Well, it's not talking about whether or not the people should have known it wasn't legal; it's just saying that those people who didn't read (or understand) the licence are becoming angry at kazaa. (After all, it's still bad PR even if Kazaa's in the right.)
Just making an observation, of course; I fully believe that if somebody agrees to anything without reading it, they deserve the consequences.
"Personally threatened?" That's laughable. I release all my stuff under a BSD-style license, which is "freer" than the GPL -- people can do whatever the heck they want with it. Claiming that someone "feels threatened" when they disagree with something is a classic ad hominem attack.
You claim that he has "saved the world from a potentially very dark place." I don't buy it. His politics haven't done anything but create a bunch of people spouting his rhetoric. His software development has been much more successful, and I respect the amount of work he has put into it, but that doesn't mean that I have to accept his political views.
But this is way offtopic. The original discussion was "would abolishing copyright make the GPL unneccesary?" and somehow you've managed to get it to meander into condemning English-speakers for being untrusting.
For someone who has read Stallman's essays, you sure don't understand his beliefs.
only if you wrote it and used other people's GPL'd code.
No. (Remember, in this post-copyright world, there is no GPL.) Right now, that's all the GPL enforces. However, I meant exactly what I said. RMS claims that it is immoral to release binaries without source code, and thus it should be forbidden. If I write something completely from scratch, and Stallman becomes king, it will be illegal for me to distribute the compiled binaries without giving away my source code.
yes but no-one would be forced to use their rotten binaries. ... I don't see what that has to do with what I said. Stallman is the "GNU/Free Software" guy, remember? His primary goal is to make the source code for all software available (in fact, he wants to make it illegal to distribute something without source code -- even if I wrote the thing myself.)
He sometimes claims that his purpose is to destroy copyright, but he wants more than that -- he wants copyright replaced with a system that enforces his particular views.
Untrue. If copyright was abolished, then there would be nothing stopping people from releasing binaries without source code. Stallman would have a fit.
The web is a good resource, but it's not a replacement for textbooks. If you've ever tried to take a class using the web for information rather than buying the textbook (pretty common for us starving college students) you'd know that looking up uncommon subjects is rather difficult, requiring you to try dozens of different places to piece together a complete view of a topic, as well as sorting through tons of misinformation and contradictory statements. Online textbooks are not a solution: you've got to have the hardware, and they're no cheaper than buying the dead tree editions.
Schools should have web access. (Indeed, virtually all of them do.) The internet should not be the only source of learning material, however. That's not embracing technology, that's just a blind rush to do the next big thing.
The school district I went to had computers all over the place. The labs were upgraded every couple years to state-of-the-art machines, most of which went unused.
And yet, we still had to deal with textbooks that were falling apart at the seams because they had been in use since the 70's.
It's nowhere near a sure thing that they already have decent books. In fact, I would be willing to bet that a lot of them don't.
I would agree with that, except for the fact that most schools I know of have plenty of computers. There's lots of money for that. I constantly hear about "X school got Y million to upgrade their computer labs." You never hear "X district got Y million to raise teachers' salaries," or "X school got Y million to replace 30-year-old textbooks." Buying new tech sounds more impressive, so that's what happens.
On the other hand, that could be attributed to the sheer volume of Windows machines out there.
This is almost certainly the primary reason. How many people actually keep up on all the security problems in commonly-installed Linux software? (It's harder than windows security flaws, because generally the Linux problems don't get posted to the/. front page a dozen times.) Now, imagine that everyone who uses Windows today was using Linux. Do you really think that the patched/vulnerable ratio would be any better?
To be honest, I don't keep track of security updates too well. (Although I don't leave anything open except ssh, so at least my exposure's not too big.) An up-to-date, well-administrated Linux (or other Unix) box is probably a little more secure than its Windows counterpart, but both are more secure than the average Linux or Windows system. The operating system being used has little to do with the security risks.
Personally, it would scare the hell out of me if they were using Linux, or OSX, or pretty much any desktop operating system for life-and-death tasks. Modern OS's like these are just too big to trust with your life -- they've all got bugs, and none of them have had the kind of scrutiny that they would need. If your system absolutely cannot go down, you can't trust code written by dozens of relatively unsupervised people.
Sometimes. But notice that "Linux sux0rz, use Windows you lusers" will instantly get a -1 rating, but you often see "Why do fools insist on using Windows instead of good OS's like Linux" at +5. (Also, well-written pro-windows posts often get large numbers of "overrated" mods, notwithstanding Taco's claim that the overrated moderation option is rarely abused.) The moderators aren't all in agreement on the subject, but there's a definite anti-windows agenda there.
For the record, I'm another OS-agnostic, who's been caught on both sides of the moderation war.
Any method of voting should be held to the same standard. Saying that "X needs to be mathematically proven because I think it's biased, but Y doesn't have to be because I think it's better" isn't much of an argument. Such things lead to narrowminded decisions, as you dismiss certain alternatives without giving them due consideration.
I think that while Linux is great, it was created from the community. Now these companies are taking everything about Linux that is great and not contributing back to the community.
This is not great.
It's explicitly allowed by the license. If you are contributing to the community, and want to place extra terms on the use of your code, then go for it. But one who isn't the author of some software should not complain about the licence terms adopted by the author.
Funny isn't determined by whether something is "appropriate" or not. It's based solely on the reaction of people to the joke/situation/whatever. Some of us think that finding humor in a generally depressing world is good. Just because your sense of humor is different does not make us wrong.
Nobody (except for teenage girls who don't know there's a world outside the mall and slashdot posers who just want to have an excuse to bitch about high prices) pays $20 for a CD. Average price is closer to $14. Which is higher than I'd like to pay, but much more reasonable than the supposed "MSRP."
Funny. I would consider myself better off with $1.00 for someone buying my CD than I would be with $0.00 for somebody downloading it of Kazaa. (I would also probably be righteously annoyed if that somebody then had the gall to claim that he was helping me out.)
Don't you think I know the difference between the Linux kernel and the Linux OS? If the best arguement you can come up with is to redefine the definition of Linux, I suppose you conceed and I officially win.
You're being an idiot. This has nothing to do with Linux -- the OS or the kernel. This has to do with XFree. I would continue, but it's obvious from your juvenile "I win, you lose" retort that you have no interest in debate, and that you'd rather stick your thumbs in your ears and say, "nyah, nyah, can't hear you."
Slashdot Mirror
I don't disbelieve you ...
And, apparently, a gullible moderator doesn't either.
Well, it's not talking about whether or not the people should have known it wasn't legal; it's just saying that those people who didn't read (or understand) the licence are becoming angry at kazaa. (After all, it's still bad PR even if Kazaa's in the right.)
Just making an observation, of course; I fully believe that if somebody agrees to anything without reading it, they deserve the consequences.
I think you mean "a lot more mindless punk rock by kids who can't play the guitar."
"Personally threatened?" That's laughable. I release all my stuff under a BSD-style license, which is "freer" than the GPL -- people can do whatever the heck they want with it. Claiming that someone "feels threatened" when they disagree with something is a classic ad hominem attack.
You claim that he has "saved the world from a potentially very dark place." I don't buy it. His politics haven't done anything but create a bunch of people spouting his rhetoric. His software development has been much more successful, and I respect the amount of work he has put into it, but that doesn't mean that I have to accept his political views.
But this is way offtopic. The original discussion was "would abolishing copyright make the GPL unneccesary?" and somehow you've managed to get it to meander into condemning English-speakers for being untrusting.
Well, I suppose that you can believe that he will be a benevolent dictator. Me, though, I'm going to vote for Kodos.
No. (Remember, in this post-copyright world, there is no GPL.) Right now, that's all the GPL enforces. However, I meant exactly what I said. RMS claims that it is immoral to release binaries without source code, and thus it should be forbidden. If I write something completely from scratch, and Stallman becomes king, it will be illegal for me to distribute the compiled binaries without giving away my source code.
yes but no-one would be forced to use their rotten binaries.
... I don't see what that has to do with what I said. Stallman is the "GNU/Free Software" guy, remember? His primary goal is to make the source code for all software available (in fact, he wants to make it illegal to distribute something without source code -- even if I wrote the thing myself.)
He sometimes claims that his purpose is to destroy copyright, but he wants more than that -- he wants copyright replaced with a system that enforces his particular views.
Untrue. If copyright was abolished, then there would be nothing stopping people from releasing binaries without source code. Stallman would have a fit.
The web is a good resource, but it's not a replacement for textbooks. If you've ever tried to take a class using the web for information rather than buying the textbook (pretty common for us starving college students) you'd know that looking up uncommon subjects is rather difficult, requiring you to try dozens of different places to piece together a complete view of a topic, as well as sorting through tons of misinformation and contradictory statements. Online textbooks are not a solution: you've got to have the hardware, and they're no cheaper than buying the dead tree editions.
Schools should have web access. (Indeed, virtually all of them do.) The internet should not be the only source of learning material, however. That's not embracing technology, that's just a blind rush to do the next big thing.
The school district I went to had computers all over the place. The labs were upgraded every couple years to state-of-the-art machines, most of which went unused.
And yet, we still had to deal with textbooks that were falling apart at the seams because they had been in use since the 70's.
It's nowhere near a sure thing that they already have decent books. In fact, I would be willing to bet that a lot of them don't.
I would agree with that, except for the fact that most schools I know of have plenty of computers. There's lots of money for that. I constantly hear about "X school got Y million to upgrade their computer labs." You never hear "X district got Y million to raise teachers' salaries," or "X school got Y million to replace 30-year-old textbooks." Buying new tech sounds more impressive, so that's what happens.
Could buy an awful lot of textbooks.
On the other hand, that could be attributed to the sheer volume of Windows machines out there.
/. front page a dozen times.) Now, imagine that everyone who uses Windows today was using Linux. Do you really think that the patched/vulnerable ratio would be any better?
This is almost certainly the primary reason. How many people actually keep up on all the security problems in commonly-installed Linux software? (It's harder than windows security flaws, because generally the Linux problems don't get posted to the
To be honest, I don't keep track of security updates too well. (Although I don't leave anything open except ssh, so at least my exposure's not too big.) An up-to-date, well-administrated Linux (or other Unix) box is probably a little more secure than its Windows counterpart, but both are more secure than the average Linux or Windows system. The operating system being used has little to do with the security risks.
Personally, it would scare the hell out of me if they were using Linux, or OSX, or pretty much any desktop operating system for life-and-death tasks. Modern OS's like these are just too big to trust with your life -- they've all got bugs, and none of them have had the kind of scrutiny that they would need. If your system absolutely cannot go down, you can't trust code written by dozens of relatively unsupervised people.
Sometimes. But notice that "Linux sux0rz, use Windows you lusers" will instantly get a -1 rating, but you often see "Why do fools insist on using Windows instead of good OS's like Linux" at +5. (Also, well-written pro-windows posts often get large numbers of "overrated" mods, notwithstanding Taco's claim that the overrated moderation option is rarely abused.) The moderators aren't all in agreement on the subject, but there's a definite anti-windows agenda there.
For the record, I'm another OS-agnostic, who's been caught on both sides of the moderation war.
Aren't university students supposed to be intelligent?
You haven't been to a university lately, have you? Think "high school, but bigger and you're allowed to have alchohol."
Any method of voting should be held to the same standard. Saying that "X needs to be mathematically proven because I think it's biased, but Y doesn't have to be because I think it's better" isn't much of an argument. Such things lead to narrowminded decisions, as you dismiss certain alternatives without giving them due consideration.
Would you care to provide us with your mathematical proof that your pencil and paper voting scheme is completely accurate and secure?
It's explicitly allowed by the license. If you are contributing to the community, and want to place extra terms on the use of your code, then go for it. But one who isn't the author of some software should not complain about the licence terms adopted by the author.
Funny isn't determined by whether something is "appropriate" or not. It's based solely on the reaction of people to the joke/situation/whatever. Some of us think that finding humor in a generally depressing world is good. Just because your sense of humor is different does not make us wrong.
Off to install Thunderbird 0.2 on the machines of all the extended family... boo free tech support. :(
I've got to say: if you're installing alpha software on your family's machines, you're just begging to do free tech support.
Nobody (except for teenage girls who don't know there's a world outside the mall and slashdot posers who just want to have an excuse to bitch about high prices) pays $20 for a CD. Average price is closer to $14. Which is higher than I'd like to pay, but much more reasonable than the supposed "MSRP."
Funny. I would consider myself better off with $1.00 for someone buying my CD than I would be with $0.00 for somebody downloading it of Kazaa. (I would also probably be righteously annoyed if that somebody then had the gall to claim that he was helping me out.)
Don't you think I know the difference between the Linux kernel and the Linux OS? If the best arguement you can come up with is to redefine the definition of Linux, I suppose you conceed and I officially win.
You're being an idiot. This has nothing to do with Linux -- the OS or the kernel. This has to do with XFree. I would continue, but it's obvious from your juvenile "I win, you lose" retort that you have no interest in debate, and that you'd rather stick your thumbs in your ears and say, "nyah, nyah, can't hear you."