Actually, this is a good point. When something that you agree with gets labelled as socialist, then it's a good chance to look at what real socialism (not Stalinism, which is what many in the west seem to see as the same thing) is about and hopefully realise that it's not really the evil that US adminstration has painted it as for the past 50+ years.
They are mostly j2ee, and one of them is a web app. There are a whole collection of backend services/batch apps for our internal applications as well though.
I agree there are places that you wouldn't want to use Java, but not so convinced on GUI clients. If I were writing a 100% Windows GUI, that was never likely to get ported to anything else, I would probably not pick Java (I'd probably go for C#), but if there was any liklihood of it needing to be run elsewhere, I'd definitely consider Java. Apps like Eclipse run fine (at least on my Windows and Linux boxes).
I know you're kidding, but unfortunately there are a lot of responses here which indicate that Java is the end-all and be-all of portable programming.
I'm sorry folks. Such people have never done real cross-platform programming. Java simply isn't an option on MANY platforms. If all you do is x86 platforms, and perhaps some Motorola workstation-class platforms, hey, you're fine.
But that's not the real world.
Might not be your real world, but in mine (enterprise-scale apps for a multinational financial company), we have no problem with portable Java (usually developed on Windows, mostly run in test/production on HP-UX, with the occasional Solaris and now Redhat Linux, and even a little running on our IBM mainframes).
It's true that for some uses, such as certain embedded devices, Java is almost certainly not a sensible (or even possible) option, but in much of the industry it's a perfectly sensible choice for cross-platform development.
Then JAVA was going to be completely portable to all operating systems. But not all Java virtual machines are identical, and different version of Java came out, and things diverged.
Yet it's still perfectly possible (and really not that hard) to write portable Java.
At my organisation, Java development is done almost entirely on peoples' local Windows boxes, before being transfered over to the HP-UX boxes for the test/production environments. To the best of my knowledge, in the past 5 years, we'e had one single bug has ever been found that was down to a difference between Windows and HP-UX environments (and than was a bug in the specific HP-UX JVM that we were running - it was fixed with an upgrade to the latest version).
Also, it "works" just like Outlook? I'm not sure that's a feature!
Not sure how serious you're trying to be, so I'll bite.
The works just like Outlook statement is (from the original quoted text) a reference to working offline - i.e., the emails, directories (or whatever they are in GMail) are stored locally, in some form of DB/file system, so that you can read/search them when you are not connected to the internet (and presumably downloaded from any pop/imap server).
Would your 3 hour one do this? If so, could you send me a copy?
I'll admit that I'm no great expert on the details of multi-core, hyper-threaded CPU design, but from what's in the article isn't the memory access bottleneck a rather fatal, and obvious, flaw in the whole design? Unless I'm missing something, I'm really struggling to see how this got off the drawing board. What is it's point if the only applications that can ever take advantage of it are the very few that rarely need to access main memory?
You honestly believe that line? "Hmmm, there seems to be all this demand for our system, so LET'S SHIP FEWER OF THEM TO SELL!"
Are you seriously denying that this happens? It's exactly what's happening with PSPs in the UK at the moment. They've been out for over two months. I got one pre-order, which arrived a couple of days after launch, but a mate has had his on order since the week after go-live and it still hasn't turned up yet. They are being delivered to stores in ones and twos, and the backlog is slowly being worked through.
I refuse to believe that Sony so badly misjudged stocks (if they had, I would expect to have seen a story about Sony UKs MD being sacked), and don't have any available anywhere that they could ship. The only possible reason that they are doing this is to push up the hype. One of the shops in town had a poster up last week with "3 PSPs in stock today" which had disappeared about half an hour after it went up.
It depends on whether you got a choice about the two games that come with it. In reality, these games are not free - the price of them is simply included in the base price of the console. You pay for them whether you want them or not.
Are we talking programmers or designers? ALL programmers need to be introduced to language first and formost. If they aren't, well are they really being trained to be programmers?
Programming is just a continuation of design (unless you're mindlessly translating a way-too-detailed program spec into your chosen language). To be a good coder, you need to understand most of the things that you need to be a good designer (abstraction, problem decomposition, identification of patterns etc). The only real difference is the level of abstraction.
Yes, you also need to understand the specific details of your chosen language, but you really need to know what you are looking to say (design) before you think about exactly how you're going to say it (code).
The only good reason to get people coding before they are taught the principles of design is for the 'instant gratification' you get, hopefully stopping people getting bored.
And I'm really not sure how VS is a suitable tool to learn good software design (UI design maybe, but that's a very small part of designing a system). I believe that newer versions may support UML (but I could be wrong), so there may be some benefit there, but beyond that it's simply a rapid coding tool and diving straight into code is not a good way to start your design.
I had a superior give me a very good piece of advice once, and it has served me well. I wish Dvorak and his employers would take it to heart:
"If you're going to come to me with a problem, make sure to bring a solution, too."
I'm sorry. That's something I hear quite regularly and it's BS. It's just management abdicating responsibility. If there's a problem somewhere, you should call it out whether you know the answer to it or not - it won't go away simply because you don't mention it. It's great advice for getting you up the greasy pole, but it's useless for actually identifying and fixing problems.
The correct attitude is "If you've got a problem, think about whether you've got a solution before bringing it to me". I actively encourage people working for me to come forward with problems they can't solve.
Less of a waste of bits than someone bothering to complain about it. Some people won't have seen the original story (or will have forgotten about it) - it's not like it's a dupe from yesterday.
You're not (as far as I can tell) a subscriber, so it's not as if you're paying for the service. If you don't want to read the story, or the posts about it, then don't click on the links. It's quite easy if you try.
OK. If it's so obvious that a person is 'using' the backend program, then the program is clearly being distributed to them (otherwise how are they using it?), so I struggle to see how the current GPL fails to cover it.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
If you didn't "see" that in the GPL, you clearly haven't even read the GPL.
I did "see" that, and as I've made quite clear, my view is that you, as website visitor, are not the 'user' of the backend server but the 'user' of the generated pages.
Nice try, but it's not the 'using' of the HTML output that is in question. It's the issuing of commands (such as via HTTP), which makes you the user of the remote software. The data sent via HTTP (such as HTML, JavaScript, images, and so on) is the output of the software on the remote server that you, the web surfer, are using.
And that's where our opinions differ. You do not usually go to a site in order to 'use' the backend server application. You go to 'use' the html that is generated.
I understand (though disagree with) your viewpoint.
You, on the other hand, seem to be wilfully ignoring my opinions, and instead claiming that I've not read the GPL (I have), or that I'm picking up on the minutae of wording (I'm not). I simply don't believe that the user of a website is any more the user of the backend application that generates it than the reader of a book is the user of the word processor that generated it (or users of an application which was compiled using a modified, GPL-based compiler, and if I understand the GPL correctly, in this instance there is currently no compulsion to release the modified compiler).
The whole reason loopholes exist is because people are able to find ways to violate the intent of a thing (a law, for example), while complying with it to the letter.
Yes. I fully understand all of that, but as I said in the previous post, I personally don't see anything in the *original* intent of the GPL (not just in the subtleties of the wording) that is being breached by using GPL code to power a website without publishing the source code, therefore I don't see how it's a loophole, any more than writing a book using a modified GPL word processor without republishing the code breaches it. My view is that when browsing a website, you are 'using' the HTML and any javascript thats running. You can see those, so in my view that is not breaching the GPL.
If Stallman wanted to extend the purpose of the GPL to cover anyone modifying GPL code to create something that they then distributed (such as a book or a website), that's fine. But he's still (in my view) extending the purpose.
You obviously disagree - that's fine, but I'm not trying to play on the subtlty of wording, I'm talking about my undetstanding of the the intent.
For the millionth time, I fully agree that there's no loophole between the wording of the GPL and the use that's under question. You can quit saying things like, "What I'm saying is that I see nothing in the original GPL that suggests there was ever any intent to cover this sort of scenario."
...
You seem flabbergasted that the FSF would want to update the GPL to cover web services, but if you understand their intention, it's quite reasonable.
No. I'm flabbergasted that anyone can see this as tightening a loophole as opposed to a significant change to the scope of the GPL. As I think I've already mentioned Stallman is free to do what he wants in creating a new GPL, but trying to claim it's simply tightening a loophole is just plain wrong.
I'm not intending to get hung up on exact wording. What I'm saying is that I see nothing in the original GPL that suggests there was ever any intent to cover this sort of scenario. The way I read it, if he had thought about the scenario when the previous GPL was written, he would not have included it, but now he's thought about it more he's changed his mind. This is very different to a loophole.
(An analogy - if a general speed limit of 70 mph had been set at some point in the past, but now the government has thought about it a bit more and then decided that people should only drive at 30mph in a built up area, this would not be closing a loophole but modifying the law.)
Going back to my example (and FWIW I meant business rules written in code in your application) - what about if instead of providing web access, account details had been made available through an IVR (voice menus you get when phoning a call centre)? Would the code need to be made available at that point? Or if you 'web-enabled' your existing system, but only gave access to the site to your employees, so that they were using it in exactly the same way as the old system?
Or what about if you were an external service provider (such as a credit reference agency), using GPL code, that some other company's systems talked to? Presumably again if it was being talked to by some other company's in-house account management system, then this wouldn't result in the source code needing to be published, but again if that other company web-enabled their system, it would?
The point I'm trying to get across is that 'web-enabling' a system doesn't seem to me to be anything particularly special (and often doesn't involve doing anything specifically to the app at all). People have been interacting with companies' back-end systems through a variety of direct and indirect means for years, and none of these have been seen as 'distributing' the app (for the purposes of the GPL), and I don't see why a website is any different.
Basically, I'm struggling to understand how (or why) the licence requirements for an application can change the second the app becomes involved in a web transaction, To me this feels a fundamentally different act to that of releasing an application binary for someone else to pick up and install.
You're right that people are free to choose whether they will use GPL3 code in the future, but it is a big deal. I know that the next enterprise app I design will not include any GPL3 code if it means that as soon as I web-enable it, I'm forced to publish my private business logic(whereas I've got no problem with the current GPL as I've got no intention of making my apps available to third parties to install).
My problem is, as I mentioned, that as far as I can tell, the GPL talks about the distribution of the software, not the use of it.
Say I've got a (non-web enabled) account management system, which includes some GPL code, and some proprietary business rules. My understanding is that under GPL I would not have to publish the source code for this app.
Now say I build an website on top of it, allowing the users to view and update various aspects of their accounts (such as changing their address). At this point, would I have to publish the source code for the backend account management system?
Because the authors of the GPL have said so,Not by my reading of the article they haven't. The author of the article uses the word loophole, not the authors of the GPL - Stallman says that they're "looking into" it.
This suggests it's a scenario they hadn't considered when creating the GPL and they are now considering how they should deal with it. That's very different to a "loophole" where the intention of the licence is extremely clear but people are using clever tricks to avoid it.
The fact is that web services make the web surfer the user of the program, not the webmaster.
Maybe, but in the same way that a reader is the user of a book, not the author. To my knowledge, the current GPL talks about copying and distributing, not using. In the case of the app running on your website, you are not copying or distributing the actual application to anyone. They cannot take this application and install it somewhere else, they are simply using a service that you are providing.
>>> If I wrote a book using a modified version of a GPL word processor, would I have to publish the modified code?
Nope, and that would not only be a stupid requirement, and would violate the freedoms the FSF intends to promote.
Indeed it would - so if I used my program to write static HTML which I then published, would this program require me to publish the source?
The web has created a new class of computer user which the GPL does not adequately address as per the intentions of the authors of the GPL, so they are quite rationally working to update the GPL.
That's fine. They are the authors. They can extend the licence, and its intent, for a future version. I have no problem with that, but I disagree that this somehow makes current use of GPL software for creating your website "a loophole".
Web sites that do this clearly run counter to the intention of the GPL, thus it's a loophole.Why? The application itself isn't being redistributed, just the output from the application. If I wrote a book using a modified version of a GPL word processor, would I have to publish the modified code?
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
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· Score: 1
It would be fairly expensive to give everyone in a large company a Blackberry/Treo device.
True, but you aren't allowed to buy your own and use it either. And the people that get them are the people that also have PAs - people employed to do nothing other than manage their email and diaries.
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The main use of Blackberries at our place is to look important, as only senior people are given one, so they all wander around reading them wherever they go.
Their secondary use is to indicate boredom in meetings by starting to read their email in the middle of a conversation with you.
And their final use is to 'impress' people, and show how busy they are, by sending replies to your email while they're on the toilet.
That's assuming that you can prove that the calls were due to a trojan. If it rang premium rate lines for a couple of weeks and then removed itself before you got your bill, you'd have a fair amout of difficulty convincing the network that it wasn't you calling the numbers.
Indeed, although there is some movement away from direct state control towards private enterprise. The government is still prety authoritarian though, and I suspect that not many major private firms are being run by people who aren't also senior figures the party.
My first thought on reading it was that it would be nice if their government started "serving the people and socialism".
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, this is a good point. When something that you agree with gets labelled as socialist, then it's a good chance to look at what real socialism (not Stalinism, which is what many in the west seem to see as the same thing) is about and hopefully realise that it's not really the evil that US adminstration has painted it as for the past 50+ years.
They are mostly j2ee, and one of them is a web app. There are a whole collection of backend services/batch apps for our internal applications as well though.
I agree there are places that you wouldn't want to use Java, but not so convinced on GUI clients. If I were writing a 100% Windows GUI, that was never likely to get ported to anything else, I would probably not pick Java (I'd probably go for C#), but if there was any liklihood of it needing to be run elsewhere, I'd definitely consider Java. Apps like Eclipse run fine (at least on my Windows and Linux boxes).
I'm sorry folks. Such people have never done real cross-platform programming. Java simply isn't an option on MANY platforms. If all you do is x86 platforms, and perhaps some Motorola workstation-class platforms, hey, you're fine.
But that's not the real world.
Might not be your real world, but in mine (enterprise-scale apps for a multinational financial company), we have no problem with portable Java (usually developed on Windows, mostly run in test/production on HP-UX, with the occasional Solaris and now Redhat Linux, and even a little running on our IBM mainframes).
It's true that for some uses, such as certain embedded devices, Java is almost certainly not a sensible (or even possible) option, but in much of the industry it's a perfectly sensible choice for cross-platform development.
Yet it's still perfectly possible (and really not that hard) to write portable Java.
At my organisation, Java development is done almost entirely on peoples' local Windows boxes, before being transfered over to the HP-UX boxes for the test/production environments. To the best of my knowledge, in the past 5 years, we'e had one single bug has ever been found that was down to a difference between Windows and HP-UX environments (and than was a bug in the specific HP-UX JVM that we were running - it was fixed with an upgrade to the latest version).
Not sure how serious you're trying to be, so I'll bite.
The works just like Outlook statement is (from the original quoted text) a reference to working offline - i.e., the emails, directories (or whatever they are in GMail) are stored locally, in some form of DB/file system, so that you can read/search them when you are not connected to the internet (and presumably downloaded from any pop/imap server).
Would your 3 hour one do this? If so, could you send me a copy?
Probably a less biased one than Yahoo themselves.
I'll admit that I'm no great expert on the details of multi-core, hyper-threaded CPU design, but from what's in the article isn't the memory access bottleneck a rather fatal, and obvious, flaw in the whole design? Unless I'm missing something, I'm really struggling to see how this got off the drawing board. What is it's point if the only applications that can ever take advantage of it are the very few that rarely need to access main memory?
You honestly believe that line? "Hmmm, there seems to be all this demand for our system, so LET'S SHIP FEWER OF THEM TO SELL!"
Are you seriously denying that this happens? It's exactly what's happening with PSPs in the UK at the moment. They've been out for over two months. I got one pre-order, which arrived a couple of days after launch, but a mate has had his on order since the week after go-live and it still hasn't turned up yet. They are being delivered to stores in ones and twos, and the backlog is slowly being worked through.
I refuse to believe that Sony so badly misjudged stocks (if they had, I would expect to have seen a story about Sony UKs MD being sacked), and don't have any available anywhere that they could ship. The only possible reason that they are doing this is to push up the hype. One of the shops in town had a poster up last week with "3 PSPs in stock today" which had disappeared about half an hour after it went up.
It depends on whether you got a choice about the two games that come with it. In reality, these games are not free - the price of them is simply included in the base price of the console. You pay for them whether you want them or not.
ALL programmers need to be introduced to language first and formost. If they aren't, well are they really being trained to be programmers?
Programming is just a continuation of design (unless you're mindlessly translating a way-too-detailed program spec into your chosen language). To be a good coder, you need to understand most of the things that you need to be a good designer (abstraction, problem decomposition, identification of patterns etc). The only real difference is the level of abstraction.
Yes, you also need to understand the specific details of your chosen language, but you really need to know what you are looking to say (design) before you think about exactly how you're going to say it (code).
The only good reason to get people coding before they are taught the principles of design is for the 'instant gratification' you get, hopefully stopping people getting bored.
And I'm really not sure how VS is a suitable tool to learn good software design (UI design maybe, but that's a very small part of designing a system). I believe that newer versions may support UML (but I could be wrong), so there may be some benefit there, but beyond that it's simply a rapid coding tool and diving straight into code is not a good way to start your design.
Not sure I understand. The "solution" is the solution (figuring out how to solve the problem), surely.
What do you mean by "walking the next step"? This sounds like more management BS to me, I'm afraid.
"If you're going to come to me with a problem, make sure to bring a solution, too."
I'm sorry. That's something I hear quite regularly and it's BS. It's just management abdicating responsibility. If there's a problem somewhere, you should call it out whether you know the answer to it or not - it won't go away simply because you don't mention it. It's great advice for getting you up the greasy pole, but it's useless for actually identifying and fixing problems.
The correct attitude is "If you've got a problem, think about whether you've got a solution before bringing it to me". I actively encourage people working for me to come forward with problems they can't solve.
Less of a waste of bits than someone bothering to complain about it. Some people won't have seen the original story (or will have forgotten about it) - it's not like it's a dupe from yesterday.
You're not (as far as I can tell) a subscriber, so it's not as if you're paying for the service. If you don't want to read the story, or the posts about it, then don't click on the links. It's quite easy if you try.
OK. If it's so obvious that a person is 'using' the backend program, then the program is clearly being distributed to them (otherwise how are they using it?), so I struggle to see how the current GPL fails to cover it.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
I did "see" that, and as I've made quite clear, my view is that you, as website visitor, are not the 'user' of the backend server but the 'user' of the generated pages.
Nice try, but it's not the 'using' of the HTML output that is in question. It's the issuing of commands (such as via HTTP), which makes you the user of the remote software. The data sent via HTTP (such as HTML, JavaScript, images, and so on) is the output of the software on the remote server that you, the web surfer, are using.
And that's where our opinions differ. You do not usually go to a site in order to 'use' the backend server application. You go to 'use' the html that is generated.
I understand (though disagree with) your viewpoint.
You, on the other hand, seem to be wilfully ignoring my opinions, and instead claiming that I've not read the GPL (I have), or that I'm picking up on the minutae of wording (I'm not). I simply don't believe that the user of a website is any more the user of the backend application that generates it than the reader of a book is the user of the word processor that generated it (or users of an application which was compiled using a modified, GPL-based compiler, and if I understand the GPL correctly, in this instance there is currently no compulsion to release the modified compiler).
Yes. I fully understand all of that, but as I said in the previous post, I personally don't see anything in the *original* intent of the GPL (not just in the subtleties of the wording) that is being breached by using GPL code to power a website without publishing the source code, therefore I don't see how it's a loophole, any more than writing a book using a modified GPL word processor without republishing the code breaches it. My view is that when browsing a website, you are 'using' the HTML and any javascript thats running. You can see those, so in my view that is not breaching the GPL.
If Stallman wanted to extend the purpose of the GPL to cover anyone modifying GPL code to create something that they then distributed (such as a book or a website), that's fine. But he's still (in my view) extending the purpose.
You obviously disagree - that's fine, but I'm not trying to play on the subtlty of wording, I'm talking about my undetstanding of the the intent.
You seem flabbergasted that the FSF would want to update the GPL to cover web services, but if you understand their intention, it's quite reasonable.
No. I'm flabbergasted that anyone can see this as tightening a loophole as opposed to a significant change to the scope of the GPL. As I think I've already mentioned Stallman is free to do what he wants in creating a new GPL, but trying to claim it's simply tightening a loophole is just plain wrong.
I'm not intending to get hung up on exact wording. What I'm saying is that I see nothing in the original GPL that suggests there was ever any intent to cover this sort of scenario. The way I read it, if he had thought about the scenario when the previous GPL was written, he would not have included it, but now he's thought about it more he's changed his mind. This is very different to a loophole.
(An analogy - if a general speed limit of 70 mph had been set at some point in the past, but now the government has thought about it a bit more and then decided that people should only drive at 30mph in a built up area, this would not be closing a loophole but modifying the law.)
Going back to my example (and FWIW I meant business rules written in code in your application) - what about if instead of providing web access, account details had been made available through an IVR (voice menus you get when phoning a call centre)? Would the code need to be made available at that point? Or if you 'web-enabled' your existing system, but only gave access to the site to your employees, so that they were using it in exactly the same way as the old system?
Or what about if you were an external service provider (such as a credit reference agency), using GPL code, that some other company's systems talked to? Presumably again if it was being talked to by some other company's in-house account management system, then this wouldn't result in the source code needing to be published, but again if that other company web-enabled their system, it would?
The point I'm trying to get across is that 'web-enabling' a system doesn't seem to me to be anything particularly special (and often doesn't involve doing anything specifically to the app at all). People have been interacting with companies' back-end systems through a variety of direct and indirect means for years, and none of these have been seen as 'distributing' the app (for the purposes of the GPL), and I don't see why a website is any different.
Basically, I'm struggling to understand how (or why) the licence requirements for an application can change the second the app becomes involved in a web transaction, To me this feels a fundamentally different act to that of releasing an application binary for someone else to pick up and install.
You're right that people are free to choose whether they will use GPL3 code in the future, but it is a big deal. I know that the next enterprise app I design will not include any GPL3 code if it means that as soon as I web-enable it, I'm forced to publish my private business logic(whereas I've got no problem with the current GPL as I've got no intention of making my apps available to third parties to install).
My problem is, as I mentioned, that as far as I can tell, the GPL talks about the distribution of the software, not the use of it.
Say I've got a (non-web enabled) account management system, which includes some GPL code, and some proprietary business rules. My understanding is that under GPL I would not have to publish the source code for this app.
Now say I build an website on top of it, allowing the users to view and update various aspects of their accounts (such as changing their address). At this point, would I have to publish the source code for the backend account management system?
This suggests it's a scenario they hadn't considered when creating the GPL and they are now considering how they should deal with it. That's very different to a "loophole" where the intention of the licence is extremely clear but people are using clever tricks to avoid it.
The fact is that web services make the web surfer the user of the program, not the webmaster.
Maybe, but in the same way that a reader is the user of a book, not the author. To my knowledge, the current GPL talks about copying and distributing, not using. In the case of the app running on your website, you are not copying or distributing the actual application to anyone. They cannot take this application and install it somewhere else, they are simply using a service that you are providing.
>>> If I wrote a book using a modified version of a GPL word processor, would I have to publish the modified code?
Nope, and that would not only be a stupid requirement, and would violate the freedoms the FSF intends to promote.
Indeed it would - so if I used my program to write static HTML which I then published, would this program require me to publish the source?
The web has created a new class of computer user which the GPL does not adequately address as per the intentions of the authors of the GPL, so they are quite rationally working to update the GPL.
That's fine. They are the authors. They can extend the licence, and its intent, for a future version. I have no problem with that, but I disagree that this somehow makes current use of GPL software for creating your website "a loophole".
Web sites that do this clearly run counter to the intention of the GPL, thus it's a loophole.Why? The application itself isn't being redistributed, just the output from the application. If I wrote a book using a modified version of a GPL word processor, would I have to publish the modified code?
True, but you aren't allowed to buy your own and use it either. And the people that get them are the people that also have PAs - people employed to do nothing other than manage their email and diaries.
The main use of Blackberries at our place is to look important, as only senior people are given one, so they all wander around reading them wherever they go.
Their secondary use is to indicate boredom in meetings by starting to read their email in the middle of a conversation with you.
And their final use is to 'impress' people, and show how busy they are, by sending replies to your email while they're on the toilet.
That's assuming that you can prove that the calls were due to a trojan. If it rang premium rate lines for a couple of weeks and then removed itself before you got your bill, you'd have a fair amout of difficulty convincing the network that it wasn't you calling the numbers.
Indeed, although there is some movement away from direct state control towards private enterprise. The government is still prety authoritarian though, and I suspect that not many major private firms are being run by people who aren't also senior figures the party.
My first thought on reading it was that it would be nice if their government started "serving the people and socialism".