I don't think Comcast is throttling BitTorrent in the interest of stopping piracy - I think they're just throttling it because it's stressing their network too much. The don't care whether it's legitimate traffic or not, they just want to unclog their network a bit. As such, they're still a common carrier, because they're not discriminating based on the nature of the information being transmitted.
To be fair, NBC probably only has US distribution rights for these shows. If they don't make a show of making some effort to stop people outside the US from getting access to them, the content producers/owners will sue them for breach of contract. (Yes, I'm outside the US, so I can't access this "free" content.)
I noted that they intend to fit a replacement joint, and are limiting the travel of the solar panel(s) in the mean time. My question is, do they know what the source of the problem actually is? Is it a manufacturing defect, damage or wear and tear in the currently fitted joint? If it is, replacing it is a reasonable solution. But if it isn't - i.e. if there's a design or operational problem - replacing it will just be a temporary band-aid, and the same thing will happen again sooner or later.
Visual Basic (pre.NET) and RealBasic place restrictions on the generated code, because the distribution terms have to be compatible with the distribution terms on the runtime engine that the executables will require.
If you read how the license is worded, it requires you to pay for a license for every computer in your organisation, whether it's capable of running the software or not. You have to pay for Windows licenses for your PowerPC Macs - not just the Intel ones.
There is one exception to that rule: the/Applications,/Library/Services, ~/Applications and ~/Library/Services folders are scanned for NeXTstep service provider applications at login. These won't be recognised anywhere else on the disk. Now this isn't the Finder's fault, and LaunchServices (which is responsible for associating files and URLs with applications) is unaffected by it, but it is something to be aware of. You won't get Services menu items from an application if it's in the wrong place.
Unfortunately, it seems that, when placed in a position of power, a lot of people will go and act like a five-year-old. Either that or only people with the minds of five-year-olds try to attain said positions of power...
Well he probably didn't stop it because he thought he could get away with it. Isn't that how it usually works? He probably thought something along the lines of, "If we pull this off, we'll look good, and if we get busted, I can say it wasn't my idea."
I know the EFF have good intentions, and do a great job of drawing people's attention to the crazy things that go on in the world, but they don't have a great history as far as winning in court goes. I honestly hope she doesn't land in a bigger hole, but my gut tells me she doesn't have much of a chance.
Have you ever played an RTS war game with a graphics tablet or pen display? That leaves a mouse for dead. You can quickly and accurately select units and click buttons. It's way more intuitive than a mouse. A mouse is a cheap, versatile input device, but it's by no means the best at anything.
I'm sure Microsoft developers have good intentions and big dreams for Windows 7. I'm sure they did for Vista at the beginning of the project. But they'll have to cut corners, meet dates, add legacy support, and all the things a behemoth like Microsoft always thinks they have to do. For all their failings, you've gotta give Apple credit for having guts to change things - the Mac has gone through three CPU architectures, and two completely different operating system kernels.
Eventually? Look back at the past! IBM System/390 mainframes (and the zSeries derived from it) have all those features in hardware. Array overrun? Hardware exception. Integer overflow? Hardware exception. Touch memory you deallocated? Hardware exception. ALU produces a spurious result? System picks it up because it runs all the code on at least two cores, and the same fault is unlikely to occur in two cores simultaneously - operation is retried on two more cores to determine which of the two original cores was correct, and the failing core is taken out of service.
You know why we don't do all that in hardware in PCs? Because it requires a huge amount of silicon. Sure, it's great. You learn good programming practices, because you can't get away with slipping even a little. But it costs a lot, gets hot, and goes slow. PCs are meant to be a good enough and cheap enough solution - not necessarily the best solution.
Huh? What about all those other developers that worked on the kernel for years. It stands without reason Linus Torvalds would/could never claim single ownership of the kernel.
The other developers have willingly submitted their code to Linux - it's no longer their own.
I don't get people like you that say that. How could you "disagree" with Linux? Disagree with software? Do you mean on a technical level you don't like how things are done? Like you don't like the "everything is a file" concept or the age-old microkernel thing... You might at least give some examples... so we can debunk those;-)
OK, here are a few: the antagonism against binary blob drivers, the lack of stable kernel interfaces, exporting certain kernel interfaces in a way that they can only be used by GPL code, the difficulty in debugging kernel extensions compared to a microkernel architecture. Enough for you?
You should call yourself lucky you get to develop under Linux for your work, for me it's Windows gui and luckily also middletier stuff. This is since most businesses still see Windows as the only option. (Yeah fuck Dell and the like.) It's probably like that for most (at least business application) developers. So how would "people call you a sellout" that doesn't make sense since most people are in the same boat. Where do you think a big part of free software developers come from?
No, most people aren't in the same boat. Most people don't have an ideology when it comes to software, so they don't care what they use. It's only GNU hippies, BSD acid trippers, and their respective antagonists who are faced with the issue. And a lot of businesses do want to use Linux. Some of our bigger Linux customers are Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, MessageLabs and AdvanStar. And Linux is just one of many platforms - we do Windows, Solaris, MacOSX, HP-UX and AIX as well, to meet cusomer demand.
How do you build an OS on an ideology? HURD development was slow because they chose a very difficult architecture to get right and so, since Linux existed, most people didn't care anymore. Nothing to do with ideology.
No, HURD is based on a proven architecture that is relatively easy to debug and get right (cf. QNX, NeXT, MacOSX, etc.). HURD development is slow because of everything it stands for: it exists purely for the purpose of being truly "free" as defined by the FSF - an ideological goal. Not enough people care about that to want to work on it.
Linux would be just fine without IBM and the likes. You're forgetting they have joined the game only very recently.
And it's only recently that Linux has moved ahead in leaps and bounds. Red Hat has been a commercial vendor pushing Linux ahead for a while, as was Caldera (now SCO). It's the same story with GCC - it can actually compete with commercial compilers now, but it couldn't before version 3.3, because that was when it got major commercial support - IBM, Apple and Sun all needed it to be good enough to compete with commercial compilers.
The first place was a long time ago. The first release of Linux was about 10K lines of code; about half the amount of code that I have released so far this year as Free Software (not to Linux, so I have no personal stake in this). Since then, he hasn't exactly done nothing, but his contributions are dwarfed by the large number of other people who have contributed.
Yes, you make a fair point. I know Linus hasn't written all of what is now Linux. But when people/corporations contribute to Linux, they are granting rights rights to that code to the "Linux project", of which Linus is still effectively the "spiritual leader".
He can do whatever he wants irrespective of what I want, but I don't think he should ignore the hundreds of other people who who have written the code that makes the kernel what it is today.
Two uncomfortable facts:
Contributors have granted rights to their code, so Linus can do what he sees fit - sure, they can contribute their code to other projects, too if they want, but they can't take back the rights they granted when they submitted the code. And when the code was submitted, one condition was that it could be distributed under GPL v2. As harsh as it may seem, they can't now go and say they only want it distributed under GPL v3.
A lot of contributions are from corporations like IBM and Novell - people who have commercial interests in Linux. I honestly doubt these contributors would like to see their contributions restricted under GPL v3. Linus also needs to respect these contributors.
Whether I like Linux or not, I think staying with GPL v2 is probably the most sensible path forward to keep the most people happy. As a wise politician once said, "You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time; but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
And RMS and the FSF made the GPL in the first place, and also wrote lots of code under that license and made it popular. It's their baby, and the FSF have stated their goals and aims very clearly in the text of the GPL, which even a baby can understand.
And if they want to release future versions under the GPL v3, fair enough. They're free to do that, and I won't complain. If I don't like the terms of GPL v3, I don't have to use new versions released under it. However, I can fork older GPL v2 versions and keep them under GPL v2 if I like the idea of that any better - that's one of the freedoms afforded by the GPL v2.
The cry-baby corporate goons who are trying to steal the thunder of the GPL have been checkmated by the FSF which has upgraded the license.
No-one has been checkmated. Making a new version of the GPL that may not be as easy to build a business around does not in any way affect the large volume of software already under GPL v2, and anyone is free to fork it and keep it under the GPL v2.
Linus' reluctance to adopt the GPL3 shows him as a true hypocrite, enemy of freedom, enemy of the GPL, and accomplice of the corporate interests in the Linux Foundation.
No it doesn't. It just shows that his goals are not the same as those of the FSF, and that distributing code under GPL v2 still suits his goals, while the FSF believes their goals are better served by releasing code under GPL v3. Enemy of freedom? Now you're starting to sound a bit like George Dubbya. The GPL v3 is more restrictive than the GPL v2 which is more restrictive than a BSD license. What about the freedom to use code in a commercial, closed-source product? You might not like the idea of that freedom being available to recipients of your code, but it's still a freedom you're denying people by releasing code under GPL. But once again, it's your code - if you don't want it to end up in closed-source software, fair enough - I can't complain.
If not the GPL3, Linus should re-release the kernel in BSD then, if he hates what the GPL stands for.
Why? Whether Linus agrees with what the FSF and their GPLs stand for is irrelevant. The fact is, the GPL v2 happens to suit his goals quite nicely, so he can release code under it if he sees fit.
So, if you don't like the laws of your home country will you flee or build one? What planet are you on?
If I don't like the laws enough, I will flee. I'll choose a country with laws I like. But I need to think about feeding my family, too. I have to weigh up opportunities for employment, health care, etc. as well as whether I like the law when choosing where to live.
And the situation is the same with an OS - if you don't like Linux's license, go and use HURD, but remember it's like living in Siberia. Now Siberia is a perfectly good place to live if you want to live in Siberia. But the thing is, most people don't want to live in Siberia. So you end up feeling a bit isolated, and you don't get a great deal of infrastructure out there.
Linux is licensed under the GPL and violations of the spirit of the GPL are more harmful to it's continued growth than trademark violations which this Foundation governs.
Linux is licensed under the GPL v2, and Linus doesn't see the GPL v3 as serving his purposes. He sees no problem with violations of what the FSF sees as the spirit of the GPL. If you don't agree with that, you can stop supporting Linux: don't contribute to Linux, don't release software for Linux and don't use Linux.
And you know what will harm Linux's continued growth even more than violations of the GPL? Placing undue restrictions on its use, like those in the GPL v3. All the commercial vendors, who are largely responsible for driving Linux, would either be scared off, or fork it and keep it under GPL v2. I actually agree with Linus on this one - GPL v2 seems to strike the necessary balance.
Linus made Linux in the first place. It's his baby. He should be able to take it wherever he wants, whether you or I like it. Whether Linux is in accord with the spirit of the GPL v2 or v3 is irrelevant - the fact is he likes the letter of GPL v2 (I think his assertion that he understands the spirit of GPL v2 better than it's authors is silly, though).
Personally, I disagree with a lot of things about Linux. And you know what I can do about it? Just not use Linux at home. Sure, I use Linux at work, because I develop software for it, because customers want to use it, just as I use Windows at work for developing Windows software for customers who want to use Windows. You can call me a sellout, but the reason I'm at work is to provide something that customers want, to make money to buy food, etc.
If you want an OS that fits your ideology, find like-minded people and build one. Isn't that what HURD is meant to be? Don't try to take over Linux. Since HURD is going nowhere, it would appear that not that many significant developers care about building an OS on an ideology.
Linux seems to get the balance right for a lot of people: open enough that you can modify it and feel in control, but not overly restricted so you can't build a workable business around it. It may be an uncomfortable fact for some, but Linux wouldn't be where it is now without the commercial backing it's got from IBM, Novell, etc. Building and maintaining something like an OS requires huge effort, and the only way to muster that in a capitalist society is with the prospect of building a profitable business on it.
Well, if you say you've never used illegal drugs, and then later they find out you used to smoke the occasional jazz cigarette with your highschool buddies, they can nail you for signing a false statement when they decide they want you in jail. Perfect! Just like that green form I fill in when I go to the USofA on business that asks if I'm a spy for a foreign government, or if I'm entering the US with the intention of committing a crime - like anyone would ever answer "yes". It's just so you have one more thing to nail you for (i.e. you didn't just enter the US with the intention of committing a crime, you also signed a false declaration) if they need to.
Just as deployable as MS AD Group Policy: you define policy for the domain, and member computers pick it up. Obviously, you need a domain master, and you need to bind the target computers to the domain. But this is no different to any other directory service.
Cut-off tail and ugly bowl on lower-case A; angled cap and ugly tail on lower-case T; upper-case C looks unbalanced because of the angle of the ends of the strokes; the tail on the capital R has weird uneven stroke width and doesn't flow naturally from the bowl; I could go on... Suffice to say that I'm fussy.
You, like most users, are not a designer, and don't notice the subtle differences between the proprietary fonts used on a Mac and the free (as in speech and beer) fonts used on Linux. You probably think Arial and Helvetica look the same, too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and just highlights one reason that most people won't really care whether this license is extended or not - most people just want legible text so they can get the information.
On the other hand, I am a pedant. I pay close attention to fonts. I notice when a single character has been substituted because the specified font didn't have a glyph for a particular codepoint. But I don't care too much for this license, either. I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license. Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.
So all in all, I don't see how the extension of this license is a good thing for anyone.
Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana are all horrible fonts. I'd rather have my Mac automatically substitute decent fonts when they're specified. Isn't the point of HTML, and hence the web, to specify the structure of a document rather than its appearance? Shouldn't the appearance depend on my preferences?
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I don't think Comcast is throttling BitTorrent in the interest of stopping piracy - I think they're just throttling it because it's stressing their network too much. The don't care whether it's legitimate traffic or not, they just want to unclog their network a bit. As such, they're still a common carrier, because they're not discriminating based on the nature of the information being transmitted.
To be fair, NBC probably only has US distribution rights for these shows. If they don't make a show of making some effort to stop people outside the US from getting access to them, the content producers/owners will sue them for breach of contract. (Yes, I'm outside the US, so I can't access this "free" content.)
I noted that they intend to fit a replacement joint, and are limiting the travel of the solar panel(s) in the mean time. My question is, do they know what the source of the problem actually is? Is it a manufacturing defect, damage or wear and tear in the currently fitted joint? If it is, replacing it is a reasonable solution. But if it isn't - i.e. if there's a design or operational problem - replacing it will just be a temporary band-aid, and the same thing will happen again sooner or later.
Visual Basic (pre .NET) and RealBasic place restrictions on the generated code, because the distribution terms have to be compatible with the distribution terms on the runtime engine that the executables will require.
Well, one of the inventors says good things about it. Honestly, whaddya expect? But how about giving us some hard performance figures?
If you read how the license is worded, it requires you to pay for a license for every computer in your organisation, whether it's capable of running the software or not. You have to pay for Windows licenses for your PowerPC Macs - not just the Intel ones.
There is one exception to that rule: the /Applications, /Library/Services, ~/Applications and ~/Library/Services folders are scanned for NeXTstep service provider applications at login. These won't be recognised anywhere else on the disk. Now this isn't the Finder's fault, and LaunchServices (which is responsible for associating files and URLs with applications) is unaffected by it, but it is something to be aware of. You won't get Services menu items from an application if it's in the wrong place.
Unfortunately, it seems that, when placed in a position of power, a lot of people will go and act like a five-year-old. Either that or only people with the minds of five-year-olds try to attain said positions of power...
Well he probably didn't stop it because he thought he could get away with it. Isn't that how it usually works? He probably thought something along the lines of, "If we pull this off, we'll look good, and if we get busted, I can say it wasn't my idea."
I know the EFF have good intentions, and do a great job of drawing people's attention to the crazy things that go on in the world, but they don't have a great history as far as winning in court goes. I honestly hope she doesn't land in a bigger hole, but my gut tells me she doesn't have much of a chance.
Have you ever played an RTS war game with a graphics tablet or pen display? That leaves a mouse for dead. You can quickly and accurately select units and click buttons. It's way more intuitive than a mouse. A mouse is a cheap, versatile input device, but it's by no means the best at anything.
I'm sure Microsoft developers have good intentions and big dreams for Windows 7. I'm sure they did for Vista at the beginning of the project. But they'll have to cut corners, meet dates, add legacy support, and all the things a behemoth like Microsoft always thinks they have to do. For all their failings, you've gotta give Apple credit for having guts to change things - the Mac has gone through three CPU architectures, and two completely different operating system kernels.
It's called EFI boot. The Intel-based Macs are all EFI based - no legacy BIOS necessary.
Eventually? Look back at the past! IBM System/390 mainframes (and the zSeries derived from it) have all those features in hardware. Array overrun? Hardware exception. Integer overflow? Hardware exception. Touch memory you deallocated? Hardware exception. ALU produces a spurious result? System picks it up because it runs all the code on at least two cores, and the same fault is unlikely to occur in two cores simultaneously - operation is retried on two more cores to determine which of the two original cores was correct, and the failing core is taken out of service.
You know why we don't do all that in hardware in PCs? Because it requires a huge amount of silicon. Sure, it's great. You learn good programming practices, because you can't get away with slipping even a little. But it costs a lot, gets hot, and goes slow. PCs are meant to be a good enough and cheap enough solution - not necessarily the best solution.
The other developers have willingly submitted their code to Linux - it's no longer their own.
OK, here are a few: the antagonism against binary blob drivers, the lack of stable kernel interfaces, exporting certain kernel interfaces in a way that they can only be used by GPL code, the difficulty in debugging kernel extensions compared to a microkernel architecture. Enough for you?
No, most people aren't in the same boat. Most people don't have an ideology when it comes to software, so they don't care what they use. It's only GNU hippies, BSD acid trippers, and their respective antagonists who are faced with the issue. And a lot of businesses do want to use Linux. Some of our bigger Linux customers are Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, MessageLabs and AdvanStar. And Linux is just one of many platforms - we do Windows, Solaris, MacOSX, HP-UX and AIX as well, to meet cusomer demand.
No, HURD is based on a proven architecture that is relatively easy to debug and get right (cf. QNX, NeXT, MacOSX, etc.). HURD development is slow because of everything it stands for: it exists purely for the purpose of being truly "free" as defined by the FSF - an ideological goal. Not enough people care about that to want to work on it.
And it's only recently that Linux has moved ahead in leaps and bounds. Red Hat has been a commercial vendor pushing Linux ahead for a while, as was Caldera (now SCO). It's the same story with GCC - it can actually compete with commercial compilers now, but it couldn't before version 3.3, because that was when it got major commercial support - IBM, Apple and Sun all needed it to be good enough to compete with commercial compilers.
Yes, you make a fair point. I know Linus hasn't written all of what is now Linux. But when people/corporations contribute to Linux, they are granting rights rights to that code to the "Linux project", of which Linus is still effectively the "spiritual leader".
Two uncomfortable facts:
Whether I like Linux or not, I think staying with GPL v2 is probably the most sensible path forward to keep the most people happy. As a wise politician once said, "You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time; but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
Linus made Linux in the first place. It's his baby. He should be able to take it wherever he wants, whether you or I like it. Whether Linux is in accord with the spirit of the GPL v2 or v3 is irrelevant - the fact is he likes the letter of GPL v2 (I think his assertion that he understands the spirit of GPL v2 better than it's authors is silly, though).
Personally, I disagree with a lot of things about Linux. And you know what I can do about it? Just not use Linux at home. Sure, I use Linux at work, because I develop software for it, because customers want to use it, just as I use Windows at work for developing Windows software for customers who want to use Windows. You can call me a sellout, but the reason I'm at work is to provide something that customers want, to make money to buy food, etc.
If you want an OS that fits your ideology, find like-minded people and build one. Isn't that what HURD is meant to be? Don't try to take over Linux. Since HURD is going nowhere, it would appear that not that many significant developers care about building an OS on an ideology.
Linux seems to get the balance right for a lot of people: open enough that you can modify it and feel in control, but not overly restricted so you can't build a workable business around it. It may be an uncomfortable fact for some, but Linux wouldn't be where it is now without the commercial backing it's got from IBM, Novell, etc. Building and maintaining something like an OS requires huge effort, and the only way to muster that in a capitalist society is with the prospect of building a profitable business on it.
Well, if you say you've never used illegal drugs, and then later they find out you used to smoke the occasional jazz cigarette with your highschool buddies, they can nail you for signing a false statement when they decide they want you in jail. Perfect! Just like that green form I fill in when I go to the USofA on business that asks if I'm a spy for a foreign government, or if I'm entering the US with the intention of committing a crime - like anyone would ever answer "yes". It's just so you have one more thing to nail you for (i.e. you didn't just enter the US with the intention of committing a crime, you also signed a false declaration) if they need to.
Well, I'm not saying I agree with it, but here's a possible line of assumptions they could be following:
1. Most extremists are Muslims
2. Islam forbids homosexuality
3. Homosexuals are not likely to be Muslim extremists
Therefore, it should be safe to hire gays...
Swapping the disk incurs labour costs, too. You need to send someone to do the work and test the system to ensure it's still stable after the swap.
Just as deployable as MS AD Group Policy: you define policy for the domain, and member computers pick it up. Obviously, you need a domain master, and you need to bind the target computers to the domain. But this is no different to any other directory service.
Cut-off tail and ugly bowl on lower-case A; angled cap and ugly tail on lower-case T; upper-case C looks unbalanced because of the angle of the ends of the strokes; the tail on the capital R has weird uneven stroke width and doesn't flow naturally from the bowl; I could go on... Suffice to say that I'm fussy.
You, like most users, are not a designer, and don't notice the subtle differences between the proprietary fonts used on a Mac and the free (as in speech and beer) fonts used on Linux. You probably think Arial and Helvetica look the same, too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and just highlights one reason that most people won't really care whether this license is extended or not - most people just want legible text so they can get the information.
On the other hand, I am a pedant. I pay close attention to fonts. I notice when a single character has been substituted because the specified font didn't have a glyph for a particular codepoint. But I don't care too much for this license, either. I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license. Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.
So all in all, I don't see how the extension of this license is a good thing for anyone.
Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana are all horrible fonts. I'd rather have my Mac automatically substitute decent fonts when they're specified. Isn't the point of HTML, and hence the web, to specify the structure of a document rather than its appearance? Shouldn't the appearance depend on my preferences?