You are aware that your taxes were processed using government money, right? Do I have the right to your tax information? You can cut out the middle man and just mail me your 1040, if you'd like.
The government paid for many of the computers at universities in the US (esp. at state universities like the UC schools or UMd or UWisconsin) In some countries, virtually all of the universities are state-funded. Should the computers be used by the students they were bought for, or should any citizen have automatic access to those machines? Try getting your work done in your friendly campus computer lab with every 15-year old boy in the neighborhood downloading porno and uploading warez. After all, it's their right.
RMS is someone who lived off public funding, and misses it. Now he wants EVERYONE in the software industry on public funding (says so in the GNU Manifesto) and takes it as a personal offense that there are people who resent taking welfare. Go figure.
You are undeniably correct. But the free software community has every right to say, 'These are our terms of membership -- you cannot abuse us'.
This implies either some sort of offical spokesperson for free software (when was the vote?) or that there is some Borg-like consensus among free software advocates. I don't think either is true.
Releasing the already-free sub-components of an OS (does Darwin even boot?) under a non-free license does not count as 'an honest attempt' in my book. It counts as graft and manipulation -- nothing new to Apple, Inc.
Graft:
1. Acquisition of money, position, etc., by dishonest or unjust means, as by actual theft or by taking advantage of a public office or any position of trust or employment to obtain fees, perquisites, profits on contracts, legislation, pay for work not done or service not performed, etc.; illegal or unfair practice for profit or personal advantage; also, anything thus gained. [Colloq.]
Cite a specific example of Apple engaging in this behavior. You can then talk to your local DA and bring Apple's executives up on criminal charges.
I hope you're not referring to people who value freedom and community above all else.
Apple already has a community: Mac users. We've been waiting for the chance to quickly fix bugs in the OS for years. I said this before and I'll say it again: Darwin isn't for Linux users! It is so the _Mac user community_ can benefit from an Open Source development model. Mac users are already tied to Apple, willingly. All of the "problems" in the license derive from the assumption that they don't want to be. Even Mac clone advocates (like me) still wanted the OS to come from Apple.
Griping by people who obviously don't like Apple and don't use Macs is irrelevant. Mac users in the know are ecstatic and that's what counts to Apple.
Ah, but Sun is probably just as dependant on MS products as MS Hotmail is on Sun products. That's probably the reason that Sun hasn't been trumpeting the Hotmail thing too loudly.
Like it or not, MS has defined the lowest common denominator for a common GUI. Nothing that Sun has can top it and nothing that Linux has is viable (yet). MS won't be beaten on the desktop until desktops are irrelevant. That's the biggest problem with the GNOME/KDE efforts; by the time they win, no one will care.
I wouldn't read too much into those server installation numbers. MS has been waging an uphill battle on the server front, so it's not like Linux is de-throning the champ. When Linux outranks all of the other Unixen combined, then it's won.
Now, if there was a viable Linux variant for handheld and embedded devices, Linux would be positioned for the next real battle. Imagine if there was a free (speech, not beer) OS for palmtops and there were a few dozen manufacturers shipping products based on it...
-jon
Who was going to contribute, anyway?
on
RMS on APSL
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· Score: 1
I can't figure out why RMS cares about Apple's licence (or any of the other people in the Linux community). How many of them would have been willing to take part in an Apple-led product? I don't think Linux users are the target audience here.
The end result of the APSL is that Mac users are going to be able to fix bugs and security holes in their OS quickly. Apparently, this bothers people who haven't even touched a Mac. I'm still trying to figure out why. If you don't like the license, don't code on it. It's not like you were planning to, anyway.
It means there will be two versions of Linux: the MS version and the free version. The MS version can continue to glom new features from the free version, but going the other way won't happen (I'd imagine that MS would only extend things that used Win32).
Now, if there are two Linuxes out there, which one will corporations use: the MS one or the standard one? There's an excellent chance that the MS one would prevail, since it would preserve the investment in MS products.
And MS can make sure that Wine never comes close to running the latest version of Office, so there's no free option, either. Office and the Win32 APIs are what MS cares about. There's zero chance that MS will have Office running on a distribution of Linux it doesn't control. People need Office because of network effects (everyone else already has it), so MS Linux squeezes out standard Linux on the desktop.
I'm not saying I like this scenario, but it's very possible.
All of the posters who think that the GPL is going to protect Linux are missing the point. Applications which run on top of Linux don't need to be GPL'd.
Does anyone here know what the "Blue Box" in Mac OS (Server) is? It's a virtual Mac, running Mac OS 8.5.1, sitting inside of the new OS. Completely different set of APIs, and the Blue Box thinks it is its own machine. You can even drop into Macsbug (the low-level debugger for the MacOS). The performance for apps inside the Blue Box is basically the same as when they are running on a Mac OS 8.5.1 box. The Blue Box is simply an app; you get into it by running the MacOS.app application.
Does anyone doubt that Microsoft could do the EXACT same thing with Win98? Create a Win98 box that lives as a process on top of a Microsoft Linux distribution? They might need to make changes to the kernel, but they wouldn't expose the Win32 API, and these kernel mods would probably be useless for the main code tree. MS could publish those changes under GPL, and Linux is still forked.
In fact, it would be even worse than you think; MS Linux would be a super-set of regular Linux. Any new features in regular Linux could easily be rolled in to the MS Linux package. You'd be improving Windows by working on Linux. Even putting in #ifdef LINUS_LINUX in the code won't help, because MS could just yank them out; the Linux source is released under GPL.
The Linux community might have made the same mistake that Netscape made: poking a sleeping bear until it woke up. Announcing that you're going to obsolete Windows before you've actually done so is fatal.
Office hasn't ruined the Mac OS, but it has killed off all competition on the platform. The only spreadsheets available for the Mac are Excel, the one bundled with ClarisWorks, and the shareware Mariner spreadsheet. Only Excel is a viable choice for a business.
The only word processors are Word, ClarisWorks, Mariner Write, and Nissus. I can't figure out Mariner Write's target market, since virtually all low-end Macs ship with ClarisWorks. Using the word "niche" to describe Nissus' market share would be generous. WordPerfect was an option once upon a time, but it hasn't been updated in years. Once again, only Word is a viable choice for businesses.
In short, if you want to use a Mac in an office, you need Microsoft. An MS port of Office to Linux would probably result in something similar. Getting the Office apps to run on Linux is going to require something vaguely Wine-like. This could be done with non-GPL code, as a commercial binary. Say the only way to get this would be by buying Microsoft Linux (tm). If you want Office for Linux, you'll need Microsoft Linux. Instant "embrace and extend." Sound familiar?
They should however be aware that these licenses are not likely to 'harness the collective IQ of thousands of individuals'. I, for one, would not dedicate any significant development support to code licensed in bias of the originator. I'd contribute bugfixes for software I need everyday, but not any significant effort. When I do free software it's for the long term good of free software, not for the short term profits of a company that might be gone in a decade.
Funny; after all of those people who claim that working on open source stuff is a labor of love and pride, here's an honest person. It's about money. No one seems to have a problem with Linus getting all of the accolades from Linux (well, except RMS). Seems to me that's a benefit for one person rather than the whole community. Heck, people say that Linus deserves it. But when Apple might make (bog-forbid) MONEY off of open source, the wolves start to circle.
Yes, I know the BSD license allows the stealth of the code. That's why I prefer the GPL. And no, I don't think the Apple developers were pulling the pud...they were writing pud code. What I mean by that is that while the Mac OS UI is unparalleled (I personally LOVE it), the underlying OS is outdated and crappy. Check out 8.5 -- all we get is the schlocky Sherlock and...themes?!?! How about protected memory? Or usable virtual memory? They leave the important stuff behind, or just 'borrow' BSD.
That's why I said Next and Apple programmers, not just Apple programmers. Apple had tried to re-write the OS and keep it backwards compatible (Copland) and failed miserably. So in December 1996, Apple went out and bought Next to get that modern OS foundation. Most Mac users care about the stuff they see (QuickTime, the GUI, even Sherlock and Themes) and don't care about multitasking and threading and protected memory. Apple has been concentrating on making them happy. The Next programmers (now Apple programmers) started with vanilla Mach and vanilla BSD, and added modifications. After about two years of work (some of it GUI-related, but most of it is internals), it's ready for prime time and Apple is open sourcing that work. That's some non-trivial work.
Non-free software just does not cut it. Apple is not committed to freedom. They have repeatedly demonstrated this throughout their history.
Even the Great God Linus says that there is a place for proprietary software. I think he's right. I've been discussing open source with a co-worker. My company's main product couldn't be open sourced (probably), but there are certainly parts of it which make a lot of sense as open source. A high-quality GUI with a consistent look and feel and good documentation for novice users might be one of those things which cannot be done via open source. At least, no one has done it yet (which isn't proof, but is evidence).
1. Sun OS (pre-Solaris) was built on BSD. Wasn't free, wasn't open source. The BSD licence allows that. Anyone who thinks this is just Apple opening up source which is already open must think that all of the Next and Apple programmers have just been pulling their puds for the last 10 years instead of writing code.
2. I think what Apple wants is to divide the GUI from the OS. This is trivial with Unix, not so trivial with Mac OS and Windows. Apple wants the OS open-source, while the GUI (which is Apple's crown jewel) is closed source.
3. If the Mac OS X GUI layer can become THE UNIX GUI, Apple wins. It's APIs would be used to develop apps, regardless of the underlying OS. Whether Linux bigots like it or not, the Mac OS L&F is considered the best one out there. How much more popular would Linux be if it had the Mac OS L&F for a GUI? Is it worth paying Apple a few bucks for it? I bet it would be to a lot of novice users.
People who don't care about GUIs won't place much value in this. People who want a solid OS with a great GUI should be drooling at the possibilities.
You've also ignored the rest of my post where I argued that the Great Depression was originally caused by economic interventionism, in the form of a newly established central bank making credit too cheap, leading to rising speculation.
In fact the boom that's happening right now _is_ much like the early 20's boom - a centrally controlled banking system is making credit too cheap, resulting in rampant speculation and buying on margin (only now it's larger scale, and we call it "hedge funds"). When there is a free market in banking, rising speculation and the resultant demand for credit lead to a corresponding increase in interest rates, causing a decrease in speculation on credit, and an increased level of investment in bonds rather than stocks and other risky investments. In fact, this used to happen bacck when many nations had free banking.
There are other parallels to what happened in the '20s which you've missed. Germany was forced to pay reparations after losing WWI. They were WAY out of line with Germany's actual ability to pay back the Allies. While there was relatively open trade between the various European countries (and America), the German economy was able to generate enough moolah to pay that huge international debt.
Then isolationist/protectionist nitwits got into power, and countries started erecting trade barriers (Hawley-Smoot in the US). Money stopped flowing between countries. Germany just printed too much cash (inflation) to pay off its debts, the Mark became worthless and depression began in Germany. The contagion then spread from country to country.
Not so much different from the 90's, where countries with huge international debts have to devalue their currencies and/or print worthless money to pay off debts. Hopefully, we'll avoid the problem this time around.
What about me, you ask? I have the good sense not to vote.
If you don't vote, pay your taxes, and aren't going around throwing bombs for your revolution, who cares what you think? It's not like your stunning prose is going to incite the masses. You're irrelevant to the political process.
The stupidest slaves are those who believe they're free because they get to choose thier masters.
And what makes you any freer? Not choosing your master?
I have more respect for Andreessen because he actually wrote code. I don't think Ellison is even sure what his company *does*, much less have any deeper technical insight than the average PHB-who-wants-to-be-a-samurai.
Ellison is not a technical guy, but he knows what he's doing. Oracle got its start by reading IBM's relational DB papers and rushing a product to market before IBM implemented its own ideas. I'm pretty sure that Ellison has been running the show since day one.
In some ways, Oracle might be even more evil than MS. In the beginning, Oracle would do things like ship purposely garbled tapes to customers, so Oracle could have a few extra days to fix bugs. I don't think MS has done that _yet_ (MS usually doesn't fix bugs without making the customer pay additional moolah), but we'll see what happens when W2K ships;-)
MS has been making apps for a pretty long time. The original version of Word was out for the Mac in 1984/1985. The first noise about splitting the company up was around 1990/1991, when Win3.1 came out.
Back then, Microsoft claimed there was a "Chinese wall" between OS and Apps; no actual collaboration, except on the odd occasion when an engineer from OS and one from Office would sit down together for a personal lunch...
Apple NT? Oh sure, just what Apple needs for its (barely growing) credibility. Let's announce YET ANOTHER OS strategy change and tell every Mac programmer who has been looking at Carbon for the last year that Win32 is where it's at (after they looked at the OpenStep APIs for a year, and before that spent a few years looking at the Copland APIs and pretty pictures).
What the heck is the advantage for Apple to put a nice GUI on a server OS, and a buggy, sluggish one at that.
Slashdot Mirror
The government paid for many of the computers at universities in the US (esp. at state universities like the UC schools or UMd or UWisconsin) In some countries, virtually all of the universities are state-funded. Should the computers be used by the students they were bought for, or should any citizen have automatic access to those machines? Try getting your work done in your friendly campus computer lab with every 15-year old boy in the neighborhood downloading porno and uploading warez. After all, it's their right.
RMS is someone who lived off public funding, and misses it. Now he wants EVERYONE in the software industry on public funding (says so in the GNU Manifesto) and takes it as a personal offense that there are people who resent taking welfare. Go figure.
-jon
This implies either some sort of offical spokesperson for free software (when was the vote?) or that there is some Borg-like consensus among free software advocates. I don't think either is true.
Releasing the already-free sub-components of an OS (does Darwin even boot?) under a non-free license does not count as 'an honest attempt' in my book. It counts as graft and manipulation -- nothing new to Apple, Inc.
Graft:
1. Acquisition of money, position, etc., by dishonest or unjust means, as by actual theft or by taking advantage of a public office or any position of trust or employment to obtain fees, perquisites, profits on contracts, legislation, pay for work not done or service not performed, etc.; illegal or unfair practice for profit or personal advantage; also, anything thus gained. [Colloq.]
Cite a specific example of Apple engaging in this behavior. You can then talk to your local DA and bring Apple's executives up on criminal charges.
I hope you're not referring to people who value freedom and community above all else.
Apple already has a community: Mac users. We've been waiting for the chance to quickly fix bugs in the OS for years. I said this before and I'll say it again: Darwin isn't for Linux users! It is so the _Mac user community_ can benefit from an Open Source development model. Mac users are already tied to Apple, willingly. All of the "problems" in the license derive from the assumption that they don't want to be. Even Mac clone advocates (like me) still wanted the OS to come from Apple.
Griping by people who obviously don't like Apple and don't use Macs is irrelevant. Mac users in the know are ecstatic and that's what counts to Apple.
-jon
Like it or not, MS has defined the lowest common denominator for a common GUI. Nothing that Sun has can top it and nothing that Linux has is viable (yet). MS won't be beaten on the desktop until desktops are irrelevant. That's the biggest problem with the GNOME/KDE efforts; by the time they win, no one will care.
I wouldn't read too much into those server installation numbers. MS has been waging an uphill battle on the server front, so it's not like Linux is de-throning the champ. When Linux outranks all of the other Unixen combined, then it's won.
Now, if there was a viable Linux variant for handheld and embedded devices, Linux would be positioned for the next real battle. Imagine if there was a free (speech, not beer) OS for palmtops and there were a few dozen manufacturers shipping products based on it...
-jon
The end result of the APSL is that Mac users are going to be able to fix bugs and security holes in their OS quickly. Apparently, this bothers people who haven't even touched a Mac. I'm still trying to figure out why. If you don't like the license, don't code on it. It's not like you were planning to, anyway.
-jon
Now, if there are two Linuxes out there, which one will corporations use: the MS one or the standard one? There's an excellent chance that the MS one would prevail, since it would preserve the investment in MS products.
And MS can make sure that Wine never comes close to running the latest version of Office, so there's no free option, either. Office and the Win32 APIs are what MS cares about. There's zero chance that MS will have Office running on a distribution of Linux it doesn't control. People need Office because of network effects (everyone else already has it), so MS Linux squeezes out standard Linux on the desktop.
I'm not saying I like this scenario, but it's very possible.
-jon
Does anyone here know what the "Blue Box" in Mac OS (Server) is? It's a virtual Mac, running Mac OS 8.5.1, sitting inside of the new OS. Completely different set of APIs, and the Blue Box thinks it is its own machine. You can even drop into Macsbug (the low-level debugger for the MacOS). The performance for apps inside the Blue Box is basically the same as when they are running on a Mac OS 8.5.1 box. The Blue Box is simply an app; you get into it by running the MacOS.app application.
Does anyone doubt that Microsoft could do the EXACT same thing with Win98? Create a Win98 box that lives as a process on top of a Microsoft Linux distribution? They might need to make changes to the kernel, but they wouldn't expose the Win32 API, and these kernel mods would probably be useless for the main code tree. MS could publish those changes under GPL, and Linux is still forked.
In fact, it would be even worse than you think; MS Linux would be a super-set of regular Linux. Any new features in regular Linux could easily be rolled in to the MS Linux package. You'd be improving Windows by working on Linux. Even putting in #ifdef LINUS_LINUX in the code won't help, because MS could just yank them out; the Linux source is released under GPL.
The Linux community might have made the same mistake that Netscape made: poking a sleeping bear until it woke up. Announcing that you're going to obsolete Windows before you've actually done so is fatal.
-jon
The only word processors are Word, ClarisWorks, Mariner Write, and Nissus. I can't figure out Mariner Write's target market, since virtually all low-end Macs ship with ClarisWorks. Using the word "niche" to describe Nissus' market share would be generous. WordPerfect was an option once upon a time, but it hasn't been updated in years. Once again, only Word is a viable choice for businesses.
In short, if you want to use a Mac in an office, you need Microsoft. An MS port of Office to Linux would probably result in something similar. Getting the Office apps to run on Linux is going to require something vaguely Wine-like. This could be done with non-GPL code, as a commercial binary. Say the only way to get this would be by buying Microsoft Linux (tm). If you want Office for Linux, you'll need Microsoft Linux. Instant "embrace and extend." Sound familiar?
-jon
Randians don't like Libertarians (big-L, and small-l). They consider them anarchists. Check out http://www.aynrand.com/objectivism/Q5.html
-jon (Not an objectivist, almost a libertarian)
Funny; after all of those people who claim that working on open source stuff is a labor of love and pride, here's an honest person. It's about money. No one seems to have a problem with Linus getting all of the accolades from Linux (well, except RMS). Seems to me that's a benefit for one person rather than the whole community. Heck, people say that Linus deserves it. But when Apple might make (bog-forbid) MONEY off of open source, the wolves start to circle.
Hypocrites, one and all.
-jon
That's why I said Next and Apple programmers, not just Apple programmers. Apple had tried to re-write the OS and keep it backwards compatible (Copland) and failed miserably. So in December 1996, Apple went out and bought Next to get that modern OS foundation. Most Mac users care about the stuff they see (QuickTime, the GUI, even Sherlock and Themes) and don't care about multitasking and threading and protected memory. Apple has been concentrating on making them happy. The Next programmers (now Apple programmers) started with vanilla Mach and vanilla BSD, and added modifications. After about two years of work (some of it GUI-related, but most of it is internals), it's ready for prime time and Apple is open sourcing that work. That's some non-trivial work.
Non-free software just does not cut it. Apple is not committed to freedom. They have repeatedly demonstrated this throughout their history.
Even the Great God Linus says that there is a place for proprietary software. I think he's right. I've been discussing open source with a co-worker. My company's main product couldn't be open sourced (probably), but there are certainly parts of it which make a lot of sense as open source. A high-quality GUI with a consistent look and feel and good documentation for novice users might be one of those things which cannot be done via open source. At least, no one has done it yet (which isn't proof, but is evidence).
-jon
1. Sun OS (pre-Solaris) was built on BSD. Wasn't free, wasn't open source. The BSD licence allows that. Anyone who thinks this is just Apple opening up source which is already open must think that all of the Next and Apple programmers have just been pulling their puds for the last 10 years instead of writing code.
2. I think what Apple wants is to divide the GUI from the OS. This is trivial with Unix, not so trivial with Mac OS and Windows. Apple wants the OS open-source, while the GUI (which is Apple's crown jewel) is closed source.
3. If the Mac OS X GUI layer can become THE UNIX GUI, Apple wins. It's APIs would be used to develop apps, regardless of the underlying OS. Whether Linux bigots like it or not, the Mac OS L&F is considered the best one out there. How much more popular would Linux be if it had the Mac OS L&F for a GUI? Is it worth paying Apple a few bucks for it? I bet it would be to a lot of novice users.
People who don't care about GUIs won't place much value in this. People who want a solid OS with a great GUI should be drooling at the possibilities.
-jon
In fact the boom that's happening right now _is_ much like the early 20's boom - a centrally controlled banking system is making credit too cheap, resulting in rampant speculation and buying on margin (only now it's larger scale, and we call it "hedge funds"). When there is a free market in banking, rising speculation and the resultant demand for credit lead to a corresponding increase in interest rates, causing a decrease in speculation on credit, and an increased level of investment in bonds rather than stocks and other risky investments. In fact, this used to happen bacck when many nations had free banking.
There are other parallels to what happened in the '20s which you've missed. Germany was forced to pay reparations after losing WWI. They were WAY out of line with Germany's actual ability to pay back the Allies. While there was relatively open trade between the various European countries (and America), the German economy was able to generate enough moolah to pay that huge international debt.
Then isolationist/protectionist nitwits got into power, and countries started erecting trade barriers (Hawley-Smoot in the US). Money stopped flowing between countries. Germany just printed too much cash (inflation) to pay off its debts, the Mark became worthless and depression began in Germany. The contagion then spread from country to country.
Not so much different from the 90's, where countries with huge international debts have to devalue their currencies and/or print worthless money to pay off debts. Hopefully, we'll avoid the problem this time around.
-jon
If you don't vote, pay your taxes, and aren't going around throwing bombs for your revolution, who cares what you think? It's not like your stunning prose is going to incite the masses. You're irrelevant to the political process.
The stupidest slaves are those who believe they're free because they get to choose thier masters.
And what makes you any freer? Not choosing your master?
-jon
Ellison is not a technical guy, but he knows what he's doing. Oracle got its start by reading IBM's relational DB papers and rushing a product to market before IBM implemented its own ideas. I'm pretty sure that Ellison has been running the show since day one.
In some ways, Oracle might be even more evil than MS. In the beginning, Oracle would do things like ship purposely garbled tapes to customers, so Oracle could have a few extra days to fix bugs. I don't think MS has done that _yet_ (MS usually doesn't fix bugs without making the customer pay additional moolah), but we'll see what happens when W2K ships ;-)
-jon
MS has been making apps for a pretty long time. The original version of Word was out for the Mac in 1984/1985. The first noise about splitting the company up was around 1990/1991, when Win3.1 came out.
Back then, Microsoft claimed there was a "Chinese wall" between OS and Apps; no actual collaboration, except on the odd occasion when an engineer from OS and one from Office would sit down together for a personal lunch...
-jon
Apple NT? Oh sure, just what Apple needs for its (barely growing) credibility. Let's announce YET ANOTHER OS strategy change and tell every Mac programmer who has been looking at Carbon for the last year that Win32 is where it's at (after they looked at the OpenStep APIs for a year, and before that spent a few years looking at the Copland APIs and pretty pictures).
What the heck is the advantage for Apple to put a nice GUI on a server OS, and a buggy, sluggish one at that.
-jon