"Except you can do this with a GPL'ed program as well"
Read the licence. There is no provision for retroactive modification or revocation of the license. It is an outright grant of permission. It cannot be be withdrawn, because there is no basis in the license for doing so.
HOWEVER (and this is the point you seem to be making) an author may license his software to different people under different licenses. If I license my program to you under the GPL and to Apple under a Microsoft-style EULA, you will still have all the GPL rights granted to you. In fact, Apple could have gotten the software from you under the GPL (which is the only license YOU can distribute my program under, since you license it and do not own it). Apple could then distribute the software under the GPL (and the people who got it from Apple...ad infinitum), but Apple would be bound by the GPL with regard to modifications that they distribute. Apple doesn't like that, so they come to me with money and a request for a different license.
But no matter what happens between me and Apple, between me and you was the GPL. You still have the GPLed copy of my software, and if I go capitalistic nuts tomorrow and begin demanding $1000/day before I'll distribute any more copies of my program, you would still be able to use, copy, modify, and redistribute the copy of my program that I gave to you.
I realize at this point that I am arguing by repeated assertion, so I encourage you again to go read the license yourself. Note that there is NO basis for revocation or modification of the license. It is a contract, and American contract law doesn't permit unilateral modification of contracts. (If it did, I might modify my mortgage contract.)
...he withdrew permission for gratis use by free software projects
I don't recall reading this before, but let's assume that McVoy DID deny access to his software to people to whom he had once granted access.
THIS is the reason why non-free software, in its current form, is a scary thing. Most licenses can be modified at any time, without notice, by the licensor. Bill Gates could, in theory, tell the whole world tomorrow "You can no longer use Windows."
Stallman promotes four freedoms; of those, the freedom to run programs as you wish for any purpose is what most consumers are interested in. Consumers could EASILY be persuaded to pursue this freedom through the political process, since this is the one that, if abused, would affect them the most. We have here a classic case of abuse of this freedom: McVoy takes away access to his software that he had once granted.
I would have preferred to see RMS saying "See? SEE? THIS is why I emphasize freedom!I Instead of emphasizing this evidence, he berates those too foolish to believe his dogma. I place myself firmly in the camp of those who believe his dogma, but only because I have seen and believe the evidence that his dogma is correct. Burying that evidence, as he has done, does no one any good.
From the article: Morton also emphasised that he didn't agree with Torvalds' longstanding philosophy that rejecting patches from the kernel was just as important as accepting them.
"I diametrically disagree with him on that stuff," he said.
"If we just drop the patch on the floor . . . it's the kernel that ends up missing out. It's the maintainers' function to get patches into the kernel, rather than taking pride in rejecting them."
So on one hand, we should reward those who do the testing. On the other hand, when the testers say "Hey! This patch broken by design!" we should ignore them and add the patch to the kernel.
Taking a step back, I'd also suggest that he seems to lack a broad perspective on the issue. Cellular death is a requirement for nearly all multi-cellular organisms; the tadpole's taile must die before it becomes a frog. Brevity characterizes good writing, not wordiness. Lincoln's "Gettyspurg Address" is noted for its brevity; it followed a two-hour speech which is not remembered by anyone today. A sculptor's skill is reflected just as much in what he takes away as in what he leaves.
Check out the Bill of Rights. Now check out the people involved in its creation. Not a poor man in the bunch, by the standards of the times.
Learn this in your bones before you try to make any changes in the world: GOVERNMENT IS BY THE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL, FOR THE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL. (That's descriptive, not prescriptive, by the way.)
It's kinda pointless trying to change a system that you don't understand; your actions my even be counter-productive. Once you've understood the purpose of the system, you can begin to see that it is rational and internally consistent. THEN you can begin to formulate your plans to change it.
Why I like Paul Graham
on
Paul Graham on PR
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Because there's always at least one new mode of thought to add to my arsenal. Here, it's "...ask not just whether the author is telling the truth, but why he's writing about this subject at all."
Windows seems to have no problems with detecting a printer......because Microsoft has no problems demanding that printer manufacturers provide them with useful information. This is a bit like saying "Well, I have no problems finding fuel for my SUV..." when some someone complains that he can't find a hydrogen station every two miles.
1. Our canned response to a a frequently asked question produced hostility in some customers. 2. Therefore, the customers are idiots. 3. ???? 4. Profit!
Permit me to suggest that a better answer would be "Some camera manufacturers use a proprietary format and call it RAW. What camera are you using?"
If you are in customer service, I guarantee you that something close to 100% of your customers are idiots. (Dilbert's law - "Everyone is stupid about something sometime.") Your goal should not be to find better customres, but to accomodate the stupidity of your customers while making them happy to give you their money. That's the theory. In practice, when the customer's stupidity makes them unhappy about reality, you find a way to present the reality in a factual, accurate way that does not reflect badly on you. I call it "honest spin." In some cases there is NO honest spin that will make the customers happy; in this situation, you either lie or fire the customer.
In the long term, it makes more sense to manufacture materials for interplanetary craft on the moon than on earth. Granted, some things (like petroleum-based plastics) would have to come from the earth, but we could get metals from the moon without too much trouble. It makes sense to lift things from the moon rather than from the earth.
Now, if you want to get to Mars as quickly as possible, then yes, you go straight there.
Permit me to point out to you the efficacy of going straight to the moon without building a sufficiency of orbital infrastructure.
I find it particularly amusing that the patent holder is under no obligation whatsoever to ensure that the terms are "agreeable" to whomever wants to license them.
EXACTLY.
So-called intellectual property is, in theory, a temporary monopoly granted for the sake of the public good. By granting the monopoly, the government provides economic incentives to creators. What, though, is the good to the public if the creators do not license their intellectual property?
I would propose mandatory licensing of ALL intellectual property under standard terms. No patent holder would then be able to withhold permission to incorporate patented technologies; nor could they demand outrageous payments for their patent. They could not keep technologies off the market solely to keep from cannibalizing their existing sales.
Record companies would be required to make ALL of the music they owned available to the public or risk losing their copyright. There would be no orphaned works; failure to provide access to a work would constitute abandonment of copyright and ensure that a work passed into the public domain.
The devil, of course, is in the details. What would the mandatory licensing terms be?
Advertising is one way to go, but remember we also pay for cable television.
Ah, so you are too young to remember when there WERE no ads on cable TV. You were paying for it; why would there be ads? Sure, at the top of the hour (and maybe the half hour), you'd see announcements for other shows and general branding spots (a la PBS), but there were no commercials.
Those days are gone now, as cable TV companies have found how to have their cake and eat it, too.
RMS is a pretty nifty thinker. Granted, what he thinks about is code, and you may disagree with him, but I've NEVER read any of his writings that didn't indicate that he'd given the subject a great deal of thought.
"In physics, do we say that force is about equal to mass times acceleration?"
No, but you should.
Have you personally observed the forces involved in the acceleration of a black hole from 0 to c in less than 10^-23 seconds? No? Then how do you know your "law" holds?
The interesting thing about that poem is that the kingdom had been long forgotten in ancient times. It is based on the experience of an ancient Greek traveler who noted the presence of a colussus surounded by miles of wasteland.
Godwin's law and all that...but your analogy is flawed. We're not trying to kill a fly. If we were, someone would have built a flyswatter by now.
Rather, what we're engaged in is the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Sure, all we REALLY needed to do in WW II was fire a single bullet into the brain of Der Fuhrer, but getting to that point required the invasion and destruction of much of Europe. Once the menace was gone, the Continent was rebuilt.
The rather scary part of this analogy, of course, is that the subsequent peace on the continent was secured by the decades-long occupation of the continent by a foreign army (ie the Americans). THAT is my concern in the anti-spam wars. The cure may be worse than the disease. (See other comments in this thread about increased government regulation.)
It is unfortunate that geeks aren't better at forcing other people to play nice.
I do not believe that we can morally tell anyone not to possess nuclear weapons unless we dedicate ourself to a date when we do not possess them too.
We have dedicated ourselves to that date. On the date when there is no more threat to ourselves, we will lay down our weapons.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the only country which has ever possessed the decisive ability to destroy or rule the entire world, AND HAS REFRAINED FROM DOING SO, is the United States. We could have nuked the capitals of any nation in the world in 1945 or 1946 without any possibility of retribution. We could have threatened every other nation with nuclear annihilation if they didn't accept our rule, but we didn't. We could have progressed beyond Germany to our sworn enemy Russia, but we didn't.
Point to ONE other nation that can make a similar claim. Based on that history, I trust the people of the United States to do what is right. Have we committed terrible crimes? Yes. So has every other nation; we are no worse, but neither are we any better, save for this one point:
WE DID NOT DOMINATE THE WORLD WHEN IT WAS WITHIN OUR GRASP TO DO SO.
No other nation has the moral right to tell us what to do with our weapons. NO ONE.
I'm holding a gun; there's a pile of them on the floor in the middle of the room. Across the room from me are dozens of strangers. They eye me uncertainly. The one thing I know for certain is that I have no intention of shooting anyone.
Unless they go for the guns.
I tell them over and over again that I'm not going to shoot them. They call me immoral. They claim I want to kill them. They beg and weep and plead with me to let them pick up a gun. The one thing I know for certain is that I have no intention of shooting anyone.
One of them edges toward the pile of guns. I raise my gun a few degrees; to reach the floor, she must pass in front of my barrel. She retreats. I could raise the gun another 45 degrees and drill a 9mm hole through her gut, but I don't. Again they scream and wail. Again they call me a murderer.
Fifty years ago, I shot a man, once, twice. I can't say he deserved it, but he was trying to kill me. I stopped him. He survived. That was the first time I'd picked up a gun from the pile on the floor. I considered briefly drilling everyone else and winning the game, but I refrained. Instead I guarded the guns. I don't know what anyone else would do with a gun, but the one thing I know for certain is that I have no intention of shooting anyone.
"You see, we can't allow this mass migraton to be slipshod! We don't want people disembarking randomly, settling down on their new homeworld anywhere they want, producing whatever goods they feel like! No, no, we can't be having that! That's where YOU, the MBAs of the world, come in! You will arrive first. No worries about YOUR organizational skills - we're certain that you'll set up an excellent disembarkation, resettlement, and economic rejuvenation plan before the arrival of the unwashed masses. Yes, of COURSE you can make spreadsheets and pie charts to show us. We'll be right behind you. To your ark now, don't be late. Yes, I'm sure you still have questions, but time is money, ha ha! Go! Lead us to inspiration!"
The flaw in your analysis is that you fail to take into account the economic cost of locating the personal information.
A whois query costs seconds. A qwuery to the DMV can be minutes, hours, or even days (DMVs are state agencies, and there are varying levels of response from the various states).
To take your analogy to an extreme, I will suggest that we are all millionaires. Some people can and withdraw $1 million from an account, while others must work 50 years to earn a total of $1 million. Nevertheless, in both cases, people have possession of $1 million. The difference, of course, is the cost in time.
Isn't Bill Gates one of those people who pays more in to the federal government in federal income taxes and other stuff than they get back from the federal government in all the different forms of funding?
What's your point, that New Yorkers are rich? That the federal government shouldn't be in the wealth redistribution business? That we should cut taxes for the wealthy or else give them more government largesse so that they are getting their fair share?
Slashdot Mirror
"Except you can do this with a GPL'ed program as well"
Read the licence. There is no provision for retroactive modification or revocation of the license. It is an outright grant of permission. It cannot be be withdrawn, because there is no basis in the license for doing so.
HOWEVER (and this is the point you seem to be making) an author may license his software to different people under different licenses. If I license my program to you under the GPL and to Apple under a Microsoft-style EULA, you will still have all the GPL rights granted to you. In fact, Apple could have gotten the software from you under the GPL (which is the only license YOU can distribute my program under, since you license it and do not own it). Apple could then distribute the software under the GPL (and the people who got it from Apple...ad infinitum), but Apple would be bound by the GPL with regard to modifications that they distribute. Apple doesn't like that, so they come to me with money and a request for a different license.
But no matter what happens between me and Apple, between me and you was the GPL. You still have the GPLed copy of my software, and if I go capitalistic nuts tomorrow and begin demanding $1000/day before I'll distribute any more copies of my program, you would still be able to use, copy, modify, and redistribute the copy of my program that I gave to you.
I realize at this point that I am arguing by repeated assertion, so I encourage you again to go read the license yourself. Note that there is NO basis for revocation or modification of the license. It is a contract, and American contract law doesn't permit unilateral modification of contracts. (If it did, I might modify my mortgage contract.)
...he withdrew permission for gratis use by free software projects
I don't recall reading this before, but let's assume that McVoy DID deny access to his software to people to whom he had once granted access.
THIS is the reason why non-free software, in its current form, is a scary thing. Most licenses can be modified at any time, without notice, by the licensor. Bill Gates could, in theory, tell the whole world tomorrow "You can no longer use Windows."
Stallman promotes four freedoms; of those, the freedom to run programs as you wish for any purpose is what most consumers are interested in. Consumers could EASILY be persuaded to pursue this freedom through the political process, since this is the one that, if abused, would affect them the most. We have here a classic case of abuse of this freedom: McVoy takes away access to his software that he had once granted.
I would have preferred to see RMS saying "See? SEE? THIS is why I emphasize freedom!I Instead of emphasizing this evidence, he berates those too foolish to believe his dogma. I place myself firmly in the camp of those who believe his dogma, but only because I have seen and believe the evidence that his dogma is correct. Burying that evidence, as he has done, does no one any good.
Now try re-reading it with a cheesy eastern-bloc accent:
"It only made Linus's job easier because he is being stubborn not wanted to change a bad work practice."
From the article:
Morton also emphasised that he didn't agree with Torvalds' longstanding philosophy that rejecting patches from the kernel was just as important as accepting them.
"I diametrically disagree with him on that stuff," he said.
"If we just drop the patch on the floor . . . it's the kernel that ends up missing out. It's the maintainers' function to get patches into the kernel, rather than taking pride in rejecting them."
So on one hand, we should reward those who do the testing. On the other hand, when the testers say "Hey! This patch broken by design!" we should ignore them and add the patch to the kernel.
Taking a step back, I'd also suggest that he seems to lack a broad perspective on the issue. Cellular death is a requirement for nearly all multi-cellular organisms; the tadpole's taile must die before it becomes a frog. Brevity characterizes good writing, not wordiness. Lincoln's "Gettyspurg Address" is noted for its brevity; it followed a two-hour speech which is not remembered by anyone today. A sculptor's skill is reflected just as much in what he takes away as in what he leaves.
Why should code be any different?
Check out the Bill of Rights. Now check out the people involved in its creation. Not a poor man in the bunch, by the standards of the times.
Learn this in your bones before you try to make any changes in the world: GOVERNMENT IS BY THE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL, FOR THE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL. (That's descriptive, not prescriptive, by the way.)
It's kinda pointless trying to change a system that you don't understand; your actions my even be counter-productive. Once you've understood the purpose of the system, you can begin to see that it is rational and internally consistent. THEN you can begin to formulate your plans to change it.
Because there's always at least one new mode of thought to add to my arsenal. Here, it's "...ask not just whether the author is telling the truth, but why he's writing about this subject at all."
Windows seems to have no problems with detecting a printer... ...because Microsoft has no problems demanding that printer manufacturers provide them with useful information. This is a bit like saying "Well, I have no problems finding fuel for my SUV..." when some someone complains that he can't find a hydrogen station every two miles.
Interesting. Let's see if I understand correctly:
1. Our canned response to a a frequently asked question produced hostility in some customers.
2. Therefore, the customers are idiots.
3. ????
4. Profit!
Permit me to suggest that a better answer would be "Some camera manufacturers use a proprietary format and call it RAW. What camera are you using?"
If you are in customer service, I guarantee you that something close to 100% of your customers are idiots. (Dilbert's law - "Everyone is stupid about something sometime.") Your goal should not be to find better customres, but to accomodate the stupidity of your customers while making them happy to give you their money. That's the theory. In practice, when the customer's stupidity makes them unhappy about reality, you find a way to present the reality in a factual, accurate way that does not reflect badly on you. I call it "honest spin." In some cases there is NO honest spin that will make the customers happy; in this situation, you either lie or fire the customer.
In the long term, it makes more sense to manufacture materials for interplanetary craft on the moon than on earth. Granted, some things (like petroleum-based plastics) would have to come from the earth, but we could get metals from the moon without too much trouble. It makes sense to lift things from the moon rather than from the earth.
Now, if you want to get to Mars as quickly as possible, then yes, you go straight there.
Permit me to point out to you the efficacy of going straight to the moon without building a sufficiency of orbital infrastructure.
We already have mandatory licensing of music. It's doable in theory.
I find it particularly amusing that the patent holder is under no obligation whatsoever to ensure that the terms are "agreeable" to whomever wants to license them.
EXACTLY.
So-called intellectual property is, in theory, a temporary monopoly granted for the sake of the public good. By granting the monopoly, the government provides economic incentives to creators. What, though, is the good to the public if the creators do not license their intellectual property?
I would propose mandatory licensing of ALL intellectual property under standard terms. No patent holder would then be able to withhold permission to incorporate patented technologies; nor could they demand outrageous payments for their patent. They could not keep technologies off the market solely to keep from cannibalizing their existing sales.
Record companies would be required to make ALL of the music they owned available to the public or risk losing their copyright. There would be no orphaned works; failure to provide access to a work would constitute abandonment of copyright and ensure that a work passed into the public domain.
The devil, of course, is in the details. What would the mandatory licensing terms be?
Advertising is one way to go, but remember we also pay for cable television.
Ah, so you are too young to remember when there WERE no ads on cable TV. You were paying for it; why would there be ads? Sure, at the top of the hour (and maybe the half hour), you'd see announcements for other shows and general branding spots (a la PBS), but there were no commercials.
Those days are gone now, as cable TV companies have found how to have their cake and eat it, too.
----------------
Shower to the Sheeple!
RMS is a pretty nifty thinker. Granted, what he thinks about is code, and you may disagree with him, but I've NEVER read any of his writings that didn't indicate that he'd given the subject a great deal of thought.
"In physics, do we say that force is about equal to mass times acceleration?"
No, but you should.
Have you personally observed the forces involved in the acceleration of a black hole from 0 to c in less than 10^-23 seconds? No? Then how do you know your "law" holds?
The interesting thing about that poem is that the kingdom had been long forgotten in ancient times. It is based on the experience of an ancient Greek traveler who noted the presence of a colussus surounded by miles of wasteland.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach teachers.
Is it just me, or is slashdot a bit slow?
+12 Funny.
ROTFLMAO (for you youngsters, this translates roughly as "LOLOLOL")
Godwin's law and all that...but your analogy is flawed. We're not trying to kill a fly. If we were, someone would have built a flyswatter by now.
Rather, what we're engaged in is the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Sure, all we REALLY needed to do in WW II was fire a single bullet into the brain of Der Fuhrer, but getting to that point required the invasion and destruction of much of Europe. Once the menace was gone, the Continent was rebuilt.
The rather scary part of this analogy, of course, is that the subsequent peace on the continent was secured by the decades-long occupation of the continent by a foreign army (ie the Americans). THAT is my concern in the anti-spam wars. The cure may be worse than the disease. (See other comments in this thread about increased government regulation.)
It is unfortunate that geeks aren't better at forcing other people to play nice.
I do not believe that we can morally tell anyone not to possess nuclear weapons unless we dedicate ourself to a date when we do not possess them too.
We have dedicated ourselves to that date. On the date when there is no more threat to ourselves, we will lay down our weapons.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the only country which has ever possessed the decisive ability to destroy or rule the entire world, AND HAS REFRAINED FROM DOING SO, is the United States. We could have nuked the capitals of any nation in the world in 1945 or 1946 without any possibility of retribution. We could have threatened every other nation with nuclear annihilation if they didn't accept our rule, but we didn't. We could have progressed beyond Germany to our sworn enemy Russia, but we didn't.
Point to ONE other nation that can make a similar claim. Based on that history, I trust the people of the United States to do what is right. Have we committed terrible crimes? Yes. So has every other nation; we are no worse, but neither are we any better, save for this one point:
WE DID NOT DOMINATE THE WORLD WHEN IT WAS WITHIN OUR GRASP TO DO SO.
No other nation has the moral right to tell us what to do with our weapons. NO ONE.
I'm holding a gun; there's a pile of them on the floor in the middle of the room. Across the room from me are dozens of strangers. They eye me uncertainly. The one thing I know for certain is that I have no intention of shooting anyone.
Unless they go for the guns.
I tell them over and over again that I'm not going to shoot them. They call me immoral. They claim I want to kill them. They beg and weep and plead with me to let them pick up a gun. The one thing I know for certain is that I have no intention of shooting anyone.
One of them edges toward the pile of guns. I raise my gun a few degrees; to reach the floor, she must pass in front of my barrel. She retreats. I could raise the gun another 45 degrees and drill a 9mm hole through her gut, but I don't. Again they scream and wail. Again they call me a murderer.
Fifty years ago, I shot a man, once, twice. I can't say he deserved it, but he was trying to kill me. I stopped him. He survived. That was the first time I'd picked up a gun from the pile on the floor. I considered briefly drilling everyone else and winning the game, but I refrained. Instead I guarded the guns. I don't know what anyone else would do with a gun, but the one thing I know for certain is that I have no intention of shooting anyone.
"You see, we can't allow this mass migraton to be slipshod! We don't want people disembarking randomly, settling down on their new homeworld anywhere they want, producing whatever goods they feel like! No, no, we can't be having that! That's where YOU, the MBAs of the world, come in! You will arrive first. No worries about YOUR organizational skills - we're certain that you'll set up an excellent disembarkation, resettlement, and economic rejuvenation plan before the arrival of the unwashed masses. Yes, of COURSE you can make spreadsheets and pie charts to show us. We'll be right behind you. To your ark now, don't be late. Yes, I'm sure you still have questions, but time is money, ha ha! Go! Lead us to inspiration!"
Yup. We used to say in the Army "Never piss off the cooks or the finance clerks."
The flaw in your analysis is that you fail to take into account the economic cost of locating the personal information.
A whois query costs seconds. A qwuery to the DMV can be minutes, hours, or even days (DMVs are state agencies, and there are varying levels of response from the various states).
To take your analogy to an extreme, I will suggest that we are all millionaires. Some people can and withdraw $1 million from an account, while others must work 50 years to earn a total of $1 million. Nevertheless, in both cases, people have possession of $1 million. The difference, of course, is the cost in time.
Isn't Bill Gates one of those people who pays more in to the federal government in federal income taxes and other stuff than they get back from the federal government in all the different forms of funding?
What's your point, that New Yorkers are rich? That the federal government shouldn't be in the wealth redistribution business? That we should cut taxes for the wealthy or else give them more government largesse so that they are getting their fair share?
Gotta love these ultra-conservatives...