Excuse me, but you're simply not thinking. At all.
Right-wing has nothing to do with anything. Fundamentalist Christian ethics (if the terms can be used together non-oxymoronically) have little or nothing to do with conservatism or the "Right Wing".
Conservatism, by its very nature, means to promote and enforce the status quo (the root "conserve" in "conservatism" is your first clue there, guy...). The status quo is this: "evolution is not hard science, but a theory; it has not been proven (the fact that it cannot be proven yet notwithstanding - maybe in a hundred years or so...), and therefore must not be taught as law". Seen this way, that viewpoint makes more sense than: "evolution is hard science; it has been proven beyond doubt to be the One True Way that nature works, and must be taught as such".
I'm no fundamentalist, not by a long stretch of the imagination. I do, however, think that the jury's still out on evolution (not that I believe what's taught in Genesis, either). If evolution is the way things happened, then when it is proven, I will accept it with open arms. It seems a plausible theory to me. Creationism seems a bit far-fetched, but hey... who's to say there isn't a God that created everything? You can't prove his non-existence, and the most ardent and well-studied fundie can't prove his existence. That's why there's a thing called "faith".
Hell, who's to say God didn't use evolution to create this mess?
But back to my point...
"Right Wing single issue (okay maybe three) assh0l$e" - geez, you're really 'l33t there, bud. Try thinking just a little bit before posting.
Remember: think, THEN post.
I could say the same thing for all the tax-and-$p3nd L1b3r4Lz (whom I despise - I pay just about what my mom makes in taxes EVERY YEAR - just let me KEEP MY OWN FRIGGIN' MONEY and I WILL DECIDE how best to distribute MY OWN wealth!).
"We have to cut the space program so we can feed all the starving wood owls in the old growth rain forests..."
For an idea of how such a thing might work, give MudOS a try.
No, I'm not kidding. It's an interpreted object language, run on a stack-based VM. It has some pretty neat native types (automatic arrays, mappings, etc.), and allows you to do all of your work from within that environment.
Find it at ftp.imaginary.com - look around in there for the latest version of the driver. Get a lib and hack it a bit to get it set up.
To: Newswire@VNUBPL cc: Subject: SGI to use Linux...
Hello, and warm greetings from the U.S.,
In your article about SGI opting for Linux on its IA64 based machines, there were a couple of factual errors concerning the Linux operating system.
Since roughly 1995, Linux has been a 64bit OS. It currently runs in full 64bit mode on Compaq's Alpha (the first 64bit chip supported by Linux, way back in the day), and also has a port to Sun's UltraSPARC family of CPUs, which are 64bit (though I hear there are a couple of problems making 64bit memory access work correctly because of some weirdness in the way Sun structures its hardware).
Linux' scalability is certainly not up to snuff - especially when compared to that of IRIX or Solaris, but it will run on 16-processor systems (just not well). Its sweet-spot is currently two- processor systems. Look for version 2.4 to increase the scalability of the OS kernel, as it will have support for finer-grained locking and management of resources.
Further, the Linux OS already runs on the MIPS family of processors, as well as other big-endian CPUs (such as the aforementioned SPARC). While I agree that there is little chance of Linux on IA64 running binaries made for IRIX on MIPS, the issue at hand isn't Linux per se, but a question of machine architecture. For instance, it would be technically possible and quite feasible to make IRIX/MIPS binaries run on Linux/MIPS. It may be that I misread this part of the article, however.
Just a couple of points, hopefully rationally discussed,
Cheers,
--Corey
Their response:
Thanks for pointing that out. We've posted a corrected version and the incorrect story is being removed. Sorry these things slip through the net sometimes - we appreciate your astuteness!
Having seen a SPARC lunchbox or two, I really like *that* form factor. Why, oh, why can't good FAST systems be built like that anymore? Those were nice, sturdy pieces of hardware that looked cool and were quite functional.
OTOH, I want to build a nice wood PeeCee (or maybe an Alpha, instead) case/rack.
While I agree, and I endeavor to make my meaning clear to my fellow man by the use of proper grammar and spelling, I think you should look before you leap.
For instance, in your correcting Hemos' grammar regarding the improper use and/or spelling of the word "exhibition", you forgot that the word "exhibition" was not properly used.
"The capsule will be put on 'exhibition'..." is simply not proper, and you failed to correct this. Obviously, the proper form of the word in this case is "exhibit".
"The capsule will be put on exhibit..."
This has a much nicer ring to it, don't you agree?
I'd also like to see the function call generation stuff opened up. Would allow me to, say, use Borland C/C++ to write programs for my newest whizbang OS on the x86 platform, which uses a new methodology for function calls, builds the stack differently, etc.
If that could be made modular, and the compiler provided hooks or something like that to produce binary output in whatever form I wanted it, then I could really get behind a product like Borland's. If not, I'll only be able to use it for Linsux development, and that would severely limit its usefulness to me.
No, not really. I was actually just starting a flame thread.
On the whole, the French I've met (and I *have* met some French people) have been rude and arrogant. Is this a cultural norm? I don't know, but they've not left a good impression on me, and I'm the only one that counts, the way I see things.
One's mind can be so open that one's brains fall out.
Seriously, poor grammar and spelling detract much from any otherwise good point. I know that I discount a lot of what is said here because I consider the poster to be a nitwit.
If you are a native English speaker, but cannot master the simple nuances of "there", "their", and "they're", or "to", "too", and "two", then you have no point to make. You are a chimp (or might that be, instead, "chump"?).
A little work put into proper spelling and grammar may not lend credence to any argument you might make, but an obvious lack of English skills (in a native speaker, I realize that other languages have different grammatical structures, and I can deal with that) certainly detracts from it.
How about the taxes UPS pays for gas, weigh stations, licenses, etc.?
--Corey
Re:In a perfect world, BSD would be the perfect...
on
Feature:GPL vs BSD
·
· Score: 2
> Not taken away but proprietized and closed up under a DIFFERENT license.
This may well be true, but one would have to care, I guess. I am going to release a little code module under the BSD license pretty soon because it is easily integrated into pretty much any Unix system, and can provide functionality for very little cost. It's a fixed-chunk-size memory allocation wrapper for malloc(), if you care.
I'll release this code for a couple of reasons: 1) I think it can be useful. 2) I'd like to see it ported, and to see what others in the free software realm can do with it, how it can be improved, and what I can learn from others in the improvement of my software. 3) I think it'd be absolutely awesome if, some day, my falloc() function became a part of some standard (it's an ego thing).
> It can't be modified and released under the BSD license with credits given to somebody else... no.
And that's the only thing I'd give a rat's rear about. What commercial vendors do means very little to me. As long as I get paid a substantial amount of money for the work I do, what I do in my free time and towards the ends of my own little forays into researching things I'm curious about are my own business. If I want to release that code to the public, then so be it.
If some hot-shot commercial vendor wants to take that code and incorporate it into their libc, then so be it. If I ever see falloc() on, say, an HPUX box as part of the C library, I'll just grin. If someone rewrites part of my code, points out an error, ports it to a 64bit platform, or whatever and remits the patch to me, then so much the better. I can see what they've done and learn. That's all I care about.
> Look at it from the corporate point of view. They see things as goods that are consumable or > nonconsumable assets that can be used during the course of business. The BSD source code is > such a good - it has value even though the cost of procurement was minimal.
By this logic, then, the Linux source code has absolutely no value? Certainly to a corporation this comes close to the mark, forcing them to yet again reinvent the wheel, or to have to have more staff so that 'infected' people can look at some GPL code and write up a specification, what the code does, and hand that over to a 'clean' person and have that person implement the specification. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I want to use some of Linux' memory management ideas for the x86 in some wacko proprietary operating system of my own design, for whatever purpose - maybe something top secret and military or something. I have to hire at least one more person to actually get those memory hacks into my code base, or it becomes infected and my whole ball of wax melts. So, the GPL forces reinvention and code non-reuse.
> The enhancements made to the original good will not be released back due to the fact that the > enhancements are the intellectual property of the corporation and the primary source of profit > in the sale of the enhanced good.
Does that, then, in any way, harm the original source base? Do I care whether some company releases their enhancements back into the original pool, if I'm working toward a different goal? Not really. If they do, and I find their changes useful, more the better. If they don't, well, they can simply maintain their new and improved mess themselves without any assistance from me. I'd be more likely to give companies or, rather, product managers and engineers the benefit of the doubt. I'd prefer to think that they're decently moral enough to do the Right Thing[tm]. If they don't, well, they'll burn in Hell. Do I care? Not in the slightest.
> Hence, BSD becomes a free R&D lab for the proprietary operating systems of the world.
Correct-a-mundo. This was its original intent, anyway. That that hasn't changed in the slightest, and that the BSD code base thrives in spite of it is a testament to the efficacy of that model. Enhancements are made every day to the active code bases of the various BSD projects, by private individuals and by corporate users working on derivative projects. It works. Really.
> The companies take the code, proprietize it and laugh all the way to the bank.
And I laugh at them. I don't know if they're using my code in a proprietary product, just as you don't know if someone is using your GPLed code in a proprietary product. The difference is, I guess, that I don't care a whit. Let them use it... heck, maybe they'll decide I'm da shiznit for writing such a useful package and hire me for an exorbitant amount of money.:)
> You, however, still have your much vaunted rights to the original code.
Which, because I am a completely arrogant and egocentric bastard, is all that I require.
> BSD does not make me suffer. Proprietary enhancements to open standards, designed to 'lock- > in' a userbase, make me suffer.
Viral licenses designed to 'lock-out' an entire segment of a population (corporate users and developers) make me suffer. I guess it's a Mexican stand-off. A veritable Catch-22.
Somehow people think that forks in a codebase are a bad thing. I disagree. I think forks in a codebase foster evolution, bring in new blood, new ideas, fresh perspectives on a problem.
Driving a codebase toward a different goal will ultimately redound to the benefit of both codebases, as the old incorporates improvements from the new (which _will_ happen... "neat hack, cool... let's just put that right *there*... yes, that's nice..."), and the new springs forward from the beginnings granted it by the old.
Witness OpenBSD - I'm sure there are at least a few changes that NetBSD has mirrored from the OpenBSD tree, and I know there are things OpenBSD tracks in the NetBSD tree to this day, incorporating as they see fit (the UVM by Chuck Cranor, originally implemented in NetBSD comes immediately to mind).
Evolution in motion, creates more diversity of species and greater resistance to disease (or some gobbledygook like that).
1) You assume that there is at least one good lawyer. There are no good lawyers, so your statement is automatically false.
2) You assume that, were that imaginary lawyer to actually exist, he would do _anything_ pro bono. That is patently absurd. Were a lawyer to exist who would do anything pro bono for publicity, he wouldn't be a good lawyer in the first place, thereby falling under the first fallacy.
--Corey
Re:In a perfect world, BSD would be the perfect...
on
Feature:GPL vs BSD
·
· Score: 1
> I respect the ideals and the skill of the BSD people but they are being robbed blind by the > corporate element!
Then you should respect their wishes to allow their code to thrive whenever and wherever it may. Code is a form of art, and good code is high art. BSD Unix operating systems are, in large part, high art (some higher than others). The nice thing about it is, if a company wants to copy and embellish that art, it may do so and keep the art on display in its own private gallery. More likely, though, it will benefit them to let the rest of the world see their contribution to the state of the art by returning bug-fixes and patches, and in so doing reduce the cost of the maintenance of the piece.
Has MS contributed to the BSD source base? I don't know, offhand. Have they looked into using parts of it? Most assuredly. You would have to be stupid not to, and Microsoft, for all their other flaws, are not stupid.
Has Apple contributed to the BSD source base? Yes, without a doubt. Are they a good citizen of the BSD community for doing so? Yes.
The point is, the code base that you put out under the BSD license cannot be taken away from you or the rest of the community. It cannot be modified and re-released by someone else who claims to have written the code in the first place. It fosters commonality in code bases, making it easier to track and fix bugs if someone keeps their code close to the original. It is a Good Thing [tm].
> The BSD folks strive to have complete freedom and the very best code! They will never have the > very best code because everyone else will have it too!
And this is different from GPL'ed code how? I've got to tell you, I've looked at the Linux kernel code, the GNU libc, and the source code to a lot of the GNU utilities. The BSD code is clearer, better-written, more functional, better structured, and just generally tighter and better. All this, and I can use it in a commercial product without worrying about RMS beating down my door in the middle of the night with a squad of GPL enforcement Nazis (uh oh... this thread is over).
> This situation is probably their aim and if it is... it's working. They are selflessly advancing > the state of the art. I'm sure that Bill and Steve appreciate it!
I, too, am sure they appreciate it. However, at least Steve has contributed back (hey, wait, doesn't the GNU CC project have Objective-C because of NeXT, aka Steve?). I don't know if Bill has used any BSD code, or if he'd contribute back if he had, but has that hurt the various BSD camps out there? I think not. That their operating systems are better than the various incarnations of Windows is an indisputable fact (at least, in the domain of problems they're designed to solve).
> I vote for the GPL because the GPL protected codebase becomes a living thing that constantly > improves. It survives the demise of it's creators and is not dependant on any one entity > for it's livelihood.
And how, pray tell, is BSD any different? Do not the free BSD operating systems and maintainers of packages under the BSD license fix bugs and support their code? Have there not been changes in maintainership of BSD-licensed code in the public? How does code under the BSD license not stand up to this litmus test of yours?
> The BSD license provides for a public good that is consumable; the GPL license provides for a > public good that is durable.
Again, I fail to see how the GPL ensures this when the BSD license doesn't. Noone can take away my rights to the FreeBSD code base, nor the OpenBSD code base, nor NetBSD, nor 4.4BSD-Lite2, nor any other variant of BSD (licensed as such). If I download that code today, I can use it in perpetuity. By doing so, I don't take away the rights of anyone else to do so. I will make contributions to these code bases, becoming what Doctor Evil and I like to call "good citizens", thus advancing the projects. Have I then consumed the BSD code bases? Are they no longer available to anyone else to use after I've grabbed them off an FTP site?
Besides, prove in a court of law that I've snitched some piece of code from a GPLed package and incorporated it into my own commercial product. Go on, I dare you.
If I use a BSD-licensed product for, say, reading in a file of some specific format, then I've helped to make that format a standard, and increased the interoperability of various programs and modules because I've used the code.
In fact, Sun *DOES* open-source their micro-code. You can get all the goods on the latest and greatest UltraSparcs, fab 'em yourself, change 'em around, and research on them. If you make any good changes, you can either license the right to sell them from Sun, or give your changes back to Sun.
> Whales have brains bigger than gary coleman and you don't see them making theories of relativity.
How do you know? Talked to any whale scientists recently? It could be that, living in the ocean, they have a different perception of spatial movement than we. They might take for granted what we're only at the edges of discovering.
> The real physical trait that matters is the surface area of the brain. Notice how our brains look like a raison? All of those convolutions increase the surface area of the brain.
Correct, in a sense. It is the convolutions of the brain that are thought to indicate intelligence. No matter what you do, or how you wrinkle a human brain, though, there won't be as much surface area on it as on the brain of a whale. It just won't happen. It's physically not possible.
But, all that convolutions-means-intelligence mumbo-jumbo is just that. Conjecture. No hard science to back it up.
Dolphins have, on average, more convolutions per square inch of brain than we. Are they intelligent? Perhaps. Can we understand their intelligence? Not yet. Will we ever? Maybe.
But if they were so darned intelligent, they'd be able to avoid those nets, wouldn't they?
Slashdot Mirror
Oooh! Sign me up!!!
--Corey
Excuse me, but you're simply not thinking. At all.
Right-wing has nothing to do with anything. Fundamentalist Christian ethics (if the terms can be used together non-oxymoronically) have little or nothing to do with conservatism or the "Right Wing".
Conservatism, by its very nature, means to promote and enforce the status quo (the root "conserve" in "conservatism" is your first clue there, guy...). The status quo is this: "evolution is not hard science, but a theory; it has not been proven (the fact that it cannot be proven yet notwithstanding - maybe in a hundred years or so...), and therefore must not be taught as law". Seen this way, that viewpoint makes more sense than: "evolution is hard science; it has been proven beyond doubt to be the One True Way that nature works, and must be taught as such".
I'm no fundamentalist, not by a long stretch of the imagination. I do, however, think that the jury's still out on evolution (not that I believe what's taught in Genesis, either). If evolution is the way things happened, then when it is proven, I will accept it with open arms. It seems a plausible theory to me. Creationism seems a bit far-fetched, but hey... who's to say there isn't a God that created everything? You can't prove his non-existence, and the most ardent and well-studied fundie can't prove his existence. That's why there's a thing called "faith".
Hell, who's to say God didn't use evolution to create this mess?
But back to my point...
"Right Wing single issue (okay maybe three) assh0l$e" - geez, you're really 'l33t there, bud. Try thinking just a little bit before posting.
Remember: think, THEN post.
I could say the same thing for all the tax-and-$p3nd L1b3r4Lz (whom I despise - I pay just about what my mom makes in taxes EVERY YEAR - just let me KEEP MY OWN FRIGGIN' MONEY and I WILL DECIDE how best to distribute MY OWN wealth!).
"We have to cut the space program so we can feed all the starving wood owls in the old growth rain forests..."
Bullshit.
--Corey
No.
The bible teaches us that PI(R)^2, but that is a fallacy.
PI(R) ROUND!
COBBLER(R)^2 !!!
--Corey
"will says will says it will" ... "store data 1000 faster" ...
1000 what faster? if "times", why didn't you just say so? Or were you waiting for Will to say it?
--Corey (j/k)
For an idea of how such a thing might work, give MudOS a try.
No, I'm not kidding. It's an interpreted object language, run on a stack-based VM. It has some pretty neat native types (automatic arrays, mappings, etc.), and allows you to do all of your work from within that environment.
Find it at ftp.imaginary.com - look around in there for the latest version of the driver. Get a lib and hack it a bit to get it set up.
--Corey
A letter I sent to their comments email:
To: Newswire@VNUBPL
cc:
Subject: SGI to use Linux...
Hello, and warm greetings from the U.S.,
In your article about SGI opting for Linux on its
IA64 based machines, there were a couple of
factual errors concerning the Linux operating
system.
Since roughly 1995, Linux has been a 64bit OS.
It currently runs in full 64bit mode on Compaq's
Alpha (the first 64bit chip supported by Linux,
way back in the day), and also has a port to
Sun's UltraSPARC family of CPUs, which are 64bit
(though I hear there are a couple of problems
making 64bit memory access work correctly
because of some weirdness in the way Sun
structures its hardware).
Linux' scalability is certainly not up to snuff -
especially when compared to that of IRIX or
Solaris, but it will run on 16-processor systems
(just not well). Its sweet-spot is currently two-
processor systems. Look for version 2.4 to
increase the scalability of the OS kernel, as it
will have support for finer-grained locking and
management of resources.
Further, the Linux OS already runs on the MIPS
family of processors, as well as other big-endian
CPUs (such as the aforementioned SPARC). While I
agree that there is little chance of Linux on
IA64 running binaries made for IRIX on MIPS, the
issue at hand isn't Linux per se, but a question
of machine architecture. For instance, it would
be technically possible and quite feasible to
make IRIX/MIPS binaries run on Linux/MIPS. It
may be that I misread this part of the article,
however.
Just a couple of points, hopefully rationally
discussed,
Cheers,
--Corey
Their response:
Thanks for pointing that out. We've posted a
corrected version and the incorrect story is
being removed. Sorry these things slip through
the net sometimes - we appreciate your
astuteness!
Regards
Andrew Craig
Deputy News Editor
VNU Newswire
Having seen a SPARC lunchbox or two, I really like *that* form factor. Why, oh, why can't good FAST systems be built like that anymore? Those were nice, sturdy pieces of hardware that looked cool and were quite functional.
OTOH, I want to build a nice wood PeeCee (or
maybe an Alpha, instead) case/rack.
--Corey
Will it run OpenBSD?
--Corey
While I agree, and I endeavor to make my meaning clear to my fellow man by the use of proper grammar and spelling, I think you should look before you leap.
For instance, in your correcting Hemos' grammar regarding the improper use and/or spelling of the word "exhibition", you forgot that the word "exhibition" was not properly used.
"The capsule will be put on 'exhibition'..." is simply not proper, and you failed to correct this. Obviously, the proper form of the word in this case is "exhibit".
"The capsule will be put on exhibit..."
This has a much nicer ring to it, don't you agree?
--Corey
Is it just me, or is the extinction of the Huia an example of European (rather than American) excess?
For all the carping Europeans do about us, you'd think they never did a bad thing in all of modern history.
Sheesh...
--Corey
I'd also like to see the function call generation stuff opened up. Would allow me to, say, use Borland C/C++ to write programs for my newest whizbang OS on the x86 platform, which uses a new methodology for function calls, builds the stack differently, etc.
If that could be made modular, and the compiler provided hooks or something like that to produce binary output in whatever form I wanted it, then I could really get behind a product like Borland's. If not, I'll only be able to use it for Linsux development, and that would severely limit its usefulness to me.
--Corey
Please don't wish that crap on everyone. Yes, the GNU tools are featureful, and yes, they can be nice. But everyone should switch to GNU make?
*puke*
Have you ever looked at the source code to that utility? It's a veritable masterpiece on how *not* to write code.
Thank you, but no.
Besides, I like the pmake utility used in most
distributions of BSD.
--Corey
No, not really. I was actually just starting a flame thread.
On the whole, the French I've met (and I *have* met some French people) have been rude and arrogant. Is this a cultural norm? I don't know, but they've not left a good impression on me, and I'm the only one that counts, the way I see things.
--Corey
It doesn't matter. No one cares about ANY of them. They are irrelevant, because WE GOT THE BOMBS!
;-)
One's mind can be so open that one's brains fall out.
Seriously, poor grammar and spelling detract much from any otherwise good point. I know that I discount a lot of what is said here because I consider the poster to be a nitwit.
If you are a native English speaker, but cannot master the simple nuances of "there", "their", and "they're", or "to", "too", and "two", then you have no point to make. You are a chimp (or might that be, instead, "chump"?).
A little work put into proper spelling and grammar may not lend credence to any argument you might make, but an obvious lack of English skills (in a native speaker, I realize that other languages have different grammatical structures, and I can deal with that) certainly detracts from it.
--Corey
How about the taxes UPS pays for gas, weigh stations, licenses, etc.?
--Corey
> Not taken away but proprietized and closed up under a DIFFERENT license.
:)
This may well be true, but one would have to care, I guess. I am going to release a little code module under the BSD license pretty soon because it is easily integrated into pretty much any Unix system, and can provide functionality for very little cost. It's a fixed-chunk-size memory allocation wrapper for malloc(), if you care.
I'll release this code for a couple of reasons:
1) I think it can be useful.
2) I'd like to see it ported, and to see what others in the free software realm can do with it, how it can be improved, and what I can learn from others in the improvement of my software.
3) I think it'd be absolutely awesome if, some day, my falloc() function became a part of some standard (it's an ego thing).
> It can't be modified and released under the BSD license with credits given to somebody else... no.
And that's the only thing I'd give a rat's rear about. What commercial vendors do means very little to me. As long as I get paid a substantial amount of money for the work I do, what I do in my free time and towards the ends of my own little forays into researching things I'm curious about are my own business. If I want to release that code to the public, then so be it.
If some hot-shot commercial vendor wants to take that code and incorporate it into their libc, then so be it. If I ever see falloc() on, say, an HPUX box as part of the C library, I'll just grin. If someone rewrites part of my code, points out an error, ports it to a 64bit platform, or whatever and remits the patch to me, then so much the better. I can see what they've done and learn. That's all I care about.
> Look at it from the corporate point of view. They see things as goods that are consumable or
> nonconsumable assets that can be used during the course of business. The BSD source code is
> such a good - it has value even though the cost of procurement was minimal.
By this logic, then, the Linux source code has absolutely no value? Certainly to a corporation this comes close to the mark, forcing them to yet again reinvent the wheel, or to have to have more staff so that 'infected' people can look at some GPL code and write up a specification, what the code does, and hand that over to a 'clean' person and have that person implement the specification. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I want to use some of Linux' memory management ideas for the x86 in some wacko proprietary operating system of my own design, for whatever purpose - maybe something top secret and military or something. I have to hire at least one more person to actually get those memory hacks into my code base, or it becomes infected and my whole ball of wax melts. So, the GPL forces reinvention and code non-reuse.
> The enhancements made to the original good will not be released back due to the fact that the
> enhancements are the intellectual property of the corporation and the primary source of profit
> in the sale of the enhanced good.
Does that, then, in any way, harm the original source base? Do I care whether some company releases their enhancements back into the original pool, if I'm working toward a different goal? Not really. If they do, and I find their changes useful, more the better. If they don't, well, they can simply maintain their new and improved mess themselves without any assistance from me. I'd be more likely to give companies or, rather, product managers and engineers the benefit of the doubt. I'd prefer to think that they're decently moral enough to do the Right Thing[tm]. If they don't, well, they'll burn in Hell. Do I care? Not in the slightest.
> Hence, BSD becomes a free R&D lab for the proprietary operating systems of the world.
Correct-a-mundo. This was its original intent, anyway. That that hasn't changed in the slightest, and that the BSD code base thrives in spite of it is a testament to the efficacy of that model. Enhancements are made every day to the active code bases of the various BSD projects, by private individuals and by corporate users working on derivative projects. It works. Really.
> The companies take the code, proprietize it and laugh all the way to the bank.
And I laugh at them. I don't know if they're using my code in a proprietary product, just as you don't know if someone is using your GPLed code in a proprietary product. The difference is, I guess, that I don't care a whit. Let them use it... heck, maybe they'll decide I'm da shiznit for writing such a useful package and hire me for an exorbitant amount of money.
> You, however, still have your much vaunted rights to the original code.
Which, because I am a completely arrogant and egocentric bastard, is all that I require.
> BSD does not make me suffer. Proprietary enhancements to open standards, designed to 'lock-
> in' a userbase, make me suffer.
Viral licenses designed to 'lock-out' an entire segment of a population (corporate users and developers) make me suffer. I guess it's a Mexican stand-off. A veritable Catch-22.
--Corey
Somehow people think that forks in a codebase are a bad thing. I disagree. I think forks in a codebase foster evolution, bring in new blood, new ideas, fresh perspectives on a problem.
Driving a codebase toward a different goal will ultimately redound to the benefit of both codebases, as the old incorporates improvements from the new (which _will_ happen... "neat hack, cool... let's just put that right *there*... yes, that's nice..."), and the new springs forward from the beginnings granted it by the old.
Witness OpenBSD - I'm sure there are at least a few changes that NetBSD has mirrored from the OpenBSD tree, and I know there are things OpenBSD tracks in the NetBSD tree to this day, incorporating as they see fit (the UVM by Chuck Cranor, originally implemented in NetBSD comes immediately to mind).
Evolution in motion, creates more diversity of species and greater resistance to disease (or some gobbledygook like that).
My two cents,
--Corey
> GPL says, you can use my software as long as I have access to any modifications to my code.
Not exactly. GPL says, "you can use my software as long as I have access to any of your code that relies on my code for some of its functionality."
Free software is about freedom of choice.
--Corey
There are a couple of flaws in your statement.
1) You assume that there is at least one good lawyer. There are no good lawyers, so your statement is automatically false.
2) You assume that, were that imaginary lawyer to actually exist, he would do _anything_ pro bono. That is patently absurd. Were a lawyer to exist who would do anything pro bono for publicity, he wouldn't be a good lawyer in the first place, thereby falling under the first fallacy.
--Corey
> I respect the ideals and the skill of the BSD people but they are being robbed blind by the
> corporate element!
Then you should respect their wishes to allow their code to thrive whenever and wherever it may. Code is a form of art, and good code is high art. BSD Unix operating systems are, in large part, high art (some higher than others). The nice thing about it is, if a company wants to copy and embellish that art, it may do so and keep the art on display in its own private gallery. More likely, though, it will benefit them to let the rest of the world see their contribution to the state of the art by returning bug-fixes and patches, and in so doing reduce the cost of the maintenance of the piece.
Has MS contributed to the BSD source base? I don't know, offhand. Have they looked into using parts of it? Most assuredly. You would have to be stupid not to, and Microsoft, for all their other flaws, are not stupid.
Has Apple contributed to the BSD source base? Yes, without a doubt. Are they a good citizen of the BSD community for doing so? Yes.
The point is, the code base that you put out under the BSD license cannot be taken away from you or the rest of the community. It cannot be modified and re-released by someone else who claims to have written the code in the first place. It fosters commonality in code bases, making it easier to track and fix bugs if someone keeps their code close to the original. It is a Good Thing [tm].
> The BSD folks strive to have complete freedom and the very best code! They will never have the
> very best code because everyone else will have it too!
And this is different from GPL'ed code how? I've got to tell you, I've looked at the Linux kernel code, the GNU libc, and the source code to a lot of the GNU utilities. The BSD code is clearer, better-written, more functional, better structured, and just generally tighter and better. All this, and I can use it in a commercial product without worrying about RMS beating down my door in the middle of the night with a squad of GPL enforcement Nazis (uh oh... this thread is over).
> This situation is probably their aim and if it is... it's working. They are selflessly advancing
> the state of the art. I'm sure that Bill and Steve appreciate it!
I, too, am sure they appreciate it. However, at least Steve has contributed back (hey, wait, doesn't the GNU CC project have Objective-C because of NeXT, aka Steve?). I don't know if Bill has used any BSD code, or if he'd contribute back if he had, but has that hurt the various BSD camps out there? I think not. That their operating systems are better than the various incarnations of Windows is an indisputable fact (at least, in the domain of problems they're designed to solve).
> I vote for the GPL because the GPL protected codebase becomes a living thing that constantly
> improves. It survives the demise of it's creators and is not dependant on any one entity
> for it's livelihood.
And how, pray tell, is BSD any different? Do not the free BSD operating systems and maintainers of packages under the BSD license fix bugs and support their code? Have there not been changes in maintainership of BSD-licensed code in the public? How does code under the BSD license not stand up to this litmus test of yours?
> The BSD license provides for a public good that is consumable; the GPL license provides for a
> public good that is durable.
Again, I fail to see how the GPL ensures this when the BSD license doesn't. Noone can take away my rights to the FreeBSD code base, nor the OpenBSD code base, nor NetBSD, nor 4.4BSD-Lite2, nor any other variant of BSD (licensed as such). If I download that code today, I can use it in perpetuity. By doing so, I don't take away the rights of anyone else to do so. I will make contributions to these code bases, becoming what Doctor Evil and I like to call "good citizens", thus advancing the projects. Have I then consumed the BSD code bases? Are they no longer available to anyone else to use after I've grabbed them off an FTP site?
Besides, prove in a court of law that I've snitched some piece of code from a GPLed package and incorporated it into my own commercial product. Go on, I dare you.
If I use a BSD-licensed product for, say, reading in a file of some specific format, then I've helped to make that format a standard, and increased the interoperability of various programs and modules because I've used the code.
How does that make you suffer?
--Corey
Yeah, but then the l33t k1dd13z wouldn't be able to communicate.
--Corey
Not quite.
In fact, Sun *DOES* open-source their micro-code. You can get all the goods on the latest and greatest UltraSparcs, fab 'em yourself, change 'em around, and research on them. If you make any good changes, you can either license the right to sell them from Sun, or give your changes back to Sun.
So no, it isn't a joke.
Good luck fabbing an Ultra, though.
--Corey
> Whales have brains bigger than gary coleman and you don't see them making theories of relativity.
How do you know? Talked to any whale scientists recently? It could be that, living in the ocean, they have a different perception of spatial movement than we. They might take for granted what we're only at the edges of discovering.
> The real physical trait that matters is the surface area of the brain. Notice how our brains look like a raison? All of those convolutions increase the surface area of the brain.
Correct, in a sense. It is the convolutions of the brain that are thought to indicate intelligence. No matter what you do, or how you wrinkle a human brain, though, there won't be as much surface area on it as on the brain of a whale. It just won't happen. It's physically not possible.
But, all that convolutions-means-intelligence mumbo-jumbo is just that. Conjecture. No hard science to back it up.
Dolphins have, on average, more convolutions per square inch of brain than we. Are they intelligent? Perhaps. Can we understand their intelligence? Not yet. Will we ever? Maybe.
But if they were so darned intelligent, they'd be able to avoid those nets, wouldn't they?
So long, and thanks for all the fish,
--Corey
I, for one, do. I'm heavy, and I'm a friggin' jeeniouss, so there must be a correlation.
--Corey