Give me a break. Just because there was a gaming related item as the catalyst doesn't mean that we now need to setup special clinics to help these "poor souls who cannot distinguish fantasy from reality". The guy obviously needs counseling alright....but for his lack of self-control and anger management issues, not for his so-called "gaming addiction". Or are you of the belief that people aren't responsible for their own actions and that there must be a reason (read: scapegoat) for those actions other than the simple fact that the person made the wrong decision?
It's highly annoying when people give hair-trigger responses to certain keywords in an article. "It said he was a 'gamer', so he obviously must've been an addict and that's the root cause of the confrontation". What a load of crap.
I used to maintain the Mozilla build system and last I checked, we *do* use standard GNU autoconf (albeit, 2.13). The vast majority of the source tree switched to using feature-based ifdefs long ago.
There are 4 different build trees (not 17): Mozilla/FF/TB, NSS, NSPR & LDAP. The last 3 are also independent projects, hence why they have their own build system (the last 2 include an autoconf wrapper around their old system). They have been slowly moving towards using standard autoconf macros but, mostly due to corporate influence (and partily due to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality), it wasn't possible to get those changes checked into the tree. Bug 52990 comes to mind. Take a look at the code from 1998 or 2000 even. It used to be *much* worse.
Btw, building with gcc on HPUX is pretty much unsupported. Why? Afaik, no one ever bothered to make it work. The resident HP-UX guru, Jim Dunn, always advised us to build using the HP compiler. And when you, for intents & purposes, only have *one* person working with us to make a fringe platform work, you pretty much take their word for it.
There are many things that are bad with the build system but the use of OS ifdefs instead of feature ifdefs that results in one fringe platform using an unsupported compiler being adversely affected is not one of them.
"output of the program is not GPL'd"... unless the output contains a portion of what's considered to be the source. This was the case with older versions of bison. The bison maintainers added a clause which stated that the output of bison was not governed by the GPL for this reason.
Actually, the dbm files appear to be under the *original* BSD copyright (ie, the one with the advertising clause) so they are not compatible with the GPL. Haven't we been over this before?
No, 3rd party applications will not be required to be dual-licensed. As Shaver said, this would go against at least the GPL if not both licenses. When you use Mozilla or a component of Mozilla, you will need to decide which license (GPL or MPL) works best for your situation.
And fwiw, I agree that GPL'd libraries would have a severe impact on *any* developer that is not working on GPL code. It's not something to be taken lightly, IMO, and I wonder what mozilla.org's reaction will be when they discover that not all mozilla developers agree with the dual-licensing decision.
That's not correct unless Red Hat selectively grepped for a name and sent email to every address it matched. I got the offer at both my home email address, where I submit most of my code from, and at work. The only connection between the two (beside the name) is that I purchased a Red Hat product using each address.
1 - Netscape's decision to release Mozilla was because they realized they were losing the browser war. Plain and simple. Sure, theorectically, more programmers could work on it now that it's open source'd but anyone who's paying attention to the project knows that only around 30 non-Netscape developers (compared to the hundreds inside Netscape) have worked on the project since it was released.
2 - Because not everyone has the ability (or desire) to code. Should you not be using a computer because you can't build one from scratch like the Woz? Or not drive cars because you can't make a frame from pigiron? Thanks for taking us back to the pre-Industrial Revolution days.
As one who constantly uses free/open/convenient software, having the "public" know occassionally makes my life easier. Now, when I suggest using Linux on a project, I don't have to spend 1/2 day explaining what Linux, GNU & BSD are and then days trying to convince them that it's considered a "real" OS and that other people use it too. As far as I'm concerned, ESR is doing me a favor by marketing free software for me so I don't have to repeat the same rationalizations over and over again.
Regardless of the situation, someone will always "take without giving back". And for code that's being offered as "free", it seems to be a fairly silly to complain that people don't give back becaue they're just "using" (running) the code.
Sure, when you write code, it's your sandbox and you make the rules. But don't start complaining when a) someone decides to start building their own sandbox (non-GPL'd licenses, commercial code, or even proprietary code) b) starts using the sand that you let *everyone* use (abiding the license, of course) and c) other people who don't build sandboxes say the other one looks better and decides to play in it.
3 -He didn't say anything about proprietary applications. He said commercial. Not all commercial apps have to be proprietary. This shouldn't need repeating but someone always seems to want to blur the two.
When you consider the alternatives (feature deficient or time limited software), banner ads are definitely the lesser of two (well, three) evils. I currently work for a company that makes money by imbedding ads in software. At first, I was totally against the concept (I use junkbuster to block website ads) but now I can see the appeal (as outlined below):
1) It gives the users a choice in *useable* software. Not some piece of crippleware. 2) In some cases, you can use the traditional shareware model and give registered users a version without the ads. Take Go!Zilla ( http://www.gozilla.com) for example. 3) It's an almost guaranteed way for developers to get _paid_. I like writing free (speech and/or beer) software. I like having money to take care of my family. The ads permit the software developers to do both of these in a manner that's been proven to work in other industries (tv, radio, magazines). Just like these other mediums, if you don't want to see the ads, choose a different product. Don't condemn the developers methods of revenue unless you're ready to cough up money to support the application that they are giving you for free. (Obviously, I don't agree with ads that display in commercial applications.)
So now, besides tracking what web page I am viewing they'll be tracking what part of the app I use ?
Well, let's ignore the fact that developers could already put this feature into the software without telling you. The only part that needs to be "tracked" is whether or not you clicked on the ad. Some places will do you a favor and not download ads when the window is not active or minimized. Some even limit the bandwidth used by the ads so that it does not interfere with your network use.
How can they put banner ads without a live connection to/from my app.
Simple answer is that they cannot. You application will talk to the ad server to get new ads.
This is as bad as the Intel ID. Combine the two and you might as well run naked all over the Internet.
Pure FUD. I'm surprised you surf the web at all. All webservers I've seen keep logs. From what I've seen, most companies couldn't care less about individuals anyways. All they care about is your demographic profile. What ads can they show you that will increase your chance of clicking on one of them and possibly purchasing their product or service.
I sent this to Bruce via email but thought it was worth pointing out to the public. -- Bruce,
Thanks for putting up a resource like this. For a while, I have been looking for a site I can point people to when they have questions about which license they should use. I do have a couple of nitpicks though.
I was under the impression that the MPL was intended to be used by the general public and not just for Netscape. Last I checked, the MPL is just the same as the NPL except that it allows the Initial Developer to be someone other than Netscape so the original copyright holder would still have special rights over the code. The MPL/NPL seem to be better explained than other licenses (GPL/LGPL in particular) and don't solely rely upon the, IMO, vagueness of copyright law to make their points. I was quite surprised at the recommendation to avoid using the MPL.
In the list of questions, you left out one that I'm frequently asked: "Do you want people to use your code without being able to sell it commercially?" A lot of people seem to mistakenly think that GPL will prevent their code from being sold which is definitely not the case. It doesn't look as though any of the OS licenses would apply in this case though (except maybe the Artistic license).
Also, perhaps you should be a bit clearer on what you mean by "modifications". The MPL/NPL specifically define modifications to be changes to the original files or new files that contain code from the old files. In this case, you cannot make modifications private as you claim in the document. Only new files that do not contain any Original code can be made private. It's sort of a nitpick but it will confuse some people who were previously told that MPL/NPL would insure that the code they contribute will always remain open. The contributed code placed under the MPL/NPL will always be open, but it can be used in a closed product.
There is no guarantee that they will not change the license. If all of the copyright holders agree to the change, it's pretty much a done deal.
Also, the LGPL has a clause that allows anyone to take a LGPL program, change the notices to GPL and redistribute it under the terms of the GPL. Essentially, they'd be making a fork at the point and any derivatives of that fork will be under the GPL not the LGPL.
Libraries are LGPL'd. Apps are GPL'd.
on
GNOME 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
I believe that GNOME is trying to follow the FSF philosophy of LGPLing things for which there are many or a common non-free alternative(s), and using the GPL where this isn't the case.
Unless they changed the licensing since the last 0.99.x release, the libraries are under the LGPL and the applications are under the GPL. GNOME developers have always maintained that the core components of the system needed to *build* applications should be under the LGPL. This gives them the copyleft protection w/o scaring away potential GNOME application developers.
Slashdot Mirror
Give me a break. Just because there was a gaming related item as the catalyst doesn't mean that we now need to setup special clinics to help these "poor souls who cannot distinguish fantasy from reality". The guy obviously needs counseling alright....but for his lack of self-control and anger management issues, not for his so-called "gaming addiction". Or are you of the belief that people aren't responsible for their own actions and that there must be a reason (read: scapegoat) for those actions other than the simple fact that the person made the wrong decision?
It's highly annoying when people give hair-trigger responses to certain keywords in an article. "It said he was a 'gamer', so he obviously must've been an addict and that's the root cause of the confrontation". What a load of crap.
Geez, exaggerate much? Wait, it's slashdot, nevermind.
I used to maintain the Mozilla build system and last I checked, we *do* use standard GNU autoconf (albeit, 2.13). The vast majority of the source tree switched to using feature-based ifdefs long ago.
There are 4 different build trees (not 17): Mozilla/FF/TB, NSS, NSPR & LDAP. The last 3 are also independent projects, hence why they have their own build system (the last 2 include an autoconf wrapper around their old system). They have been slowly moving towards using standard autoconf macros but, mostly due to corporate influence (and partily due to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality), it wasn't possible to get those changes checked into the tree. Bug 52990 comes to mind. Take a look at the code from 1998 or 2000 even. It used to be *much* worse.
Btw, building with gcc on HPUX is pretty much unsupported. Why? Afaik, no one ever bothered to make it work. The resident HP-UX guru, Jim Dunn, always advised us to build using the HP compiler. And when you, for intents & purposes, only have *one* person working with us to make a fringe platform work, you pretty much take their word for it.
There are many things that are bad with the build system but the use of OS ifdefs instead of feature ifdefs that results in one fringe platform using an unsupported compiler being adversely affected is not one of them.
"output of the program is not GPL'd" ... unless the output contains a portion of what's considered to be the source. This was the case with older versions of bison. The bison maintainers added a clause which stated that the output of bison was not governed by the GPL for this reason.
Actually, the dbm files appear to be under the *original* BSD copyright (ie, the one with the advertising clause) so they are not compatible with the GPL. Haven't we been over this before?
And fwiw, I agree that GPL'd libraries would have a severe impact on *any* developer that is not working on GPL code. It's not something to be taken lightly, IMO, and I wonder what mozilla.org's reaction will be when they discover that not all mozilla developers agree with the dual-licensing decision.
That's not correct unless Red Hat selectively grepped for a name and sent email to every address it matched. I got the offer at both my home email address, where I submit most of my code from, and at work. The only connection between the two (beside the name) is that I purchased a Red Hat product using each address.
1 - Netscape's decision to release Mozilla was because they realized they were losing the browser war. Plain and simple. Sure, theorectically, more programmers could work on it now that it's open source'd but anyone who's paying attention to the project knows that only around 30 non-Netscape developers (compared to the hundreds inside Netscape) have worked on the project since it was released.
2 - Because not everyone has the ability (or desire) to code. Should you not be using a computer because you can't build one from scratch like the Woz? Or not drive cars because you can't make a frame from pigiron? Thanks for taking us back to the pre-Industrial Revolution days.
As one who constantly uses free/open/convenient software, having the "public" know occassionally makes my life easier. Now, when I suggest using Linux on a project, I don't have to spend 1/2 day explaining what Linux, GNU & BSD are and then days trying to convince them that it's considered a "real" OS and that other people use it too. As far as I'm concerned, ESR is doing me a favor by marketing free software for me so I don't have to repeat the same rationalizations over and over again.
Regardless of the situation, someone will always "take without giving back". And for code that's being offered as "free", it seems to be a fairly silly to complain that people don't give back becaue they're just "using" (running) the code.
Sure, when you write code, it's your sandbox and you make the rules. But don't start complaining when
a) someone decides to start building their own sandbox (non-GPL'd licenses, commercial code, or even proprietary code)
b) starts using the sand that you let *everyone* use (abiding the license, of course)
and
c) other people who don't build sandboxes say the other one looks better and decides to play in it.
3 -He didn't say anything about proprietary applications. He said commercial. Not all commercial apps have to be proprietary. This shouldn't need repeating but someone always seems to want to blur the two.
When you consider the alternatives (feature deficient or time limited software), banner ads are definitely the lesser of two (well, three) evils. I currently work for a company that makes money by imbedding ads in software. At first, I was totally against the concept (I use junkbuster to block website ads) but now I can see the appeal (as outlined below):
1) It gives the users a choice in *useable* software. Not some piece of crippleware.
2) In some cases, you can use the traditional shareware model and give registered users a version without the ads. Take Go!Zilla ( http://www.gozilla.com) for example.
3) It's an almost guaranteed way for developers to get _paid_. I like writing free (speech and/or beer) software. I like having money to take care of my family. The ads permit the software developers to do both of these in a manner that's been proven to work in other industries (tv, radio, magazines). Just like these other mediums, if you don't want to see the ads, choose a different product. Don't condemn the developers methods of revenue unless you're ready to cough up money to support the application that they are giving you for free. (Obviously, I don't agree with ads that display in commercial applications.)
Well, let's ignore the fact that developers could already put this feature into the software without telling you. The only part that needs to be "tracked" is whether or not you clicked on the ad. Some places will do you a favor and not download ads when the window is not active or minimized. Some even limit the bandwidth used by the ads so that it does not interfere with your network use.
Simple answer is that they cannot. You application will talk to the ad server to get new ads.
Pure FUD. I'm surprised you surf the web at all. All webservers I've seen keep logs. From what I've seen, most companies couldn't care less about individuals anyways. All they care about is your demographic profile. What ads can they show you that will increase your chance of clicking on one of them and possibly purchasing their product or service.
Dauphin
I sent this to Bruce via email but thought it was worth pointing out to the public.
--
Bruce,
Thanks for putting up a resource like this. For a while, I have been
looking for a site I can point people to when they have questions about
which license they should use. I do have a couple of nitpicks though.
I was under the impression that the MPL was intended to be used by the
general public and not just for Netscape. Last I checked, the MPL is
just the same as the NPL except that it allows the Initial Developer to
be someone other than Netscape so the original copyright holder would
still have special rights over the code. The MPL/NPL seem to be better
explained than other licenses (GPL/LGPL in particular) and don't solely
rely upon the, IMO, vagueness of copyright law to make their points. I
was quite surprised at the recommendation to avoid using the MPL.
In the list of questions, you left out one that I'm frequently asked:
"Do you want people to use your code without being able to sell it
commercially?" A lot of people seem to mistakenly think that GPL will
prevent their code from being sold which is definitely not the case. It
doesn't look as though any of the OS licenses would apply in this case
though (except maybe the Artistic license).
Also, perhaps you should be a bit clearer on what you mean by
"modifications". The MPL/NPL specifically define modifications to be
changes to the original files or new files that contain code from the
old files. In this case, you cannot make modifications private as you
claim in the document. Only new files that do not contain any Original
code can be made private. It's sort of a nitpick but it will confuse
some people who were previously told that MPL/NPL would insure that the
code they contribute will always remain open. The contributed code
placed under the MPL/NPL will always be open, but it can be used in a
closed product.
There is no guarantee that they will not change the license. If all of the copyright holders agree to the change, it's pretty much a done deal.
Also, the LGPL has a clause that allows anyone to take a LGPL program, change the notices to GPL and redistribute it under the terms of the GPL. Essentially, they'd be making a fork at the point and any derivatives of that fork will be under the GPL not the LGPL.
I believe that GNOME is trying to follow the FSF philosophy of LGPLing things for which there are many or a common non-free alternative(s), and using the GPL where this isn't the case.
Unless they changed the licensing since the last 0.99.x release, the libraries are under the LGPL and the applications are under the GPL. GNOME developers have always maintained that the core components of the system needed to *build* applications should be under the LGPL. This gives them the copyleft protection w/o scaring away potential GNOME application developers.
- Dauphin