I don't *think* that the Debian or RedHat default kernels have sound compiled in, so most people will recompile at least once. Debian does have Alsa as a package; I don't really know how well it works though since OSS works fine with my card.
If you just care about the programs being the same you can use Coda/NFS to mount/usr and/home and get centralized programs that way. If you actually want the same software physically installed on each computer, you can create a Packages.gz file indexing all the.deb packages that contain your custom version of the software and point sources.list at it for each computer. Not that that helps if you aren't running Debian. Guess you'd have to resort to rsync or some similar thing (CVS update!!) in that case:-)
The sanest way to try to explain why Linux is GNU is to do this on a typical Linux box: (a) remove Apache. Your Web server stops working. (b) Remove Perl. Perl goes away. (c) Remove the BSD tools. Calendar and reminder services and a few minor system utilities (hexdump, write) stop working (d) Remove the GNU fileutils, binutils, shellutils, and sh. If your box keeps working after this, count yourself blessed and try the ultimate experiment: (e) Remove GNU libc. Pretty much everything breaks. If we're going to do things by lines of code, I believe that the same statistics you're citing show that the kernel is also a relatively insignificant part of the code. So why even call it Linux? Obviously a silly argument, but the classification of the system should include the kernel and core libraries and tools. The core tools and libraries are primarily (last time I did a finger count, admittedly not terribly scientific;-) ) from GNU. I think that the numbers that you're quoting come from the "Demon Linux" article; if I remember correctly, that article included lines of code in X and Perl as part of the "operating system".
Ummm. Technically it is true that the Hurd 'never got finished'. However, it is not a failed project. In fact, Debian is preparing to launch a hurd-based distribution. Guess what we call it in Debian-land?
It's as if he's saying that ethics are in some way illogical, or that Adam Smith's invisible hand is somehow superior to ethics. I'd say that ethics are illogical. That's why we need them.
To my way of thinking, science is essentially a method of viewing and analysing the world. The scientist does not take anything on faith, but rather relies on objective (to the extent possible) facts. I would argue that this is not the end-all and be-all of science; it just happens to be the correct way to go about advancing the 'greater good' as seen by scientists (deeper understanding of nature/universe/God depending on what time period you're talking about). Obviously not all scientists agree;-) In any event, this approach is very good at getting you the truth but doesn't tell you what to do with it.
The scientific approach to evaluating free software is to compare the results of projects based on totally free software, GPL'd free software, open software, proprietary software, etc. If one sort of licence or organisational scheme produces consistently better software (based on objective criteria), it can possibly be considered the best way to develop software.
This gives you a full comprehension of which way is the most efficient way to develop software. Sweatshops are also exceedingly efficient. Free software is too. 'Scientific' correctness is orthogonal to rightness.
The view taken by Richard Stallman is that GPL'd software is inherently better, simply because he believes it is right. Regardless of any evidence to the contrary, he will only use software which fits his definition of free, because that is his religion. To his followers, then, he is the prophet of the GNU faith. To the rest of us, he just seems a bit of a nutter.
No, you're confusing him with ESR. Stallman doesn't claim that free software is better than proprietary software (although it often is), he claims that free software is the Right Thing[tm] to do. I personally think that freeness and quality are not related. There's bad free software and good proprietary software. They have different strengths, etc, etc, but the question for Stallman is not whether one is objectively better but which one is right. Whether you agree with him or not, having made an ethical decision--even an unpopular one--does not automatically qualify one as a "nutter". If Stallman said that the GPL was given to him by little pixies, I think you might have a point.;-)
PS If the Soviet Union had been levelled in the 1950s, the way Germany and Japan were in the 1940s, the world (especially Russia and Eastern/Central Europe) would probably be in much better shape today.
To be honest, I don't have access to an alternate-universe machine to find out what would have happened if we had nuked Russia. But I suspect that the results would have included massive destruction within Russia (worse than Germany or Japan), horrendous [Russian] civilian casualties, etc, etc... *Perhaps* they would have rebounded like Germany and Japan, but that still doesn't mean that it would have been the 'Right Thing'.
btw, was Hitler's only mistake the invasion of Russia? Wouldn't it have been better for Fleming to get a patent on the production of penicillin?
erm, anyway. What bothers me is the elevation of pragmatism over other concerns and the treatement of ethics and morality as something dirty to be avoided. (IMO, 'ethics' is a better term here) More than that; in taking this stance, people try to present themselves as being 'objective' (and therefore, presumably somehow better) when in fact they have made a decision as well. Denying that an ethical issue exists (even if you are correct) is an ethical decision. To pretend objectivity is hypocrisy of the nth degree.
On top of that...while I can understand pragmatism in software (it can be easily argued that there are more important moral questions, however much it may impact my life), I often get the feeling that this is part and parcel of a larger attitude of pure pragmatism. I could be wrong of course, it's difficult to judge people based on 5-line posts on/. or O'Reilly's site.;-) But if you don't understand why some sort of ethical basis for action is necessary..then I repeat my comment: I'm sorry.
[ now that I think about it, O'Reilly is probably not guilty of this..heck I doubt you are either..I'd be quicker to indict random/. ACs on this point;-) You just got in the way of a rant waiting to happen. ]
And you *totally* missed my point about users vs creators. The GPL is an assertion of the rights of the creator of a piece of software to ensure that it is used in the way he or she intended. And even in the mindset that this is a moral issue, no-one, even RMS, is going to come around and *force* you to GPL your software (except for some very misguided people)--persuade, argue, cajole, perhaps.
Huh? RMS' saying that something is wrong doesn't take away your right to ignore him and do it your way. You'll just be wrong.;-) The GPL is meant to provide the creator of a work with the ability to say something about how it's used. A good description I saw earlier was "liberated software, not libertine software".
And I'm not even going to mention the piracy troll.
A couple of..umm..interesting things in that O'Reilly article.
At bottom, Richard believes that the rights of the users of software take precedence over the rights of the creators of that software.
Yes, that's why when a creator puts his or her work under the GPL, it stays free ad infinitum, whereas a BSD license lets any of the users close the source off for their own uses. The users get a guarantee of freedom to see the code in the process but it does take away their 'right' to hide it.
like to say that Open Source is science, not religion. Making source code freely available is good not because of some inalienable right belonging to the users of software, but because it's good for the creators of the software
Um. He must have a different understanding of how science work[ed|s] than I did. AFAIK, science has as a goal the furthering of human knowledge by sharing of information and discoveries. True, it doesn't work that way all the time (ego, greed, etc), but it works well enought that I would suggest that Stallman's position is grounded in a scientific ethic.
But for me, the choice of proprietary or Open Source software is purely a pragmatic one.
I'm sorry.
Ultimately, the question you're asking...is one of whether free software is a moral issue or a scientific one.
Oh dear. [ using science in the sense of 'object judgement' here: ] I think that it was suggested at various points in the '50s (by Von Neumann and others? I'm getting this from a history of game theory that I read, feel free to thwack me if I'm wrong) that the 'scientific' thing for America to do was to bomb Russia back into the stone age before they got nuclear missiles, and just hope that the effects weren't devastating to us. I would agrue that science and objectivity have to give way to ethics and morality. In the case of GNU/Linux, of course, we're lucky that the objective and the moral Right Things to do coincide.
RPM has a lot of features that make it more appealing to distribution developers.
Which features? Compatability with RedHat doesn't count..;-)
(not that I disbelieve you but I'm tired of people making broad claims (another good one "Gnome is founded on a poor architecture") with no examples or explanation.
I didn't see him doing that, the most you can say is that he said they were the first *linux* distributor to use a package manager. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I suspect that it's more true. I'm pretty sure they were the first distribution to be known for it anyway.
Gnome (and KDE, lest I be flamed by the Slashdot Horde) attempt to provide two things: first a 'consistent' look-and-feel across a wide suite of programs, and second, the "glue" utilities needed for the proverbial "normal user" (whatever that means) to do useful things on a computer. The handy little tools that don't exist in Linux because 90% of linux users (and 100% of linux developers! [ok, these may be exaggerated] ) just drop into a shell when they need to do something 'advanced' like, eg, copying a file. Yes, there are file managers out there already..the idea is to make a file manager, a search tool, a run-program tool, a cute little taskbar/launcher dock tool, a print manager,... -- all the little things that people rely on all the time and don't notice because (someday! Not there yet) it works so well. The things that are tedious to write as a group of programs, but necessary for the system to be functional as a complete GUI. Think of it as the GNU tool suite of graphical interfaces.
Daniel
Supreme Court chair for RMS ?
on
RMS on APSL
·
· Score: 1
If you think Stallman is recognized in his own times, go scan over the comments any time his name is mentioned in a/. article. I think if I see one more person say "I appreciate what he did, but..." I'm going to..to..to perpetrate violence on a handy piece of C code. It's frustrating, though, to see him and his ideas being shoved into an "extremist" box where they can be 'safely' ignored or (more likely) misrepresented as straw men to be shot down... (yes, I'm mixing my metaphors..)
Daniel
To RMS and Others: Actually, it does help LinuxPPC
on
RMS on APSL
·
· Score: 1
Wouldn't there be some license problems here? Sounds gray at best to me...
Daniel
What can GNOME or KDE do?
on
GNOME-steaders
·
· Score: 1
Umm, window dressing is the purpose of a desktop environment. That's not necessarily a bad thing.:-)
I agree, it's tough to compile Gnome on non-RedHat systems. I mean, my automated build script fails to compile one of the packages almost once a week! I mean, c'mon! What are these people thinking??
[ that was a ( possibly shoddy ) attempt at humor for the more trigger-happy members of the audience. No! Don't shoot! ]
GNU software != Software written by FSF
on
Feature:Free Linux
·
· Score: 1
I think you need to get a grip on what GNU is. It is a project to build a UNIX system based on FREE software. Not on GPLed software. (They seem to be concerned that the core system is primarily GPL) Therefore, if they find a sufficiently good piece of free software, they include it. They would be fools to rewrite X when XFree is out there.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't *think* that the Debian or RedHat default kernels have sound compiled in, so most people will recompile at least once. Debian does have Alsa as a package; I don't really know how well it works though since OSS works fine with my card.
Daniel
If you just care about the programs being the same you can use Coda/NFS to mount /usr and /home and get centralized programs that way. If you actually want the same software physically installed on each computer, you can create a Packages.gz file indexing all the .deb packages that contain your custom version of the software and point sources.list at it for each computer. Not that that helps if you aren't running Debian. Guess you'd have to resort to rsync or some similar thing (CVS update!!) in that case :-)
Daniel
You need perl to do an alarm clock? :-)
/usr/local/share/mp3/foo.mp3
0 7 * * * splay
Daniel
The sanest way to try to explain why Linux is GNU is to do this on a typical Linux box: ;-) ) from GNU. I think that the numbers that you're quoting come from the "Demon Linux" article; if I remember correctly, that article included lines of code in X and Perl as part of the "operating system".
(a) remove Apache. Your Web server stops working.
(b) Remove Perl. Perl goes away.
(c) Remove the BSD tools. Calendar and reminder services and a few minor system utilities (hexdump, write) stop working
(d) Remove the GNU fileutils, binutils, shellutils, and sh. If your box keeps working after this, count yourself blessed and try the ultimate experiment:
(e) Remove GNU libc. Pretty much everything breaks.
If we're going to do things by lines of code, I believe that the same statistics you're citing show that the kernel is also a relatively insignificant part of the code. So why even call it Linux?
Obviously a silly argument, but the classification of the system should include the kernel and core libraries and tools. The core tools and libraries are primarily (last time I did a finger count, admittedly not terribly scientific
Daniel
Linus wanted Linux to be called Freix. I hereby christen my system GNU/Freix, thus respecting the intentions of both Linus and RMS. :-)
Daniel
Ummm. Technically it is true that the Hurd 'never got finished'. However, it is not a failed project. In fact, Debian is preparing to launch a hurd-based distribution. Guess what we call it in Debian-land?
GNU/Hurd.
Daniel
It's as if he's saying that ethics are in some way illogical, or that Adam Smith's invisible hand is
somehow superior to ethics.
I'd say that ethics are illogical. That's why we need them.
Daniel
To my way of thinking, science is essentially a method of viewing and analysing the world. The ;-)
;-)
scientist does not take anything on faith, but rather relies on objective (to the extent possible)
facts.
I would argue that this is not the end-all and be-all of science; it just happens to be the correct way to go about advancing the 'greater good' as seen by scientists (deeper understanding of nature/universe/God depending on what time period you're talking about). Obviously not all scientists agree
In any event, this approach is very good at getting you the truth but doesn't tell you what to do with it.
The scientific approach to evaluating free software is to compare the results of projects based on
totally free software, GPL'd free software, open software, proprietary software, etc. If one sort of
licence or organisational scheme produces consistently better software (based on objective
criteria), it can possibly be considered the best way to develop software.
This gives you a full comprehension of which way is the most efficient way to develop software. Sweatshops are also exceedingly efficient. Free software is too. 'Scientific' correctness is orthogonal to rightness.
The view taken by Richard Stallman is that GPL'd software is inherently better, simply because
he believes it is right. Regardless of any evidence to the contrary, he will only use software which
fits his definition of free, because that is his religion. To his followers, then, he is the prophet of
the GNU faith. To the rest of us, he just seems a bit of a nutter.
No, you're confusing him with ESR. Stallman doesn't claim that free software is better than proprietary software (although it often is), he claims that free software is the Right Thing[tm] to do. I personally think that freeness and quality are not related. There's bad free software and good proprietary software. They have different strengths, etc, etc, but the question for Stallman is not whether one is objectively better but which one is right. Whether you agree with him or not, having made an ethical decision--even an unpopular one--does not automatically qualify one as a "nutter". If Stallman said that the GPL was given to him by little pixies, I think you might have a point.
PS If the Soviet Union had been levelled in the 1950s, the way Germany and Japan were in the
1940s, the world (especially Russia and Eastern/Central Europe) would probably be in much
better shape today.
To be honest, I don't have access to an alternate-universe machine to find out what would have happened if we had nuked Russia. But I suspect that the results would have included massive destruction within Russia (worse than Germany or Japan), horrendous [Russian] civilian casualties, etc, etc... *Perhaps* they would have rebounded like Germany and Japan, but that still doesn't mean that it would have been the 'Right Thing'.
btw, was Hitler's only mistake the invasion of Russia? Wouldn't it have been better for Fleming to get a patent on the production of penicillin?
Daniel
I like the way you ignored the rest of my post...
/. or O'Reilly's site. ;-) But if you don't understand why some sort of ethical basis for action is necessary..then I repeat my comment:
/. ACs on this point ;-) You just got in the way of a rant waiting to happen. ]
erm, anyway. What bothers me is the elevation of pragmatism over other concerns and the treatement of ethics and morality as something dirty to be avoided. (IMO, 'ethics' is a better term here) More than that; in taking this stance, people try to present themselves as being 'objective' (and therefore, presumably somehow better) when in fact they have made a decision as well. Denying that an ethical issue exists (even if you are correct) is an ethical decision. To pretend objectivity is hypocrisy of the nth degree.
On top of that...while I can understand pragmatism in software (it can be easily argued that there are more important moral questions, however much it may impact my life), I often get the feeling that this is part and parcel of a larger attitude of pure pragmatism. I could be wrong of course, it's difficult to judge people based on 5-line posts on
I'm sorry.
[ now that I think about it, O'Reilly is probably not guilty of this..heck I doubt you are either..I'd be quicker to indict random
And you *totally* missed my point about users vs creators. The GPL is an assertion of the rights of the creator of a piece of software to ensure that it is used in the way he or she intended. And even in the mindset that this is a moral issue, no-one, even RMS, is going to come around and *force* you to GPL your software (except for some very misguided people)--persuade, argue, cajole, perhaps.
Daniel
Huh? RMS' saying that something is wrong doesn't take away your right to ignore him and do it your way. You'll just be wrong. ;-) The GPL is meant to provide the creator of a work with the ability to say something about how it's used. A good description I saw earlier was "liberated software, not libertine software".
And I'm not even going to mention the piracy troll.
Daniel
The users get a
guarantee of freedom to see the code in the process but it does take away their 'right' to hide it.
Err, I meant in the GPL.
Daniel
A couple of..umm..interesting things in that O'Reilly article.
At bottom, Richard believes that the rights of
the users of software take precedence over
the rights of the creators of that software.
Yes, that's why when a creator puts his or her work under the GPL, it stays free ad infinitum, whereas a BSD license lets any of the users close the source off for their own uses. The users get a guarantee of freedom to see the code in the process but it does take away their 'right' to hide it.
like to say that Open
Source is science, not religion. Making source
code freely available is good not because of
some inalienable right belonging to the users of
software, but because it's good for the
creators of the software
Um. He must have a different understanding of how science work[ed|s] than I did. AFAIK, science has as a goal the furthering of human knowledge by sharing of information and discoveries. True, it doesn't work that way all the time (ego, greed, etc), but it works well enought that I would suggest that Stallman's position is grounded in a scientific ethic.
But for me, the choice of proprietary or Open
Source software is purely a pragmatic one.
I'm sorry.
Ultimately, the question you're asking...is one of
whether free software is a moral issue or a scientific
one.
Oh dear. [ using science in the sense of 'object judgement' here: ] I think that it was suggested at various points in the '50s (by Von Neumann and others? I'm getting this from a history of game theory that I read, feel free to thwack me if I'm wrong) that the 'scientific' thing for America to do was to bomb Russia back into the stone age before they got nuclear missiles, and just hope that the effects weren't devastating to us. I would agrue that science and objectivity have to give way to ethics and morality.
In the case of GNU/Linux, of course, we're lucky that the objective and the moral Right Things to do coincide.
Daniel
RPM has a lot of features that make it more appealing to distribution developers.
;-)
Which features? Compatability with RedHat doesn't count..
(not that I disbelieve you but I'm tired of people making broad claims (another good one "Gnome is founded on a poor architecture") with no examples or explanation.
Daniel
I didn't see him doing that, the most you can say is that he said they were the first *linux* distributor to use a package manager. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I suspect that it's more true. I'm pretty sure they were the first distribution to be known for it anyway.
Daniel
Hmmm, I guess I must not have a distribution on my computer since I downloaded it from a Web page..?
Daniel
PS - I'm not putting a company out of business either.
...this is for small values of "fast"?
Daniel
Funny, when I choose "Log Out", I log out...
Daniel
And this shows structural flaws how...?
Daniel
Gnome (and KDE, lest I be flamed by the Slashdot Horde) attempt to provide two things: first a 'consistent' look-and-feel across a wide suite of programs, and second, the "glue" utilities needed for the proverbial "normal user" (whatever that means) to do useful things on a computer. The handy little tools that don't exist in Linux because 90% of linux users (and 100% of linux developers! [ok, these may be exaggerated] ) just drop into a shell when they need to do something 'advanced' like, eg, copying a file. Yes, there are file managers out there already..the idea is to make a file manager, a search tool, a run-program tool, a cute little taskbar/launcher dock tool, a print manager, ... -- all the little things that people rely on all the time and don't notice because (someday! Not there yet) it works so well. The things that are tedious to write as a group of programs, but necessary for the system to be functional as a complete GUI. Think of it as the GNU tool suite of graphical interfaces.
Daniel
If you think Stallman is recognized in his own times, go scan over the comments any time his name is mentioned in a /. article. I think if I see one more person say "I appreciate what he did, but..." I'm going to..to..to perpetrate violence on a handy piece of C code. It's frustrating, though, to see him and his ideas being shoved into an "extremist" box where they can be 'safely' ignored or (more likely) misrepresented as straw men to be shot down... (yes, I'm mixing my metaphors..)
Daniel
Wouldn't there be some license problems here? Sounds gray at best to me...
Daniel
Umm, window dressing is the purpose of a desktop environment. That's not necessarily a bad thing. :-)
Daniel
I agree, it's tough to compile Gnome on non-RedHat systems. I mean, my automated build script fails to compile one of the packages almost once a week! I mean, c'mon! What are these people thinking??
[ that was a ( possibly shoddy ) attempt at humor for the more trigger-happy members of the audience. No! Don't shoot! ]
Daniel
I think Tux would be better.
I think you need to get a grip on what GNU is. It is a project to build a UNIX system based on FREE software. Not on GPLed software. (They seem to be concerned that the core system is primarily GPL) Therefore, if they find a sufficiently good piece of free software, they include it. They would be fools to rewrite X when XFree is out there.
Daniel