The GPL does not require binaries to be made available at no cost. This oft-forgotten aspect of the license bears a great deal of repeating; so read it again.
Any company that wants to work with free software has the option of only making compiled binaries available to paying customers. The GPL only requires that the source accompany the binaries. It does not even require that the source be freely available on an ftp server.
Microsoft (or any company) could easily release code under the GPL, and only release binaries and source on CD. No code on microsoft.com. Or, code on microsoft.com only by subscription. This does not violate the GPL.
Yes, Joe Q. Hacker will put the source up on Warez.com, but Microsoft is under no obligation to support it.
Many consumers will gladly get legal source and binaries from downstream sources. But these are the same consumers who are currently getting illegal warez copies. They are lost revenue anyway.
Some consumers will not trust these downstream binaries, and they will gladly pay for certified binaries. These are the same customers who pay for Windows now.
But here is the important point: The enterprise will not touch downstream binaries. They will only get their binaries from the source. There are too many liabilities involved in possibly tainted code. Since the enterprise is the source of the greatest revenue, this protects an important revenue stream.
Support issues are a little messy, but they tend to boil down to: Microsoft does not support altered code. Basically no different from today, where Microsoft does not support OEM versions of Microsoft products.
Are there already companies doing business with free software following this model?
If you work with a small company, and it is management that is laying this down,you're probably SOL. If you work in a large company, then your immediate managers may be loathe to mess with the system. In fact, your immediate managers may realize how impossible it would be for developers to develop anything in that kind of an environment.
My company is very large. Our policy is technically like yours, but the enforcement is occasional. IS warns us that they'll be sending around a script that will be checking for BSA infractions. I make sure my system is clean. Since we're not officially allowed to have "unauthorized software" on our boxen, I make sure there isn't anything suspicious on there, even Mozilla. After the script runs, back the old software goes.
If your company is large enough, you may be able to get away with that.
It's not that I don't agree with you. I do. But, for the love of all that is good and holy, don't base your philosophical opinions on Enemy of the State.
I don't think he's basing his philosophy on the film. It is a recognized fact that works of art and literature illustrate underlying philosophical and worldview propositions. Often, they can illustrate them in a way that is more convincing than a well-constructed syllogism, for some sufficiently visceral connotation of "convincing."
Jump throughs do//not// beat pop-ups. I can turn off pop-ups in Mozilla using a user-pref. I can turn it off in less intelligent browsers by disabling JavaScript.
Jump-throughs are trying to force people to look at the ad, but they will only end up getting ignored just like every other form of advertisement on the net. Likely, by Salon getting ignored.
Just try to do your best.
One of the part of bug triaging is to be sure that the component is the correct one.
IOW, use the bugzilla helper (the/big/ "Report a bug" link on bugzilla's front page), fill out the form with as much information as you can provide, and make your best guess as to component. If you're wrong, someone will come along behind you and change the component to the correct one.
Don't let the complexity of Moz's development structure keep you from reporting bugs. If you don't report them, they may not get fixed (or even noticed, depending on the bug). And that helps no one.
Why does/. continue to propagate the anti-Mozilla rants from Michael Angelo? He is not even close to a viable source of information on Mozilla. See bug 97146, as well as previous/. posts that say just what I said.
2. The first few airplanes did not fly. If all work on airplanes had stopped because the first couple didn't work, we would be in quite a pickle.
Actually, if the Wrights (and everybody else working on heavier than air flight) had abandoned the idea, we would not be in a pickle. We would not be worrying about ICBMs, bombs, or any other flying threat. Every technological advance has both positive and negative consequences.
You know, you'd think that if you're going to submit a story to/., you'd have enough sense to use a server that won't get slashdotted. This article was posted at quarter of six, and I still can't get the site at 7:30!
Certainly an admirable position. "There must always be revolution!" as Chairman Mao said.
However, I'm not sure everyone in the community necessarily shares that view of OSS. In fact, it strikes me that OSS is a perfect example of a free-market revolution. When Adam Smith asked a rural French farmer what would be the best thing the government could do for him, the response was, "Laissez faire!" Roughly equivalent, of course, to, "Leave us alone!" It strikes me that the hacker ethos, with regard to most things, is quite libertarian. PHBs are hated, the government is mistrusted, and generally stupid rules are violated without remorse.
Moreover, most OSS contributors seem to want to escape the perception that OSS is a communist idea. The badges would certainly be visually compelling, as the Mozilla artwork is, but the association with communism seems unlikely to engender a great deal of interest.
Writer/director Andrew Niccol and producers Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, and Stacey Sher, the makers of the motion picture Gattaca, filed lawsuits against several thousand biotechnology companies claiming violation of intellectual property laws. The suit alleges that biotechnology companies who patent genes took the idea from the Columbia film. In Gattaca, members of a genetically perfect elite are manufactured using genetic technology.
Devito, speaking on behalf of the other plaintiffs, said earlier in a press conference, "It is clear that these companies took their idea straight from Mr. Niccols script. They hope to cash in on human genetic codes just like the companies in our film." A lawyer for the four said, "There is a substantial similarity between the actions of the companies in question and the fictional companies depicted in my client's film. We believe that the similarity is substantial enough to be prosecuted under current intellectual property laws."
Ethan Hawke, who starred in the movie, stated flatly, "I have quite a bit of stock in Genset. Those people are silly idealists who are afraid of the brave new world." Hawke has not been on speaking terms with Niccols or Devito since being cast as Jerome, the lovable but genetically imperfect protagonist of the film.
Legal experts were divided as to whether the case had any merit. Professor Malcolm Scott of the Royal Institute of Philosophy thinks so. "1984, Brave New World: those were scary books. I hope they lock these people away and throw away the key!" he said in an interview.
Spokespersons for Columbia/Tristar Pictures were not available for comment.
Where do you folks fall? Do you find the Big Bang and it's associated theorems to be a joke, or do you laugh at the concept of some deity who's saturday afternoon fun consisted of slapping together a snow globe full of planets and stars?
First of all, it is a false dilemma.
For myself (along with many of my coreligionists who have studied the matter), it is neither incosistent nor illogical to give assent to both the Christian dogma of creation and any one of various competing scientific theories of cosmology. (That does not include the "theories" of the incorrectly-named "scientific creationists".) Essentially, they deal with two different realms.
As with Judaism and Islam, orthodox Christian doctrine teaches that our knowledge of the supernatural is revealed, that is, revealed to us by God (or his representative, who received the revelation from God). Thus, most Christians believe that our creation narratives are more than cleverly invented stories; they believe, at the very least, that they are the human flesh put onto a divinely revealed mystery. For many of us, it is not the particulars of the stories that are important, but the truths they reveal. Fundamentalists need for our scriptures to be a science text or a history book or an "owner's manual" (some people actually use that phrase!). Many of us, though, understand the primitive, near-eastern nature of our scriptures and do not put such foreign, completely Western, categories on them.
Science, on the other hand, is not revealed. It is a messy guessing-game with very sophisticated, civilized rules --- and a lot of previous guesses that have been either duly confirmed as good or not sufficiently disconfirmed as bad. Scientific theories, therefore, cannot be held to be on the same footing as religious dogma --- whether you are religious or not. It is about theories to explain empirical data; revealed religious knowledge is about things that are inherently not empirical.
Me, I'll stick with explanations that are repeatable by any reasonable, rational, logical thinker.
Well, that's really the problem, isn't it. Cosmology, along with other scientific forays into historical events, deals with essentially unrepeatable things. If they were repeatable, cosmological theories would be much more easily proven, using standard scientific method.
As it is, cosmologists looks for bits of information that either confirm or disconfirm their hypotheses. When a hypothesis has a lot of data confirming it, and only a few quirky data disconfirming it, it has the status of theory.
The Libertarian Party has a very interesting plank on Internet censorship in their platform (that's political platform, just in case you were confused). You can find it at their web site. This, of course, is simply an extension of their position on censorship.
It's interesting to me that/. is following the mainstream media's ignorance of third-party candidates. Interesting, because many slashdotters seem to have very Libertarian views already. Just more cud for rumination.
It sounds like software patents have nothing to do with whether what is being patented is really original or not. It sounds like it is based on who gets to the patent office first.
Of course, if you don't believe in software patents (e.g., CVS), you get the shaft.
At some point, shouldn't this kind of thing get to be unenforcable?
I know you really wanted to hear about my time in Sydney at the Olympic games, but there is a very big man with a nasty-looking rifle here to make sure I don't tell you about that.
You see, the International Olympics Committee makes all of its money selling the rights to the news and "official" sponsorships. I almost got my face on a McDonald's cup, but then they realized I wasn't in a popular or well-known sport. Oh, I'm supposed to tell you that the IOC treats us very well.
I'm sorry you won't get to see me, since my sport is Graeco-Roman wrestling. I'll have to tell you all about it when I get home. Oh, sorry. The very nasty-looking man with the big rifle just told me I probably don't want to do that, either. Well, you know how well I wrestle. I'm sure you can imagine it pretty well.
I hope to come home very soon. Oh. The nasty-looking rifle-man says, "Hi."
Levy is still around, of course. As someone else noted, he writes technology columns for Newsweek. He has also written several books besides Hackers, including one that is in progress now. This information and more is available on his website.
I was just wondering: what does "intamately" mean? I could not find the word at m-w.com, so I had to break it down:
Obviously, it is the adverbial form of "intamate." Though the prefix "in-" could indicate something infused, I tend to think in this case that the prefix is being used in this case to deny the root word.
The root here is obviously "tame." The suffix "-ate" indicates something that is acted upon by something else, in this case presumably a "tamer."
So, something that is "intamate" is something that has not been tamed. I fear to ask what it means to be "intamately familiar" means with regard to hardware!
How can slashdot embolden its readers on the one hand to boycott the movie industry because of DVD and DeCSS, and, on the other hand, encourage us to purchase the Blade Runner DVD?
Just a couple of notes here.
1) Rob did not encourage us to "purchase" the DVD, he told us to "get" the DVD. How we get it is ambiguous, likely by design.
2)/. probably has an editorial position that is neutral toward the whole DeCSS thing. Anything else might get them into trouble legally. (Although, of course, IANAL. That's just a guess.)
3) The whole point of DeCSS is that people want to watch DVDs on Linux!
Slashdot Mirror
All of the data are precious to Wal-Mart.
Nasty little geeksesses, you all want my data. You all WANT THE PRECIOUSSS!
Any company that wants to work with free software has the option of only making compiled binaries available to paying customers. The GPL only requires that the source accompany the binaries. It does not even require that the source be freely available on an ftp server.
Microsoft (or any company) could easily release code under the GPL, and only release binaries and source on CD. No code on microsoft.com. Or, code on microsoft.com only by subscription. This does not violate the GPL.
Yes, Joe Q. Hacker will put the source up on Warez.com, but Microsoft is under no obligation to support it.
Many consumers will gladly get legal source and binaries from downstream sources. But these are the same consumers who are currently getting illegal warez copies. They are lost revenue anyway.
Some consumers will not trust these downstream binaries, and they will gladly pay for certified binaries. These are the same customers who pay for Windows now.
But here is the important point: The enterprise will not touch downstream binaries. They will only get their binaries from the source. There are too many liabilities involved in possibly tainted code. Since the enterprise is the source of the greatest revenue, this protects an important revenue stream.
Support issues are a little messy, but they tend to boil down to: Microsoft does not support altered code. Basically no different from today, where Microsoft does not support OEM versions of Microsoft products.
Are there already companies doing business with free software following this model?
Easy on the bandwidth! Please mirror if you like.
My company is very large. Our policy is technically like yours, but the enforcement is occasional. IS warns us that they'll be sending around a script that will be checking for BSA infractions. I make sure my system is clean. Since we're not officially allowed to have "unauthorized software" on our boxen, I make sure there isn't anything suspicious on there, even Mozilla. After the script runs, back the old software goes.
If your company is large enough, you may be able to get away with that.
It's not that I don't agree with you. I do. But, for the love of all that is good and holy, don't base your philosophical opinions on Enemy of the State.
I don't think he's basing his philosophy on the film. It is a recognized fact that works of art and literature illustrate underlying philosophical and worldview propositions. Often, they can illustrate them in a way that is more convincing than a well-constructed syllogism, for some sufficiently visceral connotation of "convincing."
Jump throughs do //not// beat pop-ups. I can turn off pop-ups in Mozilla using a user-pref. I can turn it off in less intelligent browsers by disabling JavaScript.
Jump-throughs are trying to force people to look at the ad, but they will only end up getting ignored just like every other form of advertisement on the net. Likely, by Salon getting ignored.
"...We need to err on the side of having tools available."
No, no, no! We need err on the side of the protection of our freedoms and civil liberties!
Which part of "inalienable" don't you understand?
Just try to do your best.
One of the part of bug triaging is to be sure that the component is the correct one.
IOW, use the bugzilla helper (the /big/ "Report a bug" link on bugzilla's front page), fill out the form with as much information as you can provide, and make your best guess as to component. If you're wrong, someone will come along behind you and change the component to the correct one.
Don't let the complexity of Moz's development structure keep you from reporting bugs. If you don't report them, they may not get fixed (or even noticed, depending on the bug). And that helps no one.
Why does /. continue to propagate the anti-Mozilla rants from Michael Angelo? He is not even close to a viable source of information on Mozilla. See bug 97146, as well as previous /. posts that say just what I said.
Please, please. Don't feed the trolls.
Actually, if the Wrights (and everybody else working on heavier than air flight) had abandoned the idea, we would not be in a pickle. We would not be worrying about ICBMs, bombs, or any other flying threat. Every technological advance has both positive and negative consequences.
I thought the Brits were real sticklers for grammar. Guess not.
You know, you'd think that if you're going to submit a story to /., you'd have enough sense to use a server that won't get slashdotted. This article was posted at quarter of six, and I still can't get the site at 7:30!
Certainly an admirable position. "There must always be revolution!" as Chairman Mao said.
However, I'm not sure everyone in the community necessarily shares that view of OSS. In fact, it strikes me that OSS is a perfect example of a free-market revolution. When Adam Smith asked a rural French farmer what would be the best thing the government could do for him, the response was, "Laissez faire!" Roughly equivalent, of course, to, "Leave us alone!" It strikes me that the hacker ethos, with regard to most things, is quite libertarian. PHBs are hated, the government is mistrusted, and generally stupid rules are violated without remorse.
Moreover, most OSS contributors seem to want to escape the perception that OSS is a communist idea. The badges would certainly be visually compelling, as the Mozilla artwork is, but the association with communism seems unlikely to engender a great deal of interest.
Devito, speaking on behalf of the other plaintiffs, said earlier in a press conference, "It is clear that these companies took their idea straight from Mr. Niccols script. They hope to cash in on human genetic codes just like the companies in our film." A lawyer for the four said, "There is a substantial similarity between the actions of the companies in question and the fictional companies depicted in my client's film. We believe that the similarity is substantial enough to be prosecuted under current intellectual property laws."
Ethan Hawke, who starred in the movie, stated flatly, "I have quite a bit of stock in Genset. Those people are silly idealists who are afraid of the brave new world." Hawke has not been on speaking terms with Niccols or Devito since being cast as Jerome, the lovable but genetically imperfect protagonist of the film.
Legal experts were divided as to whether the case had any merit. Professor Malcolm Scott of the Royal Institute of Philosophy thinks so. "1984, Brave New World: those were scary books. I hope they lock these people away and throw away the key!" he said in an interview.
Spokespersons for Columbia/Tristar Pictures were not available for comment.
Give Pisa chants.
Messages like
U have b33n HAXX0r3d by a 1337 haxx0r!Would significantly decrease, as the perpetrators of such hackneyed english started disappearing.
In a related story, spam was declared illegal in an ammendment to the draft convention.
Give Pisa chants.
Where do you folks fall? Do you find the Big Bang and it's associated theorems to be a joke, or do you laugh at the concept of some deity who's saturday afternoon fun consisted of slapping together a snow globe full of planets and stars?
First of all, it is a false dilemma.
For myself (along with many of my coreligionists who have studied the matter), it is neither incosistent nor illogical to give assent to both the Christian dogma of creation and any one of various competing scientific theories of cosmology. (That does not include the "theories" of the incorrectly-named "scientific creationists".) Essentially, they deal with two different realms.
As with Judaism and Islam, orthodox Christian doctrine teaches that our knowledge of the supernatural is revealed, that is, revealed to us by God (or his representative, who received the revelation from God). Thus, most Christians believe that our creation narratives are more than cleverly invented stories; they believe, at the very least, that they are the human flesh put onto a divinely revealed mystery. For many of us, it is not the particulars of the stories that are important, but the truths they reveal. Fundamentalists need for our scriptures to be a science text or a history book or an "owner's manual" (some people actually use that phrase!). Many of us, though, understand the primitive, near-eastern nature of our scriptures and do not put such foreign, completely Western, categories on them.
Science, on the other hand, is not revealed. It is a messy guessing-game with very sophisticated, civilized rules --- and a lot of previous guesses that have been either duly confirmed as good or not sufficiently disconfirmed as bad. Scientific theories, therefore, cannot be held to be on the same footing as religious dogma --- whether you are religious or not. It is about theories to explain empirical data; revealed religious knowledge is about things that are inherently not empirical.
Give Pisa chants.
Me, I'll stick with explanations that are repeatable by any reasonable, rational, logical thinker.
Well, that's really the problem, isn't it. Cosmology, along with other scientific forays into historical events, deals with essentially unrepeatable things. If they were repeatable, cosmological theories would be much more easily proven, using standard scientific method.
As it is, cosmologists looks for bits of information that either confirm or disconfirm their hypotheses. When a hypothesis has a lot of data confirming it, and only a few quirky data disconfirming it, it has the status of theory.
Give Pisa chants.
It's interesting to me that /. is following the mainstream media's ignorance of third-party candidates. Interesting, because many slashdotters seem to have very Libertarian views already. Just more cud for rumination.
Give Pisa chants.
It sounds like software patents have nothing to do with whether what is being patented is really original or not. It sounds like it is based on who gets to the patent office first.
Of course, if you don't believe in software patents (e.g., CVS), you get the shaft.
At some point, shouldn't this kind of thing get to be unenforcable?
You see, the International Olympics Committee makes all of its money selling the rights to the news and "official" sponsorships. I almost got my face on a McDonald's cup, but then they realized I wasn't in a popular or well-known sport. Oh, I'm supposed to tell you that the IOC treats us very well.
I'm sorry you won't get to see me, since my sport is Graeco-Roman wrestling. I'll have to tell you all about it when I get home. Oh, sorry. The very nasty-looking man with the big rifle just told me I probably don't want to do that, either. Well, you know how well I wrestle. I'm sure you can imagine it pretty well.
I hope to come home very soon. Oh. The nasty-looking rifle-man says, "Hi."
Levy is still around, of course. As someone else noted, he writes technology columns for Newsweek. He has also written several books besides Hackers, including one that is in progress now. This information and more is available on his website.
Obviously, it is the adverbial form of "intamate." Though the prefix "in-" could indicate something infused, I tend to think in this case that the prefix is being used in this case to deny the root word.
The root here is obviously "tame." The suffix "-ate" indicates something that is acted upon by something else, in this case presumably a "tamer."
So, something that is "intamate" is something that has not been tamed. I fear to ask what it means to be "intamately familiar" means with regard to hardware!
Do children read this site?
Just a couple of notes here.
1) Rob did not encourage us to "purchase" the DVD, he told us to "get" the DVD. How we get it is ambiguous, likely by design.
2) /. probably has an editorial position that is neutral toward the whole DeCSS thing. Anything else might get them into trouble legally. (Although, of course, IANAL. That's just a guess.)
3) The whole point of DeCSS is that people want to watch DVDs on Linux!
Ping Is Not GNU!
This looks like the same license you accept when you download/use the free C++ Builder from their website.