Since "Linux" is not one operating system as Windows is, I'll stick to a Linux-based OS that is easy to install, very popular and that I know best: Ubuntu.
I'm no kernel hacker (hax0r implies cracker) but I do know how to type search terms into Google. I'm genuinely curious about how one would quickly figure out how to do those things on Windows without using a web search engine.
I used Gentoo exclusively for several years before switching to Ubuntu. Though Arch's package management may be better than Gentoo's and certainly has the advantage over Debian's in easily creating packages from scratch, I am still firmly convinced that Debian/Ubuntu are better for most people most of the time. Since Debian has been around forever and far more people use it and its derivatives than Gentoo or Arch, there are packages for just about everything already.
I install packages from Ubuntu PPAs all the time. When there's not a binary in a PPA, I can almost always find an Ubuntu or Debian source package that compiles with little trouble and I can modify if needed. I don't need to carefully maintain different Ubuntu build environments since I can just upload a source package to my PPA and binary packages for several architectures and releases can be built automatically, allowing me not only to use it on all of my machines, but also share it with any other Ubuntu users.
As others have already pointed out, the main advantage of a release-oriented distribution like Ubuntu is that I can count on very little breaking as long as I don't upgrade to the next release. I just upgraded my laptop to Karmic, which turned out to be a mistake since it now freezes at random points. I think the instability is related to the new 2.6.31 kernel, but I'm not sure and Karmic's Xorg doesn't work right with the older 2.6.28 kernel.
Though this is a bad regression, if I would have tried the Karmic LiveCD first, I would have seen the problem and known not to upgrade the entire system yet. I also can now reinstall Jaunty and restore my/home from backup and I know the system will work just as well as it did before. If I'd been using a rolling distribution like Gentoo or Arch, reverting to and staying at a known working configuration wouldn't be nearly as straightforward.
When I was using Gentoo, I had to spend a lot of time just keeping up with package updates, most of which I didn't need. However, I couldn't easily choose to just get security updates, as I can using an Ubuntu LTS release for example.
Well, if the FSF is a cult, you must have drunk the kool-aid at some point. That would explain your irrational hostility. OTOH, I've never agreed completely with RMS. His belief that developing proprietary software is immoral can't be supported IMHO and therefore he is fringe. For him, Free Software may be close to a religion, which I can't subscribe to. However, that doesn't prevent me from seeing the value to society of Free Software (or libre or Open Source or whatever term you prefer).
The GPL is far from perfect and is not the right choice for all projects, as evidenced by the existence of many successful projects under other licenses. However, it's only more restrictive than other licenses when you narrow your focus to the first recipient of the source. If you consider all recipients of all derivatives of the original, the GPL provides exactly the same freedoms to everyone, while non-copyleft licenses don't. An author releasing under the GPL is restricting those who receive the source from him for the purpose of keeping the freedoms the same for recipients of derivative works.
It's ironic that some say that non-copyleft licenses are inherently more "commercial-friendly" when there are many examples of corporations releasing under the GPL because they realize it prevents competitors from benefiting unfairly. Which license is more "commercial-friendly" depends entirely on the circumstances.
Would you care to explain how DRM didn't end up going anywhere? If you think proprietary Linux drivers aren't a problem or are restricted to Nvidia hardware, you've obviously never encountered one of the numerous types of problematic WiFi chips. Also, can you point to a non-copyleft FLOSS kernel with as diverse hardware support as Linux? Or are you promoting proprietary ones?
No, LLVM is a replacement of parts of GCC. Clang combined with LLVM doesn't need GCC to compile C code, but it's a long way from being mature and complete enough to replace GCC yet. It may be some day, which will be a good thing because competition will stimulate improvements.
It's also important to notice that the authors of LLVM and Clang didn't start those projects because they hate GNU, but because they had specific needs that GCC's design wasn't good enough for. Hopefully anybody who uses them does so for good reasons rather than an irrational hatred of GNU or the GPL.
You seem to misunderstand what the FSF is about. They have no problem with Free Software that is not under the GPL or LGPL as long as the license is compatible. Compatibility is purely a pragmatic issue and there are plenty of compatible license to choose from. GNU is most definitely not a monoculture. GNU packages include a huge range of types of software from a huge range of developers, many working for various corporations. My very uninformed impression is that the BSDs are much more monoculture, which is not necessarily a bad thing since they're more focused on specific technical priorities.
For a package to be considered part of the GNU project, it generally needs to be under the GPL or LGPL, but GNU people never say "you should use no non-GNU software." All they say is "you should not use non-Free software." Notice that though Linux is released under the GPL, it is not part of the GNU project and this doesn't prevent anyone (even RMS) from recommending Linux as part of a GNU-based system.
Where does your hostility come from? Does it make you angry that the FSF wants software to be as Free as possible for the maximum number of people? Of course if you had the time, you could write all of your own software which would give you personally maximum freedom, but that's not practical in the real world. Everyone has to depend on someone else's software at some point.
As for my personal software use, I prefer to use things that are Free or Open Source, whether it's GPL, LGPL, a BSD or X11-style license or any other. I know that if it's Free or Open Source, it won't stop me from doing anything I want with it. When I release code, the license depends on the situation. Often, it's an extension to existing code, so it makes the most sense to use the license of what I'm contributing to.
So, you think RMS didn't make GCC non-viral because he wanted to prevent proprietary software from being developed to run on GNU? As you say, people needed a license they could live with, which would include both GPL-incompatible Free Software licenses and proprietary ones. I think RMS accepted that for people to start using the platform, he would have to allow both cases even though that wasn't his ideal scenario.
Overall GCC seems to be a great success, surviving a major fork and improving technically after RMS gave up direct technical control. The efforts to replace parts of it with alternatives seem promising as well.
Well, get on it then. Nobody's stopping you. If you can replace GCC with something better, more power to you. Personally, I can't imagine why that would be worth the enormous effort.
Your claim is ridiculously easily to disprove, so I'll give just one example: GNU Coreutils. You expect a brand new standard set of units to take over the world in 10 years? How long has it taken the Metric and SI systems to take over? Should we be content to just "live with" pounds and miles in the US and thumb our noses at the rest of the world? Why should the meanings of SI prefixes that have been used for a couple of hundred years be replaced by the much more recent binary definitions that don't even make sense in all areas of computing.
If the goal is for the maximum Freedom in the long run, strong copyleft is perfectly acceptable. Though it's a restriction on the most immediate user, it guarantees the same level of Freedom for any number of steps down the line. If most people find it unacceptable to release drivers under the GPL, why has Linux been so successful? Non-GPL drivers in Linux are pariahs.
I assume that by "commercial guys" you mean developers of proprietary applications rather than Red Hat and Canonical. If GlibC were GPL, one could still use other implementations such as uclibc and dietlibc. If RMS had really wanted to make it hard to release proprietary software that could run on GNU, he would have made GCC viral. Instead it has a specific exception that makes it acceptable to use for software of any license. Though GlibC is very important to GNU/Linux, GCC is absolutely essential as there's no complete alternative. GCC is essential to not all GNU/Linux systems but to most Free Software operating systems, including the FLOSS BSDs.
That's absolutely right. There's not one "best" license. The GPL, LGPL and an MIT/BSD style license cover the main spectrum of Free/Open Source needs and there are many examples of successful projects using each. However, I think most other licenses are unnecessary, so hopefully the gravitation is toward one of those three options.
I don't see what's inherently sillier about "gibibyte" than "gigabyte." If you are complaining about being cutesy, why not complain about "byte" which was derived from "bite." BTW, "byte" doesn't even have a standard definition (though I've never encountered a confusing usage), so to most correct and precise, you'd have to say "gibioctet."
If "gibibyte" sounds sillier to you than "gigabyte," just give it some time. Many words sound silly when they're first introduced.
The fact that HDD manufacturers want to use the biggest numbers they can for marketing doesn't change the fact that they are also technically correct. Defining kilobyte as 1024 bytes is simply a misuse of the SI prefix and conflicts with every other use of kilo- in units. That definition was chosen because it was a round binary number that happened to be very close to 1000. But, as typical data sizes get bigger, the two systems diverge more and more so you can't ignore the difference between a real TB and a "binary TB" like you can for kilobyte.
So, this is not a case of marketing trumping computer science, but rather a case of marketing choosing to be technically correct because it gave them an advantage, a rare occurrence.
If you want to talk about the term "organic" you'll have to give an example of a food you've eaten that wasn't derived from a plant, animal or other living organism. The definition you're referring to is not a scientific one and is relatively recent development. It's way down at sense #11 at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/organic. IMHO "organic food" is better described as "organically grown food."
"Organic" food is just as much about marketing as the units HDD manufacturers use. "Organic" is presented as inherently more tasty, healthy and more sustainable than non "organic" but reality is much more complex.
Rather than being embarrassed, the Open Source community can relieved that neither RMS nor the FSF has ever been a member. However, the Open Source community does have to come to terms that they would never have existed without the FSF. I don't see how the cause of either Openness or Freedom would be served by muzzling anyone.
Perhaps PETA hasn't made much headway because they're against people using animals, which has been an essential part of almost all human cultures for thousands of years. I doubt we'd be anywhere close to our current level of technology if we'd not been using animals as tools to gain efficiency.
OTOH, the FSF is against proprietary software, something which has only existed for a few decades and only been part of mainstream culture for about 30 years. They aren't attacking traditional cultural values, but are in fact trying to return to the culture that existed before the commercialization of proprietary software. Of course, most people are completely unaware of that culture because only a very small number of people had any contact with software at that time.
The FSF doesn't need to change their message to "using Free Software is better for you than using proprietary" because that's been taken over by the OSI. I think the most admirable thing about the FSF is that they haven't changed their message at all despite many naysayers and have had great positive impact. They will probably always be a fringe group in some ways, but we need people willing to buck the system and challenge groupthink.
Although I don't agree with the FSF's most extreme views such as that developing proprietary software is inherently immoral, I do agree that society at large is better served by Free Software than proprietary. I think that's an inherently more durable position than the OSI's position that using Open Source is a business advantage, though I think the latter is also usually true.
Well, CGI is still a long way from true photorealism for all subjects. But it is extremely useful for portraying things that are very difficult to do with real objects and hand-drawn animation. The motivation for synthesized voice actors doesn't seem as compelling except for a situation like this where it might be cheaper to copy the sound of someone's voice than pay them.
Like a lot of people, you confuse copyright with patent issues. I'm not surprised, since that's the intent of those who push the idea of "intellectual property," which has no basis in logic or law. The problems with video and audio codecs have nothing to do with Free vs. proprietary software or the GPL. There are are fully functional Free Software implementations of H.264 decoders just as there are proprietary ones.
The issue is about open standards rather than Free Software. The web has succeeded so far because it is built on open standards that anyone can implement without having to pay someone for that right. Neither Microsoft, Apple, Opera, Mozilla, or anyone else has to pay the W3C or anyone else to distribute a web browser that implements standards like HTML, HTTP, XML, PNG and CSS. Although the JPEG image format (which is not a W3C standard or required by W3C standards, but is expected to be implemented by web browsers) was encumbered by patents, they seem to have expired.
For HTML5 to be a valid W3C standard it has to be implementable without paying royalties just like all other W3C standards. However, the committee working on HTML5 can't agree on codecs that are royalty free and of sufficient quality. If they can't agree on Theora and Vorbis, I doubt they'll agree on anything. That means the video and audio elements in HTML5 will probably end up useless. Without a standard format one can expect to work in a majority of browsers, what's the point? Currently, people use Flash for audio and video since you can make one video or audio clip that will just work in any browser with the Flash plugin installed.
So, contrary to your attacks against "GPL-fanatics" the real is issue is a pragmatic one. The W3C can't require a patent-encumbered codec such as H.264/AVC because of their own standards. As you point out, the real world requires compromise and the members of the committee working on HTML5 seem to have such different goals and priorities that compromise is impossible.
Of course, the real problem is US patent law and how patents on algorithms have been allowed and enforced. I expect media on the web will be held back as long the current system persists. Again, the problem has nothing to do with Free vs. proprietary software; if software patents disappeared, H.264/AVC would be a great codec choice since high quality Free Software implementations of both encoders and decoders already exist.
You seem to think that the current software patent nightmare is necessary. Would you care to support your argument that Theora and Vorbis wouldn't exist without it?
Yes, of course you're right that many artists aren't aware of how the HTML is used. For those people, the markup to insert the video, for example, isn't important. For those people, having a tool that can export a video of a proper format is essential. If there's ever agreement on a baseline standard for that, such tools can exist.
You still haven't named an operating system that is based on Linux, but nothing from GNU. I'm very curious if such a beast exists. I think it makes a lot of sense to call an operating system based on Linux and GNU "GNU/Linux" and AFAIK, that includes all operating systems based on Linux. If you think it's possible to build a system on Linux, but not GNU, please give an example.
What do you mean by "publish the SWF?" Does that not involve embedding it in an HTML page? But, the real problem is less the HTML code and more the video format. If there's ever agreement on baseline codecs and formats for HTML 5, it will be important to have extremely easy to use tools to produce the right format. That will probably be in the form of plugins for the media frameworks or editors people are already using. If the format were Ogg/Theora/Vorbis, the tools already exist.
You're absolutely right about baseline codecs. Until there is agreement on practical ones, HTML 5 video and audio aren't that useful. Unfortunately, current patent law makes agreement on suitable codecs extremely difficult, since those with vested interest in encumbered codecs like Apple and Nokia don't really want there to be practical baseline codecs. Though Microsoft hasn't said much about it yet, I can't imagine they'd go for something they can't control either. Unfortunately, that may mean there won't be much progress made on standards-based media on the web until IE share drops below 50% or until stupid software patents go away.
You can disagree all you want, but can you back up your opinion with any facts? Can you, for example, give an example of an operating system that uses Linux and Xorg, but not any GNU tools? While GNU was inspired by Unix, it contains no Unix code at all. Neither does Linux contain any Apache code. I'm not talking about simply being successful, but about one project depending on the other. I challenge you to give an example of a single operating system that uses Linux, but doesn't depend on GNU in any way.
For all operating systems that do depend on both Linux and GNU, I think it makes sense to call them GNU/Linux, though that's certainly not the only correct description. I use "Ubuntu." That one word is short and descriptive enough most of the time. Ubuntu is based on GNU/Linux, but it's necessary to beat people over the head with it.
The article mentions Debian because that's where the vulnerability was discovered and it doesn't say that the vulnerability only exists in Debian. Though TFA wasn't written as clearly as possible, you still fail at reading comprehension:
The attack relies on flaws in the RFC (Request for Comments) internet standards that define SSH, said Patterson.
"They've fixed [OpenSSH]; they've put countermeasures in place to stop our attack," said Patterson. "But the standard has not changed."
Patterson said that he did not believe this flaw had been exploited in the wild, and that to deduce a message of appreciable length could take days. In addition, proprietary SSH vendors had been informed of the issue in advance, and had put countermeasures in their code.
Patterson did confuse the issue a bit by saying "This is a design flaw in OpenSSH."
There are both XML and non-XML variants of HTML 5, which I find strange. HTML 5 is clearly based on very different design principles than XHTML 1 and I fear there's a danger of throwing out the baby (benefits of XHTML strict) with the bathwater. However, it looks like using the XML variant (sometimes called XHTML 5) should have most of the benefits of XHTML 1. The future of XHTML 2 (the successor to XHTML 1) and its relationship to HTML 5 seems very murky.
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Since "Linux" is not one operating system as Windows is, I'll stick to a Linux-based OS that is easy to install, very popular and that I know best: Ubuntu.
With respect to your tasks, Google instantly found me: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/allow-remote-control-to-your-desktop-on-ubuntu/ , http://www.ubuntugeek.com/unison-file-synchronization-tool.html , and
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html
I'm no kernel hacker (hax0r implies cracker) but I do know how to type search terms into Google. I'm genuinely curious about how one would quickly figure out how to do those things on Windows without using a web search engine.
I used Gentoo exclusively for several years before switching to Ubuntu. Though Arch's package management may be better than Gentoo's and certainly has the advantage over Debian's in easily creating packages from scratch, I am still firmly convinced that Debian/Ubuntu are better for most people most of the time. Since Debian has been around forever and far more people use it and its derivatives than Gentoo or Arch, there are packages for just about everything already.
I install packages from Ubuntu PPAs all the time. When there's not a binary in a PPA, I can almost always find an Ubuntu or Debian source package that compiles with little trouble and I can modify if needed. I don't need to carefully maintain different Ubuntu build environments since I can just upload a source package to my PPA and binary packages for several architectures and releases can be built automatically, allowing me not only to use it on all of my machines, but also share it with any other Ubuntu users.
As others have already pointed out, the main advantage of a release-oriented distribution like Ubuntu is that I can count on very little breaking as long as I don't upgrade to the next release. I just upgraded my laptop to Karmic, which turned out to be a mistake since it now freezes at random points. I think the instability is related to the new 2.6.31 kernel, but I'm not sure and Karmic's Xorg doesn't work right with the older 2.6.28 kernel.
Though this is a bad regression, if I would have tried the Karmic LiveCD first, I would have seen the problem and known not to upgrade the entire system yet. I also can now reinstall Jaunty and restore my /home from backup and I know the system will work just as well as it did before. If I'd been using a rolling distribution like Gentoo or Arch, reverting to and staying at a known working configuration wouldn't be nearly as straightforward.
When I was using Gentoo, I had to spend a lot of time just keeping up with package updates, most of which I didn't need. However, I couldn't easily choose to just get security updates, as I can using an Ubuntu LTS release for example.
Well, if the FSF is a cult, you must have drunk the kool-aid at some point. That would explain your irrational hostility. OTOH, I've never agreed completely with RMS. His belief that developing proprietary software is immoral can't be supported IMHO and therefore he is fringe. For him, Free Software may be close to a religion, which I can't subscribe to. However, that doesn't prevent me from seeing the value to society of Free Software (or libre or Open Source or whatever term you prefer).
The GPL is far from perfect and is not the right choice for all projects, as evidenced by the existence of many successful projects under other licenses. However, it's only more restrictive than other licenses when you narrow your focus to the first recipient of the source. If you consider all recipients of all derivatives of the original, the GPL provides exactly the same freedoms to everyone, while non-copyleft licenses don't. An author releasing under the GPL is restricting those who receive the source from him for the purpose of keeping the freedoms the same for recipients of derivative works.
It's ironic that some say that non-copyleft licenses are inherently more "commercial-friendly" when there are many examples of corporations releasing under the GPL because they realize it prevents competitors from benefiting unfairly. Which license is more "commercial-friendly" depends entirely on the circumstances.
Would you care to explain how DRM didn't end up going anywhere? If you think proprietary Linux drivers aren't a problem or are restricted to Nvidia hardware, you've obviously never encountered one of the numerous types of problematic WiFi chips. Also, can you point to a non-copyleft FLOSS kernel with as diverse hardware support as Linux? Or are you promoting proprietary ones?
No, LLVM is a replacement of parts of GCC. Clang combined with LLVM doesn't need GCC to compile C code, but it's a long way from being mature and complete enough to replace GCC yet. It may be some day, which will be a good thing because competition will stimulate improvements.
It's also important to notice that the authors of LLVM and Clang didn't start those projects because they hate GNU, but because they had specific needs that GCC's design wasn't good enough for. Hopefully anybody who uses them does so for good reasons rather than an irrational hatred of GNU or the GPL.
You seem to misunderstand what the FSF is about. They have no problem with Free Software that is not under the GPL or LGPL as long as the license is compatible. Compatibility is purely a pragmatic issue and there are plenty of compatible license to choose from. GNU is most definitely not a monoculture. GNU packages include a huge range of types of software from a huge range of developers, many working for various corporations. My very uninformed impression is that the BSDs are much more monoculture, which is not necessarily a bad thing since they're more focused on specific technical priorities.
For a package to be considered part of the GNU project, it generally needs to be under the GPL or LGPL, but GNU people never say "you should use no non-GNU software." All they say is "you should not use non-Free software." Notice that though Linux is released under the GPL, it is not part of the GNU project and this doesn't prevent anyone (even RMS) from recommending Linux as part of a GNU-based system.
Where does your hostility come from? Does it make you angry that the FSF wants software to be as Free as possible for the maximum number of people? Of course if you had the time, you could write all of your own software which would give you personally maximum freedom, but that's not practical in the real world. Everyone has to depend on someone else's software at some point.
As for my personal software use, I prefer to use things that are Free or Open Source, whether it's GPL, LGPL, a BSD or X11-style license or any other. I know that if it's Free or Open Source, it won't stop me from doing anything I want with it. When I release code, the license depends on the situation. Often, it's an extension to existing code, so it makes the most sense to use the license of what I'm contributing to.
So, you think RMS didn't make GCC non-viral because he wanted to prevent proprietary software from being developed to run on GNU? As you say, people needed a license they could live with, which would include both GPL-incompatible Free Software licenses and proprietary ones. I think RMS accepted that for people to start using the platform, he would have to allow both cases even though that wasn't his ideal scenario.
Overall GCC seems to be a great success, surviving a major fork and improving technically after RMS gave up direct technical control. The efforts to replace parts of it with alternatives seem promising as well.
Well, get on it then. Nobody's stopping you. If you can replace GCC with something better, more power to you. Personally, I can't imagine why that would be worth the enormous effort.
Your claim is ridiculously easily to disprove, so I'll give just one example: GNU Coreutils. You expect a brand new standard set of units to take over the world in 10 years? How long has it taken the Metric and SI systems to take over? Should we be content to just "live with" pounds and miles in the US and thumb our noses at the rest of the world? Why should the meanings of SI prefixes that have been used for a couple of hundred years be replaced by the much more recent binary definitions that don't even make sense in all areas of computing.
If the goal is for the maximum Freedom in the long run, strong copyleft is perfectly acceptable. Though it's a restriction on the most immediate user, it guarantees the same level of Freedom for any number of steps down the line. If most people find it unacceptable to release drivers under the GPL, why has Linux been so successful? Non-GPL drivers in Linux are pariahs.
I assume that by "commercial guys" you mean developers of proprietary applications rather than Red Hat and Canonical. If GlibC were GPL, one could still use other implementations such as uclibc and dietlibc. If RMS had really wanted to make it hard to release proprietary software that could run on GNU, he would have made GCC viral. Instead it has a specific exception that makes it acceptable to use for software of any license. Though GlibC is very important to GNU/Linux, GCC is absolutely essential as there's no complete alternative. GCC is essential to not all GNU/Linux systems but to most Free Software operating systems, including the FLOSS BSDs.
That's absolutely right. There's not one "best" license. The GPL, LGPL and an MIT/BSD style license cover the main spectrum of Free/Open Source needs and there are many examples of successful projects using each. However, I think most other licenses are unnecessary, so hopefully the gravitation is toward one of those three options.
I don't see what's inherently sillier about "gibibyte" than "gigabyte." If you are complaining about being cutesy, why not complain about "byte" which was derived from "bite." BTW, "byte" doesn't even have a standard definition (though I've never encountered a confusing usage), so to most correct and precise, you'd have to say "gibioctet."
If "gibibyte" sounds sillier to you than "gigabyte," just give it some time. Many words sound silly when they're first introduced.
The fact that HDD manufacturers want to use the biggest numbers they can for marketing doesn't change the fact that they are also technically correct. Defining kilobyte as 1024 bytes is simply a misuse of the SI prefix and conflicts with every other use of kilo- in units. That definition was chosen because it was a round binary number that happened to be very close to 1000. But, as typical data sizes get bigger, the two systems diverge more and more so you can't ignore the difference between a real TB and a "binary TB" like you can for kilobyte.
So, this is not a case of marketing trumping computer science, but rather a case of marketing choosing to be technically correct because it gave them an advantage, a rare occurrence.
If you want to talk about the term "organic" you'll have to give an example of a food you've eaten that wasn't derived from a plant, animal or other living organism. The definition you're referring to is not a scientific one and is relatively recent development. It's way down at sense #11 at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/organic. IMHO "organic food" is better described as "organically grown food."
"Organic" food is just as much about marketing as the units HDD manufacturers use. "Organic" is presented as inherently more tasty, healthy and more sustainable than non "organic" but reality is much more complex.
Rather than being embarrassed, the Open Source community can relieved that neither RMS nor the FSF has ever been a member. However, the Open Source community does have to come to terms that they would never have existed without the FSF. I don't see how the cause of either Openness or Freedom would be served by muzzling anyone.
Perhaps PETA hasn't made much headway because they're against people using animals, which has been an essential part of almost all human cultures for thousands of years. I doubt we'd be anywhere close to our current level of technology if we'd not been using animals as tools to gain efficiency.
OTOH, the FSF is against proprietary software, something which has only existed for a few decades and only been part of mainstream culture for about 30 years. They aren't attacking traditional cultural values, but are in fact trying to return to the culture that existed before the commercialization of proprietary software. Of course, most people are completely unaware of that culture because only a very small number of people had any contact with software at that time.
The FSF doesn't need to change their message to "using Free Software is better for you than using proprietary" because that's been taken over by the OSI. I think the most admirable thing about the FSF is that they haven't changed their message at all despite many naysayers and have had great positive impact. They will probably always be a fringe group in some ways, but we need people willing to buck the system and challenge groupthink.
Although I don't agree with the FSF's most extreme views such as that developing proprietary software is inherently immoral, I do agree that society at large is better served by Free Software than proprietary. I think that's an inherently more durable position than the OSI's position that using Open Source is a business advantage, though I think the latter is also usually true.
Well, CGI is still a long way from true photorealism for all subjects. But it is extremely useful for portraying things that are very difficult to do with real objects and hand-drawn animation. The motivation for synthesized voice actors doesn't seem as compelling except for a situation like this where it might be cheaper to copy the sound of someone's voice than pay them.
Yes, I'd rather see a Futurama spin-off with new characters than the original characters without their voice actors.
Like a lot of people, you confuse copyright with patent issues. I'm not surprised, since that's the intent of those who push the idea of "intellectual property," which has no basis in logic or law. The problems with video and audio codecs have nothing to do with Free vs. proprietary software or the GPL. There are are fully functional Free Software implementations of H.264 decoders just as there are proprietary ones.
The issue is about open standards rather than Free Software. The web has succeeded so far because it is built on open standards that anyone can implement without having to pay someone for that right. Neither Microsoft, Apple, Opera, Mozilla, or anyone else has to pay the W3C or anyone else to distribute a web browser that implements standards like HTML, HTTP, XML, PNG and CSS. Although the JPEG image format (which is not a W3C standard or required by W3C standards, but is expected to be implemented by web browsers) was encumbered by patents, they seem to have expired.
For HTML5 to be a valid W3C standard it has to be implementable without paying royalties just like all other W3C standards. However, the committee working on HTML5 can't agree on codecs that are royalty free and of sufficient quality. If they can't agree on Theora and Vorbis, I doubt they'll agree on anything. That means the video and audio elements in HTML5 will probably end up useless. Without a standard format one can expect to work in a majority of browsers, what's the point? Currently, people use Flash for audio and video since you can make one video or audio clip that will just work in any browser with the Flash plugin installed.
So, contrary to your attacks against "GPL-fanatics" the real is issue is a pragmatic one. The W3C can't require a patent-encumbered codec such as H.264/AVC because of their own standards. As you point out, the real world requires compromise and the members of the committee working on HTML5 seem to have such different goals and priorities that compromise is impossible.
Of course, the real problem is US patent law and how patents on algorithms have been allowed and enforced. I expect media on the web will be held back as long the current system persists. Again, the problem has nothing to do with Free vs. proprietary software; if software patents disappeared, H.264/AVC would be a great codec choice since high quality Free Software implementations of both encoders and decoders already exist.
You seem to think that the current software patent nightmare is necessary. Would you care to support your argument that Theora and Vorbis wouldn't exist without it?
Yes, of course you're right that many artists aren't aware of how the HTML is used. For those people, the markup to insert the video, for example, isn't important. For those people, having a tool that can export a video of a proper format is essential. If there's ever agreement on a baseline standard for that, such tools can exist.
You still haven't named an operating system that is based on Linux, but nothing from GNU. I'm very curious if such a beast exists. I think it makes a lot of sense to call an operating system based on Linux and GNU "GNU/Linux" and AFAIK, that includes all operating systems based on Linux. If you think it's possible to build a system on Linux, but not GNU, please give an example.
What do you mean by "publish the SWF?" Does that not involve embedding it in an HTML page? But, the real problem is less the HTML code and more the video format. If there's ever agreement on baseline codecs and formats for HTML 5, it will be important to have extremely easy to use tools to produce the right format. That will probably be in the form of plugins for the media frameworks or editors people are already using. If the format were Ogg/Theora/Vorbis, the tools already exist.
You're absolutely right about baseline codecs. Until there is agreement on practical ones, HTML 5 video and audio aren't that useful. Unfortunately, current patent law makes agreement on suitable codecs extremely difficult, since those with vested interest in encumbered codecs like Apple and Nokia don't really want there to be practical baseline codecs. Though Microsoft hasn't said much about it yet, I can't imagine they'd go for something they can't control either. Unfortunately, that may mean there won't be much progress made on standards-based media on the web until IE share drops below 50% or until stupid software patents go away.
You can disagree all you want, but can you back up your opinion with any facts? Can you, for example, give an example of an operating system that uses Linux and Xorg, but not any GNU tools? While GNU was inspired by Unix, it contains no Unix code at all. Neither does Linux contain any Apache code. I'm not talking about simply being successful, but about one project depending on the other. I challenge you to give an example of a single operating system that uses Linux, but doesn't depend on GNU in any way.
For all operating systems that do depend on both Linux and GNU, I think it makes sense to call them GNU/Linux, though that's certainly not the only correct description. I use "Ubuntu." That one word is short and descriptive enough most of the time. Ubuntu is based on GNU/Linux, but it's necessary to beat people over the head with it.
The article mentions Debian because that's where the vulnerability was discovered and it doesn't say that the vulnerability only exists in Debian. Though TFA wasn't written as clearly as possible, you still fail at reading comprehension:
Patterson did confuse the issue a bit by saying "This is a design flaw in OpenSSH."
There are both XML and non-XML variants of HTML 5, which I find strange. HTML 5 is clearly based on very different design principles than XHTML 1 and I fear there's a danger of throwing out the baby (benefits of XHTML strict) with the bathwater. However, it looks like using the XML variant (sometimes called XHTML 5) should have most of the benefits of XHTML 1. The future of XHTML 2 (the successor to XHTML 1) and its relationship to HTML 5 seems very murky.