Once you take the hands of a pseudo God and try to experiment with life itself it will be one of the grave mistakes we will be doing.
Feh. Experimenting with life itself is the only way we'll ever advance as a species. I for one don't intend to pass on to my children my bad eyes, wisdom tooth problems, etc. Its nothing more than cruelty to wish your children to have your genetic problems. Evolution is good enough, don't misunderstand me, but intelligent design is so much more efficient.
The primitive superstitions of you and your kind cannot be permitted to force me and my kind away from the science which can liberate us from the limitations of our genes.
You don't want stem cell research, or genetic engineering? Fine, don't use it. Trust me, we won't try to force you to use our evil technology.
Eighty years ago your intellectual ancestors were claiming that flight was an offence to God, a few centuries earlier your kind claimed that Galileo's telescope was evil incarnate. Squat in a mud hut if it makes you feel better, the rest of us will be trying to improve things.
Imagine if they found out abt cloning 20 years ago, or say 30 years ago or watever your age might me, what if u were one of thoese embyro? With proper care you could have been you now but with would it you could have died at a very early stage or worse become a mutated being.
There's a non-argument. You can use "what if" to make anything look bad. "Oooh, what if your parents had used contraception, see, contraception is bad and should be outlawed to satisfy my superstitions, oooh."
More importantly, who appointed you God's spokesman? If He/She/It doesn't like stem cell research let He/She/It speak for themselves. I haven't heard God tell me that stem cell research is wrong, and I'm sure not going to take your luddite word for it.
How is that different from human cloning, which everyone agrees should be banned?
I don't agree that human cloning should be banned; nor, I suspect, does "everyone".
Human cloning is pointless but that doesn't make it bad. After all it just makes a baby, and we can do that more easily the old fashioned way:)
Stem cell research, OTOH, seems almost like a medical holy grail. The ability to clone just the organ you need, as opposed to an entire person, would be such a fantastic step forward it can't be overstated. Imagine being able to grow someone new kidneys to replace their damaged kidneys. Or lungs, or whatever. No chance of rejection since its yours. That is worthwhile. And its why we shouldn't ban cloning humans. While cloning humans may be pointless in and of itself, it will doubtless teach us useful things about cloning organs.
Asimov is the Grand Master, not Heinlein. (In my opinion.)
Really? I never could stand Asimov's fiction. He's just about the best *science* writer our species has ever produced, but his fiction bored me to tears. Matter of taste...
I went on to read several more of his books and short stories, and eventually I came to feel that he simply took the same central ideas, wrapped them in a thin veneer of different characters, and re-published them as a "new" book.
MAN, did I quickly grow tired of him!
(It did NOT help that I think his politics suck.)
His juvies were pretty good, overall. "Time For The Stars" was the first real (ie: more than 100 pages) book I ever read, not one of his best, but plenty good.
My problem was never really Heinlein's politics, I'm a lowercase "L" libertarian as much as I'm anything, and he never did seem to get into the "Government is evil, corporations are good" nonesense that made Ayn Rand so bad. My objection was that he seemed to grasp the basic problem facing our species, and then he chickened out.
In "Starship Troopers" he even states the problem clearly: Overpopulation. It is a major component of every problem we've got, and what was his solution? He suggusted that we should all breed like rabbits, have huge families, and when a planet got overpopulated the smart ones would move to an unpopulated planet to start over and leave the dumb ones to wallow in the misery of overpopulation. Probably the single stupidist vision of how things should work ever proposed.
And once again it must be pointed out that the original sense of Hacker included the breaking into of computer systems.
Yup, it did, and still does. One of the prime characteristics of a hacker is a low level of respect for the law. But what does that have to do with my point?
Launching a DDoS still has nothing to do with hacking, it takes no skill, it requires no understanding. Breaking into systems may indeed be illegal, and possibly even unethical (though it is a debatable point, depening on intent). It still takes skill though. Had someone compromised SCO's servers, possibly included snide comments with their files, that sort of thing, it would be appropriate to call that person a hacker.
I'm not one of the legion of "all hackers are good, perfect people", thats BS, but neither is hacker a synonym for computer criminal.
All of this is ignoring the possibility that SCO is simply lying through its collective teeth to get more publicity and paint Free Software as a bunch of nasty criminals.
Launching a DDoS does not require the slightest bit of hacking. Unless downloading and using a simple program counts as hacking. The proper term to use would have been "criminal", or perhaps "script-kiddie" (though I've always prefered "script-monkey" myself).
I expect the blatient misuse of hacker as a synonym for computer criminal in the mainstream press, but I woulda hoped that Slashdot would do better.
What I find more (or less) amusing is the fact that moderators still bothered to mod me down 3 days later.
Yuck. I hate getting modded down by people who disagree with me. If they disagree, why don't they post? Oh well, Slashdot wouldn't be Slashdot without irritating users (said an irritating user).
Which is odd, since you repeated at least 3 times that my objection to the GPL seemed to be based solely on the fact that no money is exchanged.
You said re: the BSD license. A bit from later on
Capitalism is clearly not an attempt to "stick it to the man" since there is a clear motive for profit. But the GPL does not have this rationale, so we must look for an ulterior motive.
Two seemingly different viewpoints here. I note that you don't look for ulteior motives in the BSD license... Actually, I believe I understand why you don't. You seem to be more than comfortable with the idea of exchanging money for code, and comfortable enough with the idea of getting code for free, its when exchanging code for something other than money comes up that you begin to object. Not entirely unreasonably either, after all, when you spend money you know exactly how much something is costing you.
However, I still think you are deliberately ignoring clearly stated motives regarding the GPL. There is no need to seek ulterior motives, the motive is quite plainly stated both by the FSF and by many hackers who build GPLed code. I'll give my take on this motive so we can debate it: Hackers are less interested in money than they are in code. Not that money is to be scorned, of course, but it isn't the most important thing to the hacker. We want code. So we can learn from it, improve it, and build on it. To this end we are perfectly willing to show our own code to anyone, in exchange for getting code back. That's the important part, if we just gave our code away (BSD) it wouldn't contribute to creating an environment where there is pleanty of code. Instead there is a system that guarantees ever increasing amounts of code for us to work with.
No need for shadowy, suspicious motives here.
I suppose... although note that this only applies to *changes* you make to the SCO source, and not to other libraries you link with.
Not really. You are speaking only of publically available libraries. Things such as the stdio.h distributed with MS Visual C++. To be sure, you can use their stdio.h without any license problems at all, though you do have to pay MS for the use of the library (price bundled with the cost of the compiler/IDE package). OTOH, considering that the GNU stdio.h is released under the LGPL the same can be said of it, except its free...
Other libraries are not so freely available. MS's AVI library, for example, is not available to the public except as part of a statically linked binary only program. If you wanted to license its source and be able to link it with your own programs we yet again see the viral nature of the propriatary code kicking in.
Again, the motive here is code and an environment of available code. You use GPLed library X, and we don't charge you a cent, but we expect to get code in return.
The big difference with the virility of the GPL is that it can infect completely unrelated libraries.
Sorry, but that sounds like unsupportable FUD to me. I use a GPLed library FOO in my program, this means that my program must be GPLed as well. If my program were unrelated I wouldn't be using library FOO, now would it? More importantly, I knew what I was getting into, no one is sneeking around forcing programmers to use GPLed libraries. If you don't want to, pay money for a different library. If you want to use a GPLed library, but don't want to GPL your code, well, that's theft. Just the same as if I used a propriatary library without paying money for it. Theft is theft.
You conveniently ignored the part where I said I wasn't opposed to a BSD license. In that case, money is not involved and the only motive is to build high quality software.
Not conveniently, I ignored it because I thought it was irrelivant. The BSD license always seemed like a bad idea to me. The BSD license is only different from simply releasing a work into the public domain except that you require people to give you a bit of credit. Not bad I suppose, but it doesn't do much to improve programming and computing as a whole.
The added viral clause in the license is clearly an attempt to stick it to the man.
Nonesense. Firstly if we define "viral" to mean "self propogating" than propriatary licenses are also "viral". After all, if I spend millions licensing the SCO (or MS, or Mac, or whoever) code than I am obligated to propigate its closed nature, and my own source is subject to the same license I received the original under. If its bad for the GPL to be "viral" it must also be bad for any other license to be "viral". I won't concede that a double standard is acceptable here.
The "if you mod GPLed code, you must GPL your mods" clause is simply the exchange of value for value that a person makes when changing (not using, but changing) a GPLed program. It is no more an attempt to stick it to the man than MS's fees for changing their code is an attempt to stick it to us. It exists for one purpose, to improve computing by increasing the code available to programmers to learn from and improve. Different value systems; they want money, the FSF wants code. I can't see how either could be considered wrong, and I'd really like to know why you think its wrong to want to exchange code for oode instead of money, you still haven't really answered that one.
The idea I was trying to convey to you is that game theory proves that there are systems in which unfettered competition leads to a bad result
No argument here at all. However you can't allow that attitude to prevent changing systems. This is still my main point and you haven't addressed it yet. Capitalism, and by extention the propriatary model for code, is a good system, no doubt. Other economic systems have existed in the past with varying degrees of success, tribalism survived for hundreds of thousands of years, fudalism survived for thousands of years. Communism tends to have a half life of about 35 years or so, and leaves devistation after it collapses, obviously a bad system. Hurray for capitalism, yes.
But. It is not the best possible economic system. I say this because I don't think there is a "best" economic system simply because improvement is always possible. If we defend capitalism against all comers, denying competition between systems, than we will be stagnating. Technological change is increasing geometrically, thus the lifespan of economic systems (which are inherently tied to technology) are shortening geometrically. While tribalism survived for hundreds of thousands of years, capitalism has lasted only about 300 or so. It is quite possible that a better system will be developed within the next 20 years or so.
The fact that Free Software has successfully competed in a hostile environment tends to indicate a successful system. Possibly even a superior system. Possibly not, maybe its just the honeymoon effect (Communism, for example, usually looks quite successful for the first 10 years or so, then the rot begins to show...)
My point here is that while limiting competition is valuable, we can't, as a species, afford to *eleminate* competition, or else stagnation sets in. You seem to be dedicated to the idea of eleminating competition to capitalism, please correct me if I've gotten the wrong impression here. This is why I said earlier that you seem to have an almost religious attachment to it.
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On a completely different note, and I the only one of us who finds it mildly funny that we've been persuing a semi-argument for nearly 3 days after the FPP first appeared?
Where the F*^&*(&^ do you draw the conclusion that pre-mac osX was related to UNIX? this IS a typo, right?
Nope. They were both rooted in UNIX traditions. Badly in the case of Windows. DOS was just a UNIX copy, poorly executed, but still UNIX based. MacOS has harder to trace UNIX roots, but they are there. The "Developer's Kit" for Mac produced, among other things, a CLI that was (you guessed it) based on UNIX.
They weren't direct copies, no, but they were definately derivitave. Just as all modern cars are derivitave of Ford's Model-T, so too are all modern OSes derivitave of UNIX. The resembelance is faint sometimes, but its there.
Flamebait? WTF? Someone comments that its idiocy on the part of the military to reduce accuracy of GPS-like systems and I point out that its cililian idiocy rather than military idiocy and I'm flamebait. Can I cite this modding the next time someone says Slashdot has a liberal bias?
Well, he's interesting to watch when he talks to the press, no doubt. OTOH, my friend stationed in Iraq says that Rumsfeld's name is mud with the troops. Bear in mind that he was the brilliant person who forbade any speculation about a less than enthuiastic Iraqi civilian population, and also through serious bungling managed to let the Navy run out of Cruise missiles. Not that they didn't have other munitions, but considering that Cruise missiles are one of the major components of our military strength it was just plain dumb on his part. Bad planning all the way around.
No, that's *what* copyright does. The reason *why* it exists is to give people an incentive to create things. The GPL, on the other hand, does not give people a financial incentive to create things. The only incentive it could really give them is the opportunity to "stick it to the man" (e.g. Microsoft).
Nonesense. Not all motives are the profit motive. RMS started the FSF, precicely because he *did* have incentive. His motive was control, and freedom. Again, you are simply wringing your hands and wailing because money isn't involved. Money, while quite nice, is not the be all and end all of everyone's interest.
Your attempt to paint Free Software as a childish by assuming that their only motive is to "stick it to the Man" is simply an attempt to slander the idea becuase you don't like its motives. Some people see producing quality software as an incentive in and of itself. You seem to be horribly upset because in open and free competition the Free Software model is proving to be superior to the Business Software model.
I say again, Mr. Game Theory, if your system is superior it will demonstrate this by crushing Free Software without the need for the government to get involved and crush it for them. OTOH, what seems to be happening is that the Free Software model is winning, and now you want the government to come in and rescue your side by nullifying the GPL. Not very capitalistic of you, really, it sounds more like something I'd expect to see in the Soviet Union.
Don't misunderstand me, game theory makes sense and works most of the time. But ultimately its just a model. The only way to see what system is better is to let them compete.
I mean really, we're talking meter accuracy vs a few meters accuracy. What possible strategic difference could this make? Yet because of the foolish paranoia of a few in uniform thousands of civilian applications are rendered useless while no strategic advantage is gained that I can see.
Gotta agree with you here. If you're using GPS as a guidence system for a missile with a military size payload, hitting within a meter's accuracy vs. hitting within ten meter's accuracy doesn't much matter. Its just stupidity on the part of whoever thinks he should be worried about this.
However, I don't really think its people in uniform who are worried about this. Most high ranking military types are prefectly capiable of seeing that accuracy in a GPS-like system isn't really a military concern. I'm fairly sure that its more the fault of the un-uniformed Chickenhawks, who have no military experience but seem to think that watching a few Rambo movies made more expert than the real experts. And yes, I'm specifically talking about Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush himself.
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Also, just because I know a zealot is going to point this out, I'm perfectly aware that Rumsfeld did serve in the military. He was a peacetime pilot and pilot instructor for the Navy. Not that this experience gives him any knowledge of strategy, or proper military planning. He's just an idot, not a Chickenhawk.
I'd say, rather, that UNIX doesn't really exist, not in a concrete sense. Its more of a Platonic ideal. Sure, technically, SCO's UNIXWare is officially UNIX, but in truth *all* operating systems are UNIX. Even Windows and MacOS (pre MacOS X, I mean), they are/were UNIX; bad UNIX, but UNIX none the less.
The GPL is a perverse attempt to disrupt this balance by using copyright law to subvert the exact purpose for which it was intended
I think that you are in error here. Copyright law exists to allow the creator of a work control of the copying of that work. Generally this involves sale of the copyright to a publisher in exchange for money, but this is not actually part of the law. Under the GPL the creator of the work controls the copying of his work, exactly as copyright law allows. Rather than exchanging money (which is not specified under the law) he chooses instead to exchange allowing copying of his work for the requirement that those who change his work follow the same rules. Seems perfectly within the definition of copyright to me. I think that you are simply obssessing over the fact that no money is exchanged. I'll say it again: copyright law does not mention money.
Capitalism is an economic system that is not perfect, but we use it because it works better than capitalism. It exploits a game theory model in which people who produce useful things are rewarded. However, some government regulation is required to prevent the formation of monopolies and also the ensure that excessive competition does not create an industry where everyone loses. Copyright law is an instance where government regulations ensure that the game theory basis of capitalism can be applied to industries with high development cost but low marginal production cost.
And here we come to the crux of our differences. I think that despite your, accurate, description of capitalism as a successful system you have a more personal dedication to it than that. Personally, I'm all in favor of capitalism; right up until something better comes along. I tend to think that several different economic systems must co-exist in order to keep society moving. The military, for example, is a completely non-capitalistic system, and would not work as a capitalism.
It is possible that capitalism is the optimum system for software. Its also possible that it isn't. Its also possible that capitalism is the optimal system for non-OS software, and that it is a failure for OS software. The only way to find out is to allow the systems to compete and see which one survives. Personally I'm betting on both systems surviving in different areas of the software game. I tend to see Free Software as the driving force for OS and other "background" aspects of computing (web browsing, etc), and the propriatary model for the "foreground" aspects (games, word processors, etc).
So, I suppose that in the sense that the GPL seems likely to eleminate business from OS and other background computing areas I guess it is "anti-business", not in the sense that it is opposed to business, but that it is superior, and demonstrating its superiority by competing successfully. My question is: what's wrong with that?
You seem to believe in capitalism not so much as a system, but on a more religious level, which I think is a mistake. Capitalism is great, for most things, but it isn't the ultimate answer to all things.
Movies are rated voluntarily. The movie theaters do a pretty good job at keeping kids out of inappropriate movies and the stores do a pretty good job at not selling inappropriate movies to kids based on this voluntary system.
So too are video games rated voluntarialy. And, again, I see very little evidence that game stores are selling GTA to 5 year olds. Like the teatres, they card, and/or require an adult to buy the game. The problem here is that most parents have at least passing familiarity with the MPAA's rating system, but most aren't familiar with the game rating system. This is not the fault of game stores, and does not require legislation to fix.
My understanding is the rating for video games are only to inform parents and other consumers about the suitability of the games for certain audiences. I do not believe they are specificaly meant to limit sales to certain persons.
You are correct. However the MPAA rating system is also present as a system to inform parents, not to prevent sale to certian persons. The sellers take initiative and do the prevention themselves and it works just fine.
Again, my main point here is that the system (without legislation) works for movies, and is working for video games as well. There is no need for this legislation, its just pandering to the irrational fears of parents.
I do agree with you about the silliness of a parent being more scared of a breast, or even a penis or vagina, than of the graphic depiction of the violent taking of a human life.
Yup, its one of the most bizarre aspects of our culture. Sex is bad, violence is fine... Is it any wonder that the US has the highest murder rate of any first world nation?
Theaters already don't allow children to attend R-rated movies by themselves, and game stores shouldn't sell children M-rated games without their parent or guardian (or someone who can fake it) being along with them.
Game stores don't sell M rated games to children. At least I haven't heard of any that do. All the chains have policies forbidding sale to minors, and (in my area at least) the independants have the same policy.
The point I was making is that the movie theatres are not legally obligated to prevent underage people from viewing R rated movies, they choose to but there isn't a law forcing them to. Nor, for that matter, is there a law forcing them to show R rated movies in a separate "adults only" section of the theatre.
The game stores should not be held to different standards than the theatres are.
My main objection here is that its applying different standards to movies and video games. Both have rating systems, generally the distributors of both make an effort to keep kids from getting stuff they aren't rated for yet. Yet we see no elected idiots pushing for laws forbidding movie theatres from showing children R rated movies.
Mr Yee is simply playing off his electorate's bizarre image of video game stores as vile dens where the employees push GTA on unsuspecting 5 year olds.
What I found most distrubing was this quote from the Bee:
"The games that I don't let this 13-year-old have are the games that have sexual content," said Michael Hill, who was shopping with his wife and son at Sacramento's Downtown Plaza. "Those are what worry me, not the violent ones."
I'm not really anti-violence, but personally I'd much rather the kids saw sexual imagery than ultra-violent imagery. Where did we get this weird idea that sex is so horrible that you shouldn't see a nipple until you're 18, but if you're over 13 its perfectly fine to see someone's head blown to bits?
OTOH, if I want to take someone else's GPLed work, change it up a bit, and distribute I'm obliged to license my changes under the GPL as well.
Yes, my point precisely. You have to give up control of your work.
Well, if I'm modifying someone else's work, its hardly *mine*, now is it? At that point its more *our's*. Which is my point here. Your post was an attempt to make people fear that the big bad GPL was going to take away their rights to their own work. But when I extend someone else's code it isn't really my own work. That's the point.
But no I couldn't make a profit simply by selling the stuff cheaper because I bear no resemblance to a charity. Buying software from the FSF is like buying a $100 subscription to PBS and getting a free t-shirt.
There may be a charity angle there, though I rather doubt it. Most people simply donate directly to the FSF through their donations page donate.fsf.org. Maybe some people would choose to buy from the FSF rather than you from charitable reasons, but thats a totally different issue from the GPL. Legally, according to the GPL, you are allowed to undercut the FSF's price on CD's.
I am opposed to free software because it is anti-business (and by that, I mean anti-software business). The GPL is a deliberate attempt to upset the natural balance between cutthroat competition and government regulation that allows capitalism to work in western society.
??? I'll admit that you've totally lost me here.
Could you explain your reasoning in detail please?
To fulfil these requests, that (unpaid) programmer now has to pay out a grand total of $1050.00 (not to mention his time), or face being in breach of the GPL. Yes the programmer can request a reasonable payment for the materials, but that opens up a whole new kettle of fish regarding receiving payment.
*COUGH* STRAWMAN *COUGH*
As you point out, the programmer is allowed to require recompense for postal distribution of the source. He's not limited to just postage and materials either, he can toss in a couple of bucks for his time as well. The GPL specifically mentions $10 as seeming to be a reasonable price for postal distribution of the source. I'll *gladly* take a few thousand requests for my source at $10 per request.
The part that denies you complete control over your own work by requiring distributed modifications and derivations also be licensed under the GPL.
Sigh. Reality time: if you license MS, or SCO, or Apple, or fill in the blank, code and modify it you don't have complete control of your own work either. Just try releasing the source for code that was originally MS's and see how many lawsuits you run into. If you modify ANYONE'S source you are under obligations to them, the GPL is hardly unique in this.
On the other hand, the GPL doesn't place any restrictions on USE of their programs. I can use gcc to compile a propriatary program all I want and the GPL doesn't enter into it at all. OTOH, if I want to take someone else's GPLed work, change it up a bit, and distribute I'm obliged to license my changes under the GPL as well. Don't like that? Don't use any GPLed source in your own work then.
Try reading the GPL before you attack it. Its actually fairly simple to read and understand since its written in English as opposed to Lawywer. It is vastly less restrictive than the license you'd have to agree to if you were making changes to any propriatary software.
Have they? Or are they only using the GPL because they are forced into it? No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use the GPL. But if you don't use the GPL, your competitors will, and you will be nickeled and dimed out of business. Of course if you do use the GPL, you will have sacrificed all your leverage and you will still be nickeled and dimed out of business. It's a Hobson's choice.
Not to be offenseive and confrontational, but that's total nonesense. If this were a discussion about the cost of using propriatary software you'd be doing the macho capitalist thing "Well, if you can't compete than you just deserve to be out of business, don't you?" You seem to be opposed to Free Software simply because they don't demand dollars for the code. How horrible of those evil FS people, they produce superior code, let other people use it for zero dollars, and then have the gall to demand recompense for their work. Its so awful for the poor (fill in the blank) companies, they have to share the source for what they've changed.
Cry me a river buddy. This is big people land, they knew what they were getting into when they started modifying GPLed software, if they don't abide by their side of the bargain they are thieves, pure and simple.
Let's say that I put up my own website where I sold exactly the same software that the FSF distributes for 10% less. Could I put the FSF out of business? Or can the FSF only charge money for its distributions because geeks view them as a sort of charity.
Yup, on both counts. The FSF doesn't really sell software in the same sense that, say, Sierra, does. Mostly they "sell" it to people who don't have the time/bandwidth to download it. That was why RMS first sold the gcc, not to make money (though he did make a bit), but to get it out to people who couldn't get it for free via FTP.
The GPL does explicitly allow you to sell GPLed software at whatever price you can wrangle. You can't stop people from giving away the same GPLed code you sell though.
The Linux distributors can sell, and prevent you from sharing, their installation software because it isn't GPLed, its propriatary. Which is really kinda weird when you think about it. Propriatary, secret, closed source, software to install and set up a free software system. It makes sense in a twisty sort of way: there isn't a GPL installer for Linux because that problem is viewed as being not interesting by most Free Software hackers, so propriatary software fills the gap.
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The primitive superstitions of you and your kind cannot be permitted to force me and my kind away from the science which can liberate us from the limitations of our genes.
You don't want stem cell research, or genetic engineering? Fine, don't use it. Trust me, we won't try to force you to use our evil technology.
There's a non-argument. You can use "what if" to make anything look bad. "Oooh, what if your parents had used contraception, see, contraception is bad and should be outlawed to satisfy my superstitions, oooh."Eighty years ago your intellectual ancestors were claiming that flight was an offence to God, a few centuries earlier your kind claimed that Galileo's telescope was evil incarnate. Squat in a mud hut if it makes you feel better, the rest of us will be trying to improve things.
More importantly, who appointed you God's spokesman? If He/She/It doesn't like stem cell research let He/She/It speak for themselves. I haven't heard God tell me that stem cell research is wrong, and I'm sure not going to take your luddite word for it.
Human cloning is pointless but that doesn't make it bad. After all it just makes a baby, and we can do that more easily the old fashioned way :)
Stem cell research, OTOH, seems almost like a medical holy grail. The ability to clone just the organ you need, as opposed to an entire person, would be such a fantastic step forward it can't be overstated. Imagine being able to grow someone new kidneys to replace their damaged kidneys. Or lungs, or whatever. No chance of rejection since its yours. That is worthwhile. And its why we shouldn't ban cloning humans. While cloning humans may be pointless in and of itself, it will doubtless teach us useful things about cloning organs.
His juvies were pretty good, overall. "Time For The Stars" was the first real (ie: more than 100 pages) book I ever read, not one of his best, but plenty good.
My problem was never really Heinlein's politics, I'm a lowercase "L" libertarian as much as I'm anything, and he never did seem to get into the "Government is evil, corporations are good" nonesense that made Ayn Rand so bad. My objection was that he seemed to grasp the basic problem facing our species, and then he chickened out.
In "Starship Troopers" he even states the problem clearly: Overpopulation. It is a major component of every problem we've got, and what was his solution? He suggusted that we should all breed like rabbits, have huge families, and when a planet got overpopulated the smart ones would move to an unpopulated planet to start over and leave the dumb ones to wallow in the misery of overpopulation. Probably the single stupidist vision of how things should work ever proposed.
Launching a DDoS still has nothing to do with hacking, it takes no skill, it requires no understanding. Breaking into systems may indeed be illegal, and possibly even unethical (though it is a debatable point, depening on intent). It still takes skill though. Had someone compromised SCO's servers, possibly included snide comments with their files, that sort of thing, it would be appropriate to call that person a hacker.
I'm not one of the legion of "all hackers are good, perfect people", thats BS, but neither is hacker a synonym for computer criminal.
All of this is ignoring the possibility that SCO is simply lying through its collective teeth to get more publicity and paint Free Software as a bunch of nasty criminals.
I expect the blatient misuse of hacker as a synonym for computer criminal in the mainstream press, but I woulda hoped that Slashdot would do better.
Yuck. I hate getting modded down by people who disagree with me. If they disagree, why don't they post? Oh well, Slashdot wouldn't be Slashdot without irritating users (said an irritating user).
Two seemingly different viewpoints here. I note that you don't look for ulteior motives in the BSD license... Actually, I believe I understand why you don't. You seem to be more than comfortable with the idea of exchanging money for code, and comfortable enough with the idea of getting code for free, its when exchanging code for something other than money comes up that you begin to object. Not entirely unreasonably either, after all, when you spend money you know exactly how much something is costing you.
However, I still think you are deliberately ignoring clearly stated motives regarding the GPL. There is no need to seek ulterior motives, the motive is quite plainly stated both by the FSF and by many hackers who build GPLed code. I'll give my take on this motive so we can debate it:
Hackers are less interested in money than they are in code. Not that money is to be scorned, of course, but it isn't the most important thing to the hacker. We want code. So we can learn from it, improve it, and build on it. To this end we are perfectly willing to show our own code to anyone, in exchange for getting code back. That's the important part, if we just gave our code away (BSD) it wouldn't contribute to creating an environment where there is pleanty of code. Instead there is a system that guarantees ever increasing amounts of code for us to work with.
No need for shadowy, suspicious motives here.
Not really. You are speaking only of publically available libraries. Things such as the stdio.h distributed with MS Visual C++. To be sure, you can use their stdio.h without any license problems at all, though you do have to pay MS for the use of the library (price bundled with the cost of the compiler/IDE package). OTOH, considering that the GNU stdio.h is released under the LGPL the same can be said of it, except its free...
Other libraries are not so freely available. MS's AVI library, for example, is not available to the public except as part of a statically linked binary only program. If you wanted to license its source and be able to link it with your own programs we yet again see the viral nature of the propriatary code kicking in.
Again, the motive here is code and an environment of available code. You use GPLed library X, and we don't charge you a cent, but we expect to get code in return.
Sorry, but that sounds like unsupportable FUD to me. I use a GPLed library FOO in my program, this means that my program must be GPLed as well. If my program were unrelated I wouldn't be using library FOO, now would it? More importantly, I knew what I was getting into, no one is sneeking around forcing programmers to use GPLed libraries. If you don't want to, pay money for a different library. If you want to use a GPLed library, but don't want to GPL your code, well, that's theft. Just the same as if I used a propriatary library without paying money for it. Theft is theft.
The "if you mod GPLed code, you must GPL your mods" clause is simply the exchange of value for value that a person makes when changing (not using, but changing) a GPLed program. It is no more an attempt to stick it to the man than MS's fees for changing their code is an attempt to stick it to us. It exists for one purpose, to improve computing by increasing the code available to programmers to learn from and improve. Different value systems; they want money, the FSF wants code. I can't see how either could be considered wrong, and I'd really like to know why you think its wrong to want to exchange code for oode instead of money, you still haven't really answered that one.
No argument here at all. However you can't allow that attitude to prevent changing systems. This is still my main point and you haven't addressed it yet. Capitalism, and by extention the propriatary model for code, is a good system, no doubt. Other economic systems have existed in the past with varying degrees of success, tribalism survived for hundreds of thousands of years, fudalism survived for thousands of years. Communism tends to have a half life of about 35 years or so, and leaves devistation after it collapses, obviously a bad system. Hurray for capitalism, yes.But. It is not the best possible economic system. I say this because I don't think there is a "best" economic system simply because improvement is always possible. If we defend capitalism against all comers, denying competition between systems, than we will be stagnating. Technological change is increasing geometrically, thus the lifespan of economic systems (which are inherently tied to technology) are shortening geometrically. While tribalism survived for hundreds of thousands of years, capitalism has lasted only about 300 or so. It is quite possible that a better system will be developed within the next 20 years or so.
The fact that Free Software has successfully competed in a hostile environment tends to indicate a successful system. Possibly even a superior system. Possibly not, maybe its just the honeymoon effect (Communism, for example, usually looks quite successful for the first 10 years or so, then the rot begins to show...)
My point here is that while limiting competition is valuable, we can't, as a species, afford to *eleminate* competition, or else stagnation sets in. You seem to be dedicated to the idea of eleminating competition to capitalism, please correct me if I've gotten the wrong impression here. This is why I said earlier that you seem to have an almost religious attachment to it.
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On a completely different note, and I the only one of us who finds it mildly funny that we've been persuing a semi-argument for nearly 3 days after the FPP first appeared?
They weren't direct copies, no, but they were definately derivitave. Just as all modern cars are derivitave of Ford's Model-T, so too are all modern OSes derivitave of UNIX. The resembelance is faint sometimes, but its there.
Sheesh....
Your attempt to paint Free Software as a childish by assuming that their only motive is to "stick it to the Man" is simply an attempt to slander the idea becuase you don't like its motives. Some people see producing quality software as an incentive in and of itself. You seem to be horribly upset because in open and free competition the Free Software model is proving to be superior to the Business Software model.
I say again, Mr. Game Theory, if your system is superior it will demonstrate this by crushing Free Software without the need for the government to get involved and crush it for them. OTOH, what seems to be happening is that the Free Software model is winning, and now you want the government to come in and rescue your side by nullifying the GPL. Not very capitalistic of you, really, it sounds more like something I'd expect to see in the Soviet Union.
Don't misunderstand me, game theory makes sense and works most of the time. But ultimately its just a model. The only way to see what system is better is to let them compete.
However, I don't really think its people in uniform who are worried about this. Most high ranking military types are prefectly capiable of seeing that accuracy in a GPS-like system isn't really a military concern. I'm fairly sure that its more the fault of the un-uniformed Chickenhawks, who have no military experience but seem to think that watching a few Rambo movies made more expert than the real experts. And yes, I'm specifically talking about Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush himself.
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Also, just because I know a zealot is going to point this out, I'm perfectly aware that Rumsfeld did serve in the military. He was a peacetime pilot and pilot instructor for the Navy. Not that this experience gives him any knowledge of strategy, or proper military planning. He's just an idot, not a Chickenhawk.
I'd say, rather, that UNIX doesn't really exist, not in a concrete sense. Its more of a Platonic ideal. Sure, technically, SCO's UNIXWare is officially UNIX, but in truth *all* operating systems are UNIX. Even Windows and MacOS (pre MacOS X, I mean), they are/were UNIX; bad UNIX, but UNIX none the less.
It is possible that capitalism is the optimum system for software. Its also possible that it isn't. Its also possible that capitalism is the optimal system for non-OS software, and that it is a failure for OS software. The only way to find out is to allow the systems to compete and see which one survives. Personally I'm betting on both systems surviving in different areas of the software game. I tend to see Free Software as the driving force for OS and other "background" aspects of computing (web browsing, etc), and the propriatary model for the "foreground" aspects (games, word processors, etc).
So, I suppose that in the sense that the GPL seems likely to eleminate business from OS and other background computing areas I guess it is "anti-business", not in the sense that it is opposed to business, but that it is superior, and demonstrating its superiority by competing successfully. My question is: what's wrong with that?
You seem to believe in capitalism not so much as a system, but on a more religious level, which I think is a mistake. Capitalism is great, for most things, but it isn't the ultimate answer to all things.
Again, my main point here is that the system (without legislation) works for movies, and is working for video games as well. There is no need for this legislation, its just pandering to the irrational fears of parents.
Yup, its one of the most bizarre aspects of our culture. Sex is bad, violence is fine... Is it any wonder that the US has the highest murder rate of any first world nation?The point I was making is that the movie theatres are not legally obligated to prevent underage people from viewing R rated movies, they choose to but there isn't a law forcing them to. Nor, for that matter, is there a law forcing them to show R rated movies in a separate "adults only" section of the theatre.
The game stores should not be held to different standards than the theatres are.
Mr Yee is simply playing off his electorate's bizarre image of video game stores as vile dens where the employees push GTA on unsuspecting 5 year olds.
What I found most distrubing was this quote from the Bee:
I'm not really anti-violence, but personally I'd much rather the kids saw sexual imagery than ultra-violent imagery. Where did we get this weird idea that sex is so horrible that you shouldn't see a nipple until you're 18, but if you're over 13 its perfectly fine to see someone's head blown to bits???? I'll admit that you've totally lost me here.
Could you explain your reasoning in detail please?
*COUGH* STRAWMAN *COUGH*
As you point out, the programmer is allowed to require recompense for postal distribution of the source. He's not limited to just postage and materials either, he can toss in a couple of bucks for his time as well. The GPL specifically mentions $10 as seeming to be a reasonable price for postal distribution of the source. I'll *gladly* take a few thousand requests for my source at $10 per request.
On the other hand, the GPL doesn't place any restrictions on USE of their programs. I can use gcc to compile a propriatary program all I want and the GPL doesn't enter into it at all. OTOH, if I want to take someone else's GPLed work, change it up a bit, and distribute I'm obliged to license my changes under the GPL as well. Don't like that? Don't use any GPLed source in your own work then.
Try reading the GPL before you attack it. Its actually fairly simple to read and understand since its written in English as opposed to Lawywer. It is vastly less restrictive than the license you'd have to agree to if you were making changes to any propriatary software.
Not to be offenseive and confrontational, but that's total nonesense. If this were a discussion about the cost of using propriatary software you'd be doing the macho capitalist thing "Well, if you can't compete than you just deserve to be out of business, don't you?" You seem to be opposed to Free Software simply because they don't demand dollars for the code. How horrible of those evil FS people, they produce superior code, let other people use it for zero dollars, and then have the gall to demand recompense for their work. Its so awful for the poor (fill in the blank) companies, they have to share the source for what they've changed.
Cry me a river buddy. This is big people land, they knew what they were getting into when they started modifying GPLed software, if they don't abide by their side of the bargain they are thieves, pure and simple.
The GPL does explicitly allow you to sell GPLed software at whatever price you can wrangle. You can't stop people from giving away the same GPLed code you sell though.
The Linux distributors can sell, and prevent you from sharing, their installation software because it isn't GPLed, its propriatary. Which is really kinda weird when you think about it. Propriatary, secret, closed source, software to install and set up a free software system. It makes sense in a twisty sort of way: there isn't a GPL installer for Linux because that problem is viewed as being not interesting by most Free Software hackers, so propriatary software fills the gap.
Ahem. I believe that the original poster was using a literary device known as "sarcasm". And that what you just said was his point, actually.