If you're doubtful, maybe we could meet while the P100 is still in my possession and you could see for your own eyes.
You're assuming that a 3D accelerated card is accelerated in the absence of necessary hardware. But a Graphics Blaster Exxtreme (Permedia chip) under XFree86 3.3.5 does not have any acceleration software, so it acts as a generic SVGA. This will change with XFree86 4.0.
But I'm pretty sure why the P100 was faster. Windows has DirectX, direct hardware access to the video card. XFree86 does not. All rendering has to go through normal OS "channels". I tried out the Myth II demo under Linux using it's direct DGA mode and it rocked under on the K6-400. Either X or mesa is the bottleneck.
"What card do you have? OpenGL on Linux with a 3dfx or Matrox card is pretty good now."
What! Are you saying I must have only one of two cards in order to use OpenGL? I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable. I have a Creative Graphics Blaster Exxtreme. I will have hardware 3D acceleration in Xfree86 4.0, but not having the support now, I am keenly aware of those who won't have it.
One of the hallmarks of Linux is that you can get decent performance out of obsolete hardware. I reject the premise that people need to upgrade their hardware every year just to keep up with ten year old standards.
To reiterate, a P100 and SVGA 1Meg video memory under Windows or OS/2 has better OpenGL performance than a K6-400 with 3Dnow, a GB Exxtreme and 8Megs of video memory on Linux.
"All over the Net, communities confront the same choice: freedom or civility.
Let he who dare speak within this forum called internet look after his own defense. For in this land we are all sovereign. The roses herein bear thorns and the daffodils have bees, and we will not be his gardener. The stings and slights that come his way are for him to ward off as best he can. But if he deigns to replace our liberties with his mode of gentility, he will find us a ruthless enemy that will brook no king above us.
"My question is; why is SGI persuing a different approach now?"
I don't know the exact approach SGI is pursuing, but all the other approaches are based on hardware. I am hoping that this project will finally give us a decent software based OpenGL for Linux.
Under Windows, OS/2 or BeOS, OpenGL performs satisfactorily with a generic SVGA card with no acceleration. Under Linux, you need a specific card to get anything that even comes close. Right now, I have a 3D OpenGL accelerated card, but OpenGL is useless under Linux.
Re:Pedantic nitpick...: Clauses may not be needed.
on
Hole in GNU GPL?
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· Score: 2
"Few people (even licensors) recognize this, so your statement is all too commonly seen."
I'll take as an example the linux kernel. Although the package as a whole is licensed under the GPL+exception, a few of the source files are licensed under the BSD (last time I looked). That's because Linus is not relicensing that code, he is just using it per the BSDL. Nothing at all is stopping anyone from taking those files and redistributing them separately from linux
However, the converse is not allowed under the GPL. You cannot take a GPL source file and include it with a BSDL project, even if there are no modifications. It's a one-way street.
Re:Free Software != Free Speech
on
Free Be
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· Score: 3
"...Open Source (truly free)..."
Very interesting, you use of the word "truly" as if it were an adjective whose purpose were to clarify the meaning of "free". Sort of makes me heart go flutter.
Hallelujah! All this time we thunk we was free when truth was we was only falsely free. We never made a voluntary choice or decision of our own will until we chose GnewLinux.
"...seeing the guts of your system is a God given right."
Okay, we're talking natural and unalienable rights here, eh? Fine, I'll speak that language. If there is the supreme (god given) right to the source code, then proprietary software is a crime. So what do we do about this crime? Arrest Bill Gates and throw him in in jail? Violate his god given rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and post the Windows source code to the net? Violate his god given right to free speech and compell him to speak what you want him to? Put him in the stocks? Then do the same with every other developer with the temerity to keep their own source code private. Whoohoo! That sure does sound like freedom to me!
"...while also providing amateur assistance"
You cite this as a benefit of OSS? I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about amateurs tinkering with airtraffic control systems, embedded pacemaker software, and my antilock braking system on my car.
"What Be proposes is not freedom."
BFD. My freedom doesn't come in an eighty dollar shrinkwrapped box of Redhat. I don't need to download it. It's something I already have.
You, and many other people, are extremely confused as to the nature of the "free" in Free Software. It is not free speech. Free speech gives Bill Gates the right to create his software with or without revealing the source code. Deny him that right and you become an intolerable hypocrite.
Not every license has clauses limiting their contact with other licensed stuff, and you're right that the GPL is not the only one that does this (most don't though).
However I was replying to the statement that the GPL only kicks in when binaries are distributed. If the GPL were only there to keep the source code around, it wouldn't need pages of legalese to do that. Obviously there are a few more rules and requirements included.
If I understand correctly, the reason FreeBSD does not use DOS-Extended is because it's just that, DOS. BSD style slices may have been a great idea in the past, but new harddrives are large enough to hold multiple and complete operating systems. It's getting harder and harder to give each OS it's own primary partition under 1024 cylinders. But harddrives are also cheap enough to give each OS it's own drive (at Fry's yesterday there was a 4.5Gig drive cheaper than the Win98 upgrade).
I blew away Windows so that FreeBSD would have it's own harddrive, and I've not regretted it one bit:-)
"An entity can only violate the GPL by distributing binaries to GPL'd software without source code."
If only that were true! But alas, one can run afoul of the GPL in a myriad of subtle ways. Like adding restrictions. Like removing restrictions away. Like linking the binary to a non-GPL library. Like including non-GPL code in the source tree. Like adding a frontend to apt or distributing KDE.
The closed-sourcedness of Wordperfect is completely beside the point. There is no requirement that an application for Linux must be Open Source. I brought up Wordperfect as an example since it is a major application for Linux that has been around for a while.
But if we're going to rag on people just because they have closed source applications, that eliminates *every* Linux distribution. Let's not stop at Corel, let's condemn Redhat and SuSE for jumping on the bandwagon. Let's condemn Debian for sneaking in a nonfree directory. Let's condemn Slackware for having Netscape. Let's condemn everyone who doesn't agree with us 100%.
The start of that thread included the following statement: "a license is personal -- towards individuals only. Companies are not individuals and have no right as such."
Whoever (person or legal entity) that owns a copy of the software is the licensee. Your copy of gcc belongs to you and its license applies to you. However, ABC Corp also has a copy of gcc. That gcc's license applies to ABC Corp. When an ABC Corp employee is given a copy of modified-gcc, the modified-gcc is not being distributed, since it remains within ABC Corp. In the current legal situation that exists in the world today, I see no problem with companies keeping their modifications to themselves. As a case in point, it is apparently illegal to add a Qt front-end to GPL code. However, and RMS has said this, it is permissible to do so for your own private use. But is one breaking the law by giving this same modified code to one's parent, child or spouse? If it's okay to keep this modification secret and within the family, then what's the difference with ABC Corp keeping it within the private company network?
"Natural law gives rights and responsibilities to individuals; no group of individual, corporation, institution, or state, can claim any right, least these rights are the expression of individuals using their individual rights together."
I fully agree with these sentiments. However, they are not reflective of the current legal situation. Whether you like it or not, you have to live within reality. Maybe you can change it so that a future legal reality will be different, but for right now the law allows groups to be licensees.
"Are you allowed to modify the MFC and redistribute it under ANY license?"
No, which is why I prefer any Open Source license to Microsoft's EULA. However, there are many conditions where I am FREER with MFC than with a GPLd library. And one of these is a very common condition, that of writing an application.
If Microsoft says "you can do A but not B" and GNU says "you can do B but not A", then there will be instances where the GPL will be the more restrictive license.
"There is still the LGPL, whose use is discouraged by RMS, but is prefered by RMS to any other license, save the GPL, for libraries."
The contendor for my biggest beef with the GPL is the restriction against dynamically linking to non-GPL code. RMS is just plain wrong on this issue. It is at this point that the GPL escapes the bounds of polite society and starts sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, namely, other people's code. And this isn't just some petty gripe. The very desktop that I am using has been declared *illegal* by Redhat.
"What's wrong with a bit of Marxism, anyway? It sure makes programmming easier - which is what I care about."
With the MIT or BSD licenses, I can include the entire readable and understandable license at the top of each and every source file. I don't have to wonder if I'm going to be sued for using library A with library B. In short, since there are fewer restrictions with the BSD or MIT, programming is easier (unless you like the lack of choice inherent in marxism).
"Just don't try telling me on one hand that the GPL is evil because it forces people to give away their code, and then encourge people to licence under the BSD so the code can be "truly free"."
No one was calling the GPL evil (at least in this thread). But it's absolutely ludicrous to call the GPL more free than the BSDL on the fact that the GPL is more restrictive. And though it's not evil, it is questionable that the GPL requires its users to redistribute political propaganda.
But he did call for taxation on all software in order to fund free software. And he did call for the elimination of artistic rights.
No other faction of Free Software, or even commercial and proprietary software, has the temerity to *demand* what other developers do with their software.
I haven't used a huge variety of commercial libraries that include the source code, so I'll stick with one that everyone knows of, the MFC.
I can write an MFC application and license it under **ANY** license I choose, including GPL, BSD or public domain and I can freely redistribute the MFC dll's. Compared to the GPL, the MFC license is much, much freer for me to *use* in the way that libraries are used.
If a developer wishes to use the GPL for a library, then that is their right. But understand that by doing so, they deny the *use* of their library to everyone developing under a different license or using a non-GPL library.
Corel Linux, as well as other distros and projects, are trying to make their interfaces similar to Windows, as well as specifically targeting the Windows user. As long as that eases some of the newbie fears without compromising the power of Linux, then that's a Good Thing. However, it seems to me that at some point on the road to World Domination, a critical mass will be reached where a Windowish interface will be seen as passe and limiting. Where does Corel Linux fit into a future that is not dominated by Microsoft?
Several complaints of Corel jumping on the bandwagon. First of all, they've been on the wagon for quite some time now with Wordperfect and the Netwinder. But secondly, who cares?
Why should anyone get upset that someone is jumping on the bandwagon? This is Free Software. Jumping on the bandwagon is the whole point of Open Source. I don't see anything at all in the GPL, Artistic, BSD, MIT, QPL or MPL that requires someone to get the approval of some self-appointed community before they can use, distribute or modify the software.
"And seeing as freebsd ships with about 1/3rd of the installed applications its not surprising there are slightly less security anouncements"
And that right there is a huge advantage (and one that Slackware shares). Debian may come with thousands of packages, but they aren't the OS. In a lot of Linux distros, it's very hard to draw the line between the operating system and the optional packages. But with FreeBSD, the OS is the OS is the OS. Ports and packages are distinct.
No, I don't think it should all be BSD or MIT or whatever. You were making the argument that GPL was the single best license because of a single comparison with a bad license. It tried to illustrate the fallacious argument with an absurd comparison.
People should use whatever license they choose. Hopefully they would choose a license appropriate for their projects. It's not much skin off my back if they choose something I don't agree with. It's their life and I'll let them run it. Even if the choose a commercial license. Even if they choose the GPL for a library.
And as for the lack of chaffing under commercial licenses, re-read my post. No commercial license dictates what license you may or may not use.
Now they announce the 4.0 freeze just one week after I shelled out $39.95 for 3.4. I guess it's time to subscribe...
Anyway, for newbies to FreeBSD (and I am certainly still one of them), you will find that it is yet another Unix:-) It's pointless to ask if *BSD can do this, that or the other, because it can. The installation was very easy, and anyone who has ever done an old-fashioned Linux text-based install will have no problem. The disk partioning scheme is a bit different. FreeBSD will not use logical partitions, so don't expect to install it to hda8:-)
And one feature I exceedingly like is the size of FreeBSD. Like Slackware (my other OS), the core of FreeBSD is very small and minimal. You can install it in about 10 minutes. Unlike R*, D*, or S*, you don't have to wade through thousands of packages for a custom install. You can do that afterwards if you want. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but thousands of packages to choose from can be intimidating to newbies.
And it has a Linux compatibility package, so you can run those closed source Linux apps like Civ:CTP and WP8.
"However, I thought that people willing to contribute/take part of this contest should be warned that the code they submit might be made propietary by the organizer or someone else."
Of course we are aware of that! Do you think we are children unable to read the license for ourselves? We are adults and fully capable of deciding for ourselves what to do with our lives and our code.
"The GPL is shorter than most EULAs, and it only really places one restriction on the code; You can't take advantage of this community work unless you are willing to participate in the community by giving back."
Unfortunately, the legalese in the GPL creates some very problematic restrictions above and beyond "giving back" to the community. First of all, anything given back must also be GPL. Second, anything that dynamically links to a GPL library (remember, RMS doesn't want you to use the LGPL) must also be under the GPL, even if the code is 100% wholly your own.
"The GPL is far less restrictive than any commercial license with which I'm familiar."
So what? Khruschev was less restrictive than Stalin, but what difference does that make. However, a commercial license does have one huge advantage over the GPL: no commercial library that I am aware of tells the developer what license they must use.
"Now we can see the philosophy of some of those who support other "free" licenses."
I seem to recall the original post in this thread called MIT/X the "wrong license". Are you saying that it's okay for GPL advocates to criticize MIT/X, but that it's at the same time wrong for MIT/X advocates to criticize GPL?
Slashdot Mirror
If you're doubtful, maybe we could meet while the P100 is still in my possession and you could see for your own eyes.
You're assuming that a 3D accelerated card is accelerated in the absence of necessary hardware. But a Graphics Blaster Exxtreme (Permedia chip) under XFree86 3.3.5 does not have any acceleration software, so it acts as a generic SVGA. This will change with XFree86 4.0.
But I'm pretty sure why the P100 was faster. Windows has DirectX, direct hardware access to the video card. XFree86 does not. All rendering has to go through normal OS "channels". I tried out the Myth II demo under Linux using it's direct DGA mode and it rocked under on the K6-400. Either X or mesa is the bottleneck.
"What card do you have? OpenGL on Linux with a 3dfx or Matrox card is pretty good now."
What! Are you saying I must have only one of two cards in order to use OpenGL? I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable. I have a Creative Graphics Blaster Exxtreme. I will have hardware 3D acceleration in Xfree86 4.0, but not having the support now, I am keenly aware of those who won't have it.
One of the hallmarks of Linux is that you can get decent performance out of obsolete hardware. I reject the premise that people need to upgrade their hardware every year just to keep up with ten year old standards.
To reiterate, a P100 and SVGA 1Meg video memory under Windows or OS/2 has better OpenGL performance than a K6-400 with 3Dnow, a GB Exxtreme and 8Megs of video memory on Linux.
"All over the Net, communities confront the same choice: freedom or civility.
Let he who dare speak within this forum called internet look after his own defense. For in this land we are all sovereign. The roses herein bear thorns and the daffodils have bees, and we will not be his gardener. The stings and slights that come his way are for him to ward off as best he can. But if he deigns to replace our liberties with his mode of gentility, he will find us a ruthless enemy that will brook no king above us.
"My question is; why is SGI persuing a different approach now?"
I don't know the exact approach SGI is pursuing, but all the other approaches are based on hardware. I am hoping that this project will finally give us a decent software based OpenGL for Linux.
Under Windows, OS/2 or BeOS, OpenGL performs satisfactorily with a generic SVGA card with no acceleration. Under Linux, you need a specific card to get anything that even comes close. Right now, I have a 3D OpenGL accelerated card, but OpenGL is useless under Linux.
"Few people (even licensors) recognize this, so your statement is all too commonly seen."
I'll take as an example the linux kernel. Although the package as a whole is licensed under the GPL+exception, a few of the source files are licensed under the BSD (last time I looked). That's because Linus is not relicensing that code, he is just using it per the BSDL. Nothing at all is stopping anyone from taking those files and redistributing them separately from linux
However, the converse is not allowed under the GPL. You cannot take a GPL source file and include it with a BSDL project, even if there are no modifications. It's a one-way street.
"...Open Source (truly free)..."
Very interesting, you use of the word "truly" as if it were an adjective whose purpose were to clarify the meaning of "free". Sort of makes me heart go flutter.
Hallelujah! All this time we thunk we was free when truth was we was only falsely free. We never made a voluntary choice or decision of our own will until we chose GnewLinux.
"...seeing the guts of your system is a God given right."
Okay, we're talking natural and unalienable rights here, eh? Fine, I'll speak that language. If there is the supreme (god given) right to the source code, then proprietary software is a crime. So what do we do about this crime? Arrest Bill Gates and throw him in in jail? Violate his god given rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and post the Windows source code to the net? Violate his god given right to free speech and compell him to speak what you want him to? Put him in the stocks? Then do the same with every other developer with the temerity to keep their own source code private. Whoohoo! That sure does sound like freedom to me!
"...while also providing amateur assistance"
You cite this as a benefit of OSS? I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about amateurs tinkering with airtraffic control systems, embedded pacemaker software, and my antilock braking system on my car.
"What Be proposes is not freedom."
BFD. My freedom doesn't come in an eighty dollar shrinkwrapped box of Redhat. I don't need to download it. It's something I already have.
You, and many other people, are extremely confused as to the nature of the "free" in Free Software. It is not free speech. Free speech gives Bill Gates the right to create his software with or without revealing the source code. Deny him that right and you become an intolerable hypocrite.
Not every license has clauses limiting their contact with other licensed stuff, and you're right that the GPL is not the only one that does this (most don't though).
However I was replying to the statement that the GPL only kicks in when binaries are distributed. If the GPL were only there to keep the source code around, it wouldn't need pages of legalese to do that. Obviously there are a few more rules and requirements included.
"But neither thr BSD or MIT licence force you to include the source, do they?"
:-)
But you were arguing that the GPL makes programming easier. Stop changing the subject
"...but apart from that I don't know what you are talking about."
I'm talking about that whole introduction at the top of the GPL before section zero.
If I understand correctly, the reason FreeBSD does not use DOS-Extended is because it's just that, DOS. BSD style slices may have been a great idea in the past, but new harddrives are large enough to hold multiple and complete operating systems. It's getting harder and harder to give each OS it's own primary partition under 1024 cylinders. But harddrives are also cheap enough to give each OS it's own drive (at Fry's yesterday there was a 4.5Gig drive cheaper than the Win98 upgrade).
:-)
I blew away Windows so that FreeBSD would have it's own harddrive, and I've not regretted it one bit
"An entity can only violate the GPL by distributing binaries to GPL'd software without source code."
If only that were true! But alas, one can run afoul of the GPL in a myriad of subtle ways. Like adding restrictions. Like removing restrictions away. Like linking the binary to a non-GPL library. Like including non-GPL code in the source tree. Like adding a frontend to apt or distributing KDE.
The closed-sourcedness of Wordperfect is completely beside the point. There is no requirement that an application for Linux must be Open Source. I brought up Wordperfect as an example since it is a major application for Linux that has been around for a while.
But if we're going to rag on people just because they have closed source applications, that eliminates *every* Linux distribution. Let's not stop at Corel, let's condemn Redhat and SuSE for jumping on the bandwagon. Let's condemn Debian for sneaking in a nonfree directory. Let's condemn Slackware for having Netscape. Let's condemn everyone who doesn't agree with us 100%.
The start of that thread included the following statement: "a license is personal -- towards individuals only. Companies are not individuals and have no right as such."
Whoever (person or legal entity) that owns a copy of the software is the licensee. Your copy of gcc belongs to you and its license applies to you. However, ABC Corp also has a copy of gcc. That gcc's license applies to ABC Corp. When an ABC Corp employee is given a copy of modified-gcc, the modified-gcc is not being distributed, since it remains within ABC Corp. In the current legal situation that exists in the world today, I see no problem with companies keeping their modifications to themselves. As a case in point, it is apparently illegal to add a Qt front-end to GPL code. However, and RMS has said this, it is permissible to do so for your own private use. But is one breaking the law by giving this same modified code to one's parent, child or spouse? If it's okay to keep this modification secret and within the family, then what's the difference with ABC Corp keeping it within the private company network?
"Natural law gives rights and responsibilities to individuals; no group of individual, corporation, institution, or state, can claim any right, least these rights are the expression of individuals using their individual rights together."
I fully agree with these sentiments. However, they are not reflective of the current legal situation. Whether you like it or not, you have to live within reality. Maybe you can change it so that a future legal reality will be different, but for right now the law allows groups to be licensees.
"Are you allowed to modify the MFC and redistribute it under ANY license?"
No, which is why I prefer any Open Source license to Microsoft's EULA. However, there are many conditions where I am FREER with MFC than with a GPLd library. And one of these is a very common condition, that of writing an application.
If Microsoft says "you can do A but not B" and GNU says "you can do B but not A", then there will be instances where the GPL will be the more restrictive license.
"There is still the LGPL, whose use is discouraged by RMS, but is prefered by RMS to any other license, save the GPL, for libraries."
The contendor for my biggest beef with the GPL is the restriction against dynamically linking to non-GPL code. RMS is just plain wrong on this issue. It is at this point that the GPL escapes the bounds of polite society and starts sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, namely, other people's code. And this isn't just some petty gripe. The very desktop that I am using has been declared *illegal* by Redhat.
"What's wrong with a bit of Marxism, anyway? It sure makes programmming easier - which is what I care about."
With the MIT or BSD licenses, I can include the entire readable and understandable license at the top of each and every source file. I don't have to wonder if I'm going to be sued for using library A with library B. In short, since there are fewer restrictions with the BSD or MIT, programming is easier (unless you like the lack of choice inherent in marxism).
"Just don't try telling me on one hand that the GPL is evil because it forces people to give away their code, and then encourge people to licence under the BSD so the code can be "truly free"."
No one was calling the GPL evil (at least in this thread). But it's absolutely ludicrous to call the GPL more free than the BSDL on the fact that the GPL is more restrictive. And though it's not evil, it is questionable that the GPL requires its users to redistribute political propaganda.
"He didn't move for restrictive legislation..."
But he did call for taxation on all software in order to fund free software. And he did call for the elimination of artistic rights.
No other faction of Free Software, or even commercial and proprietary software, has the temerity to *demand* what other developers do with their software.
I haven't used a huge variety of commercial libraries that include the source code, so I'll stick with one that everyone knows of, the MFC.
I can write an MFC application and license it under **ANY** license I choose, including GPL, BSD or public domain and I can freely redistribute the MFC dll's. Compared to the GPL, the MFC license is much, much freer for me to *use* in the way that libraries are used.
If a developer wishes to use the GPL for a library, then that is their right. But understand that by doing so, they deny the *use* of their library to everyone developing under a different license or using a non-GPL library.
Corel Linux, as well as other distros and projects, are trying to make their interfaces similar to Windows, as well as specifically targeting the Windows user. As long as that eases some of the newbie fears without compromising the power of Linux, then that's a Good Thing. However, it seems to me that at some point on the road to World Domination, a critical mass will be reached where a Windowish interface will be seen as passe and limiting. Where does Corel Linux fit into a future that is not dominated by Microsoft?
Several complaints of Corel jumping on the bandwagon. First of all, they've been on the wagon for quite some time now with Wordperfect and the Netwinder. But secondly, who cares?
Why should anyone get upset that someone is jumping on the bandwagon? This is Free Software. Jumping on the bandwagon is the whole point of Open Source. I don't see anything at all in the GPL, Artistic, BSD, MIT, QPL or MPL that requires someone to get the approval of some self-appointed community before they can use, distribute or modify the software.
"And seeing as freebsd ships with about 1/3rd of the installed applications its not surprising there are slightly less security anouncements"
And that right there is a huge advantage (and one that Slackware shares). Debian may come with thousands of packages, but they aren't the OS. In a lot of Linux distros, it's very hard to draw the line between the operating system and the optional packages. But with FreeBSD, the OS is the OS is the OS. Ports and packages are distinct.
No, I don't think it should all be BSD or MIT or whatever. You were making the argument that GPL was the single best license because of a single comparison with a bad license. It tried to illustrate the fallacious argument with an absurd comparison.
People should use whatever license they choose. Hopefully they would choose a license appropriate for their projects. It's not much skin off my back if they choose something I don't agree with. It's their life and I'll let them run it. Even if the choose a commercial license. Even if they choose the GPL for a library.
And as for the lack of chaffing under commercial licenses, re-read my post. No commercial license dictates what license you may or may not use.
Now they announce the 4.0 freeze just one week after I shelled out $39.95 for 3.4. I guess it's time to subscribe...
:-) It's pointless to ask if *BSD can do this, that or the other, because it can. The installation was very easy, and anyone who has ever done an old-fashioned Linux text-based install will have no problem. The disk partioning scheme is a bit different. FreeBSD will not use logical partitions, so don't expect to install it to hda8 :-)
Anyway, for newbies to FreeBSD (and I am certainly still one of them), you will find that it is yet another Unix
And one feature I exceedingly like is the size of FreeBSD. Like Slackware (my other OS), the core of FreeBSD is very small and minimal. You can install it in about 10 minutes. Unlike R*, D*, or S*, you don't have to wade through thousands of packages for a custom install. You can do that afterwards if you want. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but thousands of packages to choose from can be intimidating to newbies.
And it has a Linux compatibility package, so you can run those closed source Linux apps like Civ:CTP and WP8.
This is news for nerds and stuff that matters. Nowhere does it say that Slashdot is GNU or Linux only.
I would suggest checking your bigotry and zealotry at the door...
"However, I thought that people willing to contribute/take part of this contest should be warned that the code they submit might be made propietary by the organizer or someone else."
Of course we are aware of that! Do you think we are children unable to read the license for ourselves? We are adults and fully capable of deciding for ourselves what to do with our lives and our code.
"The GPL is shorter than most EULAs, and it only really places one restriction on the code; You can't take advantage of this community work unless you are willing to participate in the community by giving back."
Unfortunately, the legalese in the GPL creates some very problematic restrictions above and beyond "giving back" to the community. First of all, anything given back must also be GPL. Second, anything that dynamically links to a GPL library (remember, RMS doesn't want you to use the LGPL) must also be under the GPL, even if the code is 100% wholly your own.
"The GPL is far less restrictive than any commercial license with which I'm familiar."
So what? Khruschev was less restrictive than Stalin, but what difference does that make. However, a commercial license does have one huge advantage over the GPL: no commercial library that I am aware of tells the developer what license they must use.
"Now we can see the philosophy of some of those who support other "free" licenses."
I seem to recall the original post in this thread called MIT/X the "wrong license". Are you saying that it's okay for GPL advocates to criticize MIT/X, but that it's at the same time wrong for MIT/X advocates to criticize GPL?