Some people find fan noise annoying when they're trying to sleep. But I find that nice humming soothing. The biggest noise maker on my PC is the CDROM when it spins up to read a file. I liked my old (slow) drive that was quiet and didn't take so long to start reading.
Personally, I find that just leaving a little room for the fan to work makes less noise than if it's shoved up against the wall. And you have to be careful if you try to muffel it to avoid overheating and stuff.
A few months ago, I was working on some guy's computer (helping him to fix something with Linux) and it involved decompressing a large number of files that had been compressed by tar/bzip2ing rather than tar/gzipping. The bzip2 page provides a patch to add a y switch to tar to allow it to process archives with bzip2 before trying to untar them (similar to using tar xzvf foo.tar.gz instead of gunzip foo.tar.gz | tar xvf), but to get the patch, I would have had to go to the page, find it, download it, etc.
Instead of doing all that, to add this one little feature I wanted, all I had to do was add three lines of code and add a letter to another line (I added a line to the --help later). For me, that was eaisier. That's why I want source: to fix little problems and add features. Not to make massive upgrades by hand.
The GPL makes sure that your code is and always will be free. The BSD license allows people to take away that freedom and create non-free products based on your code. One license makes sure that people will always have the freedom to source, and the other makes sure that people will always be able to take away that freedom. The GPL, since it ensures freedom, is more free.
The conspirators are any and all of the people who work against the GPL's integrity by being satisfied that the illegal nature of this situation does not need to be fixed. This includes users who don't care (not those who don't know, the uninformed are not guilty), and the developers who don't try to change things. The QT lawyers or whoever ripped out the GPL compatibility are good examples, as well as the KDE coders who let it go and don't try to work with QT or ask contributors if they will allow license changes.
the KDE camp answered at all, and both basically said that the licence change is impossible to do since there is too much code of third parties (including those who sent patches) involved who can hardly be traced.
That's a quote from the Slashback I referred to. Sounds like people who are admitting something to me! And the point of this comment was that not everyone at KDE or Troll thinks the way I describe, but that the people who do are a problem.
As for the Slashback being written by someone biased against KDE, maybe you should consider that he has a right to be biased after what he's been through.
This discussion is about KDE, so I will pick on KDE. I did not say that GNOME takes any action based on this way of thinking, I said that some people who work at the GNOME project think that way.
Some people who work on KDE think like this. They want to kill off projects that do the same things as KDE. People who work on GNOME think like this, too. It is bad to think like this.
What I described was a way of thinking that I have found in some people I know who work with/on KDE. These people want to be the standard and the only standard. They want to make all alternatives collapse. I'm not saying that some GNOME people doesn't think this way, I'm sure some must. I am saying that I know some KDE people do, and that I don't like it.
The $3000 offer went unclaimed because KDE admitted that the license change conditions could not be met. See this Slashback details for information. Debian is doing the right thing because they stand up for the GPL and the Law.
Debian isn't for people who favour usability over principle. It was created for and by people who believe that principle is important, and as long as those people exist it will always have a market. It isn't dooming itself to the hardcore geek market, that market has always been it's main focus.
If KDE changed the license, it would be the same kind of problem in reverse. One of the issues here is that people contribute GPLed code to KDE but don't give their permission to link it with non-GPL compatible code. They haven't given their permission for any license changes, so KDE is violating their copyright and still would be if they did what you suggest. A solution, but not a complete one.
The QPL isn't free because it is not GPL compatible. Look up the definition of free software. To me, open source isn't good enough (look that up, too), it has to be free. They aren't the same. The thing that bugs me about the QPL and KDE is that KDE is violating the GPL, claiming they are working to solve the problems, and generally trying to avoid the problem while saying they care.
I don't clame to be any kind of a mentor. I just like having source, and I want to protect my right to have that source. A threat to the GPL is a threat to that right. They aren't just enthusiasts; they are the zealots. Some people joke about world domination, but that's what these people are working toward. The people who are doing this in the first place (not everybody involved, just the limited set of individuals responsible for this) KDE team looks forward to the day when they are the standard desktop and the only desktop. The people who think like this don't change the license because it won't stop them. It's not in their way, so they don't care. These people are actively dangerous.
There is another, larger group that doesn't care becuase they don't take the GPL seriously. They threaten the GPL's integrity, so they are passively dangerous.
These two ways of thought endanger the spirit of free software. That is why I speak out against them. I'm sure that there are people at KDE and TrollTech that don't think like this; what I've said doesn't apply to them. But I worry about the ones it does apply to, and so should you.
The only software I have emotional attachment to (that I didn't write) is the BASIC V2 ROM on my Commodore 64. That said, I believe that no having code hampers my access to software in most every case, so I tend to get a little emotional about that, if not the software itself.
That being said, source is a superior way of getting software. If you have a flathead screwdriver and you need a Philips head one, you can always go to your toolbox and get it. But it's easier if you don't have to. Likewise, it's easier to just change source and recompile than it is to FTP a different package. For me, it isn't software if it isn't source, because I want to be sure that I always have the maximum flexibility.
Notice the reccuring pattern: people keep trying to get KDE/Troll to do the right thing, to solve their problems, to be free software. Every time, it eventually becomes apparent that they don't care. They don't want to do the right thing, despite the fact that a lot of people are basically doing the work for them, because they don't care. The QPL was GPL compatible, and instead of releasing it like that, Troll went to the trouble of modifying it to be incompatible.
They say they want to create an open desktop that can be a Unix standard. But they want the standard part more than the open part. Until KDE can shape up, they're just lying, cheating hypocrites. The KDE team members who think like this and the Troll people who keep avoiding making QT free aren't members of the community. They are working against it, not helping it. Debian is right. They are wrong.
Oh, and this isn't an attack on KDE or Troll or QT in general. Not everybody involved in those projects is doing these things. But the ones who are are causing a major problem and they need to be stopped.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus I usually listen to the radio or a CD....
Personally, I find that just leaving a little room for the fan to work makes less noise than if it's shoved up against the wall. And you have to be careful if you try to muffel it to avoid overheating and stuff.
Actually, it does make a nice, soothing whispering noise if you listen closly.
I use masking tape to cover up the lights with index cards.
Can you give me a list of every single person in the world who has cancer?
To be free enough, you must make source free (as in speech) and make sure it stays free. That's what the GPL does.
Instead of doing all that, to add this one little feature I wanted, all I had to do was add three lines of code and add a letter to another line (I added a line to the --help later). For me, that was eaisier. That's why I want source: to fix little problems and add features. Not to make massive upgrades by hand.
The GPL makes sure that your code is and always will be free. The BSD license allows people to take away that freedom and create non-free products based on your code. One license makes sure that people will always have the freedom to source, and the other makes sure that people will always be able to take away that freedom. The GPL, since it ensures freedom, is more free.
Glad I could help.
The conspirators are any and all of the people who work against the GPL's integrity by being satisfied that the illegal nature of this situation does not need to be fixed. This includes users who don't care (not those who don't know, the uninformed are not guilty), and the developers who don't try to change things. The QT lawyers or whoever ripped out the GPL compatibility are good examples, as well as the KDE coders who let it go and don't try to work with QT or ask contributors if they will allow license changes.
I am using the GNU definition, which is the correct one. Read this page and see which catagory QT fits into.
"it's green" is a quote from Star Trek.
That's a quote from the Slashback I referred to. Sounds like people who are admitting something to me! And the point of this comment was that not everyone at KDE or Troll thinks the way I describe, but that the people who do are a problem.
As for the Slashback being written by someone biased against KDE, maybe you should consider that he has a right to be biased after what he's been through.
This discussion is about KDE, so I will pick on KDE. I did not say that GNOME takes any action based on this way of thinking, I said that some people who work at the GNOME project think that way.
Some people who work on KDE think like this. They want to kill off projects that do the same things as KDE. People who work on GNOME think like this, too. It is bad to think like this.
Here is a link to download a Lossless Predictive Audio Compression encoder for Linux (and the page I found it on).
PAC is very likely to be avalible for some other Unix, so it would (with a little work) probably work on Linux.
What I described was a way of thinking that I have found in some people I know who work with/on KDE. These people want to be the standard and the only standard. They want to make all alternatives collapse. I'm not saying that some GNOME people doesn't think this way, I'm sure some must. I am saying that I know some KDE people do, and that I don't like it.
The $3000 offer went unclaimed because KDE admitted that the license change conditions could not be met. See this Slashback details for information. Debian is doing the right thing because they stand up for the GPL and the Law.
Debian isn't for people who favour usability over principle. It was created for and by people who believe that principle is important, and as long as those people exist it will always have a market. It isn't dooming itself to the hardcore geek market, that market has always been it's main focus.
If KDE changed the license, it would be the same kind of problem in reverse. One of the issues here is that people contribute GPLed code to KDE but don't give their permission to link it with non-GPL compatible code. They haven't given their permission for any license changes, so KDE is violating their copyright and still would be if they did what you suggest. A solution, but not a complete one.
The QPL isn't free because it is not GPL compatible. Look up the definition of free software. To me, open source isn't good enough (look that up, too), it has to be free. They aren't the same. The thing that bugs me about the QPL and KDE is that KDE is violating the GPL, claiming they are working to solve the problems, and generally trying to avoid the problem while saying they care.
There is another, larger group that doesn't care becuase they don't take the GPL seriously. They threaten the GPL's integrity, so they are passively dangerous.
These two ways of thought endanger the spirit of free software. That is why I speak out against them. I'm sure that there are people at KDE and TrollTech that don't think like this; what I've said doesn't apply to them. But I worry about the ones it does apply to, and so should you.
That being said, source is a superior way of getting software. If you have a flathead screwdriver and you need a Philips head one, you can always go to your toolbox and get it. But it's easier if you don't have to. Likewise, it's easier to just change source and recompile than it is to FTP a different package. For me, it isn't software if it isn't source, because I want to be sure that I always have the maximum flexibility.
They say they want to create an open desktop that can be a Unix standard. But they want the standard part more than the open part. Until KDE can shape up, they're just lying, cheating hypocrites. The KDE team members who think like this and the Troll people who keep avoiding making QT free aren't members of the community. They are working against it, not helping it. Debian is right. They are wrong.
Oh, and this isn't an attack on KDE or Troll or QT in general. Not everybody involved in those projects is doing these things. But the ones who are are causing a major problem and they need to be stopped.
I did say it was a somewhat iffy comparison. But it was the example that popped into my head.