Re:License wars are a waste of energy
on
KDE Strikes Back
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· Score: 2
As a consultant I can tell you that these issues seem rediculous and petty to outsiders.
Amen brother! I tried to explain some of this to my best friend, and he ended up confused. "So my SuSE is all under this GPL then?" No! Some of it is and some of it isn't. "So it's just KDE that's not under the GPL?" Aaargh!
Then I tried explaining the KDE/Debian issue to a lawyer friend. He ended up even more confused. He understood the copyleft concept just fine, so he wasn't a total dunce. But his conclusion was that we were arguing over which end of the egg to open.
This is insightful, but it ignores one crucial thing. Economic systems are not the same as political systems (although some do pair better than others).
I want liberty. Take the government out of the economy, and I will be happy with the result, be it either anarcho-capitalism or anarcho-socialism. Either is preferable to the government controlled corporatism of today. I am against tyranny, be it monarchal tyranny, or democratic tyranny.
Oh? I'm sure the people of Sweden (you know that northern european social democracy with the highest standard of living in the world) might argue that with you.
Sweden is a capitalist nation. Look up capitalist in the dictionary if you don't believe me.
It is morally bankrupt to let %30 percent of your nations children grow up in poverty when more socialist systems
You need to define this "poverty" that you talk about. If you mean that %30 percent of the US children are destitute, you are flat wrong. If, on the other hand, you mean that %30 of US children are in the bottom third of families ranked by income, you might possibly be correct. So what? That Sweden has only a few digits in the lower third of incomes means that there is massive forced restristribution of earned income in Sweden.
All so the rich can stay massively wealthy while holding out the carrot of prosperity to the ill educated masses of poor they produce.
I would say that this is an indictment againt the US educational system, which is already a very socialized institution mandated for every US child. If the chilren of the US are ill educated, then I can only conclude that the US experiment in socialized education has failed, and it's time to give educational vouchers and tax credits a chance.
I've said it before, and I will again, that cannot be allowed to happen.
Well then, who will not *allow* it? Are you proposing a tyrant and dictator to ensure that people do not freely vote for Bush? Suddenly your post makes Nader all that more palatable in comparison. I will not vote for Bush, but I will defend to the death the right of any US citizen to vote for him.
My conscience doesn't like voting for Gore, but it likes Bush being elected even less.
If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for an evil. I acceed that you have the right to vote for evil people, but I wish you would be honest and open about it, and proudly proclaim the fact that you will vote for someone whom you clearly consider evil.
Your conscience might tolerate electing evil, mine will not.
Somewhen in the past fifty years freedom has become confused with democracy. Certainly it is one facilitator of freedom, giving the common man the franchise. But it is not sufficient for freedom, nor is it really necessary. Hitler was elected into office by a majority of adult voters. Need I say more?
What is necessary for freedom is a limit on government. Where and how this limit is to be drawn pretty much defines political parties. A balance needs to be made between a government with too little power and one with too much.
It doesn't much matter to me if technology aids democracy. History has shown that a government by the people can be every bit as corrupt as a government by an oligarch or monarch. What I want is technology that aids freedom. I want technology that makes me independent of the need for government, and technology that can protect me from abuse of government.
"So what are you going to do if it turns out you're wrong and catastrophe ensues?"
I am not stopping you from eating organic breakfast cereals or riding a bicycle to work or donating to Nature Conservancy to buy up land or wearing cotton shirts instead of sythetic. I am imposing nothing on you. Yet you reciprocate by advocating increased taxation, lobbying to ban my vehicles, deride me for not voting for your candiate despite the fact that every single one of his non-environmental policies are tyrannical, and even spit at my feet when I inadvertantly toss an empty coke can into a waste basket. And to top things off you accuse me of killing fish and poisoning streams.
I brought up the whole thermometer thing because a lot of city folk will see dramatic temperature increases in their area over the past few decades or more. I have had several people tell me that global warming is a fact because the Mountain View, CA temperatures have steadily risen, as recorded at Moffet AFB. Any idiot can stand at Moffet, take a look around and see what the cause is. A new megapolis and a twice a day traffic jam on 101 just a few hundred yards away.
Is the mean temperature of the deep oceans increasing? Probably. But that's to be expected with or without the actions of mankind. Warm and cool climates come in cycles. One thousand years ago we had a slightly warmer climate that caused Greenland to get it's name. Five hundred years ago we had a mini-ice age which caused the deforestation of Great Britain as people struggled to survive. The nature of climatology is change.
I am not against the environment. No one wants a dirty planet, dirty air or dirty water. No one. It is always sensible to reduce pollution and waste. It is always sensible to recycle. What I am against is the fear mongering of the doom-and-gloomers, whose solutions always involve tyranny.
I bow humbly before your majestic and unassailable arguments. Your logic has dumbfounded me. Let me bask in the glory of your mental acumen. I grovel beneath thee and beg of your mercy not to smite me with your keen wit and insight.
Some of us have *tiny* clues. Like the meteorologist that explained why the 20st century was warmer than the 19th, particulularly after 1950. Think about how you got a temperature reading in 1880 and one in 2000. Meteorological stations (the weather guages) in the 19th century were boxes stuck out on poles in the middle of a field. Meteorological stations in the 21st century are boxes stuck out on poles in the middle of an airport tarmac.
Cities are always warmer than the rural country side. Airport tarmacs are warmer than cow pastures. Comparing todays temperature data with that of the 19th century is scientifically invalid. Climatologists have to use that error-prone data because they have no other. And one of them who are honest will admit that their results are inaccurate.
And then you have that little statistic about "Each year of this decade has been one of the top 15 warmest of the century." The pessimist will see this as a sure sign that SUV's and hairspray are destroying the world. The realist will understand that this is predicted by the oldest and widest-held climatalogical model: the climate has cycles. Only 500 to 1000 years ago there was a mini iceage. 10,000 years ago there was a major iceage, and scandinavia is still rising a couple of centimeters each years because it is no longer weighed down by greenland-like ice sheet.
Or what about the ozone hole? Only in the past few decades have we been able to even detect an ozone hole over the antarctic. We had no theory to explain it in 1985. And we have no theory today to explain why it subsequently shrunk. Perhaps the polar ozone holes also follow a climatic cycle? Perhaps there's was an ozone hole every fifty years and we just don't know it?
Excuse me for not taking this news of doom and gloom with religious certainty. Yes, I am a skeptic of scientific reporting. All I know for sure is that the Mount Pinatubo eruption last decade released more CO2 into the atmosphere in one week then the entire history of human industry. Maybe, just maybe, if there really is some global warming, it is due to that volcano rather than the fact that I don't carpool.
When you compile KDE, you also include some code from the Qt header files (macros, types, etc.) so a part of the KDE binaries is derived from Qt. This code is not compatible with the GPL, which implies that you are not allowed to re-distribute it in a GPL'ed package.
The same holds true for any license. Why then are some GPL applications allowed to link to non-GPL libraries but KDE is not? Why can XEmacs link to Motif and no one cares? Why can gcc link with proprietary Solaris libraries and no one cares? Because these libraries came with the OS or compiler or major components of the system. Well guess what? Qt comes with the OS of most Linux and BSD distributions. The exeption clause does not specify that the component must be an OS requirement, or be used by a certain number of packages, or be granted an imprimatur by Debian or the FSF, before it gets the exception. All it says is that stuff that comes with your distribution is excepted. And even if it wasn't, all you would need to do is distribute the source code. And guess what? The Qt source code is distributed.
The reason that Sun and GNU can't get their C++ object files compatible is not the fault of C++, but rather the fault of Sun and GNU. It's doubly ironic that even GNU decides to break compatibility between versions.
"Your freedom to swing your fist ends when it reaches my personal space."
This is a childish and stupid phrase, commonly perpepuated by statist high school civics teachers.
Freedom can mean a lot of things, but in the sense you are using it, it means liberty. And liberty is not nihilism. The fact that you are not allowed to hit my nose in no way lessens the amount of liberty you possess. It's easiest to think of it in terms of domains or spheres of control. You can do absolutely whatever you want within your own domain. It is only when you cross over into someone else's domain that you suddenly lose the right of nihilism. You may do whatever you want with your own property, including your body, your time, your labor, your house, your code, etc. But you have no rights to my body, my time, my labor, my house, and my source code.
By releasing my software under an Free or Open Source license, I am giving you permission to enter my domain and do stuff. It's as if I gave you the keys to my house. BSD licensed software does not give you any more freedom than GPL software does, nor does the GPL take away more rights than the BSD license does. The only difference is the amount of permissions granted. You have an equal amount of liberty using BSD code, GPL code or even proprietary code.
Of course, if copyrights are not valid law and software is not legitimage property, then certainly the GPL is more tyrannical and statist than the BSD license. But I don't wish to get into copyrights at this time. I'm assuming that those developers, including RMS, who copyright their own works believe that source code is in some way property. By saying what I can or cannot do with the software you have created, you are asserting ownership rights over it.
You remind me of the folks that claim that they aren't truly free until they can sell themselves into slavery.
But that is exactly what you do each and every day of your life. You sell youself to your employer for a certain amount of time each day. "But that's not slavery!" you cry. Of course not. It is absolutely impossible for a free man to sell himself into slavery. But it is possible for him to indenture himself for a period of time, such as eight hours each day to his employer.
But this is completely beside the point. I'm wondering why you compared selling oneself into slavery with the BSD license? Licenses do not grant liberty (you're born with it instead). The "freedom" of Free Software has absolutely nothing to do with liberty or freedom of speech or anything else like that. You already have free speech. Software patents aside (which are truly onerous), there is no law, including copyright law, that prevents you from creating and distributing your own software creations. All software licenses do is grant the user a set of permissions with regards to the licensor's property.
If you're looking for a license to set you free, loose you from bondage, or unshackle you from domination and slavery, you've come to the wrong place.
"Qt is not free as in speech. If the Gnome team at Sun or HP or otherwise figure out something needed in GTK, they can code it up themselves and submit the patch. If it doesn't get accepted, they can implement the changes as a separate library within the Gnome project."
Oh, the outright and blatant FUD being passed here is simply amazing. Do you even know what free speech even is? The Q Public License is free for free software and proprietary for proprietary software. By wanting Qt to be free for your proprietary software (I guess this is what you want), you are in essence saying "I want the right of free speech so that I can deny others their right of free speech".
Qt is 100% Free Software as previously stated by Richard Stallman. It meets each and every one of his four definitions of Free Software. Qt is also 100% Open Source Software and meets each and every one of the 10 OSD definitions. If Qt is not free speech, than neither is the GTK.
One of the sticking points of QPL that the GPL advocates can't stand is the clause that requires modifications to be submitted as patches. Yet right here the author is saying that Sun can submit a patch for GTK. Why is it so onerous to submit a patch for Qt, but perfectly normal to submit one to GTK?
Sure they could submit changes to Qt, but why give code to a company that might later charge for it?
First of all, the irony is that the "they" that you are talking about is Sun and HP! Second, and most important, your modification patches (the code that you are giving to Trolltech) does not have to be under the QPL. You can put these modifications under the GPL, the BSD or any other open source software license you wish. In case you dispute this, clause 3a of the QPL only forbids changing the license on Qt, and clause 3b says you may, but don't have to, use the QPL for the modification.
Moreover, what would stop Troll Tech from charging for Qt in the future?
Their license? Just a wild guess...
As it stands, you currently have the legal right to use and distribute Qt 1x, and the legal right to use, distribute and modify Qt 2x. They cannot now or in the future take away these rights. If they should come out with a Qt 3.x that does not have these permissions, you can *still* use Qt 1x and 2x. Arguing that Trolltech might do this is stupid. The FSF might also do this for the applications that they hold copyright to. For either the FSF or Trolltech to do this is so remote that it's a waste of neurotransmitters thinking about.
All those who think that these commercial offerings will subvert Gnome into some corporate whipping boy have forgotten the Linux philosphy - choice.
Except that this won't be Linux. It will be Solaris and HPUX and AIX. This isn't some personal computer next to the refrigerator that you can install whatever desktop or wm you like. This will be a corporate desktop and you will have to go crawling on your hands and knees to the IT masters begging for permission to use WindowMaker, FVWM or (gasp) KDE.
When I found a few sufficients megabytes that were not under IT control, I quickly installed WindowMaker so that I didn't have to run the dreaded, ugly and slow CDE at work. Others in my department did the same with IceWM and KDE. It would be especially ironic if we had to continue this sneaking around just for the *freedom* to use something other than GNOME.
"Damn un-american commie pinkoes! Think they're too good for GNOME! We'll show them!"
Don't forget which side start the dissing first. If you don't have long term memory, start checking out the old KDE mailing lists to find posts by Miguel. Kurt may be perpetuating an unjustifiable flamefest, but he was hardly the person who started it.
If you spent any time in the OSDN booth at LWCE, you found a lot of Andover employees and volunteers talking about the "death of KDE" with smiles on their faces. This was especially ironic since those folks in the FSF, GNOME and KDE booths seemed to get along quite well.
Please let me know what code you have written, if any, so THAT I WON'T USE IT! The last thing I need is a program that will only run on the developer's computer. Slightly less annoying, but no less onerous are those programs written for 256Meg, 800Mhz and 32bit color. There's too many programs like that now as it is, which is why I like that status indicator.
So your CPU is bigger than mine. BFD. At least I can pee around a pillar and you can't.
I'm not interested in getting in a discussion of the bona-fide definition of bona-fide fascism
Then don't use the word "fascism" if you don't mean it. You may not be interested in the proper definition of fascism, but rational discourse demands it. If you can assign any definition to any word, you might as well have accused the US of fredism as fascism, because the meaning could have been the same. If you need help with the definition, go find a dictionary.
I merely meant to point out that there were a good number of people who would question the r-rating exclusion on grounds of freedom.
Fair enough. But relevance does this have to your friends calling the US fascist? They would be pissed if I called Europe communist or South America a quilt of petty dictators. Why should I not get angry when they cast similar aspersions on my country.
I never said they didn't. However, the original post said that judges were elected in the US, which is not 100% accurate. I was just trying to correct a mis-assumption. Remember, the US is not the same as Canada!
I KNOW real issues were being addressed, but the media chooses not to cover it
Apparently, neither do the protestors! I know what the Million Man March was about, and what the Million Mom March was about, and even what the ragtag Operation rescue bunches on the street corners are about, but near as I can figure the protestors just want to protest for the sake of protesting.
Case in point: Emmett's story about how he provoked a cop and got arrested. Not once in his account did he mention why he was protesting or what he was protesting about. Yesterday at LWCE he was bragging to people how he got arrested, but he still didn't state why he was protesting.
I have a bunch of European and South American friends who think its a fairly good indication of the repressive, fascist state of America.
It must be nice living in one of those countries that are absolutely perfect. If you do a bit of research (you do know how, don't you?) you will find that they only bona-fide fascist states have been in Europe and South America.
At least in the Great State of California, judges are appointed. They have to come up for voter approval every so often sure, but they get their first term through the good graces of the politicians, and they have no opposition in their reelections/confirmations. Sherrifs are elected though, which makes the position a politicking office. They should be similar to the judges.
Re:Why DELL linux systems cost more
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LinuxWorld
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· Score: 2
"I'd guess that the linux systems cost more because of the R&D costs involved"
What the questioneer at the con didn't realize, even though Michael attempted to explain it, is that it really does cost them more to ship a Linux Dell computer than a Windows Dell computer.
The reason why is simple. Ry4an explained it, but I'll rehash for the hard of hearing. Economy of scale. When you build 10,000 identical windows machines and 100 linux machines per day, the windows machines will each be cheaper to produce. Further, even the custom order machines get the same economy of scale, since creating 1000 identical custom orders for a windows machine still has a lower per-unit production cost than creating 10 identical custom orders for a linux machine.
The questioneer called the extra $75 a "tax". If he would look this word up in a dictionary, he'll see that a tax is an involuntary obligation to a government or liege. If you don't want to spend $2000 + $75 for Linux Dell system, you have all the freedom in the world to buy a $2000 Windows Dell system and install Linux yourself, or even buy a $3000 VALinux system if you don't want to install the OS yourself.
p.s. I do want to comment on another question asked of Michael Dell, and that is "aren't you just using Linux to sell more hardware?" The answer is of course, YES! Dell is a hardware company! Sheesh...
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As a consultant I can tell you that these issues seem rediculous and petty to outsiders.
Amen brother! I tried to explain some of this to my best friend, and he ended up confused. "So my SuSE is all under this GPL then?" No! Some of it is and some of it isn't. "So it's just KDE that's not under the GPL?" Aaargh!
Then I tried explaining the KDE/Debian issue to a lawyer friend. He ended up even more confused. He understood the copyleft concept just fine, so he wasn't a total dunce. But his conclusion was that we were arguing over which end of the egg to open.
This is insightful, but it ignores one crucial thing. Economic systems are not the same as political systems (although some do pair better than others).
I want liberty. Take the government out of the economy, and I will be happy with the result, be it either anarcho-capitalism or anarcho-socialism. Either is preferable to the government controlled corporatism of today. I am against tyranny, be it monarchal tyranny, or democratic tyranny.
Oh? I'm sure the people of Sweden (you know that northern european social democracy with the highest standard of living in the world) might argue that with you.
Sweden is a capitalist nation. Look up capitalist in the dictionary if you don't believe me.
It is morally bankrupt to let %30 percent of your nations children grow up in poverty when more socialist systems
You need to define this "poverty" that you talk about. If you mean that %30 percent of the US children are destitute, you are flat wrong. If, on the other hand, you mean that %30 of US children are in the bottom third of families ranked by income, you might possibly be correct. So what? That Sweden has only a few digits in the lower third of incomes means that there is massive forced restristribution of earned income in Sweden.
All so the rich can stay massively wealthy while holding out the carrot of prosperity to the ill educated masses of poor they produce.
I would say that this is an indictment againt the US educational system, which is already a very socialized institution mandated for every US child. If the chilren of the US are ill educated, then I can only conclude that the US experiment in socialized education has failed, and it's time to give educational vouchers and tax credits a chance.
I've said it before, and I will again, that cannot be allowed to happen.
Well then, who will not *allow* it? Are you proposing a tyrant and dictator to ensure that people do not freely vote for Bush? Suddenly your post makes Nader all that more palatable in comparison. I will not vote for Bush, but I will defend to the death the right of any US citizen to vote for him.
My conscience doesn't like voting for Gore, but it likes Bush being elected even less.
If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for an evil. I acceed that you have the right to vote for evil people, but I wish you would be honest and open about it, and proudly proclaim the fact that you will vote for someone whom you clearly consider evil.
Your conscience might tolerate electing evil, mine will not.
Somewhen in the past fifty years freedom has become confused with democracy. Certainly it is one facilitator of freedom, giving the common man the franchise. But it is not sufficient for freedom, nor is it really necessary. Hitler was elected into office by a majority of adult voters. Need I say more?
What is necessary for freedom is a limit on government. Where and how this limit is to be drawn pretty much defines political parties. A balance needs to be made between a government with too little power and one with too much.
It doesn't much matter to me if technology aids democracy. History has shown that a government by the people can be every bit as corrupt as a government by an oligarch or monarch. What I want is technology that aids freedom. I want technology that makes me independent of the need for government, and technology that can protect me from abuse of government.
So what degree does Carl Sagan, who was one of the signatories, have in relation to the environment? I somehow thought he was an astronomer.
"So what are you going to do if it turns out you're wrong and catastrophe ensues?"
I am not stopping you from eating organic breakfast cereals or riding a bicycle to work or donating to Nature Conservancy to buy up land or wearing cotton shirts instead of sythetic. I am imposing nothing on you. Yet you reciprocate by advocating increased taxation, lobbying to ban my vehicles, deride me for not voting for your candiate despite the fact that every single one of his non-environmental policies are tyrannical, and even spit at my feet when I inadvertantly toss an empty coke can into a waste basket. And to top things off you accuse me of killing fish and poisoning streams.
I brought up the whole thermometer thing because a lot of city folk will see dramatic temperature increases in their area over the past few decades or more. I have had several people tell me that global warming is a fact because the Mountain View, CA temperatures have steadily risen, as recorded at Moffet AFB. Any idiot can stand at Moffet, take a look around and see what the cause is. A new megapolis and a twice a day traffic jam on 101 just a few hundred yards away.
Is the mean temperature of the deep oceans increasing? Probably. But that's to be expected with or without the actions of mankind. Warm and cool climates come in cycles. One thousand years ago we had a slightly warmer climate that caused Greenland to get it's name. Five hundred years ago we had a mini-ice age which caused the deforestation of Great Britain as people struggled to survive. The nature of climatology is change.
I am not against the environment. No one wants a dirty planet, dirty air or dirty water. No one. It is always sensible to reduce pollution and waste. It is always sensible to recycle. What I am against is the fear mongering of the doom-and-gloomers, whose solutions always involve tyranny.
Come back after you learn to read.
I bow humbly before your majestic and unassailable arguments. Your logic has dumbfounded me. Let me bask in the glory of your mental acumen. I grovel beneath thee and beg of your mercy not to smite me with your keen wit and insight.
...a document which 1,575 of the world's scientists, including more than half of all living Nobel prize winers
Gee! More than half of all Nobel prize winners are climatologists! I find that absolutely fascinating...
We are pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. THIS WARMS THE ATMOSPHERE UP by trapping heat from the sun.
More CO2 was emitted from the Mount Pinatubo eruption than was emitted by the entire history of human industry.
Some of us have *tiny* clues. Like the meteorologist that explained why the 20st century was warmer than the 19th, particulularly after 1950. Think about how you got a temperature reading in 1880 and one in 2000. Meteorological stations (the weather guages) in the 19th century were boxes stuck out on poles in the middle of a field. Meteorological stations in the 21st century are boxes stuck out on poles in the middle of an airport tarmac.
Cities are always warmer than the rural country side. Airport tarmacs are warmer than cow pastures. Comparing todays temperature data with that of the 19th century is scientifically invalid. Climatologists have to use that error-prone data because they have no other. And one of them who are honest will admit that their results are inaccurate.
And then you have that little statistic about "Each year of this decade has been one of the top 15 warmest of the century." The pessimist will see this as a sure sign that SUV's and hairspray are destroying the world. The realist will understand that this is predicted by the oldest and widest-held climatalogical model: the climate has cycles. Only 500 to 1000 years ago there was a mini iceage. 10,000 years ago there was a major iceage, and scandinavia is still rising a couple of centimeters each years because it is no longer weighed down by greenland-like ice sheet.
Or what about the ozone hole? Only in the past few decades have we been able to even detect an ozone hole over the antarctic. We had no theory to explain it in 1985. And we have no theory today to explain why it subsequently shrunk. Perhaps the polar ozone holes also follow a climatic cycle? Perhaps there's was an ozone hole every fifty years and we just don't know it?
Excuse me for not taking this news of doom and gloom with religious certainty. Yes, I am a skeptic of scientific reporting. All I know for sure is that the Mount Pinatubo eruption last decade released more CO2 into the atmosphere in one week then the entire history of human industry. Maybe, just maybe, if there really is some global warming, it is due to that volcano rather than the fact that I don't carpool.
When you compile KDE, you also include some code from the Qt header files (macros, types, etc.) so a part of the KDE binaries is derived from Qt. This code is not compatible with the GPL, which implies that you are not allowed to re-distribute it in a GPL'ed package.
The same holds true for any license. Why then are some GPL applications allowed to link to non-GPL libraries but KDE is not? Why can XEmacs link to Motif and no one cares? Why can gcc link with proprietary Solaris libraries and no one cares? Because these libraries came with the OS or compiler or major components of the system. Well guess what? Qt comes with the OS of most Linux and BSD distributions. The exeption clause does not specify that the component must be an OS requirement, or be used by a certain number of packages, or be granted an imprimatur by Debian or the FSF, before it gets the exception. All it says is that stuff that comes with your distribution is excepted. And even if it wasn't, all you would need to do is distribute the source code. And guess what? The Qt source code is distributed.
The reason that Sun and GNU can't get their C++ object files compatible is not the fault of C++, but rather the fault of Sun and GNU. It's doubly ironic that even GNU decides to break compatibility between versions.
"Your freedom to swing your fist ends when it reaches my personal space."
This is a childish and stupid phrase, commonly perpepuated by statist high school civics teachers.
Freedom can mean a lot of things, but in the sense you are using it, it means liberty. And liberty is not nihilism. The fact that you are not allowed to hit my nose in no way lessens the amount of liberty you possess. It's easiest to think of it in terms of domains or spheres of control. You can do absolutely whatever you want within your own domain. It is only when you cross over into someone else's domain that you suddenly lose the right of nihilism. You may do whatever you want with your own property, including your body, your time, your labor, your house, your code, etc. But you have no rights to my body, my time, my labor, my house, and my source code.
By releasing my software under an Free or Open Source license, I am giving you permission to enter my domain and do stuff. It's as if I gave you the keys to my house. BSD licensed software does not give you any more freedom than GPL software does, nor does the GPL take away more rights than the BSD license does. The only difference is the amount of permissions granted. You have an equal amount of liberty using BSD code, GPL code or even proprietary code.
Of course, if copyrights are not valid law and software is not legitimage property, then certainly the GPL is more tyrannical and statist than the BSD license. But I don't wish to get into copyrights at this time. I'm assuming that those developers, including RMS, who copyright their own works believe that source code is in some way property. By saying what I can or cannot do with the software you have created, you are asserting ownership rights over it.
You remind me of the folks that claim that they aren't truly free until they can sell themselves into slavery.
But that is exactly what you do each and every day of your life. You sell youself to your employer for a certain amount of time each day. "But that's not slavery!" you cry. Of course not. It is absolutely impossible for a free man to sell himself into slavery. But it is possible for him to indenture himself for a period of time, such as eight hours each day to his employer.
But this is completely beside the point. I'm wondering why you compared selling oneself into slavery with the BSD license? Licenses do not grant liberty (you're born with it instead). The "freedom" of Free Software has absolutely nothing to do with liberty or freedom of speech or anything else like that. You already have free speech. Software patents aside (which are truly onerous), there is no law, including copyright law, that prevents you from creating and distributing your own software creations. All software licenses do is grant the user a set of permissions with regards to the licensor's property.
If you're looking for a license to set you free, loose you from bondage, or unshackle you from domination and slavery, you've come to the wrong place.
"Qt is not free as in speech. If the Gnome team at Sun or HP or otherwise figure out something needed in GTK, they can code it up themselves and submit the patch. If it doesn't get accepted, they can implement the changes as a separate library within the Gnome project."
Oh, the outright and blatant FUD being passed here is simply amazing. Do you even know what free speech even is? The Q Public License is free for free software and proprietary for proprietary software. By wanting Qt to be free for your proprietary software (I guess this is what you want), you are in essence saying "I want the right of free speech so that I can deny others their right of free speech".
Qt is 100% Free Software as previously stated by Richard Stallman. It meets each and every one of his four definitions of Free Software. Qt is also 100% Open Source Software and meets each and every one of the 10 OSD definitions. If Qt is not free speech, than neither is the GTK.
One of the sticking points of QPL that the GPL advocates can't stand is the clause that requires modifications to be submitted as patches. Yet right here the author is saying that Sun can submit a patch for GTK. Why is it so onerous to submit a patch for Qt, but perfectly normal to submit one to GTK?
Sure they could submit changes to Qt, but why give code to a company that might later charge for it?
First of all, the irony is that the "they" that you are talking about is Sun and HP! Second, and most important, your modification patches (the code that you are giving to Trolltech) does not have to be under the QPL. You can put these modifications under the GPL, the BSD or any other open source software license you wish. In case you dispute this, clause 3a of the QPL only forbids changing the license on Qt, and clause 3b says you may, but don't have to, use the QPL for the modification.
Moreover, what would stop Troll Tech from charging for Qt in the future?
Their license? Just a wild guess...
As it stands, you currently have the legal right to use and distribute Qt 1x, and the legal right to use, distribute and modify Qt 2x. They cannot now or in the future take away these rights. If they should come out with a Qt 3.x that does not have these permissions, you can *still* use Qt 1x and 2x. Arguing that Trolltech might do this is stupid. The FSF might also do this for the applications that they hold copyright to. For either the FSF or Trolltech to do this is so remote that it's a waste of neurotransmitters thinking about.
All those who think that these commercial offerings will subvert Gnome into some corporate whipping boy have forgotten the Linux philosphy - choice.
Except that this won't be Linux. It will be Solaris and HPUX and AIX. This isn't some personal computer next to the refrigerator that you can install whatever desktop or wm you like. This will be a corporate desktop and you will have to go crawling on your hands and knees to the IT masters begging for permission to use WindowMaker, FVWM or (gasp) KDE.
When I found a few sufficients megabytes that were not under IT control, I quickly installed WindowMaker so that I didn't have to run the dreaded, ugly and slow CDE at work. Others in my department did the same with IceWM and KDE. It would be especially ironic if we had to continue this sneaking around just for the *freedom* to use something other than GNOME.
"Damn un-american commie pinkoes! Think they're too good for GNOME! We'll show them!"
Don't forget which side start the dissing first. If you don't have long term memory, start checking out the old KDE mailing lists to find posts by Miguel. Kurt may be perpetuating an unjustifiable flamefest, but he was hardly the person who started it.
If you spent any time in the OSDN booth at LWCE, you found a lot of Andover employees and volunteers talking about the "death of KDE" with smiles on their faces. This was especially ironic since those folks in the FSF, GNOME and KDE booths seemed to get along quite well.
Please let me know what code you have written, if any, so THAT I WON'T USE IT! The last thing I need is a program that will only run on the developer's computer. Slightly less annoying, but no less onerous are those programs written for 256Meg, 800Mhz and 32bit color. There's too many programs like that now as it is, which is why I like that status indicator.
So your CPU is bigger than mine. BFD. At least I can pee around a pillar and you can't.
I'm not interested in getting in a discussion of the bona-fide definition of bona-fide fascism
Then don't use the word "fascism" if you don't mean it. You may not be interested in the proper definition of fascism, but rational discourse demands it. If you can assign any definition to any word, you might as well have accused the US of fredism as fascism, because the meaning could have been the same. If you need help with the definition, go find a dictionary.
I merely meant to point out that there were a good number of people who would question the r-rating exclusion on grounds of freedom.
Fair enough. But relevance does this have to your friends calling the US fascist? They would be pissed if I called Europe communist or South America a quilt of petty dictators. Why should I not get angry when they cast similar aspersions on my country.
No, they appoint their judges in Canada.
I never said they didn't. However, the original post said that judges were elected in the US, which is not 100% accurate. I was just trying to correct a mis-assumption. Remember, the US is not the same as Canada!
I KNOW real issues were being addressed, but the media chooses not to cover it
Apparently, neither do the protestors! I know what the Million Man March was about, and what the Million Mom March was about, and even what the ragtag Operation rescue bunches on the street corners are about, but near as I can figure the protestors just want to protest for the sake of protesting.
Case in point: Emmett's story about how he provoked a cop and got arrested. Not once in his account did he mention why he was protesting or what he was protesting about. Yesterday at LWCE he was bragging to people how he got arrested, but he still didn't state why he was protesting.
I have a bunch of European and South American friends who think its a fairly good indication of the repressive, fascist state of America.
It must be nice living in one of those countries that are absolutely perfect. If you do a bit of research (you do know how, don't you?) you will find that they only bona-fide fascist states have been in Europe and South America.
Did you know they appoint their judges and cops?
At least in the Great State of California, judges are appointed. They have to come up for voter approval every so often sure, but they get their first term through the good graces of the politicians, and they have no opposition in their reelections/confirmations. Sherrifs are elected though, which makes the position a politicking office. They should be similar to the judges.
"I'd guess that the linux systems cost more because of the R&D costs involved"
What the questioneer at the con didn't realize, even though Michael attempted to explain it, is that it really does cost them more to ship a Linux Dell computer than a Windows Dell computer.
The reason why is simple. Ry4an explained it, but I'll rehash for the hard of hearing. Economy of scale. When you build 10,000 identical windows machines and 100 linux machines per day, the windows machines will each be cheaper to produce. Further, even the custom order machines get the same economy of scale, since creating 1000 identical custom orders for a windows machine still has a lower per-unit production cost than creating 10 identical custom orders for a linux machine.
The questioneer called the extra $75 a "tax". If he would look this word up in a dictionary, he'll see that a tax is an involuntary obligation to a government or liege. If you don't want to spend $2000 + $75 for Linux Dell system, you have all the freedom in the world to buy a $2000 Windows Dell system and install Linux yourself, or even buy a $3000 VALinux system if you don't want to install the OS yourself.
p.s. I do want to comment on another question asked of Michael Dell, and that is "aren't you just using Linux to sell more hardware?" The answer is of course, YES! Dell is a hardware company! Sheesh...