The difference, and I'd suggest it is a big one, is that the CC license grants the user EXTRA rights over and above the default copyright situation.
That's for US copyright. I'm not sure about the Netherlands though. What are the privileges of the user under Dutch copyright, and what is the CC license in question?
Off topic, I can easily imagine the day when some of our "revered" F.O.S.S. licenses become more restrictive than copyright. Imagine a nation that loosened its copyright laws so that the restrictions in the GPL were more onerous than the law. Currently you can freely distribute GPL software to your students for educational purposes WITHOUT having to grant access to the source code. The GPL doesn't allow this, but the law (in the US at least under specific circumstances) does. Now imagine a court said that the GPL was binding even in these exceptions.
Imagine the day when RMS gets his wish and copyright is abolished, but the courts rule that the GPL is still binding without every having been agreed to.
This is why licenses must never be unilaterally binding without assent.
When the party has no core values, and no core beliefs, the only thing left is to bribe the voter with handouts. Not that the Republicans have too many core values and beliefs, but at least they have some. The Democrats don't have any anymore. The only common ground they can offer to their base is a seething visceral hatred of Bush. But that's not enough to win elections, and so they resort to outright bribery.
You can do far more with it than with any word processor you can name.
Yes, of course you can! Ditto for a tabletop RPG versus a MMORPG. However, imagine a word processor that pretended to be a pencil. To type in the letter 'A', you would have to draw it with the mouse. That's what an MMORPG/CRPG trying to faithfully follow the D&D rules would be like.
But the immediately preceeding sentence to your quote:
I just did "emerge mysql". My assumption was, and still is, that the user merely did an "emerge mysql", WITHOUT any special optimized USE flags, CFLAGS, etc.
But regardless, if there are USE strings or CFLAGS that are inappropriate for use with MySQL, then the solution is to fix that particular emerge script, and NOT to blame the user.
You are facing two problems. The first is that it's very hard to translate a paper-and-dice RPG to computer, regardless if it's a MUD, MMORPG, CRPG, etc. The reasons for this are myriad.
The second problem, however, is that you might be confused as to what "D&D" actually is. It's a rules set for apaper-and-dice RPG. It has nothing to do with milieu, setting, or environment. A D&D game could be set in Greyhawk, Forgettable Realms, Middle Earth, or your own setting. It could have every monster in the Monster Manual I and II, or it might have none of them. It might have trolls, but not the typical regenerating trolls. It could have twenty different races, or it might have just humans. The point is, D&D is a set of rules, nothing more.
Now that I've thought about it a bit more, my unhumble opinion is that wanting a "D&D" MMORPG is silly. There's so much a MMORPG can offer, that wanting it limited by a set of tabletop rules is dumb. It's like wanting a word processor to be limited to the concept of a pencil. An MMORPG can use *REAL* statistic probabilities instead of rolling a silly s20. Why use hitpoints when you can now calculate damage based precise hit location, armor covering and layering, weapon aspect, wound types, etc? Even with the grossly simplified and abstracted combat necessary for performance, a computer is still going to give you a combat experience that would otherwise take you pages and pages charts and tables in a tabletop game. And that's just combat! Imagine would it could do for skills such as lockpicking, trap detection, spell research, weaponcrafting, ale brewing and literacy!
Yes, yes, yes! I can't stand those small keyboards and flat keys in a notebook. They're ergonomic disasters. Give me a full size keyboard (sans the keypad), with full sized full stroke keysr, and the ability to tilt the keyboard (or entire laptop) to an appropriate typing angle without having to lug around yet another accessory.
shouldn't the defense have some sort of representative available while said computer is being accessed to make sure that only relevant data is accessed...?
Shouldn't the defense have some sort of representative available while their house is being searched to make sure the cops don't discover the kiddie porn in the closet while they are searching for a murder weapon?
We're not talking about thousands of different binaries. We're talking about a plain simple "emerge MySQL". If MySQL is so fragile it can't handle that, then it's time for Postgres to step to the fore.
I am not a Gentoo user. But I do use a source based system (FreeBSD), and it's aggravating to think that I won't get support *merely* because I am not using a binary package. The attitude of MySQL developers to automatically blow off all Gentoo users is amazingly arrogant.
The result is that the user's CFLAGS, Gentoo's patches/defaults, and so on, end up with a binary that is quite a bit different from the stock MySQL install, and it's not terribly surprising to me that the only 'unstable' MySQL situations I've seen are on Gentoo (which is not to say others don't occur).
How is this any different from SuSE, Fedoria, Debian, etc? Hardly anyone has a "stock" MySQL with zero patches and just exactly the same libraries linked in as the developers do. One distro has a bug fix included and another doesn't while a third installs to a non-standard location. Even worse a fourth distro has the temerity not to use this week's libssl! What is a tyrannical developer to do?
If you don't like it, then it's time for YOU to start shipping binaries. Because once you have source code, you cannot control how it gets built. That's one attribute of this thing called "Free Software."
If there are certain compile flags we should not use, then TELL US in your documentation. That might solve many of your Gentoo "problems". But don't bitch that we're not running exactly the same binary, bit for bit, as you are. That's asinine.
I've got a new 12" iBook, and it's great! With only half the CPU speed, it is still snappier and more responsive than my desktop's P4. If you're not doing heavy builds or complex renderings, the CPU speed will not be an issue.
I'll probably get modded down for this because I know Linux users don't like to hear this -- but Windows XP is a pretty good product.
SuSE Linux is a pretty good product too!
It rarely needs rebooting...
Linux never needs rebooting. Unless you've updated your kernel, there is no need.
In fact, it effectively comes "for free" with a $500 Dell desktop PC.
Corporations don't get Windows "for free" with a $500 Dell. They spend much more than that for each Dell, in the form of service and support. Small businesses may get their systems from the local CompUSA, but medium to large corporations do not. But even if they do, they'll still wipe the harddrive and put their own WinXP Corporate Edition image on it.
Oh, btw, Linux is effectively "for free" as well.
For a Linux desktop to be preferred over Windows, the Linux desktop experience will have to provide something new and innovative that Windows does not
We are talking about the corporate desktop here. How about real scriptable Unix-like remote administration via plain text files. How about the ability to fallback to a text editor for your configuration when the GUI hasn't anticipated your specific configuration needs. I don't know about your organization, but at my company the ratio of Unix admins to Unix workstations is far smaller than the ration of MCSE's to Windows workstations. Why? Because administering Unix is more efficient than administering Windows. WinXP has made some big strides in this area, but it still hasn't caught up to Unix.
And how about the ability to use remote home directories? That lets you backup everyone's work. And unlike under Windows, NFS and other remote filesystems will actually be snappy and responsive. Taking this a bit further, you now have the ability to deploy "smart clients", where the basic OS is on the local system, but everything else is remote and easily maintainable. Thanks to X11, you can even execute apps remotely. If you do any development, you can farm out your builds to everyone's system, even those of non-developers.
As for the desktop itself, how about it just being easier to use? Really! Familiarity != usability. Windows' advantage is the volume of software available to it, but the UI itself is rather lackluster. KDE and GNOME offer much more flexible and usable desktops. Simple stuff like snap-to, shading and multiple desktops can be very convenient. Complete network integration is huge plus as well. While the Unix desktop may be a bit harder to configure than the Windows desktop, the user isn't going to do it, the trained administrators are.
Everybody here's making it sound like China is a hell in which you will be executed if you try to pronounce the 'd' of 'democracy'.
Not too many years ago China was driving tanks over people who pronounced the 'd' in 'democrocy'. Considering it's still the same government in power, and no apologetic word since, I can only assume that vocal disagreements against the government are still forbidden.
Then I guess 80%+ of computer users are "not done" configuring their systems. Just because they think there's nothing left to do to does not mean there isn't. Maybe Windows wouldn't have quite so bad of a security reputation if Microsoft realized this, and started shipping with adequate default settings.
But back to my original point, once again: When you're done installing a Mac, you're done. You don't need to turn off a couple dozen ports, because they already are off. You don't need to turn on the firewall, because it already turns on automatically when you open a port. You don't need to download Firefox and Thunderbird, because Safari and Mail don't have the huge security holes that Internet Explorer and Outlook Express do.
I'm frankly amazed that so many people are disputing this. It's like Windows is their whole world, and they cannot wrap their brains around the concept that something else might be better in terms of installation.
the problem is, pretty much everyone buys a PC as an plug and play appliance with an OEM Windows install.
Yes, some people do buy a new Dell and never install/recover/upgrade for two to three years when they buy another new Dell. But they certainly are NOT "pretty much everyone."
But regardless, I *STILL* have a lot of work ahead of me, even with an OEM preinstall. If you're smart, that is. If you're the kind of person who is perfectly content with an OEM preinstall, then you won't care if you have no firewall, sixty open ports, a single login which is a password-less administrator account, default email and browser applications which are highly insecure malware vectors, etc., etc.
My point is, after you turn on a brand new Mac, you're done.
99.9% of all Mac users never upgrade their hardware or operating system
Horse hockey! Everyone I know with a Mac has upgraded to Tiger WITHOUT throwing away their system and buying a new one. In fact, MANY Windows users I know who were using 98 before XP managed to upgrade as well. While it is much more annoying under Windows, it is still not so annoying that people will throw away their hardware to avoid it.
Gentle readers: just because something doesn't seem useful or make sense to you does not mean that it is categorically useless or senseless for everyone.
Oh wow! My head is reeling in the implication of your wisdom! My whole world view is turning upside down. Must... fight... sanity...
A friend of mine uses Photoshop "batch" processing, and he is always cursing it. It is very slow, image DPIs are frequently messed up, and if the entire process frequently implodes if he puts any other load on the system. I showed him how to do the same thing in ImageMagick in only five minutes with flawless results. He said it was "too difficult". It takes him about a week to get a camera load of images up on the web. It takes me an hour, with 55 minutes of that hour being typing in the captions. Sigh.
Okay, you've caught me on the driver issue. That is, as long as you never upgrade your hardware or software. But what will you do when Vista comes out? I have a very hard time believing XP users will do the same and throw out their OEM systems when Vista arrives. Comparing the actual Windows installer to the actual OSX installer *IS* a fair comparison.
But in the interest of multiculturalism, fairness, and not hurting your feelings, I'll concede that one to you. Now what about my other points?
As a new (and still part-time) Mac user, I independently discovered the "it just works" thing about the Mac. I'm primarily a FreeBSD user, so I can look at this from a somewhat neutral perspective.
When I am finished installing Windows, I still have a lot of work left ahead of me. I need to grab a couple of manufacturer's CDs to install drivers, one of which is required in my case to have a screen resolution higher than 640x480 VGA. I double check my hardware manager that all hardware conflicts are resolved. Then I set up the network. Then I turn on firewall, turn off some ports, and generally correct several braindead default settings. Then I download updates.
Under the Mac, the only additional thing I need to so is download updates. The hardware already works. The network already works. The firewall is already on. Default system settings are already appropriate.
The trends say otherwise. Glenn Reynold's new book, "An Army of Davids", is a good treatment of the subject. Here's my take:
The Industrial Revolution was characterized by economies of scale. Large steam engines, huge factories, massive capital expenditures, etc. But this is the Information Age, which doesn't need economies of scale. Small is better, and the individual is rising in importance. The two centuries that gave us collectivism, groupthink and the centralization, are giving way to a time of individualism and decentralization.
Software is an example. The old industrialist model of software development is to have rows and rows of programmers sitting in cubicles, each working on one small part of the whole. The model promotes outsourcing to the cheapest possible programmer with the required skillset. But that model is rapidly fading away, to be replaced with small teams and distributed collaboration. In contrast to the article's premise, innovation in software is routinely performed by individuals.
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The difference, and I'd suggest it is a big one, is that the CC license grants the user EXTRA rights over and above the default copyright situation.
That's for US copyright. I'm not sure about the Netherlands though. What are the privileges of the user under Dutch copyright, and what is the CC license in question?
Off topic, I can easily imagine the day when some of our "revered" F.O.S.S. licenses become more restrictive than copyright. Imagine a nation that loosened its copyright laws so that the restrictions in the GPL were more onerous than the law. Currently you can freely distribute GPL software to your students for educational purposes WITHOUT having to grant access to the source code. The GPL doesn't allow this, but the law (in the US at least under specific circumstances) does. Now imagine a court said that the GPL was binding even in these exceptions.
Imagine the day when RMS gets his wish and copyright is abolished, but the courts rule that the GPL is still binding without every having been agreed to.
This is why licenses must never be unilaterally binding without assent.
When the party has no core values, and no core beliefs, the only thing left is to bribe the voter with handouts. Not that the Republicans have too many core values and beliefs, but at least they have some. The Democrats don't have any anymore. The only common ground they can offer to their base is a seething visceral hatred of Bush. But that's not enough to win elections, and so they resort to outright bribery.
You can do far more with it than with any word processor you can name.
Yes, of course you can! Ditto for a tabletop RPG versus a MMORPG. However, imagine a word processor that pretended to be a pencil. To type in the letter 'A', you would have to draw it with the mouse. That's what an MMORPG/CRPG trying to faithfully follow the D&D rules would be like.
But from my post's grandparent:
But the immediately preceeding sentence to your quote:
I just did "emerge mysql". My assumption was, and still is, that the user merely did an "emerge mysql", WITHOUT any special optimized USE flags, CFLAGS, etc.
But regardless, if there are USE strings or CFLAGS that are inappropriate for use with MySQL, then the solution is to fix that particular emerge script, and NOT to blame the user.
You are facing two problems. The first is that it's very hard to translate a paper-and-dice RPG to computer, regardless if it's a MUD, MMORPG, CRPG, etc. The reasons for this are myriad.
The second problem, however, is that you might be confused as to what "D&D" actually is. It's a rules set for apaper-and-dice RPG. It has nothing to do with milieu, setting, or environment. A D&D game could be set in Greyhawk, Forgettable Realms, Middle Earth, or your own setting. It could have every monster in the Monster Manual I and II, or it might have none of them. It might have trolls, but not the typical regenerating trolls. It could have twenty different races, or it might have just humans. The point is, D&D is a set of rules, nothing more.
Now that I've thought about it a bit more, my unhumble opinion is that wanting a "D&D" MMORPG is silly. There's so much a MMORPG can offer, that wanting it limited by a set of tabletop rules is dumb. It's like wanting a word processor to be limited to the concept of a pencil. An MMORPG can use *REAL* statistic probabilities instead of rolling a silly s20. Why use hitpoints when you can now calculate damage based precise hit location, armor covering and layering, weapon aspect, wound types, etc? Even with the grossly simplified and abstracted combat necessary for performance, a computer is still going to give you a combat experience that would otherwise take you pages and pages charts and tables in a tabletop game. And that's just combat! Imagine would it could do for skills such as lockpicking, trap detection, spell research, weaponcrafting, ale brewing and literacy!
Yes, yes, yes! I can't stand those small keyboards and flat keys in a notebook. They're ergonomic disasters. Give me a full size keyboard (sans the keypad), with full sized full stroke keysr, and the ability to tilt the keyboard (or entire laptop) to an appropriate typing angle without having to lug around yet another accessory.
shouldn't the defense have some sort of representative available while said computer is being accessed to make sure that only relevant data is accessed...?
Shouldn't the defense have some sort of representative available while their house is being searched to make sure the cops don't discover the kiddie porn in the closet while they are searching for a murder weapon?
We're not talking about thousands of different binaries. We're talking about a plain simple "emerge MySQL". If MySQL is so fragile it can't handle that, then it's time for Postgres to step to the fore.
I am not a Gentoo user. But I do use a source based system (FreeBSD), and it's aggravating to think that I won't get support *merely* because I am not using a binary package. The attitude of MySQL developers to automatically blow off all Gentoo users is amazingly arrogant.
Why is this flamebait? One of you crackhead moderators explain! I know that the Slashdot moderation system is broken, but this is ridiculous!
While interesting, your link is completely tangental to the post you're replying to. Please do try to stay on topic. Thank you.
The result is that the user's CFLAGS, Gentoo's patches/defaults, and so on, end up with a binary that is quite a bit different from the stock MySQL install, and it's not terribly surprising to me that the only 'unstable' MySQL situations I've seen are on Gentoo (which is not to say others don't occur).
How is this any different from SuSE, Fedoria, Debian, etc? Hardly anyone has a "stock" MySQL with zero patches and just exactly the same libraries linked in as the developers do. One distro has a bug fix included and another doesn't while a third installs to a non-standard location. Even worse a fourth distro has the temerity not to use this week's libssl! What is a tyrannical developer to do?
If you don't like it, then it's time for YOU to start shipping binaries. Because once you have source code, you cannot control how it gets built. That's one attribute of this thing called "Free Software."
If there are certain compile flags we should not use, then TELL US in your documentation. That might solve many of your Gentoo "problems". But don't bitch that we're not running exactly the same binary, bit for bit, as you are. That's asinine.
I've got a new 12" iBook, and it's great! With only half the CPU speed, it is still snappier and more responsive than my desktop's P4. If you're not doing heavy builds or complex renderings, the CPU speed will not be an issue.
I'll probably get modded down for this because I know Linux users don't like to hear this -- but Windows XP is a pretty good product.
SuSE Linux is a pretty good product too!
It rarely needs rebooting...
Linux never needs rebooting. Unless you've updated your kernel, there is no need.
In fact, it effectively comes "for free" with a $500 Dell desktop PC.
Corporations don't get Windows "for free" with a $500 Dell. They spend much more than that for each Dell, in the form of service and support. Small businesses may get their systems from the local CompUSA, but medium to large corporations do not. But even if they do, they'll still wipe the harddrive and put their own WinXP Corporate Edition image on it.
Oh, btw, Linux is effectively "for free" as well.
For a Linux desktop to be preferred over Windows, the Linux desktop experience will have to provide something new and innovative that Windows does not
We are talking about the corporate desktop here. How about real scriptable Unix-like remote administration via plain text files. How about the ability to fallback to a text editor for your configuration when the GUI hasn't anticipated your specific configuration needs. I don't know about your organization, but at my company the ratio of Unix admins to Unix workstations is far smaller than the ration of MCSE's to Windows workstations. Why? Because administering Unix is more efficient than administering Windows. WinXP has made some big strides in this area, but it still hasn't caught up to Unix.
And how about the ability to use remote home directories? That lets you backup everyone's work. And unlike under Windows, NFS and other remote filesystems will actually be snappy and responsive. Taking this a bit further, you now have the ability to deploy "smart clients", where the basic OS is on the local system, but everything else is remote and easily maintainable. Thanks to X11, you can even execute apps remotely. If you do any development, you can farm out your builds to everyone's system, even those of non-developers.
As for the desktop itself, how about it just being easier to use? Really! Familiarity != usability. Windows' advantage is the volume of software available to it, but the UI itself is rather lackluster. KDE and GNOME offer much more flexible and usable desktops. Simple stuff like snap-to, shading and multiple desktops can be very convenient. Complete network integration is huge plus as well. While the Unix desktop may be a bit harder to configure than the Windows desktop, the user isn't going to do it, the trained administrators are.
Everybody here's making it sound like China is a hell in which you will be executed if you try to pronounce the 'd' of 'democracy'.
Not too many years ago China was driving tanks over people who pronounced the 'd' in 'democrocy'. Considering it's still the same government in power, and no apologetic word since, I can only assume that vocal disagreements against the government are still forbidden.
Then I guess 80%+ of computer users are "not done" configuring their systems. Just because they think there's nothing left to do to does not mean there isn't. Maybe Windows wouldn't have quite so bad of a security reputation if Microsoft realized this, and started shipping with adequate default settings.
But back to my original point, once again: When you're done installing a Mac, you're done. You don't need to turn off a couple dozen ports, because they already are off. You don't need to turn on the firewall, because it already turns on automatically when you open a port. You don't need to download Firefox and Thunderbird, because Safari and Mail don't have the huge security holes that Internet Explorer and Outlook Express do.
I'm frankly amazed that so many people are disputing this. It's like Windows is their whole world, and they cannot wrap their brains around the concept that something else might be better in terms of installation.
So now running around and blowing shit up on the computer is "art"?
the problem is, pretty much everyone buys a PC as an plug and play appliance with an OEM Windows install.
Yes, some people do buy a new Dell and never install/recover/upgrade for two to three years when they buy another new Dell. But they certainly are NOT "pretty much everyone."
But regardless, I *STILL* have a lot of work ahead of me, even with an OEM preinstall. If you're smart, that is. If you're the kind of person who is perfectly content with an OEM preinstall, then you won't care if you have no firewall, sixty open ports, a single login which is a password-less administrator account, default email and browser applications which are highly insecure malware vectors, etc., etc.
My point is, after you turn on a brand new Mac, you're done.
99.9% of all Mac users never upgrade their hardware or operating system
Horse hockey! Everyone I know with a Mac has upgraded to Tiger WITHOUT throwing away their system and buying a new one. In fact, MANY Windows users I know who were using 98 before XP managed to upgrade as well. While it is much more annoying under Windows, it is still not so annoying that people will throw away their hardware to avoid it.
Gentle readers: just because something doesn't seem useful or make sense to you does not mean that it is categorically useless or senseless for everyone.
Oh wow! My head is reeling in the implication of your wisdom! My whole world view is turning upside down. Must... fight... sanity...
A friend of mine uses Photoshop "batch" processing, and he is always cursing it. It is very slow, image DPIs are frequently messed up, and if the entire process frequently implodes if he puts any other load on the system. I showed him how to do the same thing in ImageMagick in only five minutes with flawless results. He said it was "too difficult". It takes him about a week to get a camera load of images up on the web. It takes me an hour, with 55 minutes of that hour being typing in the captions. Sigh.
Okay, you've caught me on the driver issue. That is, as long as you never upgrade your hardware or software. But what will you do when Vista comes out? I have a very hard time believing XP users will do the same and throw out their OEM systems when Vista arrives. Comparing the actual Windows installer to the actual OSX installer *IS* a fair comparison.
But in the interest of multiculturalism, fairness, and not hurting your feelings, I'll concede that one to you. Now what about my other points?
As a new (and still part-time) Mac user, I independently discovered the "it just works" thing about the Mac. I'm primarily a FreeBSD user, so I can look at this from a somewhat neutral perspective.
When I am finished installing Windows, I still have a lot of work left ahead of me. I need to grab a couple of manufacturer's CDs to install drivers, one of which is required in my case to have a screen resolution higher than 640x480 VGA. I double check my hardware manager that all hardware conflicts are resolved. Then I set up the network. Then I turn on firewall, turn off some ports, and generally correct several braindead default settings. Then I download updates.
Under the Mac, the only additional thing I need to so is download updates. The hardware already works. The network already works. The firewall is already on. Default system settings are already appropriate.
The trends say otherwise. Glenn Reynold's new book, "An Army of Davids", is a good treatment of the subject. Here's my take:
The Industrial Revolution was characterized by economies of scale. Large steam engines, huge factories, massive capital expenditures, etc. But this is the Information Age, which doesn't need economies of scale. Small is better, and the individual is rising in importance. The two centuries that gave us collectivism, groupthink and the centralization, are giving way to a time of individualism and decentralization.
Software is an example. The old industrialist model of software development is to have rows and rows of programmers sitting in cubicles, each working on one small part of the whole. The model promotes outsourcing to the cheapest possible programmer with the required skillset. But that model is rapidly fading away, to be replaced with small teams and distributed collaboration. In contrast to the article's premise, innovation in software is routinely performed by individuals.
What's your point? Free Software *IS* thriving, without a tax to fund it.
This is all Bush's fault! I know it!
Now someone mod me up for parroting the Slashdot party line...