I guess my best response to this is to say how I lost faith in MS.
I started programming at an extremely young age. I was around 7 when I first started with LOGO and was programming for long periods of time in BASICA when I was around 12.
As I got older (and learned more math) I started getting very interested in more complex languages (namely C). This was before C++ was really out there. I was very lucky because I had a computer that ran Windows but Basic wouldn't let me take that next step to do real Windows programming.
I wasn't able to write C in Windows because at the time, the only option would have been to buy the MS compiler for like $500 ($200 for students though). Now, I had a hard enough time explaining to my parents why I was spending so much time on a computer without trying to explain why I needed $200 dollars for a 'compiler'.
So I started using Linux, and today, I have a deep hatred towards Microsoft. There is no reason why they have to charge $200 for a compiler for students. Had they been more open or offered reasonably priced products, I would be a Windows programmer today.
It's funny that Balmer screams 'Developers, Developers' because what he should be saying is 'Corporate developers, Corporate developers'. I truly believe MS has lost the CS youth with their expensive products and their predatory practices. That is why I believe in 10 years, MS will not hold the position they hold today.
I know I'm not about to forget why I left Windows and I'm sure most other folks out there aren't either.
WRONG.... Hollywood+ and Creative DXR3 both awesome Mpeg decoder cards that can play a broadcast quality Mpeg2 on a Pentium 133 without MMX. better video out than I've seen on ANY video card with tv out. The drivers are awesome and I use ut every day.
Let me rephrase, there are MPEG decoder cards, but barely any of them are supported in Linux.
As for a Mpeg encoder card.... True for anyone who wont pay $2K but who cares? buy a BTTV compatable card use Nupple video and a Old junky P-II333 and record freely and well.
I know on an Athlon 650 I was only getting mid 20 frames per second when recording MPEG real-time. Even with hardware iDCT (the specs for which are not open by ATI), ATI still recommends a PIII 750 in order to obtain the highest quality recording.
You could probably get away with a PII-333 if you didn't care much about quality, but for software compression, you just need a faster processor than that.
BTW: Been a while since I went HD shopping... I would definitely want more than 40GB though.
I am amazed at this AllWell box. What kind of FPS are you getting with it?? What is the bitrate and is it all software encoding?
For quite some time I've wanted to make a homebrew PVR. In fact, I shelled out quite a bit attempting to make one. Here are the basic problems:
1) TIVO and ReplayTV technologies all have built in MPEG encoder/decoder cards. In the US, such cards simply do not exist. There are MPEG decoder cards, but they are barely supported in Linux.
2) TV-OUT technology simply doesn't exist in the US for Linux. The most promising technology is with the ATI-AIW card. I have heard some folks have mixed success using a framebuffer but in framebuffer mode, all video acceleration is lost.
3) It takes an _aweful_ lot of processor power to perform real-time MPEG-encoding. Larger processors also bring high heat and require more cooling and bigger cases.
4) Cost is just enormous. An ATI AIW is around $250 and then throw in another $250 for a HD, then throw in the cost of the other pieces and you end up with a solution costing well over 1K. CD-R only inflates that number.
As long as all manufactors are keeping the specs to their hardware closed, homebrewed PVRs are just not possible. Hardware is desperately needed to complete the solution.
ATI was working on a set-top motherboard but I do not know if it was targetted at consumers or OEMs. Maybe some enterprising hardware geek out there will whip up a custom StrongARM-based single board with built in S-Video out and MPEG encoding/decoding...
He also believed that the worst thing an individual could do is refrane from voting. If the person disagrees with the will of the majority, then they are free to leave and are not bound by the will any longer.
Under the GPL, the car manufacturer owns the sticker.
Absolutely not true. If I write a piece of code, release it under the GPL, and then someone modifies it, I have no more rights to the derived product than anyone else does. The manufacturer and the sticker guy have equal rights to the derived product, but each own their respective part of the derived product.
You can't release a patch without some knowledge of what your patching. I can't see how a patch isn't "derived from the Program or any part thereof."
You can not distribute part of the derived product no matter how small unless you are in total ownership of it. This is precisely how companies are able to release binary kernel modules for Linux under whatever license they choose. They simply can not distribute a version of the kernel with those binary modules already included.
The end user is not free to decided how free they want to be.
The end-user is free to use the software in anyway they wish as long as they do not infringe on the inherent freedoms of the software (see 'inalienable rights').
It is truly that simply.
Public domain is not the same as public property.
Sure it is. All individuals have equal rights to the copyright of a work in public domain. In communism, all individuals have equal rights to the items produced by society. Public domain == communism.
And the GPL dictates that anything done with your property is again your property.
In fact, your logic is terribly wrong here. If this were true, then Linus Trovalds would own the entire Linux kernel. The fact of the matter is, Linux has as much rights to the Linux kernel as I do.
Yeah but the modern BSDs that I most/. folks refer to when speaking of BSD (NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD) didn't fork until 1991. (NetBSD forked of the BSDLite branch I believe).
Also, the idea of endowing inamimate objects such as software with rights is ridiculous. What next? Rocks? Trees? People for the Ethical Treatement of Dustballs?
The philosophy of Free Software and hence the GPL is derived from the idea that software is an expression of speech. We all would agree that speech does have certain freedoms.
How is public domain communistic? Does this mean that my math teacher was a communist because she taught me 2+2 and didn't claim any rights to my future use of this knowledge?
2+2 is _not_ public domain. Do you have any right whatsoever to try and sell someone 2+2 as a licensed work? Not at all. A copyright can not be enforced on something if it can be proved that the work originated prior to the copyright claim.
Now a days, people to copyright equations though and I only wished they put them under a similiar license to the GPL. If 2+2 was GPL'd, then all the equations derived from that would also be GPL'd and we could excel so much faster as a society because information would be free.
The pharmacy industry is a good example of what too much restriction does. If all the AIDS researchers out there pooled their efforts, we would have a cure for AIDS. Every company though is building from the ground up and a huge amount of duplicate effort is being undertook. Because of this, the market is limited to huge mega-corporations that can afford to expend the required resources to do what has already been done.
We are witnessing the 1st stage of a classical Liberal elitist plot, similar to the introduction of abortion.
Ehhh... not entirely true. Modern applications of democracy take into account these "inalienable rights." They do this by making sure that there's a mechanism to protect the rights of the individual from the abuses of the majority (which will happen in a true democracy). I think it was Madison that noted that it was a democracy that decreed the hemlock one day and statues the next.
If one examines Athenian democracy over Lockean democracy, the biggest difference is in the provision for 'inalienable rights' made possible by natural law. This is what protects the minority from the multi-headed snake of democracy that Plato was so scared of.
Democracy is a pretty name for "mob rule," where the majority always wins over the minority and the individual.
This is not true. That's why 'inalienable rights' are so important. The majoritian makes a decision but that decision must be guided by the natural law. It's also not really 'mob rule' because the minority consents to be ruled. As I believe Rosseau said, A vote in democracy is a vote for the will of the majority.
Ah, but who is the author? Isn't somebody that modifies the code and thereby improving it just as much of an author?
If you build a car, and then I come along and put a sticker on the car, can I then claim that I own the car? Absolutely not. I may own the stick (or the derivation), but I surely do not own the car and do not have any specific rights to the car.
This more or less denies the existance of derivative works.
In a derivative work, the author only has rights to the derivation of that work. With the GPL, an individual can release a patch to a GPL'd piece of software under any license he chooses. To integrate that patch with the original work though, the patch must be Free Software.
In this sense the BSD license is more free as it is not forced to grow at such a rate.
If I write a piece of software, and release it under the GPL. Then for the rest of time, I know that software will be free.
If I write a piece of software, and release it under the BSD license, then another company can come by and rerelease the software with absolutely no freedom for the user to modify the software.
It would really suck if I wrote a piece of software, saw it being used by some company, and then asked to have the source for it and they said no. That is why Linux is growing. It's about preserving individual freedom; my freedom as a programmer to use my own source code.
Simply giving code away to become property of society is communistic. If I write code, it should be my property. The nice thing about the GPL is that even though it allows me to own a piece of software, it stops me from being able to remove freedoms already bestowed on the software.
If I dont GPL the other components then the force of the court will come down on me
That just paints an interesting mental picture:)
You're not forced to use the library, but if you use the library then you are forced to GPL the other components.
The force you speak of is nullified by the 'if' qualification to your argument. You cannot choose to be forced into something. Choosed force is an oxymoron by nature.
It's simply social contract theory. Government is not forced on an individual. An individual chooses to be governed in a state in exchange for protection from the government. The individual foregoes certain rights in exchange for that protection.
Likewise, you choice to obey the laws of a land and endure the punishments when broken. It's absolutely a choice.
Though, to simply argue a single word is utterly pointless given the inherent ambiguity of the English language.
The wording is definitely ambiguous. In fact, the GPL FAQ even has this question that addresses what constitutes aggregation between a GPL'd program and a non-GPL'd program.
Essentially, noone is really sure how far the GPL extends. I think linking is pretty straight forward but there are other things that are a little sketchy. I think we are due for a GPL v3.0.
If users lose rights from the GPL being thrown out, then that could potentially be very bad. I know in a lot of corporate environments, if the GPL was thrown away and an author couldn't be contacted, a lot of work could potentially become invalid due to licensing problems.
if you want to use the library then you have to distribute every other component of your product under the GPL.
Agreed.
Therefore you are "forced" to distribute every other component under the GPL if you want to use the library.
Well, then you must agree that in order to use Windows, I am "forced" to pay Microsoft money. Or that in order to drive a car, I am "forced" to buy gas and therefore support Middle Eastern governments.
Force as defined by Websters dictionary is:
Force \Force\, v. t.
To obtain or win by strength; to take by violence or struggle; specifically, to capture by assault; to storm, as a fortress.
I hate to be a prick about it, but obviously, forced is not the right word for this situation. Choose is a better word to use. Your logic is better written as:
if you choose to use the library then you have to also choose to distribute every other component of your product under the GPL.
It's a mutual decision. It's like if I choose to have sex, I also have to choose to take the responsibility of also getting a woman pregant.
There is a significant difference between making a choice and being forced into something.
Many people complain that the GPL is not truly free.
That is mainly because of a misconception about what 'free' is. Modern theories of democracy are based on the concept of inalienable rights (see Locke or US Declaration of Independence). Inalienable rights are inherent rights that cannot be abandoned or taken away. For men to be free, they must ensure that these rights exist and are protected (hence, the need for government).
The GPL essentially defines the inalienable rights of software. As men have the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or in their possesions if you are more Lockean), software has the right to be modified, redistributed, and derived from.
To simply grant these rights with no mechanism to preserve them would go against the fundamental principles of democracy. The GPL protects software not only from giving up it's fundamental rights.
But, the original author also has the choice under which license to distribute the work. He may choice to abandon certain rights. The important thing though, is that it is his choice and his choice alone.
I'm sorry, one simply cannot make the argument that the GPL is philosophically less 'free' than the BSD license. It's just not true.
BTW: If you consult the Unix History Tree, you will see that BSD is arguably older than Linux (the NetBSD base surely is).
BSD is not growing exponentially and Linux is surely not fragmenting. BSD's growth is also probably more related to the high quality of their operating system and less because of their license.
The BSD license is scary. If I had any intention of releasing my code so that it could be reused commerically without my permission, I would simply put in under the public domain. Of course, I'm not a communist, so there is little chance that I would ever release code in such a way.
It is clear that something is derivative if it "contains" the functionality of something else, but is it Just that the licensing agreement of a minor, or even insignificant, part of the derivative work should dominate the remaining portions?
It's not that the license of a small portion of the work is dominating the work. Rather, it is that the only right one has in redistributing that small portion of code, is if he agrees to all the terms of the license. In this case, the license explicitly states that the rest of the product must also carry the GPL license. It is not that the GPL causes the rest of the product to be under the GPL, but that one has no legal right to be distributing that subcomponent unless the rest of the product is under the GPL.
Many people mistakenly refer to the GPL as viral. That gives the false impression that the GPL 'forces' other products to adopt the license. That is not true though. It's sort of like a software company saying that in order to use a certain library commerically, the library user must pay a certain royality. In this circumstance, that royality is the assurance that the code using the library is also under the GPL.
While people may disagree with your tone here (and flame accordingly:) ) I'm disagreeing with the statement a bit. As long as "stupid people" survive past sexual maturity and have children, it doesn't matter when they die. In fact, you could argue that uneducated people tend to have children earlier in life (like in their teens) and therefore spread their genes FASTER.
Once you hit the cap, you gotta burn the karma a bit or it just isn't fun anymore:)
Using stupid was only because it is easier to type than what I really meant. By "stupid", I am referring to individuals with a lower aptitude for learning. Now, in practice, this can translate to either book learning or street smarts depending on how you want to look at it. It's not only what we traditionally consider as "educated" people succeeding, but any individual who has a greater aptitude for learning whatever it is that they learn.
I believe this can be traced to the fact that man's success is directly linked to our ability to figure things out. The strongest tribes didn't necessarly win. The tribes that either have the most cunning military or the tribes with the best agricultural skills are the ones that prospered.
Think about it: If Microsoft could swipe the Linux kernel, wrap Windows around it, and sell it without the source, what would the fallout be? Millions of users would see a more stable and secure operating system, hardware manufacturers would have an easier time of providing drivers for Linux (since they would be essentially the same), and Redmond would be financially motivated to keep coming back to the core linux source tree rather than a single-shot fork. Socially, Linux in the public domain would be far more powerful than Linux under the GPL.
Give me all your money. Socially, I can be more powerful with your money than you so give it all to me.
So many people miss the idea of the GPL. It's not just about sharing code, but also protecting the individuals who share their code. It makes sure that noone screws me if I'm doing something nice for them.
It would be horrible if MS stole the Linux source code and never rereleased it. I would never again be able to hack the kernel when I needed or add an unsupported device driver.
It is not marxism, it's capitalism. The GPL is oriented towards preserving individual rights of a piece of code. Public domain abandons individual rights. I think you are a tad confused here.
I try not to blame universities though. CS is just a really new field. It's really only about 30 years old (for all pratical purposes).
Now, you have many professors who are trying to teach things like Java and C++ where these languages haven't existed for more than a couple years. Therefore, their experience with these languages is strictly academic. Your essentially getting a text book read to you in these circumstances.
It's ashame that more industry professional don't considering teaching. The industry's just so competitive that one simply can't resist the incredible difference in pay/respect.
Perhaps as computer science develops more as a science individuals will be drawn to it for purely academic reasons. For now, the only real merit to a CS degrees seems to the degree itself.
The latter clause is true, but network byte order is not an abstraction - if somebody decides to implement it as little-endian, they're not going to be very successful at communicating with the rest of the world.
Lets say though that we are speaking of an isolated LAN. If they had access to the networking library and their equipment was little-endian based, it would be entirely reasonable for them to change network byte order from big-endian to little-endian to increase network transmission speed.
Now, whether that would work or not is entirely dependent on how poorly coded all their software is:) For all pratical purposes, people don't respect network byte ordering as well as they should (including myself). This is just another example though of code monkeys churning out bad code. It is not related to whether or not network byte order is an abstraction or another name for big-endian as you seem to be asserting.
As for the read/write thing, I would have to say that the C library sort of has the higher-level operations namely fprintf & fscanf. They are meant for ASCII level communication though. Today, if these functions were implemented I would assume that cross-platform data exchange would be a consideration.
It's nothing against C, it's just the evolution of computing.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that natural selection is not taking place, but rather that many traits have become vestigual almost overnight (from an evolutionary standpoint).
Humans evolved to lose their hair. This is because it simply wasn't necessary any more once they figured out how to use animal skins to keep warm. The appendix is another good example of modern evolution. Since humans for the most part do not ingest toxins frequently (due to the cooking process), we simply don't need it so it's disappearing.
So what good traits are being encouraged by evolution? I think that's tough to say, but I think it's pretty evident that we are becoming smarter as a species (which is rather well documented). While on a micro-socialogical level this may not seem too logically (since stupid people tend to breed prolifically), on a macro-socialogical level it makes sense. Stupid people tend to have higher mortality rates so it would appear that while birth rates may be higher amoungst stupid people, success rate is far greater upon intellegent people.
Many people try to seperate humans from nature, but we are a part of nature. There isn't anything we can do that isn't natural. Besides, even if we cause a mass-extinction, it's not as if life hasn't been able to flurish (the greatest extinction was something like 96% precent during the pre-cambrian IIRC).
Personally, I just don't understand the NEED to have your own kids. In a world where needy kids need to be adopted, it strikes me as more than a little self-centered to see high-tech IVF methods as NEEDED so you can have YOUR baby.
From an evolutionary standpoint, I have to disagree. "Designer Babies" are likely to come only from individuals who are amoung the more successful in society. There offspring is likely to be successful too.
What we should be encouraging, is better birth control methods. Not preventing breeding of the more responsible in society in order to divert resources to the offspring of the less responsible of society. (Please note, yes there are always exceptions yada yada yada, but the above statement is correct for the majority).
It's like the sow in the midwest that had 7 kids, half of them retarded. They weren't a sign from God, sweetie. The infertility was the sign from God. Whatever though. Do what you like. Just don't ever expect my insurance payments to cover it.
Unfortunately, we your probably did do your part paying for it by purchasing the Time magazine they were in or by watching a television show they appeared on.
The real travesty of it all isn't this woman's idiocy but rather all the woman who choose not to have selective abortions in similiar situations (in order to be famous) and end up having kids that die in a few days or live short, painful lives.
I personally think that if a mother makes such a decision, and her children suffer because of it, she should be charged with manslaughter...
Video on linux has always been one of my favorite things.
The biggest advance in v4l was essentially the XFree86 4.x release since it encorporated an Xvideo extension allowing for really nice video play back in Linux.
There are a couple cards that are extremely well supported. I personally use an ATI AIW and the MPEG playback in incredible. In fact, I prefer MPEGs in Linux verses Windows simply because I think Linux does a better job at using the RGB conversion stuff at the hardware level than Windows does.
Of course, the biggest foe to video in Linux has been the fact that many of the best accelerations (iDCT) are simply not supported because card makers fear releases 'techinical secrets.'
Another problem is the split in video display APIs. Prior to the Xv extension being released, the Linux kernel had a video4linux API. The second version of that API is incredible as it has so many features that would allow for truely pluggable components.
Unfortunately, all X stuff is implemented in user space so cards that have integrated display and video stuff end up supporting everything in user space and then providing a loopback mechanism to work with the kernel API. It's a little messy but hopefully everything will get worked out as things progress.
Otherwise, hats off to all the hard work of the gatos project, the v4l2 project, and linuxvideo. If you haven't tried all the really cool stuff available for video on linux, you really should.
If by "it" you mean "network byte order", no, it is not the only way to allow different computers to communicate with each other over a network.
No, by "it" I mean TCP/IP. All your examples can be simplified to simply "both sides agree on a way to send data."
BTW: The IP protocols use network byte order. Network byte order != big endian. It's an abstraction. Just because it happens to be implemented as big endian, does mean that one should not use ntoh? on big endian machines.
Of course SMB would use little endian. It's was originated by MS! Windows runs on x86.
And I have to disagree with your assertion that read() and write() are not meant to be the high level socket interface. The C library is filled with high-level interfaces for things. The fact of the matter is that when these functions were designed, cross platform portability and data sharing wasn't much of a concern.
If these functions were rewritten today, they would be knowledgable of such things (i.e. iostreams in C++).
You're wrong. "Network byte order" is a convention that is equivalent to big endian. TCP/IP organizes things by 8-bit bytes. Programmers put things into "network byte order" because it is a convention.
Network byte order is an abstraction. It just so happens that it's implementation is the same as big endian.
TCP/IP had a standard word size so I am definitely confused as to what your talking about 8-bit bytes. Higher bit words are needed for things like storing the packet CRC, size, etc.
x86 stores integer data in a different binary format than other architectures. One of the amazing things about TCP/IP is that it's designed in such a way as to be oblivous to the underlying architectural implementation. Hence, network byte order.
It's the only way to allow different computers to communicate with each other.
I would say though that the whole berkley socket interface is antiquated for handling binary socket data. It works wonderfully for handling ascii data (which is what a majority of early protocols where).
Fortunately, most languages have decent socket libraries that abstract network byte ordering. Now, the really annoying thing about berkley sockets is the lack of an async name lookup mechanism...
I actually have always been a geek and programmed heavily before actually getting a job. In fact, I had more programming experience than most people at the first job I worked on.
But that didn't make me more productive. Working on a team in a production environment is very different than just programming on your own. I have always been told to leave Open Source stuff off of my resume. That doesn't mean you can't use it to refine your skills. I learned most of what I know on my own.
Now, by the same token, most college curriculums suck as far as CS is concerned. Realize that if you only rely on college to teach you how to program, your essentially going to an employer without knowing how to program.
I don't want to discourage OS programming, but do not do it with the expectation of having it help you get a better job. Do it because you either believe if in or because you really enjoy it. The last thing the OS community really needs are people who are just looking for resume builders (especially ones with little useful experience). If your really concerned about getting a job, get a co-op or internship.
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I guess my best response to this is to say how I lost faith in MS.
I started programming at an extremely young age. I was around 7 when I first started with LOGO and was programming for long periods of time in BASICA when I was around 12.
As I got older (and learned more math) I started getting very interested in more complex languages (namely C). This was before C++ was really out there. I was very lucky because I had a computer that ran Windows but Basic wouldn't let me take that next step to do real Windows programming.
I wasn't able to write C in Windows because at the time, the only option would have been to buy the MS compiler for like $500 ($200 for students though). Now, I had a hard enough time explaining to my parents why I was spending so much time on a computer without trying to explain why I needed $200 dollars for a 'compiler'.
So I started using Linux, and today, I have a deep hatred towards Microsoft. There is no reason why they have to charge $200 for a compiler for students. Had they been more open or offered reasonably priced products, I would be a Windows programmer today.
It's funny that Balmer screams 'Developers, Developers' because what he should be saying is 'Corporate developers, Corporate developers'. I truly believe MS has lost the CS youth with their expensive products and their predatory practices. That is why I believe in 10 years, MS will not hold the position they hold today.
I know I'm not about to forget why I left Windows and I'm sure most other folks out there aren't either.
WRONG.... Hollywood+ and Creative DXR3 both awesome Mpeg decoder cards that can play a broadcast quality Mpeg2 on a Pentium 133 without MMX. better video out than I've seen on ANY video card with tv out. The drivers are awesome and I use ut every day.
Let me rephrase, there are MPEG decoder cards, but barely any of them are supported in Linux.
As for a Mpeg encoder card.... True for anyone who wont pay $2K but who cares? buy a BTTV compatable card use Nupple video and a Old junky P-II333 and record freely and well.
I know on an Athlon 650 I was only getting mid 20 frames per second when recording MPEG real-time. Even with hardware iDCT (the specs for which are not open by ATI), ATI still recommends a PIII 750 in order to obtain the highest quality recording.
You could probably get away with a PII-333 if you didn't care much about quality, but for software compression, you just need a faster processor than that.
BTW: Been a while since I went HD shopping... I would definitely want more than 40GB though.
I am amazed at this AllWell box. What kind of FPS are you getting with it?? What is the bitrate and is it all software encoding?
For quite some time I've wanted to make a homebrew PVR. In fact, I shelled out quite a bit attempting to make one. Here are the basic problems:
1) TIVO and ReplayTV technologies all have built in MPEG encoder/decoder cards. In the US, such cards simply do not exist. There are MPEG decoder cards, but they are barely supported in Linux.
2) TV-OUT technology simply doesn't exist in the US for Linux. The most promising technology is with the ATI-AIW card. I have heard some folks have mixed success using a framebuffer but in framebuffer mode, all video acceleration is lost.
3) It takes an _aweful_ lot of processor power to perform real-time MPEG-encoding. Larger processors also bring high heat and require more cooling and bigger cases.
4) Cost is just enormous. An ATI AIW is around $250 and then throw in another $250 for a HD, then throw in the cost of the other pieces and you end up with a solution costing well over 1K. CD-R only inflates that number.
As long as all manufactors are keeping the specs to their hardware closed, homebrewed PVRs are just not possible. Hardware is desperately needed to complete the solution.
ATI was working on a set-top motherboard but I do not know if it was targetted at consumers or OEMs. Maybe some enterprising hardware geek out there will whip up a custom StrongARM-based single board with built in S-Video out and MPEG encoding/decoding...
And what about people who abstain from voting?
He also believed that the worst thing an individual could do is refrane from voting. If the person disagrees with the will of the majority, then they are free to leave and are not bound by the will any longer.
Under the GPL, the car manufacturer owns the sticker.
Absolutely not true. If I write a piece of code, release it under the GPL, and then someone modifies it, I have no more rights to the derived product than anyone else does. The manufacturer and the sticker guy have equal rights to the derived product, but each own their respective part of the derived product.
You can't release a patch without some knowledge of what your patching. I can't see how a patch isn't "derived from the Program or any part thereof."
You can not distribute part of the derived product no matter how small unless you are in total ownership of it. This is precisely how companies are able to release binary kernel modules for Linux under whatever license they choose. They simply can not distribute a version of the kernel with those binary modules already included.
The end user is not free to decided how free they want to be.
The end-user is free to use the software in anyway they wish as long as they do not infringe on the inherent freedoms of the software (see 'inalienable rights').
It is truly that simply.
Public domain is not the same as public property.
Sure it is. All individuals have equal rights to the copyright of a work in public domain. In communism, all individuals have equal rights to the items produced by society. Public domain == communism.
And the GPL dictates that anything done with your property is again your property.
In fact, your logic is terribly wrong here. If this were true, then Linus Trovalds would own the entire Linux kernel. The fact of the matter is, Linux has as much rights to the Linux kernel as I do.
Yeah but the modern BSDs that I most /. folks refer to when speaking of BSD (NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD) didn't fork until 1991. (NetBSD forked of the BSDLite branch I believe).
Also, the idea of endowing inamimate objects such as software with rights is ridiculous. What next? Rocks? Trees? People for the Ethical Treatement of Dustballs?
The philosophy of Free Software and hence the GPL is derived from the idea that software is an expression of speech. We all would agree that speech does have certain freedoms.
How is public domain communistic? Does this mean that my math teacher was a communist because she taught me 2+2 and didn't claim any rights to my future use of this knowledge?
2+2 is _not_ public domain. Do you have any right whatsoever to try and sell someone 2+2 as a licensed work? Not at all. A copyright can not be enforced on something if it can be proved that the work originated prior to the copyright claim.
Now a days, people to copyright equations though and I only wished they put them under a similiar license to the GPL. If 2+2 was GPL'd, then all the equations derived from that would also be GPL'd and we could excel so much faster as a society because information would be free.
The pharmacy industry is a good example of what too much restriction does. If all the AIDS researchers out there pooled their efforts, we would have a cure for AIDS. Every company though is building from the ground up and a huge amount of duplicate effort is being undertook. Because of this, the market is limited to huge mega-corporations that can afford to expend the required resources to do what has already been done.
We are witnessing the 1st stage of a classical Liberal elitist plot, similar to the introduction of abortion.
*sigh*
You can't actually believe this can you?
Ehhh... not entirely true. Modern applications of democracy take into account these "inalienable rights." They do this by making sure that there's a mechanism to protect the rights of the individual from the abuses of the majority (which will happen in a true democracy). I think it was Madison that noted that it was a democracy that decreed the hemlock one day and statues the next.
If one examines Athenian democracy over Lockean democracy, the biggest difference is in the provision for 'inalienable rights' made possible by natural law. This is what protects the minority from the multi-headed snake of democracy that Plato was so scared of.
Democracy is a pretty name for "mob rule," where the majority always wins over the minority and the individual.
This is not true. That's why 'inalienable rights' are so important. The majoritian makes a decision but that decision must be guided by the natural law. It's also not really 'mob rule' because the minority consents to be ruled. As I believe Rosseau said, A vote in democracy is a vote for the will of the majority.
Ah, but who is the author? Isn't somebody that modifies the code and thereby improving it just as much of an author?
If you build a car, and then I come along and put a sticker on the car, can I then claim that I own the car? Absolutely not. I may own the stick (or the derivation), but I surely do not own the car and do not have any specific rights to the car.
This more or less denies the existance of derivative works.
In a derivative work, the author only has rights to the derivation of that work. With the GPL, an individual can release a patch to a GPL'd piece of software under any license he chooses. To integrate that patch with the original work though, the patch must be Free Software.
In this sense the BSD license is more free as it is not forced to grow at such a rate.
If I write a piece of software, and release it under the GPL. Then for the rest of time, I know that software will be free.
If I write a piece of software, and release it under the BSD license, then another company can come by and rerelease the software with absolutely no freedom for the user to modify the software.
It would really suck if I wrote a piece of software, saw it being used by some company, and then asked to have the source for it and they said no. That is why Linux is growing. It's about preserving individual freedom; my freedom as a programmer to use my own source code.
Simply giving code away to become property of society is communistic. If I write code, it should be my property. The nice thing about the GPL is that even though it allows me to own a piece of software, it stops me from being able to remove freedoms already bestowed on the software.
yup. protection by the government.
If I dont GPL the other components then the force of the court will come down on me
:)
That just paints an interesting mental picture
You're not forced to use the library, but if you use the library then you are forced to GPL the other components.
The force you speak of is nullified by the 'if' qualification to your argument. You cannot choose to be forced into something. Choosed force is an oxymoron by nature.
It's simply social contract theory. Government is not forced on an individual. An individual chooses to be governed in a state in exchange for protection from the government. The individual foregoes certain rights in exchange for that protection.
Likewise, you choice to obey the laws of a land and endure the punishments when broken. It's absolutely a choice.
Though, to simply argue a single word is utterly pointless given the inherent ambiguity of the English language.
The wording is definitely ambiguous. In fact, the GPL FAQ even has this question that addresses what constitutes aggregation between a GPL'd program and a non-GPL'd program.
Essentially, noone is really sure how far the GPL extends. I think linking is pretty straight forward but there are other things that are a little sketchy. I think we are due for a GPL v3.0.
If users lose rights from the GPL being thrown out, then that could potentially be very bad. I know in a lot of corporate environments, if the GPL was thrown away and an author couldn't be contacted, a lot of work could potentially become invalid due to licensing problems.
Agreed.
Therefore you are "forced" to distribute every other component under the GPL if you want to use the library.
Well, then you must agree that in order to use Windows, I am "forced" to pay Microsoft money. Or that in order to drive a car, I am "forced" to buy gas and therefore support Middle Eastern governments.
Force as defined by Websters dictionary is:
Force \Force\, v. t.
I hate to be a prick about it, but obviously, forced is not the right word for this situation. Choose is a better word to use. Your logic is better written as:
if you choose to use the library then you have to also choose to distribute every other component of your product under the GPL.
It's a mutual decision. It's like if I choose to have sex, I also have to choose to take the responsibility of also getting a woman pregant.
There is a significant difference between making a choice and being forced into something.
Many people complain that the GPL is not truly free.
That is mainly because of a misconception about what 'free' is. Modern theories of democracy are based on the concept of inalienable rights (see Locke or US Declaration of Independence). Inalienable rights are inherent rights that cannot be abandoned or taken away. For men to be free, they must ensure that these rights exist and are protected (hence, the need for government).
The GPL essentially defines the inalienable rights of software. As men have the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or in their possesions if you are more Lockean), software has the right to be modified, redistributed, and derived from.
To simply grant these rights with no mechanism to preserve them would go against the fundamental principles of democracy. The GPL protects software not only from giving up it's fundamental rights.
But, the original author also has the choice under which license to distribute the work. He may choice to abandon certain rights. The important thing though, is that it is his choice and his choice alone.
I'm sorry, one simply cannot make the argument that the GPL is philosophically less 'free' than the BSD license. It's just not true.
BTW: If you consult the Unix History Tree, you will see that BSD is arguably older than Linux (the NetBSD base surely is).
BSD is not growing exponentially and Linux is surely not fragmenting. BSD's growth is also probably more related to the high quality of their operating system and less because of their license.
The BSD license is scary. If I had any intention of releasing my code so that it could be reused commerically without my permission, I would simply put in under the public domain. Of course, I'm not a communist, so there is little chance that I would ever release code in such a way.
It is clear that something is derivative if it "contains" the functionality of something else, but is it Just that the licensing agreement of a minor, or even insignificant, part of the derivative work should dominate the remaining portions?
It's not that the license of a small portion of the work is dominating the work. Rather, it is that the only right one has in redistributing that small portion of code, is if he agrees to all the terms of the license. In this case, the license explicitly states that the rest of the product must also carry the GPL license. It is not that the GPL causes the rest of the product to be under the GPL, but that one has no legal right to be distributing that subcomponent unless the rest of the product is under the GPL.
Many people mistakenly refer to the GPL as viral. That gives the false impression that the GPL 'forces' other products to adopt the license. That is not true though. It's sort of like a software company saying that in order to use a certain library commerically, the library user must pay a certain royality. In this circumstance, that royality is the assurance that the code using the library is also under the GPL.
Funny:
SHT - Segway Human Transport
Worst for complexity:
ROADSTER - Remote Operative for Advance Electronics Guided Information Systems Distributed Systems Tactical Element Remedy
Worst for just plain sucking:
WILLPOS - At Work IndividuaL Lunch Personal Ordering System
Obligatory MS Crack:
Windows CE + Windows ME + Windows NT ==
Windows CEMENT
While people may disagree with your tone here (and flame accordingly :) ) I'm disagreeing with the statement a bit. As long as "stupid people" survive past sexual maturity and have children, it doesn't matter when they die. In fact, you could argue that uneducated people tend to have children earlier in life (like in their teens) and therefore spread their genes FASTER.
:)
Once you hit the cap, you gotta burn the karma a bit or it just isn't fun anymore
Using stupid was only because it is easier to type than what I really meant. By "stupid", I am referring to individuals with a lower aptitude for learning. Now, in practice, this can translate to either book learning or street smarts depending on how you want to look at it. It's not only what we traditionally consider as "educated" people succeeding, but any individual who has a greater aptitude for learning whatever it is that they learn.
I believe this can be traced to the fact that man's success is directly linked to our ability to figure things out. The strongest tribes didn't necessarly win. The tribes that either have the most cunning military or the tribes with the best agricultural skills are the ones that prospered.
Think about it: If Microsoft could swipe the Linux kernel, wrap Windows around it, and sell it without the source, what would the fallout be? Millions of users would see a more stable and secure operating system, hardware manufacturers would have an easier time of providing drivers for Linux (since they would be essentially the same), and Redmond would be financially motivated to keep coming back to the core linux source tree rather than a single-shot fork. Socially, Linux in the public domain would be far more powerful than Linux under the GPL.
Give me all your money. Socially, I can be more powerful with your money than you so give it all to me.
So many people miss the idea of the GPL. It's not just about sharing code, but also protecting the individuals who share their code. It makes sure that noone screws me if I'm doing something nice for them.
It would be horrible if MS stole the Linux source code and never rereleased it. I would never again be able to hack the kernel when I needed or add an unsupported device driver.
It is not marxism, it's capitalism. The GPL is oriented towards preserving individual rights of a piece of code. Public domain abandons individual rights. I think you are a tad confused here.
It's really sad.
I try not to blame universities though. CS is just a really new field. It's really only about 30 years old (for all pratical purposes).
Now, you have many professors who are trying to teach things like Java and C++ where these languages haven't existed for more than a couple years. Therefore, their experience with these languages is strictly academic. Your essentially getting a text book read to you in these circumstances.
It's ashame that more industry professional don't considering teaching. The industry's just so competitive that one simply can't resist the incredible difference in pay/respect.
Perhaps as computer science develops more as a science individuals will be drawn to it for purely academic reasons. For now, the only real merit to a CS degrees seems to the degree itself.
*sigh*
The latter clause is true, but network byte order is not an abstraction - if somebody decides to implement it as little-endian, they're not going to be very successful at communicating with the rest of the world.
:) For all pratical purposes, people don't respect network byte ordering as well as they should (including myself). This is just another example though of code monkeys churning out bad code. It is not related to whether or not network byte order is an abstraction or another name for big-endian as you seem to be asserting.
Lets say though that we are speaking of an isolated LAN. If they had access to the networking library and their equipment was little-endian based, it would be entirely reasonable for them to change network byte order from big-endian to little-endian to increase network transmission speed.
Now, whether that would work or not is entirely dependent on how poorly coded all their software is
As for the read/write thing, I would have to say that the C library sort of has the higher-level operations namely fprintf & fscanf. They are meant for ASCII level communication though. Today, if these functions were implemented I would assume that cross-platform data exchange would be a consideration.
It's nothing against C, it's just the evolution of computing.
Well, no flaming from me atleast :)
:)
I wouldn't go as far as to say that natural selection is not taking place, but rather that many traits have become vestigual almost overnight (from an evolutionary standpoint).
Humans evolved to lose their hair. This is because it simply wasn't necessary any more once they figured out how to use animal skins to keep warm. The appendix is another good example of modern evolution. Since humans for the most part do not ingest toxins frequently (due to the cooking process), we simply don't need it so it's disappearing.
So what good traits are being encouraged by evolution? I think that's tough to say, but I think it's pretty evident that we are becoming smarter as a species (which is rather well documented). While on a micro-socialogical level this may not seem too logically (since stupid people tend to breed prolifically), on a macro-socialogical level it makes sense. Stupid people tend to have higher mortality rates so it would appear that while birth rates may be higher amoungst stupid people, success rate is far greater upon intellegent people.
Many people try to seperate humans from nature, but we are a part of nature. There isn't anything we can do that isn't natural. Besides, even if we cause a mass-extinction, it's not as if life hasn't been able to flurish (the greatest extinction was something like 96% precent during the pre-cambrian IIRC).
Now I bet I get flamed
Personally, I just don't understand the NEED to have your own kids. In a world where needy kids need to be adopted, it strikes me as more than a little self-centered to see high-tech IVF methods as NEEDED so you can have YOUR baby.
From an evolutionary standpoint, I have to disagree. "Designer Babies" are likely to come only from individuals who are amoung the more successful in society. There offspring is likely to be successful too.
What we should be encouraging, is better birth control methods. Not preventing breeding of the more responsible in society in order to divert resources to the offspring of the less responsible of society. (Please note, yes there are always exceptions yada yada yada, but the above statement is correct for the majority).
It's like the sow in the midwest that had 7 kids, half of them retarded. They weren't a sign from God, sweetie. The infertility was the sign from God. Whatever though. Do what you like. Just don't ever expect my insurance payments to cover it.
Unfortunately, we your probably did do your part paying for it by purchasing the Time magazine they were in or by watching a television show they appeared on.
The real travesty of it all isn't this woman's idiocy but rather all the woman who choose not to have selective abortions in similiar situations (in order to be famous) and end up having kids that die in a few days or live short, painful lives.
I personally think that if a mother makes such a decision, and her children suffer because of it, she should be charged with manslaughter...
Video on linux has always been one of my favorite things.
The biggest advance in v4l was essentially the XFree86 4.x release since it encorporated an Xvideo extension allowing for really nice video play back in Linux.
There are a couple cards that are extremely well supported. I personally use an ATI AIW and the MPEG playback in incredible. In fact, I prefer MPEGs in Linux verses Windows simply because I think Linux does a better job at using the RGB conversion stuff at the hardware level than Windows does.
Of course, the biggest foe to video in Linux has been the fact that many of the best accelerations (iDCT) are simply not supported because card makers fear releases 'techinical secrets.'
Another problem is the split in video display APIs. Prior to the Xv extension being released, the Linux kernel had a video4linux API. The second version of that API is incredible as it has so many features that would allow for truely pluggable components.
Unfortunately, all X stuff is implemented in user space so cards that have integrated display and video stuff end up supporting everything in user space and then providing a loopback mechanism to work with the kernel API. It's a little messy but hopefully everything will get worked out as things progress.
Otherwise, hats off to all the hard work of the gatos project, the v4l2 project, and linuxvideo. If you haven't tried all the really cool stuff available for video on linux, you really should.
If by "it" you mean "network byte order", no, it is not the only way to allow different computers to communicate with each other over a network.
No, by "it" I mean TCP/IP. All your examples can be simplified to simply "both sides agree on a way to send data."
BTW: The IP protocols use network byte order. Network byte order != big endian. It's an abstraction. Just because it happens to be implemented as big endian, does mean that one should not use ntoh? on big endian machines.
Of course SMB would use little endian. It's was originated by MS! Windows runs on x86.
And I have to disagree with your assertion that read() and write() are not meant to be the high level socket interface. The C library is filled with high-level interfaces for things. The fact of the matter is that when these functions were designed, cross platform portability and data sharing wasn't much of a concern.
If these functions were rewritten today, they would be knowledgable of such things (i.e. iostreams in C++).
You're wrong. "Network byte order" is a convention that is equivalent to big endian. TCP/IP organizes things by 8-bit bytes. Programmers put things into "network byte order" because it is a convention.
Network byte order is an abstraction. It just so happens that it's implementation is the same as big endian.
TCP/IP had a standard word size so I am definitely confused as to what your talking about 8-bit bytes. Higher bit words are needed for things like storing the packet CRC, size, etc.
x86 stores integer data in a different binary format than other architectures. One of the amazing things about TCP/IP is that it's designed in such a way as to be oblivous to the underlying architectural implementation. Hence, network byte order.
It's the only way to allow different computers to communicate with each other.
I would say though that the whole berkley socket interface is antiquated for handling binary socket data. It works wonderfully for handling ascii data (which is what a majority of early protocols where).
Fortunately, most languages have decent socket libraries that abstract network byte ordering. Now, the really annoying thing about berkley sockets is the lack of an async name lookup mechanism...
I actually have always been a geek and programmed heavily before actually getting a job. In fact, I had more programming experience than most people at the first job I worked on.
But that didn't make me more productive. Working on a team in a production environment is very different than just programming on your own. I have always been told to leave Open Source stuff off of my resume. That doesn't mean you can't use it to refine your skills. I learned most of what I know on my own.
Now, by the same token, most college curriculums suck as far as CS is concerned. Realize that if you only rely on college to teach you how to program, your essentially going to an employer without knowing how to program.
I don't want to discourage OS programming, but do not do it with the expectation of having it help you get a better job. Do it because you either believe if in or because you really enjoy it. The last thing the OS community really needs are people who are just looking for resume builders (especially ones with little useful experience). If your really concerned about getting a job, get a co-op or internship.