proposers of this licensing aren't massive corporations with deep pockets) and cut off the thing that made it grow in the first place. I despair, sometimes.
... you can just use any of the usual TeXfonts, which just work.
Also he wrote : I miss him.
and their competency with money, written by a minor popstar, appeared in The Guardian this weekend.
Remember, Trusted Computing means that large corporations get to trust your hardware because they don't trust you...
Its called the GNU/GNU Hurd, because its part of the GNU/System
I'm afraid, since Episode I came out, Kurtz spends all his time sitting in darkened movie theatres muttering "The horror, the horror"...
Yeah, way to go us...