Is there something special I have to do to get to the beta mobile version? Going to http://www.youtube.com/mobile on my phone told me that I needed flash, even after I clicked on "Try the beta version of this page."
Absolutely. The low EDGE speeds are supposedly mitigated by the fact that the phone will automatically use wifi if it is available. I don't see this working well, in practice. The reason I got an internet plan with my cell provider was precisely because most of the time, I'm not in an area with wifi, or I'm in an area with locked down wifi. Add to this the recent problems people have been having for using wide-open wifi without the permission of the owner, and this just looks like a disaster waiting to happen (though, perhaps, the iPhone will spur people to either lock down their access points, or will spur legislation explicitly defining when it is ok to connect to a wide-open access point.)
When I'm at home, I'm going to use my own Internet connection. When I'm at a coffee shop, I'll be using my notebook. At work, I'll have the work's connection. I guess if I'm at a friend's house without my notebook, this might be useful, but hey, I could just borrow his computer.
No, I think that Youtube won't be the killer app that Apple expects it to be. Although, who knows? If people don't think about how slow it's going to be over EDGE, it might be just enough to convince some people (who otherwise wouldn't) to buy. But I doubt it.
I've come to the same conclusion. I was planning on buying a Macbook Pro recently, because I'm in love with OS X. Started doing the comparison shop at Dell, and wow. Dell does discounts, which gets their prices lower, but they do them all the time which means that, for all intents and purposes, the laptops are always about that much cheaper.
The notebook I specced out was identical to the MBP, except that it it didn't have a camera (not a big deal to me) and it had double the video ram. Oh, and a higher-resolution screen, which is important to me--though you can get 1920x1200 on the Macbook Pro, you can only get it in the monster model.
I love OS X, but I just cannot justify paying $500 more for it, particularly when you include the inferior specifications.
I don't know of any such tutorials. The handbook is a pretty useful read for FreeBSD. It has a section on ports, which includes very light information on portsnap, portupgrade, and portmanager. It also has information on the older cvsup method of updating your ports tree (roughly equivalent to apt-get update.)
I use the portsnap/portmanager combination, personally. It works well for me.
I definitely think that the ports system could use some work, however FreeBSD still wins out over Linux for manageability, in my opinion. I'm a big fan of the way that the base system is separated from installed ports (all ports are in/usr/local/, compare to some Linux distributions where they can be all over the place and intermixed with the base system). This sometimes causes a 'gotcha' for new users, who expect all of the configuration files to be in/etc--for installed ports, they are in/usr/local/etc. And init scripts are similarly divided, so that to restart Apache (which is not a part of the base system), you'd run '/usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache restart', but to restart OpenSSH (which is a part of the base system), you'd run '/etc/rc.d/sshd restart'. Some people don't like this separation, and would prefer unity of all init scripts, but it makes a certain amount of sense to me (and a lot of other people who love FreeBSD).
Anyway, if you give it a try, I hope you enjoy the experience.
portsnap is the equivalent of apt-get update. And you can actually use portmanager or portupgrade to upgrade all ports. I'm not a fan of doing this, however, unless there's a really good reason, e.g. a security vulnerability that we deem actually makes us vulnerable. Otherwise, software upgrades are just asking for trouble, so in these situations, I prefer to just upgrade the one port.
On my desktop, I use Ubuntu, and I do like apt. But on my desktop, I don't mind too much if I hose the OS--it's easy enough to reinstall. On servers, downtime is bad.
Of course, there are no binary updates (that I'm aware of). Maybe that's what you were referring to.
Linus having a rant on a public mailing list at Sun because they are planning on releasing their code as GPL v3 instead of GPL v2 so it can not be used in the GPL v2 kernel is unacceptable. I didn't see it as 'a rant at Sun.' In fact, if you actually read through it, all he's doing is pointing out that they are a company with shareholders to whom they are beholden, so don't read that much into their FOSS agenda. He wasn't complaining that they were releasing it GPLv3, he was pointing out to others the reasoning. Seriously, go read it. The posting is here: http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/12/232, but I'll quote an interesting piece of it: Am I cynical? Yes. Do I expect people to act in their own interests? Hell yes! That's how things are _supposed_ to happen. I'm not at all berating Sun, what I'm trying to do here is to wake people up who seem to be living in some dream-world where Sun wants to help people.
So Linus has to make the license even more restrictive to the point of preventing newer versions of GPL code going into the kernel and restricting development. From my point of view that would lead to a lot of problems in the next ten years or so when a lot of projects have all switched to the newer license or when no one wants to use GPL 2. I don't see how the license of usermode software is relevant, and any projects which aim to get included in the kernel are going to go "GPLv2 or later" (which is interoperable, legally, with the "GPLv2" kernel.) The only issue are when corporations have an agenda and want to specifically exclude Linux. They get the opportunity to do so by releasing their component as GPLv3 only. But you know what? Then they can't incorporate much of the Linux kernel code, so doing this could be detrimental.
They haven't done that so your argument is pointless Nice attempt to mirror my own argument back at me, but I said if. You stated, indirectly, that ZFS was licensed under the GPLv3.
And you conveniently disregarded the point. If the licence terms of a later GPL aren't suitable to the copyright holder, then they shouldn't be used. It is, as Linus said, and as I quoted, very similar to signing a contract without knowing the terms. He would have been releasing software with no idea how it might later be used.
Linus wanted changes to his code to remain free. That wholly within the spirit of the GPL, and while I consider it to be annoying at times, I have to respect that he bucked the system and went with the modified version of the GPL, and I also respect his reasons for doing so. GPLv6 might not be backwards compatible with GPLv2, so modifications created under GPLv6 would have resulted in a forked kernel with proprietary extensions--wholly against the spirit of the (current) GPL.
Does he take away some choice? Sure. But doesn't the GPL do that already? Absolutely.
ZFS is not currently licensed under GPLv3, so your argument is pointless.
Also, I have to agree with Linus' reasoning for taking out that clause. If the FSF went crazy and put really stupid terms in a later version of the GPL (for example, giving exceptions to the requirement that source be distributed), suddenly the Linux kernel could have become closed source. Linus' point, "Would you sign something before you had read it?" is perfectly valid, and in my opinion, not selfish at all.
Yes, there are many times when copyright prevents the creation of new works. For example, I can't modify Harry Potter 6 so that Dumbledore doesn't die at the end and re-sell it. At least, not until the copyright expires. Once the copyright expires, you get great works like Wicked and Son of a Witch, both of which are based upon The Wizard Of Oz. Of course, no more copyrights will ever expire, thanks to greedy copyright-holding corporations and a corrupt government.
The idea, though, is that the work which you wish to modify might not have existed at all had copyright not existed. The person who created the work might not have desired to if s/he wasn't going to be able to sell it. Or they might not have been able to devote their lives to their craft, and thus ended up not having enough time to create as much. I highly doubt that the entire library of Stephen King would exist today if he wasn't a professional writer, paid for his craft.
It's obviously impossible to know what might have been, but I think that the reasoning behind copyright (in general) is sound. The problems in the current implementation are that copyright is effectively endless (meaning that the creation of new works based on the original is forever forbidden--forever being the key word) and that fair use rights are going out the window.
A patch is structured, and further, contains specific (nonrandom) information on how to transform an input file into a previously created output file. It is, by definition, derived from two input files.
Furthermore, you appear to believe that a derivative work must somehow have structure or purpose similar to that of the original work. If I take Stephen King's The Gunslinger novel and remove every other word, I have created a new work derived from his. The novel might be somewhat readable, and it might not be. However it is clearly derivative.
Taking this further becomes tricky. What if I remove two out of every three words? It's probably still clearly derivative. Three out of every four? Maybe. It eventually becomes difficult to prove that the work is derivative--however this does not apply to patch files, which are reversible by design.
Maybe. Like I said, I'm not a lawyer. The FSF seems to think that binary blobs (e.g. the NVidia driver) violate the GPL, even though they work under a very similar premise to what you are suggesting.
A hybrid approach is the best approach. If a kernel update includes a patch for a remote hole, of course you fix it. If it's a local exploit, you have a lot more leeway. It all comes down to your configuration, but in general, I don't think that it's a best practice to upgrade to the latest Linux kernel unless it's necessary. There are just too many changes that aren't due to security issues.
I like FreeBSD a lot because of their kernel development policy. You can track the security branch of the kernel, which exclusively addresses security issues. Or you can track the stable branch, which is usually pretty stable, contains no ABI changes (so you generally don't need to recompile userland software), but it contains performance and feature updates. Or, of course, you can track -current. But you get the choice--you can get security updates without feature updates, which is essential for production services (in my opinion).
I'm not qualified to comment on this (read: I am not a lawyer), however I think that this still may be legally questionable. Because the CDDL ZFS files won't compile cleanly without modification to make them work with the Linux kernel, and because those modifications could be considered derivative works, it's possible that you'd be creating source files which are derivative works of both ZFS (CDDL-licensed) and Linux (GPLv2-licensed). Such a derivative work cannot be distributed legally.
You can install the portaudit package to check your ports for security problems. If a problem is detected, it's usually just a matter of portsnapping up a new ports tree and "make install"ing the port. Of course, you can also check freshports to make sure that the issue was addressed in the latest tree before going to all of this trouble.
Sun releases nifty filesystem. Linux users drool, decide they want filesystem. Linux developers realize that licenses are incompatible. Linux users complain that Sun is playing 'licensing games.'
The CDDL is not all that restrictive. However, it just happens to be incompatible with the GPL, because the GPL doesn't allow additional restrictions to be placed on derivative works, and the CDDL has requirements that aren't in the GPL.
Sun is already being open with their filesystem. Linux users are the ones who want it in the kernel. The GPL is at least as much to blame as the CDDL. Since I consider the CDDL to be a more free license than the GPL, I'm inclined to think that the GPL is more at fault.
He certainly owns the rights to parts of the Kernel, and thus his opinion on the matter has some importance. However he has incorporated patches into the source tree without requiring that the copyright be turned over to him, and thus, just about everyone who has contributed to the kernel collectively 'holds the copyright' to it.
The Linux kernel, for better or for worse, is going to be stuck at GPLv2.
When we're talking about filesystem drivers, I doubt we're going to see performance problems from running in userspace. The speed of the disk is likely going to be the bottleneck.
I'm in IT. My co-workers and I use SMS far more than voice calls. For things that don't require immediate attention, it lets you multitask better if you don't have to respond to the last statement immediately.
I chose Dell because of the design/functionality. I love the 15" Latitude/Precision keyboards. Page Up/Page Down are in the right place, as are Home and End, and it has the nubby eraser mouse (which I like more than the touchpad for most things).
Lenovo has similar keyboards, but doesn't tend to have notebooks with decent video cards.
The current terms of the monopoly are arguably too long, as much shorter terms would be as effective, and extending the rights retroactively makes no sense except as a cash grab. I pretty much agree with this. I think the original terms are just fine. I think that copyrightable works have been linked a little too much with physical property (which is inheritable.) I'd be pretty ok with copyright extending to 10 years past the death of the author, mostly to reduce the chances that someone will kill to get something put into the public domain. Alternatively, a flat period of time, regardless of the author's death, would be acceptable to me, too.
Herein lies the problem. Art is highly derivative, and companies like disney source a lot of their material from the public domain. Not allowing their works to ever fall into the public domain is at best hypocritical. A major corporation is hypocritical? No way!
You're right, drawing on the public domain to create works which you guard jealously from falling into the public domain is pretty bad, however Disney is as much blame for extending copyrights as your lawmakers, and as the SCoTUS, who found that the extensions were constitutional. I'd rather fix the government problems than try to enforce morality on corporations.
It just doesn't work. It never, ever, ever works to try to create an analogy by comparing real, tangible products with products which you can make perfect digital copies of. Ever.
You've failed spectacularly, however.
And if you were only allowed to buy telephones from AT&T, more people would pay more for AT&T phones. If you were only allowed to breathe metered air from Standard Air Corp, people would be spending a whole lot more for air. This is true. However what you're talking about now is competition for similar (but different) products. Your post suggests that the creation and distribution of movies is somehow a monopoly. It's not--in fact, I've known people who wrote, filmed, and gave away movies. No one came knocking on their door claiming that they were doing something illegal.
Copyright law exists to create an incentive for people to make a living by creating art. Everyone human in America is allowed to do this. What they aren't allowed to do is take art created by someone else and distribute copies of it. This is because copyright exists so that, should I choose to do so, I can work hard to create my own art, and then sell copies of it. The US doesn't give me a guaranteet hat I'll make money--but they give me a guarantee that no one is allowed to make money from my art.
The failure of monopolies to produce competetive products cannot be used as a justification for maintaining or strengthening monopoly enforcement. And this really says it all. You can create a competing product right now. Go! Do it! Just don't use someone else's product in your own.
With so-called 'intellectual property', the product is separate from the medium on which it is delivered.
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Is there something special I have to do to get to the beta mobile version? Going to http://www.youtube.com/mobile on my phone told me that I needed flash, even after I clicked on "Try the beta version of this page."
Absolutely. The low EDGE speeds are supposedly mitigated by the fact that the phone will automatically use wifi if it is available. I don't see this working well, in practice. The reason I got an internet plan with my cell provider was precisely because most of the time, I'm not in an area with wifi, or I'm in an area with locked down wifi. Add to this the recent problems people have been having for using wide-open wifi without the permission of the owner, and this just looks like a disaster waiting to happen (though, perhaps, the iPhone will spur people to either lock down their access points, or will spur legislation explicitly defining when it is ok to connect to a wide-open access point.)
When I'm at home, I'm going to use my own Internet connection. When I'm at a coffee shop, I'll be using my notebook. At work, I'll have the work's connection. I guess if I'm at a friend's house without my notebook, this might be useful, but hey, I could just borrow his computer.
No, I think that Youtube won't be the killer app that Apple expects it to be. Although, who knows? If people don't think about how slow it's going to be over EDGE, it might be just enough to convince some people (who otherwise wouldn't) to buy. But I doubt it.
I've come to the same conclusion. I was planning on buying a Macbook Pro recently, because I'm in love with OS X. Started doing the comparison shop at Dell, and wow. Dell does discounts, which gets their prices lower, but they do them all the time which means that, for all intents and purposes, the laptops are always about that much cheaper.
The notebook I specced out was identical to the MBP, except that it it didn't have a camera (not a big deal to me) and it had double the video ram. Oh, and a higher-resolution screen, which is important to me--though you can get 1920x1200 on the Macbook Pro, you can only get it in the monster model.
I love OS X, but I just cannot justify paying $500 more for it, particularly when you include the inferior specifications.
I don't know of any such tutorials. The handbook is a pretty useful read for FreeBSD. It has a section on ports, which includes very light information on portsnap, portupgrade, and portmanager. It also has information on the older cvsup method of updating your ports tree (roughly equivalent to apt-get update.)
/usr/local/, compare to some Linux distributions where they can be all over the place and intermixed with the base system). This sometimes causes a 'gotcha' for new users, who expect all of the configuration files to be in /etc--for installed ports, they are in /usr/local/etc. And init scripts are similarly divided, so that to restart Apache (which is not a part of the base system), you'd run '/usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache restart', but to restart OpenSSH (which is a part of the base system), you'd run '/etc/rc.d/sshd restart'. Some people don't like this separation, and would prefer unity of all init scripts, but it makes a certain amount of sense to me (and a lot of other people who love FreeBSD).
I use the portsnap/portmanager combination, personally. It works well for me.
I definitely think that the ports system could use some work, however FreeBSD still wins out over Linux for manageability, in my opinion. I'm a big fan of the way that the base system is separated from installed ports (all ports are in
Anyway, if you give it a try, I hope you enjoy the experience.
portsnap is the equivalent of apt-get update. And you can actually use portmanager or portupgrade to upgrade all ports. I'm not a fan of doing this, however, unless there's a really good reason, e.g. a security vulnerability that we deem actually makes us vulnerable. Otherwise, software upgrades are just asking for trouble, so in these situations, I prefer to just upgrade the one port.
On my desktop, I use Ubuntu, and I do like apt. But on my desktop, I don't mind too much if I hose the OS--it's easy enough to reinstall. On servers, downtime is bad.
Of course, there are no binary updates (that I'm aware of). Maybe that's what you were referring to.
Am I cynical? Yes. Do I expect people to act in their own interests? Hell
yes! That's how things are _supposed_ to happen. I'm not at all berating
Sun, what I'm trying to do here is to wake people up who seem to be living
in some dream-world where Sun wants to help people. So Linus has to make the license even more restrictive to the point of preventing newer versions of GPL code going into the kernel and restricting development. From my point of view that would lead to a lot of problems in the next ten years or so when a lot of projects have all switched to the newer license or when no one wants to use GPL 2. I don't see how the license of usermode software is relevant, and any projects which aim to get included in the kernel are going to go "GPLv2 or later" (which is interoperable, legally, with the "GPLv2" kernel.) The only issue are when corporations have an agenda and want to specifically exclude Linux. They get the opportunity to do so by releasing their component as GPLv3 only. But you know what? Then they can't incorporate much of the Linux kernel code, so doing this could be detrimental.
And you conveniently disregarded the point. If the licence terms of a later GPL aren't suitable to the copyright holder, then they shouldn't be used. It is, as Linus said, and as I quoted, very similar to signing a contract without knowing the terms. He would have been releasing software with no idea how it might later be used.
Linus wanted changes to his code to remain free. That wholly within the spirit of the GPL, and while I consider it to be annoying at times, I have to respect that he bucked the system and went with the modified version of the GPL, and I also respect his reasons for doing so. GPLv6 might not be backwards compatible with GPLv2, so modifications created under GPLv6 would have resulted in a forked kernel with proprietary extensions--wholly against the spirit of the (current) GPL.
Does he take away some choice? Sure. But doesn't the GPL do that already? Absolutely.
ZFS is not currently licensed under GPLv3, so your argument is pointless.
Also, I have to agree with Linus' reasoning for taking out that clause. If the FSF went crazy and put really stupid terms in a later version of the GPL (for example, giving exceptions to the requirement that source be distributed), suddenly the Linux kernel could have become closed source. Linus' point, "Would you sign something before you had read it?" is perfectly valid, and in my opinion, not selfish at all.
Yes, there are many times when copyright prevents the creation of new works. For example, I can't modify Harry Potter 6 so that Dumbledore doesn't die at the end and re-sell it. At least, not until the copyright expires. Once the copyright expires, you get great works like Wicked and Son of a Witch, both of which are based upon The Wizard Of Oz. Of course, no more copyrights will ever expire, thanks to greedy copyright-holding corporations and a corrupt government.
The idea, though, is that the work which you wish to modify might not have existed at all had copyright not existed. The person who created the work might not have desired to if s/he wasn't going to be able to sell it. Or they might not have been able to devote their lives to their craft, and thus ended up not having enough time to create as much. I highly doubt that the entire library of Stephen King would exist today if he wasn't a professional writer, paid for his craft.
It's obviously impossible to know what might have been, but I think that the reasoning behind copyright (in general) is sound. The problems in the current implementation are that copyright is effectively endless (meaning that the creation of new works based on the original is forever forbidden--forever being the key word) and that fair use rights are going out the window.
You clearly do not understand the word random.
A patch is structured, and further, contains specific (nonrandom) information on how to transform an input file into a previously created output file. It is, by definition, derived from two input files.
Furthermore, you appear to believe that a derivative work must somehow have structure or purpose similar to that of the original work. If I take Stephen King's The Gunslinger novel and remove every other word, I have created a new work derived from his. The novel might be somewhat readable, and it might not be. However it is clearly derivative.
Taking this further becomes tricky. What if I remove two out of every three words? It's probably still clearly derivative. Three out of every four? Maybe. It eventually becomes difficult to prove that the work is derivative--however this does not apply to patch files, which are reversible by design.
A patch does not contain random information, but nice strawman.
Indeed, this is true, however I wouldn't be surprised if Sun's CDDL was deliberately designed to be incompatible with the GPL.
Maybe. Like I said, I'm not a lawyer. The FSF seems to think that binary blobs (e.g. the NVidia driver) violate the GPL, even though they work under a very similar premise to what you are suggesting.
I would consider a patch to be a derivative work. I don't know what the courts think on that matter.
Though I guess it worked for LAME....
A hybrid approach is the best approach. If a kernel update includes a patch for a remote hole, of course you fix it. If it's a local exploit, you have a lot more leeway. It all comes down to your configuration, but in general, I don't think that it's a best practice to upgrade to the latest Linux kernel unless it's necessary. There are just too many changes that aren't due to security issues.
I like FreeBSD a lot because of their kernel development policy. You can track the security branch of the kernel, which exclusively addresses security issues. Or you can track the stable branch, which is usually pretty stable, contains no ABI changes (so you generally don't need to recompile userland software), but it contains performance and feature updates. Or, of course, you can track -current. But you get the choice--you can get security updates without feature updates, which is essential for production services (in my opinion).
I'm not qualified to comment on this (read: I am not a lawyer), however I think that this still may be legally questionable. Because the CDDL ZFS files won't compile cleanly without modification to make them work with the Linux kernel, and because those modifications could be considered derivative works, it's possible that you'd be creating source files which are derivative works of both ZFS (CDDL-licensed) and Linux (GPLv2-licensed). Such a derivative work cannot be distributed legally.
Just for your information.
You can install the portaudit package to check your ports for security problems. If a problem is detected, it's usually just a matter of portsnapping up a new ports tree and "make install"ing the port. Of course, you can also check freshports to make sure that the issue was addressed in the latest tree before going to all of this trouble.
Honestly, I have to agree with DavidpFitz.
Sun releases nifty filesystem.
Linux users drool, decide they want filesystem.
Linux developers realize that licenses are incompatible.
Linux users complain that Sun is playing 'licensing games.'
The CDDL is not all that restrictive. However, it just happens to be incompatible with the GPL, because the GPL doesn't allow additional restrictions to be placed on derivative works, and the CDDL has requirements that aren't in the GPL.
Sun is already being open with their filesystem. Linux users are the ones who want it in the kernel. The GPL is at least as much to blame as the CDDL. Since I consider the CDDL to be a more free license than the GPL, I'm inclined to think that the GPL is more at fault.
He certainly owns the rights to parts of the Kernel, and thus his opinion on the matter has some importance. However he has incorporated patches into the source tree without requiring that the copyright be turned over to him, and thus, just about everyone who has contributed to the kernel collectively 'holds the copyright' to it.
The Linux kernel, for better or for worse, is going to be stuck at GPLv2.
When we're talking about filesystem drivers, I doubt we're going to see performance problems from running in userspace. The speed of the disk is likely going to be the bottleneck.
I'm in IT. My co-workers and I use SMS far more than voice calls. For things that don't require immediate attention, it lets you multitask better if you don't have to respond to the last statement immediately.
I chose Dell because of the design/functionality. I love the 15" Latitude/Precision keyboards. Page Up/Page Down are in the right place, as are Home and End, and it has the nubby eraser mouse (which I like more than the touchpad for most things).
Lenovo has similar keyboards, but doesn't tend to have notebooks with decent video cards.
You're right, drawing on the public domain to create works which you guard jealously from falling into the public domain is pretty bad, however Disney is as much blame for extending copyrights as your lawmakers, and as the SCoTUS, who found that the extensions were constitutional. I'd rather fix the government problems than try to enforce morality on corporations.
You've failed spectacularly, however. And if you were only allowed to buy telephones from AT&T, more people would pay more for AT&T phones. If you were only allowed to breathe metered air from Standard Air Corp, people would be spending a whole lot more for air. This is true. However what you're talking about now is competition for similar (but different) products. Your post suggests that the creation and distribution of movies is somehow a monopoly. It's not--in fact, I've known people who wrote, filmed, and gave away movies. No one came knocking on their door claiming that they were doing something illegal.
Copyright law exists to create an incentive for people to make a living by creating art. Everyone human in America is allowed to do this. What they aren't allowed to do is take art created by someone else and distribute copies of it. This is because copyright exists so that, should I choose to do so, I can work hard to create my own art, and then sell copies of it. The US doesn't give me a guaranteet hat I'll make money--but they give me a guarantee that no one is allowed to make money from my art. The failure of monopolies to produce competetive products cannot be used as a justification for maintaining or strengthening monopoly enforcement. And this really says it all. You can create a competing product right now. Go! Do it! Just don't use someone else's product in your own.
With so-called 'intellectual property', the product is separate from the medium on which it is delivered.
Yeah. I never did learn not to post while taking cough syrup. Apologies to the original poster.