If all GPL code was Apache it'd be better for business, at least in the sense that more people would find commercial opportunities with it.
I'm not even sure whether this is really true. If business means "software selling" business, you're certainly right. But if business means "software using and wanting improvements and bug-fixes", then GPL is better, because you're sure to have access to the source code and can employ or ask any developer to fix/improve the code until it meets your needs. Of course, the original developers still might be the people to ask first, but if they no longer want to support the product, or are out of business this gives an opportunity to other developers that would not be possible without the source code.
I also doubt customers would benefit either since giving away the software and charging for support creates an incentive to make shoddy software that requires a lot of hand-holding.
If the source is available then the customer might just ask some other developer to fix it, so your shoddiness doesn't gain you no money, maybe some bug fixes, but even this is not sure, because the consumer is not obliged to publish the changes, at least as long as he doesn't distribute the changed binary.
It's if you want to make money modifying SOMEONE ELSE'S code, the GPL is a disaster.
As always, it's about what exactly are you doing: If you want to monopolize on someone else's code, then you're right. But imagine, some user (company) has some software and the code is available under GPL. To get improvements they can ask you to do it, instead of the original author, and you can make money by modifying his code.
Are decompilers really that good with all the instruction reordering and possible inter-module optimization compilers are doing nowadays? I really don't know, but somehow I doubt it.
I also don't speak for the FSF, but to me it seems that abolishing copyright completely would be counter productive. You would end up in a world where everyone can take every piece of published source, add something, and turn it into some binary blob. Without copyright, you would have the right to copy it, but the original problem still stands - you can't fix bugs, because the (additional) source code is not available.
With copyright and GPL-like licenses you can at least ensure that the code you wrote doesn't (legally) end up in a binary blob that you can't fix.
It would be another story, if there was a law that would require that for every piece of software you sell, you also need to provide the source code to enable the consumer to fix problems or let other fix problems. Such law would even go beyond the GPL. Of course, such law would find little support in our current society, but in a star-trek federation like society I could imagine it.
Considering (L)GPL 2 and even more 3 and all the BSD vs GPL flame wars, it seems to me that the FSF puts some pretty strong restrictions on copying, modifying, and redistributing software.
Actually, it's exactly that set of restrictions that lets me choose the GPL over the BSD License nearly all the time.
I was told that Napstar had something like "People who liked this also downloaded that" (just like Amazon and I would guess last.fm and the likes too). With a tool like this it is easy to find new music. TPB and similar trackers/torrent search engines don't have anything like this - you have to know what you are looking for or alternatively, digg through the list of available torrents and download more or less blindly.
Personally, I think the best advertisement unknown bands can have is a web page with some songs on it. If I see a concert advertised at one of the clubs I usually go to, and I don't know the bands, I always search on-line if I can find a song or two to check out if I should go to see the show. And when I go to the show, it's quite likely, that I even by a CD or a Record I if I really like the music.
I think the laptop is a re-branded Quanta TW8, I like it - it looks nice, keyboard works fine, it has a matte screen, Intel Centrino 2 platform, and since I opted for the one with Intel graphics, I got everything to run with an untainted kernel (i.e. Ubuntu 8.10 worked out of the box). Maybe the modem is not supported, though, didn't try and probably never will.
It seems to have led people to believe that its ok. But it really isn't.
I risk to differ: Copyright is supposed to be a contract between the general public and the creators of works that lasts for a limited time. By ever extending the copyright term whenever Mikey Mouse would fall into public domain, the creators broke that contract. Why should the general public hold on it?
Well, if you can read German, I just got a Laptop (MultiBook) without OS from these guys: http://www.notebook-paradies.com/
They deliver allover Europe (I'm in Spain).
Well, technically I should now reply to like ten posts with the same answer;) I'm not a native English speaker, and maybe, I got the meaning of "spiritual" wrong - I couldn't care less about God's plan, divine beings, and all that (something that really put me off DS9 and the later parts of Babylon 5).
However, in my dictionary, "spiritual" is synonymous to "intellectual" and that's what I actually meant, that's what I was referring to by mentioning the about the suicide bombers, and, of course, I also meant the stuff you wrote about.
As for the end (as in the last two minutes) - if anything it made me laugh.
Actually, I liked it this way. For a moment I was afraid they would end it exactly such a way like you wished for. To me that would have seemed way too pathetic.
IMNSHO, science fiction is not about spaceships, space battles, people killing each other in spaces, monsters killing people, and most variations thereof. Science fiction is about exploring possible technical advances and their implications, as well as human nature in extreme situations and the like. In that, BSG has become really intriguing at times - just think of the suicide bombing at the beginning of the third season. Without the spiritual part of BSG it would have been just another space opera, probably fun to watch, to entertain, but certainly no to make you think.
Of course you are right in that many creative works will vanish if the creators don't get compensated for their work. To me it seems, there are currently two forces at work, one is technology, that allows for distribution of content at literally no cost, and the other "The Industry" that wants to make as much profit as possible by sticking to the old distribution model and by enforcing this through legislation.
One problem here is balance: IIRC in the US the copyright term was once set to 14 years plus another 14 years of possible extension - the public granted a time limited monopoly of something that could otherwise be copied and distributed easily (and nowadays even more so) so that the creators can make a living.
However, the media industry wants copyright to last forever, and so far, whenever Mickey Mouse is about to fall into the public domain, the copyright term has been extended. In other words, the media industry is breaking above contract (with the help of politicians) that was supposed to balance between the needs of the creators and the rights of the public. With the contract broken, the public is no longer obliged to obey its terms and copying without compensating the creator isn't morally wrong (although against the law).
I admit that's a very radical view and I'm sure that most people who download things don't look at it this way (I usually don't) - they are just doing it because they can get something for free, and/or more easy then through legal channels.
Which points to the other side of the problem: "The Industry" needs to adapt to the new technology to stay in business. However, so far they mostly fail. Is there a service in Europe where I can download the latest Episode of "ThisShow"? Non that I know of, but there is TPB and the likes and some friendly guys who make their recordings available - nicely encoded and without DRM. Give me the same or better value for a reasonable price, and I'll pay for it, because I want to see "ThisShow" continue, but I want to see it now, and not a half year later on the local TV with crappy overdubbing.
One might also note, that the music industry as a whole is not really in a bad shape. I was told that people go to concerts like never before.
Re:China's economy is going to retool itself..
on
Inside Factory China
·
· Score: 1
America used to be famous for exporting freedom, but now, even that is Made in China; so what will be, this mystical major export thingy?
Actually no, I have a PowerBook G4, it has two USB ports, and they are on different sides. Got the same problem with an external hard drive: It works with one plug on nearly all computers I have access to, but not on the Powerbook - here I need to use the splitter.
I just checked in on my Powerbook. I usually run as a user who is not admin, i.e. can not su/sudo. To install something at/Applications I have to identify as an admin user. However, many *.app directories (amongst them Firefox.app) of the things I installed later are actually owned by my standard user who has only limited rights instead of an admin user or root. So, if the update only changes the contents of a SomeApp.app directory it can just do it. I guess it's high time for a "chown myadminuser:root Applications/*.app".
Slashdot Mirror
Truth in advertising ...
Sounds like an interesting concept, care to elaborate ...?
If all GPL code was Apache it'd be better for business, at least in the sense that more people would find commercial opportunities with it.
I'm not even sure whether this is really true. If business means "software selling" business, you're certainly right. But if business means "software using and wanting improvements and bug-fixes", then GPL is better, because you're sure to have access to the source code and can employ or ask any developer to fix/improve the code until it meets your needs. Of course, the original developers still might be the people to ask first, but if they no longer want to support the product, or are out of business this gives an opportunity to other developers that would not be possible without the source code.
I also doubt customers would benefit either since giving away the software and charging for support creates an incentive to make shoddy software that requires a lot of hand-holding.
If the source is available then the customer might just ask some other developer to fix it, so your shoddiness doesn't gain you no money, maybe some bug fixes, but even this is not sure, because the consumer is not obliged to publish the changes, at least as long as he doesn't distribute the changed binary.
It's if you want to make money modifying SOMEONE ELSE'S code, the GPL is a disaster.
As always, it's about what exactly are you doing: If you want to monopolize on someone else's code, then you're right. But imagine, some user (company) has some software and the code is available under GPL. To get improvements they can ask you to do it, instead of the original author, and you can make money by modifying his code.
Are decompilers really that good with all the instruction reordering and possible inter-module optimization compilers are doing nowadays? I really don't know, but somehow I doubt it.
I also don't speak for the FSF, but to me it seems that abolishing copyright completely would be counter productive. You would end up in a world where everyone can take every piece of published source, add something, and turn it into some binary blob. Without copyright, you would have the right to copy it, but the original problem still stands - you can't fix bugs, because the (additional) source code is not available.
With copyright and GPL-like licenses you can at least ensure that the code you wrote doesn't (legally) end up in a binary blob that you can't fix.
It would be another story, if there was a law that would require that for every piece of software you sell, you also need to provide the source code to enable the consumer to fix problems or let other fix problems. Such law would even go beyond the GPL. Of course, such law would find little support in our current society, but in a star-trek federation like society I could imagine it.
Considering (L)GPL 2 and even more 3 and all the BSD vs GPL flame wars, it seems to me that the FSF puts some pretty strong restrictions on copying, modifying, and redistributing software. Actually, it's exactly that set of restrictions that lets me choose the GPL over the BSD License nearly all the time.
I was told that Napstar had something like "People who liked this also downloaded that" (just like Amazon and I would guess last.fm and the likes too). With a tool like this it is easy to find new music. TPB and similar trackers/torrent search engines don't have anything like this - you have to know what you are looking for or alternatively, digg through the list of available torrents and download more or less blindly.
Personally, I think the best advertisement unknown bands can have is a web page with some songs on it. If I see a concert advertised at one of the clubs I usually go to, and I don't know the bands, I always search on-line if I can find a song or two to check out if I should go to see the show. And when I go to the show, it's quite likely, that I even by a CD or a Record I if I really like the music.
150 years does not approach infinity.
The average human being has a life expectation of about 75 years, even the oldest person ever verified died at the age of 122 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people#Oldest_verified_people_ever_.28top_10.29. Therefore, for us humans 150 years is infinity.
I think the laptop is a re-branded Quanta TW8, I like it - it looks nice, keyboard works fine, it has a matte screen, Intel Centrino 2 platform, and since I opted for the one with Intel graphics, I got everything to run with an untainted kernel (i.e. Ubuntu 8.10 worked out of the box). Maybe the modem is not supported, though, didn't try and probably never will.
It seems to have led people to believe that its ok. But it really isn't.
I risk to differ: Copyright is supposed to be a contract between the general public and the creators of works that lasts for a limited time. By ever extending the copyright term whenever Mikey Mouse would fall into public domain, the creators broke that contract. Why should the general public hold on it?
Did you even read the summary? - Oh, this is /. - never mind.
Well, if you can read German, I just got a Laptop (MultiBook) without OS from these guys: http://www.notebook-paradies.com/ They deliver allover Europe (I'm in Spain).
Actually, "Warp Drive" is already used, e.g. here: http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1649
While you are thinking about the right thesis, others are already work on it.
Well, technically I should now reply to like ten posts with the same answer ;) I'm not a native English speaker, and maybe, I got the meaning of "spiritual" wrong - I couldn't care less about God's plan, divine beings, and all that (something that really put me off DS9 and the later parts of Babylon 5).
However, in my dictionary, "spiritual" is synonymous to "intellectual" and that's what I actually meant, that's what I was referring to by mentioning the about the suicide bombers, and, of course, I also meant the stuff you wrote about.
As for the end (as in the last two minutes) - if anything it made me laugh.
Actually, I liked it this way. For a moment I was afraid they would end it exactly such a way like you wished for. To me that would have seemed way too pathetic.
IMNSHO, science fiction is not about spaceships, space battles, people killing each other in spaces, monsters killing people, and most variations thereof. Science fiction is about exploring possible technical advances and their implications, as well as human nature in extreme situations and the like. In that, BSG has become really intriguing at times - just think of the suicide bombing at the beginning of the third season. Without the spiritual part of BSG it would have been just another space opera, probably fun to watch, to entertain, but certainly no to make you think.
PS: You are right about Firefly, though.
Well, when you continue to watch it, you will find out that it indeed makes sense ;)
Of course you are right in that many creative works will vanish if the creators don't get compensated for their work. To me it seems, there are currently two forces at work, one is technology, that allows for distribution of content at literally no cost, and the other "The Industry" that wants to make as much profit as possible by sticking to the old distribution model and by enforcing this through legislation.
One problem here is balance: IIRC in the US the copyright term was once set to 14 years plus another 14 years of possible extension - the public granted a time limited monopoly of something that could otherwise be copied and distributed easily (and nowadays even more so) so that the creators can make a living.
However, the media industry wants copyright to last forever, and so far, whenever Mickey Mouse is about to fall into the public domain, the copyright term has been extended. In other words, the media industry is breaking above contract (with the help of politicians) that was supposed to balance between the needs of the creators and the rights of the public. With the contract broken, the public is no longer obliged to obey its terms and copying without compensating the creator isn't morally wrong (although against the law).
I admit that's a very radical view and I'm sure that most people who download things don't look at it this way (I usually don't) - they are just doing it because they can get something for free, and/or more easy then through legal channels. Which points to the other side of the problem: "The Industry" needs to adapt to the new technology to stay in business. However, so far they mostly fail. Is there a service in Europe where I can download the latest Episode of "ThisShow"? Non that I know of, but there is TPB and the likes and some friendly guys who make their recordings available - nicely encoded and without DRM. Give me the same or better value for a reasonable price, and I'll pay for it, because I want to see "ThisShow" continue, but I want to see it now, and not a half year later on the local TV with crappy overdubbing.
One might also note, that the music industry as a whole is not really in a bad shape. I was told that people go to concerts like never before.
America used to be famous for exporting freedom, but now, even that is Made in China; so what will be, this mystical major export thingy?
3. Send in the LPTs (Linux Proselytization Teams) to spread the Word ...
You got it all wrong - to eliminate Word is the objective!
Actually no, I have a PowerBook G4, it has two USB ports, and they are on different sides. Got the same problem with an external hard drive: It works with one plug on nearly all computers I have access to, but not on the Powerbook - here I need to use the splitter.
... whether drinking 100 cups of coffee will really slows down time for you.
I just checked in on my Powerbook. I usually run as a user who is not admin, i.e. can not su/sudo. To install something at /Applications I have to identify as an admin user. However, many *.app directories (amongst them Firefox.app) of the things I installed later are actually owned by my standard user who has only limited rights instead of an admin user or root. So, if the update only changes the contents of a SomeApp.app directory it can just do it. I guess it's high time for a "chown myadminuser:root Applications/*.app".