So you are going the Che Gueverra route, its OK to sacrifice some peasants and increase their suffering in order to manufacture a revolution that will promote one's ideology. Apologies if I shocked anyone. I actually read Che's writing, I didn't just buy the t-shirt.
When it comes to effort I'm contributing, you betcha. I want to make sure my efforts are going to something I can support and not going to help a cycle of continued helplessness and dependence. In fact, I'm quite shocked that you think helping people stay helpless and alive is better...
Actually the reference was not to helpless people. Che advocated instigating violence against peasants that were comfortable and safe enough that they were not interested in socialist revolution. He saw a need to increase their misery and insecurity so that they would welcome revolution. Those who died in the process were merely the price to bring about the socialist state. These ideas of Che's were written in the context of spreading socialism to central and south america.
... I rather resent you implying that my choice to not support dependence is the same as a choice to purposely kill people. I'm not the one holding the trigger or refusing food because the conditions require me to allow my people independence.
It was your silly analogy, you chose the revolt will make everything better stuff. Sorry if your chosen side didn't quite represent what you expected.
Academic researchers say they've uncovered weaknesses in dozens of the most popular file hosting sites that allow people to gain unauthorized access to data that's supposed to be available only to those selected by the user.
And is anyone surprised?
And is anyone who has only uploaded *encrypted backups* terribly concerned? They may still change providers do to a loss of confidence but they are probably not losing a lot of sleep.
A closer feeding-the-hungry analogy would be the BSD camp is the charity that gives to a country that they know will takes the rice out of the bags with the US labels and repackage the rice into government labeled bags before distribution to the hungry. The GPL camp would be ones offering the rice under conditions, and when the conditions are refused, then no rice for you. Hey, don't blame me, I didn't start this feeding-the-hungry analogy. Perhaps we should just skip the analogies?:-)
The conditions being, of course, that the government must allow everybody to use the rice to plant their own rice fields if they so choose as well as distribute a brochure describing the best known ways to grow rice...
No. The controlling condition would be to not replace the bag with the GPL labeling and terms. Since the government refuses this the rice would never get to the hungry. Replanting would only occur in the hypotheticals of the idealists.;-)
... One encourages dependence, the other demands the government foster independence or refuses to help them. Eventually the latter government's people will revolt and replace it with a better one that doesn't object to such eminently reasonable conditions and the whole country will be richer.
I like these analogies just fine.
So you are going the Che Gueverra route, its OK to sacrifice some peasants and increase their suffering in order to manufacture a revolution that will promote one's ideology. Apologies if I shocked anyone. I actually read Che's writing, I didn't just buy the t-shirt.
Of course you know that the FSF has no problem with selling software - it is all about "free as in speech" and not about "free as in beer".
Of course. I just thought it was amusing that they were not prominently displaying where to find the free PDFs as they want software publishers to prominently display where to find the source code. I guess to carry the joke further I should ask if the books code with a CD with the LaTex files?;-)
The real work, the popular work, may have been the proprietary work. For example Apple's cocoa user interface code as opposed to the underlying freebsd code.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Yeah.... the "real" work was cocoa and not the entire underlying OS... meh, whatever.
From the consumer's point of view that is the case. They aren't buying Macs to type "vi letter-to-grandma.txt ; lp letter-to-grandma.txt", they don't even know they had that option.;-)
... If BSD Unix had used a license like the GPL, apple would have had to find some other OS to leach off of -- Or maybe BSD Unix would be a strong competitor in the online serverspace, and smartphone niches that Apple's OSX and Linux fills?
Actually Linux does not really compete in the smartphone space. The Linux based phones failed and Android phones are no more Linux than Mac OS X is FreeBSD. Android could replace the Linux kernel and few users would know or care, as Apple could replace FreeBSD and few Mac users would know or care. Hell, many Android devs are quick to say that Android is not really Linux.
You act like there's no real-world examples of BSD vs GPL. Your Apple vs Unix vs Linux example disproves your argument! It's not like we have no examples of how BSD can just be gobbled up into a proprietary software, and how GPL software doesn't allow such a thing,...
The point you are missing is that when this happens nothing is taken away from the original BSD users and developers. The proprietary code would most likely have come into existence through some other path and retained its proprietary nature. For example if there were no BSD option Apple would *not* have built their user experience on top of Linux and release Mac OS X as a gpl'd Linux distribution. They would have continue with the internal project that was a modern replacement for the classic Mac OS (the project name escapes me, copland maybe) or they would have bought BeOS, or something else. Apple is replacing gcc after all.
... and how well each different community is doing as a result... (Note: Even TiVO has to give their changes back to the communtiy, thus enabling ME to make my own TiVO with the same codebase if I wish -- ergo, GPL2 isn't poisonous for hardware makers).
You leave out little details like vendors requiring code to be signed and with GPLv2 they are under no obligation to allow you to sign code. So your ability to deploy your code on your hardware is sometimes nonexistent. Hence the GPLv3, which is being avoided by some hardware vendors. Things are no where near as simple as you are suggesting.
GPL'd GNU/Linux gets better when it gets used by big players in the software space -- BSD? Well, It just gets used as a base, and is left as it was before hand... Additionally, devs can be sniped from the BSD projects and go to work for the proprietary vendor, further weakening the BSD community project.
Untrue. Apple contributes fixes and it has contributed new code to FOSS. For example the HFS+ filesystem. Its also sponsoring the development of the clang compiler, the gcc replacement. FreeBSD is also getting greater awareness and credibility. All FreeBSD is not getting is the Mac OS X user interface experience.
GPL devs can be lured to the "dark side" too, or get fed up with the politics, or grow bored, or get a life,... Some project founders aspire to "cashing in" and keep their projects dual licensed to keep that option open.
I see merits to both sides, but I at least have to point out some flaws in your argument (which may allow you to strengthen it and we could both benefit, unless you want to keep any insight to yourself of course, that is your right).
In the spirit of BSD I will share my "insights" with all, both those who share my philosophical beliefs and those who do not.;-)
First, you *assume* that your software would have become popular like the fork did. Your version, GPL'd or unforked BSD may have never caught on
No, he assumes works derived from his work would have become popular...
Which is exactly what I meant by "unforked BSD". Again, that is a quite gratuitous assumption, quite the boot strapping.
... His GPL'd work may have never caught on, but maybe someone else's GPL'd fork would have. The forked popular version benefitted from the unforked one, otherwise it would never have been based on it. But in the GPL scenario, both contributing parties benefit from the popularity. Follow the BSD path and only one would have.
However the real point remains, no one is deprived of the benefits of the original work, as the OP was suggesting. As in FreeBSD users and developers are not deprived of their work by Apple's success with Mac OS X. They actually come out ahead given the increased aware of and confidence in FreeBSD.
You work may be the lesser replaceable part of the overall effort.
If it's not an important part, why are they using your work?...
Irrelevant. It may simply be a convenience. Just because a convenience can be forgone does not mean it should be.
... On the other hand, if you realize your work wouldn't be a huge part of a larger application but you still don't want people to re-invent the wheel, you can still do the pragmatic thing and simply use the LGPL license.
That seems more like a minor concession. To be truly pragmatic would be to set aside one's personal agenda in order to achieve a universal audience.
For example linux works regardless of how many copies of ms windows are sold,
Linux and Windows are developed independently, which is a different argument than freebsd and OS X since they actually share a common base.
You are missing the point. A proprietary solution, or a network effect, does not diminish the value of the FOSS solution. Ie nothing is taken away from Linux users. They are perfectly able to continue on doing their own thing.
and people are free to use and contribute to freebsd regardless of how many people use mac os x
But if OS X works fine, why even bother with freebsd?
Again, convenience. Apple looked at Linux to the extent that it was used/supported by Apple in the early days for PowerPC hardware, before OS X's launch. Since they had experience with both, they could have gone either way. They also had experience developing their own replacement to the classic Mac OS line, the name of the project escapes me at the moment. There was also the option of buying BeOS rather than NextStep. The BSD path must have offered some greater convenience.
... If BSD [FreeBSD ?] was under the GPL license, or parts were LGPL, then freebsd would receive as many contributions as the part of OS X that freebsd is based on...
And if this were true, how does this undermines my point that FreeBSD users and developers have lost nothing by going the BSD route? You are saying there are no additional contributions in the GPL scenario.
...As it is now, freebsd and OS X become fragmented, and s
... The GPL is the constitution that works towards my continued freedom as both an end-user and a developer. The BSD license is the license that allows other people to undermine and eventually destroy my freedom by building proprietary programs on top of mine that have a chance of eventually receiving all the time and attention of the world at large and thereby effectively destroying my freedom...
No. The BSD type licenses take nothing away from your freedom. You have your source, you can do whatever you want with it. Your network effect argument fails in two ways. First, you *assume* that your software would have become popular like the fork did. Your version, GPL'd or unforked BSD may have never caught on. The real work, the popular work, may have been the proprietary work. For example Apple's cocoa user interface code as opposed to the underlying freebsd code. You work may be the lesser replaceable part of the overall effort. Secondly, the network effect takes nothing away from you. For example linux works regardless of how many copies of ms windows are sold, and people are free to use and contribute to freebsd regardless of how many people use mac os x. There is no evidence to suggest that mac os x has diminished interest in or contributions to freebsd, quite the contrary actually. Mac os x elevated the awareness of and confidence in freebsd.
Please use the GPL all you care to, that is of course your right. However don't attempt the farcical arguments to deny the greater freedom of the BSD path and the greater charity of the BSD devs. Rather accept the reality of the restrictions of the GPL and argue that their altruistic nature justifies them.
No, they are really free as in free beer out there. Just Google it. The first result of 'Free as in Freedom 2.0 PDF' is the download from the FSF. So go download it.
Good. The main pages didn't seem to mention these free version. They seemed to obfuscate the issue with the free to anonymously pay cash comment:
These books will be available electronically as PDFs but will notably not be distributed in the Amazon Kindle format or for any other proprietary ebook reading platform, because of the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) those systems impose on users. "This malicious device," says Stallman, "is designed to attack the traditional freedoms of readers: There's the freedom to acquire a book anonymously, paying cash — impossible with the Kindle for all well-known recent books. There's the freedom to give, lend, or sell a book to anyone you wish — blocked by DRM and unjust licenses. Then there's the freedom to keep a book — denied by a back door for remote deletion of books."
I'm tired of this sad trolling. GPL advocates never complain about the BSD license. It's only BSD advocates that complain about the GPL. You know what? Just because you want to use other people's code without having to respect their conditions doesn't give you the grounds to demean the GPL, dude.
Actually some GPL types don't respect the wishes of others as well, or possibly legal obligations.
The PDF's don't seem free, merely anonymous cash is OK so we won't do kindle.
From TFA:
These books will be available electronically as PDFs but will notably not be distributed in the Amazon Kindle format or for any other proprietary ebook reading platform, because of the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) those systems impose on users. "This malicious device," says Stallman, "is designed to attack the traditional freedoms of readers: There's the freedom to acquire a book anonymously, paying cash — impossible with the Kindle for all well-known recent books. There's the freedom to give, lend, or sell a book to anyone you wish — blocked by DRM and unjust licenses. Then there's the freedom to keep a book — denied by a back door for remote deletion of books."
Those who have written something for their own amusement or curiosity, something not part of work or a class assignment.
Are interviewees permitted to bring in their own laptop computers on which to demonstrate "something [written] for their own amusement or curiosity"?
For me, no. I don't want to see the code. I want to have a conversation about the code. How were things implemented, what problems came up, anything particularly cool about the implementation, what was fun, what was not fun? I think the conversation is more revealing, code can be someone else's. Or if written purely for your own amusement it might be crudely slapped together and not truly representative of a person's professional efforts.
you do have a good point, and i do not hesitate to tell people at an interview that i sometimes code as a hobby, but i hardly think my hobbyed up ray-casting engine, or asteroid clone show off my strong points as a coder, they were fun to do, but not exactly my best quality work.
I understand, I am guilty in that respect too. Personally I just have the interviewee describe their personal projects, I don't ask to see the code. I think a back and forth chat about how things were implemented/coded is more revealing than reading the code. The only code I look at is code written as part of the interview process.
I realize others may do things quite differently but then again an interview process should be a two way street. How the company conducts the interview and what they consider important may indicate whether or not that may be a good place to work.
What metric do you use to determine which candidates will make good junior developers?
Those who have written something for their own amusement or curiosity, something not part of work or a class assignment. Something that suggests a person is part of the minority who have a genuine interest in programming rather than the majority who were told it is a good career path.
Applications you've made because of a school project will not count.
Why not? Because someone else provided the specifications? Isn't that what corporate software development is built around? Not to mention that school projects are done in teams, so your contribution to that team can show how well you will work in a dev team? Soloist codemonkeys do not good employees make.
Neither do people who went into programming because someone said it is a good career path. A certain curiosity and interest in the field is required. These personal projects don't need to be elaborate. Its just that a complete lack of anything written for personal amusement or curiosity also suggests a lack of interest in the field.
Also in team projects those with genuine interest tend to carry those on the career path. So all team projects and nothing personal can be worrisome.
i do enjoy coding a lot, as in i cant think of anything i'd rather do for a living. But in my free time, i can think of thousands of things i'd rather spend my time on, so i hardly have any hobby-projects, certainly nothing that i would use to show off at a job interview.
I did write lot of stuff for my enjoyment. still, the assembly bump mapping demo doesn't really seems to me a good thing ti show off. also, it doesn't run on windows. or linux, for that matter.
You are very mistaken. When interviewing recent grads I explicitly look for things people have written for their own curiosity or amusement. To me that separates those who have a genuine interest in programming from those who only look at it as a good career path. Your mistake is common, I often have to dig these projects out of interviewees. When hired they were shocked to learn they were preferred over a 4.0 student who never wrote anything except for class assignments. FWIW, my year+ project staffed with such individuals was delivered on time with only a few weeks of "crunch time". The product (molecular modeling and visualization) received good reviews and few bugs were discovered when it got into the hands of customers.
Hiring someone straight out of college is OK. Doing so does not necessarily violate the "accomplished something" rule. When I interview recent grads I always as about their personal projects, things unrelated to work or class assignments. I sometimes have to pry info out from them. They are embarrassed by how trivial the projects look and think they are not worth mentioning. They don't understand that I am not really interested in how involved the project was, rather I am looking for any kind of project they did on their own to satisfy a personal need or curiosity or just to have fun. The mere fact that they got something working for their own amusement, curiosity or need indicates they are part of the minority who went into programming because they have a genuine interest in the field rather than part of the majority who went into programming because someone told them it was a good career path.
Regarding the value of college itself. I certainly agree that someone can be self taught, however the person that will on their own read university level computer science material across a broad range of topics is exceedingly rare. Additionally, completing a degree demonstrates that a person has the temperament to finish what they start, even if it is a long boring bureaucratic process. When a project is long and has unglamorous components such a temperament is valuable.
Doesn't atheist bigotry pisses you off? I mean really! The nerve of those people stepping on religion's territory.
Atheists can be bigots too. The eminent scientists of the day rejected a theory for the origin of the universe because it was developed by a priest and "smelled of creationism". The priest called his theory the "hypothesis of the primeval atom", the eminent scientists coined a pejorative name for the theory: "the big bang". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_Theory
I know theoretically the Church has been cool with evolution since at least the 50's. However that didn't stop me from getting yelled at by a priest because I talked about it during a CCD class when I was a kid in the late 70's and got ratted out by the CCD teacher. (I guess that means at least 2 people working in some capacity for the RCC in my personal experience were creationists. So I have to think it was still quite common at that time to be a creationist even if you were a Roman Catholic. Before anybody asks I didn't get yelled at for simply talking, I got yelled at for bring up evolution which these 2 had a hair across their ass about.)
I did the sunday school thing in the same time frame but I had a different experience. "Days" in genesis were metaphors. Evolution was fine as long as the "guiding hand" behind its direction was acknowledged. Of course the local parish priest had a PhD in Chemistry and supplemented the small parish's income by teaching chemistry at the local state university. I believe he was the dean for a few years.
I don't doubt your rouge priest story, but science has its own rogues. The eminent scientists of the day rejected the big bang theory of the origin of the universe because it "smelled of creationism" and had been developed by a priest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_Theory
I find it curious that for all the backwards stuff the Catholic Church does, evolution doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest.
FWIW, the vatican observatory does real academic research: Planetary Sciences, Stellar Astronomy, Extragalactic Astronomy, Cosmology.
"With support from the Vatican government, the scientists at the Vatican Observatory have a freedom to choose research topics not constrained by three-year proposal cycles or passing scientific fashions. As a result, our research topics, reflecting the wide range of interests in our staff, can focus on long-term survey programs and sometimes risky cutting-edge topics." http://www.vaticanobservatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=38&Itemid=145
Also, the current theory for the origin of the universe, the big bang theory, was developed by a priest and it was rejected by the "open minded" eminent scientists of the day because it was developed by a priest and "smelled of creationism". The term "big bang" was used by these eminent scientists as a pejorative.
"Monsignor Georges Lemaître, a priest from the Catholic University of Louvain, proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval atom". The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions (such as homogeneity and isotropy of space). The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts — an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927. Hubble's observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_Theory
... I've seen several places (some of them failed) where the online management (sysadmins, networking guys, etc) was actually manged by the online support person...
Different here. I've seen outsiders from the Linux world brought in to establish and run the online infrastructure. Not guys who could set up a LAMP system from a standard distro, but guys who could put together barebones custom installations with only what the respective servers needed at run time - less opportunity for exploitation that way.
Slashdot Mirror
So you are going the Che Gueverra route, its OK to sacrifice some peasants and increase their suffering in order to manufacture a revolution that will promote one's ideology. Apologies if I shocked anyone. I actually read Che's writing, I didn't just buy the t-shirt.
When it comes to effort I'm contributing, you betcha. I want to make sure my efforts are going to something I can support and not going to help a cycle of continued helplessness and dependence. In fact, I'm quite shocked that you think helping people stay helpless and alive is better ...
Actually the reference was not to helpless people. Che advocated instigating violence against peasants that were comfortable and safe enough that they were not interested in socialist revolution. He saw a need to increase their misery and insecurity so that they would welcome revolution. Those who died in the process were merely the price to bring about the socialist state. These ideas of Che's were written in the context of spreading socialism to central and south america.
It was your silly analogy, you chose the revolt will make everything better stuff. Sorry if your chosen side didn't quite represent what you expected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_license
Academic researchers say they've uncovered weaknesses in dozens of the most popular file hosting sites that allow people to gain unauthorized access to data that's supposed to be available only to those selected by the user.
And is anyone surprised?
And is anyone who has only uploaded *encrypted backups* terribly concerned? They may still change providers do to a loss of confidence but they are probably not losing a lot of sleep.
A closer feeding-the-hungry analogy would be the BSD camp is the charity that gives to a country that they know will takes the rice out of the bags with the US labels and repackage the rice into government labeled bags before distribution to the hungry. The GPL camp would be ones offering the rice under conditions, and when the conditions are refused, then no rice for you. Hey, don't blame me, I didn't start this feeding-the-hungry analogy. Perhaps we should just skip the analogies? :-)
The conditions being, of course, that the government must allow everybody to use the rice to plant their own rice fields if they so choose as well as distribute a brochure describing the best known ways to grow rice ...
No. The controlling condition would be to not replace the bag with the GPL labeling and terms. Since the government refuses this the rice would never get to the hungry. Replanting would only occur in the hypotheticals of the idealists. ;-)
... One encourages dependence, the other demands the government foster independence or refuses to help them. Eventually the latter government's people will revolt and replace it with a better one that doesn't object to such eminently reasonable conditions and the whole country will be richer.
I like these analogies just fine.
So you are going the Che Gueverra route, its OK to sacrifice some peasants and increase their suffering in order to manufacture a revolution that will promote one's ideology. Apologies if I shocked anyone. I actually read Che's writing, I didn't just buy the t-shirt.
Of course you know that the FSF has no problem with selling software - it is all about "free as in speech" and not about "free as in beer".
Of course. I just thought it was amusing that they were not prominently displaying where to find the free PDFs as they want software publishers to prominently display where to find the source code. I guess to carry the joke further I should ask if the books code with a CD with the LaTex files? ;-)
The real work, the popular work, may have been the proprietary work. For example Apple's cocoa user interface code as opposed to the underlying freebsd code.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Yeah.... the "real" work was cocoa and not the entire underlying OS... meh, whatever.
From the consumer's point of view that is the case. They aren't buying Macs to type "vi letter-to-grandma.txt ; lp letter-to-grandma.txt", they don't even know they had that option. ;-)
... If BSD Unix had used a license like the GPL, apple would have had to find some other OS to leach off of -- Or maybe BSD Unix would be a strong competitor in the online serverspace, and smartphone niches that Apple's OSX and Linux fills?
Actually Linux does not really compete in the smartphone space. The Linux based phones failed and Android phones are no more Linux than Mac OS X is FreeBSD. Android could replace the Linux kernel and few users would know or care, as Apple could replace FreeBSD and few Mac users would know or care. Hell, many Android devs are quick to say that Android is not really Linux.
You act like there's no real-world examples of BSD vs GPL. Your Apple vs Unix vs Linux example disproves your argument! It's not like we have no examples of how BSD can just be gobbled up into a proprietary software, and how GPL software doesn't allow such a thing, ...
The point you are missing is that when this happens nothing is taken away from the original BSD users and developers. The proprietary code would most likely have come into existence through some other path and retained its proprietary nature. For example if there were no BSD option Apple would *not* have built their user experience on top of Linux and release Mac OS X as a gpl'd Linux distribution. They would have continue with the internal project that was a modern replacement for the classic Mac OS (the project name escapes me, copland maybe) or they would have bought BeOS, or something else. Apple is replacing gcc after all.
... and how well each different community is doing as a result... (Note: Even TiVO has to give their changes back to the communtiy, thus enabling ME to make my own TiVO with the same codebase if I wish -- ergo, GPL2 isn't poisonous for hardware makers).
You leave out little details like vendors requiring code to be signed and with GPLv2 they are under no obligation to allow you to sign code. So your ability to deploy your code on your hardware is sometimes nonexistent. Hence the GPLv3, which is being avoided by some hardware vendors. Things are no where near as simple as you are suggesting.
GPL'd GNU/Linux gets better when it gets used by big players in the software space -- BSD? Well, It just gets used as a base, and is left as it was before hand... Additionally, devs can be sniped from the BSD projects and go to work for the proprietary vendor, further weakening the BSD community project.
Untrue. Apple contributes fixes and it has contributed new code to FOSS. For example the HFS+ filesystem. Its also sponsoring the development of the clang compiler, the gcc replacement. FreeBSD is also getting greater awareness and credibility. All FreeBSD is not getting is the Mac OS X user interface experience.
... Some project founders aspire to "cashing in" and keep their projects dual licensed to keep that option open.
GPL devs can be lured to the "dark side" too, or get fed up with the politics, or grow bored, or get a life,
I see merits to both sides, but I at least have to point out some flaws in your argument (which may allow you to strengthen it and we could both benefit, unless you want to keep any insight to yourself of course, that is your right).
In the spirit of BSD I will share my "insights" with all, both those who share my philosophical beliefs and those who do not. ;-)
First, you *assume* that your software would have become popular like the fork did. Your version, GPL'd or unforked BSD may have never caught on
No, he assumes works derived from his work would have become popular ...
Which is exactly what I meant by "unforked BSD". Again, that is a quite gratuitous assumption, quite the boot strapping.
... His GPL'd work may have never caught on, but maybe someone else's GPL'd fork would have. The forked popular version benefitted from the unforked one, otherwise it would never have been based on it. But in the GPL scenario, both contributing parties benefit from the popularity. Follow the BSD path and only one would have.
However the real point remains, no one is deprived of the benefits of the original work, as the OP was suggesting. As in FreeBSD users and developers are not deprived of their work by Apple's success with Mac OS X. They actually come out ahead given the increased aware of and confidence in FreeBSD.
You work may be the lesser replaceable part of the overall effort.
If it's not an important part, why are they using your work? ...
Irrelevant. It may simply be a convenience. Just because a convenience can be forgone does not mean it should be.
... On the other hand, if you realize your work wouldn't be a huge part of a larger application but you still don't want people to re-invent the wheel, you can still do the pragmatic thing and simply use the LGPL license.
That seems more like a minor concession. To be truly pragmatic would be to set aside one's personal agenda in order to achieve a universal audience.
For example linux works regardless of how many copies of ms windows are sold,
Linux and Windows are developed independently, which is a different argument than freebsd and OS X since they actually share a common base.
You are missing the point. A proprietary solution, or a network effect, does not diminish the value of the FOSS solution. Ie nothing is taken away from Linux users. They are perfectly able to continue on doing their own thing.
and people are free to use and contribute to freebsd regardless of how many people use mac os x
But if OS X works fine, why even bother with freebsd?
Again, convenience. Apple looked at Linux to the extent that it was used/supported by Apple in the early days for PowerPC hardware, before OS X's launch. Since they had experience with both, they could have gone either way. They also had experience developing their own replacement to the classic Mac OS line, the name of the project escapes me at the moment. There was also the option of buying BeOS rather than NextStep. The BSD path must have offered some greater convenience.
And if this were true, how does this undermines my point that FreeBSD users and developers have lost nothing by going the BSD route? You are saying there are no additional contributions in the GPL scenario.
By that logic no group respects anything since you could find at least one instance where a member of a group doesn't...
No, that's a quite erroneous interpretation.
... The GPL is the constitution that works towards my continued freedom as both an end-user and a developer. The BSD license is the license that allows other people to undermine and eventually destroy my freedom by building proprietary programs on top of mine that have a chance of eventually receiving all the time and attention of the world at large and thereby effectively destroying my freedom ...
No. The BSD type licenses take nothing away from your freedom. You have your source, you can do whatever you want with it. Your network effect argument fails in two ways. First, you *assume* that your software would have become popular like the fork did. Your version, GPL'd or unforked BSD may have never caught on. The real work, the popular work, may have been the proprietary work. For example Apple's cocoa user interface code as opposed to the underlying freebsd code. You work may be the lesser replaceable part of the overall effort. Secondly, the network effect takes nothing away from you. For example linux works regardless of how many copies of ms windows are sold, and people are free to use and contribute to freebsd regardless of how many people use mac os x. There is no evidence to suggest that mac os x has diminished interest in or contributions to freebsd, quite the contrary actually. Mac os x elevated the awareness of and confidence in freebsd.
Please use the GPL all you care to, that is of course your right. However don't attempt the farcical arguments to deny the greater freedom of the BSD path and the greater charity of the BSD devs. Rather accept the reality of the restrictions of the GPL and argue that their altruistic nature justifies them.
No, they are really free as in free beer out there. Just Google it. The first result of 'Free as in Freedom 2.0 PDF' is the download from the FSF. So go download it.
That's good. Another commenter was kind enough to provide links: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2135728&cid=36063704
;-)
The FSF seems to be obfuscating the fact that free versions are available.
Here and here.
Good. The main pages didn't seem to mention these free version. They seemed to obfuscate the issue with the free to anonymously pay cash comment:
These books will be available electronically as PDFs but will notably not be distributed in the Amazon Kindle format or for any other proprietary ebook reading platform, because of the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) those systems impose on users. "This malicious device," says Stallman, "is designed to attack the traditional freedoms of readers: There's the freedom to acquire a book anonymously, paying cash — impossible with the Kindle for all well-known recent books. There's the freedom to give, lend, or sell a book to anyone you wish — blocked by DRM and unjust licenses. Then there's the freedom to keep a book — denied by a back door for remote deletion of books."
I'm tired of this sad trolling. GPL advocates never complain about the BSD license. It's only BSD advocates that complain about the GPL. You know what? Just because you want to use other people's code without having to respect their conditions doesn't give you the grounds to demean the GPL, dude.
Actually some GPL types don't respect the wishes of others as well, or possibly legal obligations.
Regarding the actions by some GPL types who take dual licensed code and remove the non-GPL license in an attempt to make the code GPL only:
http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/openbsd-misc/2007/9/1/153822
The PDF's don't seem free, merely anonymous cash is OK so we won't do kindle.
From TFA:
These books will be available electronically as PDFs but will notably not be distributed in the Amazon Kindle format or for any other proprietary ebook reading platform, because of the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) those systems impose on users. "This malicious device," says Stallman, "is designed to attack the traditional freedoms of readers: There's the freedom to acquire a book anonymously, paying cash — impossible with the Kindle for all well-known recent books. There's the freedom to give, lend, or sell a book to anyone you wish — blocked by DRM and unjust licenses. Then there's the freedom to keep a book — denied by a back door for remote deletion of books."
Where are the free PDF versions? Aren't these books open? ;-)
Those who have written something for their own amusement or curiosity, something not part of work or a class assignment.
Are interviewees permitted to bring in their own laptop computers on which to demonstrate "something [written] for their own amusement or curiosity"?
For me, no. I don't want to see the code. I want to have a conversation about the code. How were things implemented, what problems came up, anything particularly cool about the implementation, what was fun, what was not fun? I think the conversation is more revealing, code can be someone else's. Or if written purely for your own amusement it might be crudely slapped together and not truly representative of a person's professional efforts.
you do have a good point, and i do not hesitate to tell people at an interview that i sometimes code as a hobby, but i hardly think my hobbyed up ray-casting engine, or asteroid clone show off my strong points as a coder, they were fun to do, but not exactly my best quality work.
I understand, I am guilty in that respect too. Personally I just have the interviewee describe their personal projects, I don't ask to see the code. I think a back and forth chat about how things were implemented/coded is more revealing than reading the code. The only code I look at is code written as part of the interview process.
I realize others may do things quite differently but then again an interview process should be a two way street. How the company conducts the interview and what they consider important may indicate whether or not that may be a good place to work.
What metric do you use to determine which candidates will make good junior developers?
Those who have written something for their own amusement or curiosity, something not part of work or a class assignment. Something that suggests a person is part of the minority who have a genuine interest in programming rather than the majority who were told it is a good career path.
Applications you've made because of a school project will not count.
Why not? Because someone else provided the specifications? Isn't that what corporate software development is built around? Not to mention that school projects are done in teams, so your contribution to that team can show how well you will work in a dev team? Soloist codemonkeys do not good employees make.
Neither do people who went into programming because someone said it is a good career path. A certain curiosity and interest in the field is required. These personal projects don't need to be elaborate. Its just that a complete lack of anything written for personal amusement or curiosity also suggests a lack of interest in the field.
Also in team projects those with genuine interest tend to carry those on the career path. So all team projects and nothing personal can be worrisome.
i do enjoy coding a lot, as in i cant think of anything i'd rather do for a living. But in my free time, i can think of thousands of things i'd rather spend my time on, so i hardly have any hobby-projects, certainly nothing that i would use to show off at a job interview.
Please rethink this reluctance, see http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2134962&cid=36063020.
I did write lot of stuff for my enjoyment. still, the assembly bump mapping demo doesn't really seems to me a good thing ti show off. also, it doesn't run on windows. or linux, for that matter.
You are very mistaken. When interviewing recent grads I explicitly look for things people have written for their own curiosity or amusement. To me that separates those who have a genuine interest in programming from those who only look at it as a good career path. Your mistake is common, I often have to dig these projects out of interviewees. When hired they were shocked to learn they were preferred over a 4.0 student who never wrote anything except for class assignments. FWIW, my year+ project staffed with such individuals was delivered on time with only a few weeks of "crunch time". The product (molecular modeling and visualization) received good reviews and few bugs were discovered when it got into the hands of customers.
Hiring someone straight out of college is OK. Doing so does not necessarily violate the "accomplished something" rule. When I interview recent grads I always as about their personal projects, things unrelated to work or class assignments. I sometimes have to pry info out from them. They are embarrassed by how trivial the projects look and think they are not worth mentioning. They don't understand that I am not really interested in how involved the project was, rather I am looking for any kind of project they did on their own to satisfy a personal need or curiosity or just to have fun. The mere fact that they got something working for their own amusement, curiosity or need indicates they are part of the minority who went into programming because they have a genuine interest in the field rather than part of the majority who went into programming because someone told them it was a good career path.
Regarding the value of college itself. I certainly agree that someone can be self taught, however the person that will on their own read university level computer science material across a broad range of topics is exceedingly rare. Additionally, completing a degree demonstrates that a person has the temperament to finish what they start, even if it is a long boring bureaucratic process. When a project is long and has unglamorous components such a temperament is valuable.
Doesn't atheist bigotry pisses you off? I mean really! The nerve of those people stepping on religion's territory.
Atheists can be bigots too. The eminent scientists of the day rejected a theory for the origin of the universe because it was developed by a priest and "smelled of creationism". The priest called his theory the "hypothesis of the primeval atom", the eminent scientists coined a pejorative name for the theory: "the big bang".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_Theory
I know theoretically the Church has been cool with evolution since at least the 50's. However that didn't stop me from getting yelled at by a priest because I talked about it during a CCD class when I was a kid in the late 70's and got ratted out by the CCD teacher. (I guess that means at least 2 people working in some capacity for the RCC in my personal experience were creationists. So I have to think it was still quite common at that time to be a creationist even if you were a Roman Catholic. Before anybody asks I didn't get yelled at for simply talking, I got yelled at for bring up evolution which these 2 had a hair across their ass about.)
I did the sunday school thing in the same time frame but I had a different experience. "Days" in genesis were metaphors. Evolution was fine as long as the "guiding hand" behind its direction was acknowledged. Of course the local parish priest had a PhD in Chemistry and supplemented the small parish's income by teaching chemistry at the local state university. I believe he was the dean for a few years.
I don't doubt your rouge priest story, but science has its own rogues. The eminent scientists of the day rejected the big bang theory of the origin of the universe because it "smelled of creationism" and had been developed by a priest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_Theory
I find it curious that for all the backwards stuff the Catholic Church does, evolution doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest.
FWIW, the vatican observatory does real academic research: Planetary Sciences, Stellar Astronomy, Extragalactic Astronomy, Cosmology.
"With support from the Vatican government, the scientists at the Vatican Observatory have a freedom to choose research topics not constrained by three-year proposal cycles or passing scientific fashions. As a result, our research topics, reflecting the wide range of interests in our staff, can focus on long-term survey programs and sometimes risky cutting-edge topics."
http://www.vaticanobservatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=38&Itemid=145
Also, the current theory for the origin of the universe, the big bang theory, was developed by a priest and it was rejected by the "open minded" eminent scientists of the day because it was developed by a priest and "smelled of creationism". The term "big bang" was used by these eminent scientists as a pejorative.
"Monsignor Georges Lemaître, a priest from the Catholic University of Louvain, proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval atom". The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions (such as homogeneity and isotropy of space). The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts — an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927. Hubble's observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_Theory
Former gaming industry guy here ...
Same here.
... I've seen several places (some of them failed) where the online management (sysadmins, networking guys, etc) was actually manged by the online support person ...
Different here. I've seen outsiders from the Linux world brought in to establish and run the online infrastructure. Not guys who could set up a LAMP system from a standard distro, but guys who could put together barebones custom installations with only what the respective servers needed at run time - less opportunity for exploitation that way.