My dictionary lists seventeen definitions of "free". They range from "free verse" to "free electron." Which one precisely does the "free" in "free software" refer to?
It ain't political liberty. Add "Free Software" to the US Constitution right next to "Free Speech" and it will be as out of place as a turd in a punchbowl. And if you did manage to get "Free Software" enacted into law, would all the non OSS developers have to go to jail? Would cops show up at their door demanding copies of the source code so that it could be published in a public place?
I don't know who's been feeding you these lies, but stop listening to them. BSD code is "freer" than Linux code, and more "open". BSD is community code.
Where you may be confused is in the development structure. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Open Source, but who is in charge of the project. Linus and Alan let most of the submitted "good" code into the kernel. The BSD's on the other hand only let in good code that conforms to the current vision. BSD, Linux, Apache, Sendmail, KDE, Gnome, etc., all have their unique development styles, but they are all equally open source.
But a lot of this is largely perception, however. BSD is very mature and needs few additions or fixes outside of drivers for new devices. Linux, although now grown up, is still an adolescent with plenty of additions and fixes needed. Which would you rather work on, something that doesn't need work, or something that does?
BTrees are not limited to Linux. I learned about them in CS 102, before Linux, GNU, or Windows even existed (we used BSD). There is nothing new in Linux programming (hate to burst anyone's bubbles). It's all been around for decades just waiting for a new generation to rediscover or reinvent them. Don't limit high school or university learning to Linux. Generalize it to "unix" or even more generalized to "computer science", and you'll have students that know how to think and reason in ANY operating system or programming language. Generalized knowledge will last a lifetime, but specific knowledge will only last a few years. I learned how to program in C++ not because I took a C++ class, but because I had classes in programming concepts. The only difficulty I had with it was due to bad habits learned in specific languages.
p.s. Is "teengnu" more like the Young Pioneers or the Campus Crusade?
Man, you guys are giving Macmillan loads of penguin dung today! The main theme seems to be that Macmillan is exploiting Mandrake/Redhat/hackers/proletariat/etc.
If I recall correctly, and I may be wrong, both the FSF and the OSI see nothing wrong with commercial Free Software. I also see nothing in the FSF or OSI forbidding the redistribution of Free Software by non-geeks. I see nothing mandating "giving back to the community". I see nothing requiring distributors to be officially baptized by the elite.
Continually, to the point of nausea, madvocates keep telling everyone who will listen (and those who won't) that Linux is "NOT ABOUT FREE BEER". If that is so, then what's the difference between a $2 CD from Cheapbytes and a $30 CD+Book from Macmillan. Other compaints are based on Macmillan distributing something that they didn't make, that in fact, they are resellers. Again, what makes Cheapbytes holy and Macmillan evil in this matter?
But the GPL, BSD, AL, MIT, and every other Free Software license allows the redistribution of software. Linus, Richard, Larry, Kirk and Eric all knew very well that people would be distributing their works without contributing to it first. If they didn't like this situation then they shouldn't have used the licenses that they did. Are any of the people complaining here actually developers whose works are being distributed by Macmillan? I seriously doubt that there's even one. But in case there is, I must ask: If you didn't want someone distributing your work without your specific permission, why the fsck did you use a Free Software license?
But I think the real reason so many people are pissing in their panties is that their personal distribution of choice isn't winning the sales competition. And of course, being slashdotters, their personal choice is, ergo, the One True Distro(tm), and Macmillan has committed heresy, blasphemy or worse.
"They may be giving some funding to the Mandrake/Linux folks, but they haven't sponsored the development of..."
They're publishers! Book publishers! They probably couldn't tell the difference between a new and malloc if it segmented between their ears:-)
"Have they contributed funds or other resources to organizations like the FSF, The XFree86 Project, Software In The Public Interest, or other such?"
No, but they have contributed funds to the organization that started the linux i18n project, the first Free partitioner/resizer, etc. As for not contibuting to FSF or SPI, those are political organizations (surprise), and perhaps Macmillan doesn't want to get involved in politics.
..."there isn't any other source of "positive points"..."
What is this, Boy Scout accounting? Helping old ladies across the street isn't good enough? Maybe they figure if 99% of the extreme vocal advocates of Linux don't give back (give back what?) to the community, they don't have to either.
"It appears that their priorities are largely economic"
Hello, McFly! Macmillan is a business. They are supposed to make money. Their shareholders will tar and feather them if they don't make money. Respect don't put food on the table, economics does.
A few replies saying in essence "your GM wasn't creative enough, etc." Sorry folks. I've been GMing for twenty years in a dozen systems. The only way to get a halfway plausible, realistic or internally consistant D&D game is to ignore some of the rules, add your own, or both. This is no big deal, every halfway bright GM does that in any system. However, the story was about a movie intending to "follow the rules". I was just pointing out that if they follow the rules too closely they'll be destroying realism.
Let's put it another way. What possible difference should it make what rules they use, or whether they use any rules at all? Take the same story line, characters, etc., but film it twice, once using D&D rules and once using RM (or RQ or anything else) rules. What kind of difference would you see? If the producers tried to stick with any sort of plausibility, there should be ZERO differences.
If Lizard is proprietary, then it is not Open Source. And if it is Open Source, then is is not proprietary.
I haven't looked at lizard, but if the source code is available, and I can modify and distribute those modifications, then it is Open Source and not proprietary. However, If I can't distribute my modifications, then it is not Open Source. Simple. I do recall that Caldera was going to release it as QPL, and if so, not only is it Open Source, it is also Free Software (since all Open Source is Free, and vice versa).
They're going to base this on the rules system? I thought movies were supposed to attempt at least a suspension of disbelief.
Our heroes will have no skills. Chain mail will ward off arrows better than rigid leather. Rangers can slay dozens of foes in a ten second time period (but only if they're humanoid). An unprotected thief can take the full force of dragon fire face first and leave if the dice roll right. Warriors can take dozens of full-on full-force sword hits before they finally succumb to a lack of HPs, but he still won't bleed.
And if they also follow the typical and recommended (ala official adventures) economic structures, then we'll have a bizarre economy based on one-ounce gold coins in plentiful supply, dungeons with more gold laying around than all the gold ever mined during the Alaskan gold rush, and these dungeons are always just outside of town. And let's not talk about social structures or I'll have to mentions barons ruling entire kingdoms and kings ruling mere cities.
I fully understand that "realism" is a filthy word that will get you kicked out of GenCon for uttering it, but at least movies should make some sort of sense.
"I frankly do not believe I could have been any gentler about it. Give me some guidance here, folks. How would you have written it?"
I think this issue goes far beyond the realm of ESR's bitterness. Newsgroups, mailing lists, portals, etc., are still too new to the general public to have evolved an effective set of mores and customs. Years ago when only a few hundred people read a particular usenet posting, the situation would have been different. Now things are very different. Hundreds of thousands will read a posting and opinions of people will be based on them.
This is best illustrated by the newbie coming online and asking a newbie question. Even if he asks it in a newbie oriented list, the only replies he will likely receive are "RTFM". But suppose this didn't happen online. Suppose the newbie went to the Atlanta Linux Showcase, went up to the Redhat booth, asked how to configure sound under Redhat, and then have the Redhat representative reply "read the f*cking manual". Odds are, that newbie would never Linux, ever. But this is exactly what we do online.
How gentle or harsh your posts are has nothing to do with anything. What matters is that hundreds of thousands of people read them. Did ESR overreact to your post? Most certainly. But I don't believe that particular post should have been made public.
When you are online, act is if you were at work. At work, when you need to call an employee to task, or when you must disagree with your boss, you don't do it by posting a message to everyone in the building.
"Anything else (and I mean *anything* *else*) is just a half-baked attempt by Big Greedy Corporation Inc. to rip-off and exploit the open-source community."
The GPL and BSD are our **ONLY** choices? If I as an individual use the AL or QPL or MPL I'm a "Big Greedy Corporation Inc."? You need a big dose of reality.
The GPL and BSD are on opposite sides of the Free Software spectrum. There is plenty of room in the middle for other Free Software licenses. Lot's of room. What about something on the GPL end that doesn't have political verbage included? Or something on the BSD end that doesn't allow changing the license? Or something in the middle with no restrictions whatsoever except to keep it free.
p.s. You mentioned "free(-speech)" software. If you truly believe that Free Software is equivalent to Free Speech, have you ever considered drafting an Free Software Amendment to the US Constitution? Or perhaps an amendment to the International Treaty on Human Rights?
Place Free Software into a matrix defined by "pro-user/pro-originator" and "copyleft/copyright". Copyleft, for this definition, is software that must be free in every incarnation. Pro-user/pro-originator means who is in control of the software development.
We get: Pro-user/Copyright: BSD, X Pro-Originator/Copyright: NPL Pro-Originator/Copyleft: GPL
(Some of the existing licenses like LGPL or QPL don't fit neatly. I'm not claiming this as an accurate model of reality:-))
Obviously, what's missing is a copylefted pro-user license. We need something that is like BSD but can't be made closed. We also need something like GPL that isn't exclusive. The Proposed TGPL is neither, and in my opinion, very wishy-washy.
I want my source code to always be free, but I have no desire to tell the end-user what he can or can't do with it.
I propose a license based upon the GPL that allows:
1) Linking or the use of trivial portions (to be defined) by anyone. We want a single license, not one for apps and another for libraries.
2) Inclusion of software or non-trivial portions within other "copyleft" projects. If your license can guarantee that my code will be Free in all instances, go ahead and use it. This enlarges the number of compatible licenses.
This new license will have to define "trivial" and "copyleft", but that shouldn't be too hard. Alternatively, the Artistic license could be "tightened" up and released at AL version 2.
First of all it was a joke. Second, it was probably true! In the context of the question, "power" was defined as "energy". If you're the type that finds sex lowers your energy, I humbly suggest that you're doing it wrong. Having a mutually beneficial and loving relationship *IS* empowering to both parties (God, I'm starting to sound like Dr. Laura!).
If you erroneously mistook his comment to mean he uses sex to get control over people, I humbly suggest you loosen up a bit and stop reading stuff that isn't there.
If I recall your public letter correctly, it was not a piece of constructive criticism. Rather, it was almost as if you were accusing ESR of religious heresy. Asking Eric is private, "have you lost your fscking marbles?", is one thing, but announcing to the entire world that in essence "Eric is a bad boy and we need to slap his wrists" is something else entirely. As I read through that original letter, I almost expected the last paragraph to announce the forcable ejection of ESR from the OSI.
The government has police, soldiers, judges, guns, tanks, jails, etc. Microsoft only has lawyers.
Microsoft's EULA is a voluntary agreement between Microsoft and you. The government on the other hand can involuntarily bind you to a law and throw you in jail if you violate it. This is hardly equivalent. If I don't like Microsoft's rules I can always go to Mac, Linux, OS/2, BSD, etc. If I don't like the laws, however, I'm SOL.
But you argue, Microsoft can still sue you. So what? I can sue them as well if they violate the EULA (my chances are slim, but I can do it). What Microsoft does NOT do is come to your house with guns.
The number of potential programmers remains a relatively constant percentage of the population. What is not constant is the opportunities to program, and this is rising exponentially.
So why aren't there more programmers working on fetchmail? A couple of reasons. First, consider how long it takes to get up to speed with programming. The average programmer isn't introduced to coding in January and skilled enough to do serious work in fetchmail by December. Second, the number of available projects to work on is also rising exponentially. If no new projects were introduced since fetchmail was started, then we would certainly expect an increase of fetchmail coders as the pool of coders increases. However, there are tons of new projects out there.
Richard Stallman stated for years that he wished there were a better term than "Free Software", since that was often confused with freeware. Then you and some fellows come along an coin the term "Open Source Software". However, Richard says that's worse because it doesn't emphasize Freedom. Others lambaste you as a heretic, scoundrel and ideological impure for it.
Other than the FSF checklists of Free Software attributes, what exactly does the "Free" in "Free Software" mean? Is it "Liberty" in the sense that we can defend it with force and make war on those that would take it away? Is it "Free" as in "free to use" like your neighbor's swimming pool? Is Free Software akin to Free Verse since they're both creative works? Is it really "gratis" since every example of it out there can be obtained for zero dollars? Is the use of "free" just an emotionally positive word meant to build a following? Or does the "Free" mean something else entirely.
"The free software movement raises some big questions. Does it provide a new method of producing high-quality software, or does it apply to only some programme categories?"
It only applies to two categories well. First, it's very useful, and will most likely replace proprietary software altogether, in the area of infrastructure and "commodity" software. This includes web servers, text editors, kernels, compilers, etc. These are the projects that thousands of people code on. Some things that aren't "commodity" classed yet, could be in the future if an Open Source version makes it so. For example, office suites aren't a commodity yet, but the release of KOffice and Workspace could very well make it so.
The second category is "hobby" software. Someone has an itch and scratches it. It's written because someone wanted to have fun writing it. This software doesn't get the benefit of ESR's thousand eyes peering at the source code. Often, only one or two people ever code on it. But sometimes these programs will mushroom out and take on a life of their own.
Other categories of software will be a mix of Open and closed source programs. I don't see Open Source taking over more than a small minority of games or vertical apps.
"What does it mean for the economics of cyberspace?"
I hate buzzwords. If by 'cyberspace' you mean the internet and its sucessors, it has already changed the economics of it. The infrastructure of the internet is already Open Source. The commodity software of the internet (browsers, media players, commerce solutions) are rapidly becoming Open Source now. Javascript, perl, HTML and XML have open source code right now, it's only a small step to make them true Open Source.
"How can free software coexist with hard-nosed profit-maximising companies?"
For infrastructure/commodity software, it's the proprietary companies that will have to learn how to coexist. For other categories, Free Software developers are going to have to learn the rules of the game: marketing and targeting. People who buy vertical applications don't choose their application out of ideology. They choose based on suitability to their needs. This will mean that Open Source solutions will fail if the proprietary solutions are targeted and marketed better.
"And will the movement, riven by tensions between Open Source pragmatists and free software fundamentalists, fall apart under the pressures of success?
They movement may fall apart, the concept of open software will not. It existed with the first mainframe and will continue to exist until we replace the generalized computing device with something better.
It's important to note that every movement has it's "true believers", the "core group", and the "hanger-ons". True believers are always in the tiny minority, whether it be a political party, a religion, or anything else. Hangers-on are always the largest group but they rarely contribute anything. The core is what drives the group. They aren't fanatics but they aren't followers either. If they feel that Open Source has to change, right or wrong, it will do so
"Open Source works in practice; will it work in theory?"
Back in the days of the dinosaurs, when I was learning to program on Unix Vaxen, a single print page cost 1 cent from my account, which was still cheaper than staying logged on for hours wading through the code. So I always printed everything out, logged off, and spent those hours of wading in the student lounge.
I am trying to get out of this habit but it's hard. One thing that helps is a larger monitor, multiple windows, and a decent class browser. However, it's still nice to take the stack of dead trees and a red pen and go over them in the park under a live tree with the sun shining.
Whoops! I double checked. libxml comes with two license files, COPYING (GPL) and COPYING.LIB (LGPL). I missed the second one, read the first, and assumed that since it said "GPL V2" is was indeed GPL V2. Nothing in the README file though.
"For instance, the KDE web site just seems more pointed toward users while the GNOME site is concentrating on a developer style site."
I think you just nailed the biggest difference between Gnome and KDE at the present time! It also shows in other areas. KDE got the UI complete first (1.0) and left a lot of the advanced underpinnings for later (2.0). Gnome did just the opposite. With only a very few exceptions, everything in KDE is accessible via the keyboard, but in Gnome there are many applications that are unusable without a mouse. However, Gnome has myriads of bindings but KDE is still 95% C++.
Here at work, those people that use KDE are the ones that need to get their work done. Those that use Gnome are the Linux "evangelists". I'm using WindowMaker.
The taxations that this bill would eliminate are sales taxes. This is not the only source of revenue to local and national government. It won't eliminate income taxes (damn), property taxes, tarriffs, capital gains, inhertiance taxes, etc.
Although not "fully grown", libxml will do what you want it to do. However, it has one major drawback: it is a GPL, not a LGPL library. This means that only other GPL programs can make use of it. Since libxml is part of the Gnome libraries, this is normally not a problem as all Gnome applications must be GPL (hmmm, are LGPL libraries allowed link to GPL libraries?). However, the question was wondering about broad XML support, and thus libxml won't work for other licenses such as BSD, Artistic or MPL (a lot of XML utilities are licensed under MPL).
However, there are two other C/C++ alternatives. The first is expat which is a C library that's pretty extension with extremely liberal licensing. The second is still beta, it's a new feature in the Qt 2.1 snapshot. The KOffice project is using this. There are, of course, dozens of Java and Perl XML libraries as well.
I don't think that you will ever see one single XML library for all purposes, but there are enough XML libraries available now in a range of Free licensing and languages that it won't be a problem.
"Americans charge after success at any cost -- & the sacrifice of friendships or family ties is considered not only normal, but expected."
Do you think Hollywood epitomizes the US? Yes, there are SOME people who lead such shallow lives that they have to be numero uno at everything. But they are not the majority, or even a substantial minority. They are aberrations. It is not expected or condoned. I've lived in several cities and rural areas of the US, and just recently in the Silicon Valley. It is Silicon Valley that is not the norm. People here are different than anywhere else in the country. San Jose might as well be on a different planet for all the similarity it has with San Fransisco, a mere fifty miles north. And neither is Hollywood similar in any way to Los Angeles, Pasadena or Anaheim.
Instead, what seperates the US from some other societies is a tolerance for individualism. Sometimes this leads to ruthless competition. It also leads to new forms of expression, new counter cultures, and new political ideologies.
"Now let's say you banned a certain model of grenade, and made a 5 day waiting period mandatory before buying a bazooka, do you think it will make any difference?"
These items are not firearms. No way. No how. In regards to Afghanistan, they are in the middle of a de facto combat zone. First the Russians, then the Iraqis, plus every terrorist organization that can get there. If I was in such a situation I would want the equivalent firepower of those raping my sisters and killing my brothers.
"I can drive 1/2 an hour here in California and buy a fully loaded machine gun, no questions asked."
Where in the world did this come from? There's nowhere in the state of California you can buy a machine gun legally, loaded, unloaded or otherwise! Give my an address where I can go see and if you're right that I can purchase a fully loaded machine gun with no questions asked, I will personally purchase one and melt it down live on Slashdot webcam!
"Of course, thanks to enlightened citizens such as yourself, we have a record number of prisoners in jail, breaking the world record for a western democracy."
So what would you do with a murderer? Sorry, we're over our prisoner quota, go home. Give me a break! Oh, and the reason our prisons are full is not because we have lots of guns, but the combination of criminalizing narcotics and the explosion of gangs.
The number of gun-related murders in the US is at an all time high. Yet restrictions on the ownership and use of guns is also at an all time high. The restrictions are doing no good at all! Something has changed and it's not the number of guns, because they're going down. Schoolyard killings are new. Very new. Unthinkable fifty years ago.
The Valentine's Day Massacre in the 1930's shocked a nation, yet today similar gangland massacres happen on a weekly basis. And these killings are being committed with weapons that are already illegal and hard to get! Making more weapons illegal won't change anything. We're trying to put a bandaid on a severed arm! There is an illness in US society and guns are merely a scab over the wound.
But restricting guns only restricts them for the lawful citizen. I cannot today purchase an assault rifle. But the gangs still have them, boatloads of them. Banning them didn't do one ounce of good. The criminals are better armed than the police!
Solutions? Harsh and swift punishments for violent crimes and especially those committed with guns to keep these people off the streets. Require gun safety classes for purchasers of guns to prevent accidents. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. We also need to find out what has changed between then and now and fix it.
Slashdot Mirror
My dictionary lists seventeen definitions of "free". They range from "free verse" to "free electron." Which one precisely does the "free" in "free software" refer to?
It ain't political liberty. Add "Free Software" to the US Constitution right next to "Free Speech" and it will be as out of place as a turd in a punchbowl. And if you did manage to get "Free Software" enacted into law, would all the non OSS developers have to go to jail? Would cops show up at their door demanding copies of the source code so that it could be published in a public place?
BSD IS OPEN SOURCE AND FREE SOFTWARE!
I don't know who's been feeding you these lies, but stop listening to them. BSD code is "freer" than Linux code, and more "open". BSD is community code.
Where you may be confused is in the development structure. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Open Source, but who is in charge of the project. Linus and Alan let most of the submitted "good" code into the kernel. The BSD's on the other hand only let in good code that conforms to the current vision. BSD, Linux, Apache, Sendmail, KDE, Gnome, etc., all have their unique development styles, but they are all equally open source.
But a lot of this is largely perception, however. BSD is very mature and needs few additions or fixes outside of drivers for new devices. Linux, although now grown up, is still an adolescent with plenty of additions and fixes needed. Which would you rather work on, something that doesn't need work, or something that does?
BTrees are not limited to Linux. I learned about them in CS 102, before Linux, GNU, or Windows even existed (we used BSD). There is nothing new in Linux programming (hate to burst anyone's bubbles). It's all been around for decades just waiting for a new generation to rediscover or reinvent them. Don't limit high school or university learning to Linux. Generalize it to "unix" or even more generalized to "computer science", and you'll have students that know how to think and reason in ANY operating system or programming language. Generalized knowledge will last a lifetime, but specific knowledge will only last a few years. I learned how to program in C++ not because I took a C++ class, but because I had classes in programming concepts. The only difficulty I had with it was due to bad habits learned in specific languages.
p.s. Is "teengnu" more like the Young Pioneers or the Campus Crusade?
Man, you guys are giving Macmillan loads of penguin dung today! The main theme seems to be that Macmillan is exploiting Mandrake/Redhat/hackers/proletariat/etc.
If I recall correctly, and I may be wrong, both the FSF and the OSI see nothing wrong with commercial Free Software. I also see nothing in the FSF or OSI forbidding the redistribution of Free Software by non-geeks. I see nothing mandating "giving back to the community". I see nothing requiring distributors to be officially baptized by the elite.
Continually, to the point of nausea, madvocates keep telling everyone who will listen (and those who won't) that Linux is "NOT ABOUT FREE BEER". If that is so, then what's the difference between a $2 CD from Cheapbytes and a $30 CD+Book from Macmillan. Other compaints are based on Macmillan distributing something that they didn't make, that in fact, they are resellers. Again, what makes Cheapbytes holy and Macmillan evil in this matter?
But the GPL, BSD, AL, MIT, and every other Free Software license allows the redistribution of software. Linus, Richard, Larry, Kirk and Eric all knew very well that people would be distributing their works without contributing to it first. If they didn't like this situation then they shouldn't have used the licenses that they did. Are any of the people complaining here actually developers whose works are being distributed by Macmillan? I seriously doubt that there's even one. But in case there is, I must ask: If you didn't want someone distributing your work without your specific permission, why the fsck did you use a Free Software license?
But I think the real reason so many people are pissing in their panties is that their personal distribution of choice isn't winning the sales competition. And of course, being slashdotters, their personal choice is, ergo, the One True Distro(tm), and Macmillan has committed heresy, blasphemy or worse.
"They may be giving some funding to the Mandrake/Linux folks, but they haven't sponsored the development of..."
:-)
They're publishers! Book publishers! They probably couldn't tell the difference between a new and malloc if it segmented between their ears
"Have they contributed funds or other resources to organizations like the FSF, The XFree86 Project, Software In The Public Interest, or other such?"
No, but they have contributed funds to the organization that started the linux i18n project, the first Free partitioner/resizer, etc. As for not contibuting to FSF or SPI, those are political organizations (surprise), and perhaps Macmillan doesn't want to get involved in politics.
..."there isn't any other source of "positive points"..."
What is this, Boy Scout accounting? Helping old ladies across the street isn't good enough? Maybe they figure if 99% of the extreme vocal advocates of Linux don't give back (give back what?) to the community, they don't have to either.
"It appears that their priorities are largely economic"
Hello, McFly! Macmillan is a business. They are supposed to make money. Their shareholders will tar and feather them if they don't make money. Respect don't put food on the table, economics does.
A few replies saying in essence "your GM wasn't creative enough, etc." Sorry folks. I've been GMing for twenty years in a dozen systems. The only way to get a halfway plausible, realistic or internally consistant D&D game is to ignore some of the rules, add your own, or both. This is no big deal, every halfway bright GM does that in any system. However, the story was about a movie intending to "follow the rules". I was just pointing out that if they follow the rules too closely they'll be destroying realism.
Let's put it another way. What possible difference should it make what rules they use, or whether they use any rules at all? Take the same story line, characters, etc., but film it twice, once using D&D rules and once using RM (or RQ or anything else) rules. What kind of difference would you see? If the producers tried to stick with any sort of plausibility, there should be ZERO differences.
If Lizard is proprietary, then it is not Open Source. And if it is Open Source, then is is not proprietary.
I haven't looked at lizard, but if the source code is available, and I can modify and distribute those modifications, then it is Open Source and not proprietary. However, If I can't distribute my modifications, then it is not Open Source. Simple. I do recall that Caldera was going to release it as QPL, and if so, not only is it Open Source, it is also Free Software (since all Open Source is Free, and vice versa).
They're going to base this on the rules system? I thought movies were supposed to attempt at least a suspension of disbelief.
Our heroes will have no skills. Chain mail will ward off arrows better than rigid leather. Rangers can slay dozens of foes in a ten second time period (but only if they're humanoid). An unprotected thief can take the full force of dragon fire face first and leave if the dice roll right. Warriors can take dozens of full-on full-force sword hits before they finally succumb to a lack of HPs, but he still won't bleed.
And if they also follow the typical and recommended (ala official adventures) economic structures, then we'll have a bizarre economy based on one-ounce gold coins in plentiful supply, dungeons with more gold laying around than all the gold ever mined during the Alaskan gold rush, and these dungeons are always just outside of town. And let's not talk about social structures or I'll have to mentions barons ruling entire kingdoms and kings ruling mere cities.
I fully understand that "realism" is a filthy word that will get you kicked out of GenCon for uttering it, but at least movies should make some sort of sense.
"I frankly do not believe I could have been any gentler about it. Give me some guidance here, folks. How would you have written it?"
I think this issue goes far beyond the realm of ESR's bitterness. Newsgroups, mailing lists, portals, etc., are still too new to the general public to have evolved an effective set of mores and customs. Years ago when only a few hundred people read a particular usenet posting, the situation would have been different. Now things are very different. Hundreds of thousands will read a posting and opinions of people will be based on them.
This is best illustrated by the newbie coming online and asking a newbie question. Even if he asks it in a newbie oriented list, the only replies he will likely receive are "RTFM". But suppose this didn't happen online. Suppose the newbie went to the Atlanta Linux Showcase, went up to the Redhat booth, asked how to configure sound under Redhat, and then have the Redhat representative reply "read the f*cking manual". Odds are, that newbie would never Linux, ever. But this is exactly what we do online.
How gentle or harsh your posts are has nothing to do with anything. What matters is that hundreds of thousands of people read them. Did ESR overreact to your post? Most certainly. But I don't believe that particular post should have been made public.
When you are online, act is if you were at work. At work, when you need to call an employee to task, or when you must disagree with your boss, you don't do it by posting a message to everyone in the building.
"Anything else (and I mean *anything* *else*) is just a half-baked attempt by Big Greedy Corporation Inc. to rip-off and exploit the open-source community."
The GPL and BSD are our **ONLY** choices? If I as an individual use the AL or QPL or MPL I'm a "Big Greedy Corporation Inc."? You need a big dose of reality.
The GPL and BSD are on opposite sides of the Free Software spectrum. There is plenty of room in the middle for other Free Software licenses. Lot's of room. What about something on the GPL end that doesn't have political verbage included? Or something on the BSD end that doesn't allow changing the license? Or something in the middle with no restrictions whatsoever except to keep it free.
p.s. You mentioned "free(-speech)" software. If you truly believe that Free Software is equivalent to Free Speech, have you ever considered drafting an Free Software Amendment to the US Constitution? Or perhaps an amendment to the International Treaty on Human Rights?
Place Free Software into a matrix defined by "pro-user/pro-originator" and "copyleft/copyright". Copyleft, for this definition, is software that must be free in every incarnation. Pro-user/pro-originator means who is in control of the software development.
:-))
We get:
Pro-user/Copyright: BSD, X
Pro-Originator/Copyright: NPL
Pro-Originator/Copyleft: GPL
(Some of the existing licenses like LGPL or QPL don't fit neatly. I'm not claiming this as an accurate model of reality
Obviously, what's missing is a copylefted pro-user license. We need something that is like BSD but can't be made closed. We also need something like GPL that isn't exclusive. The Proposed TGPL is neither, and in my opinion, very wishy-washy.
I want my source code to always be free, but I have no desire to tell the end-user what he can or can't do with it.
I propose a license based upon the GPL that allows:
1) Linking or the use of trivial portions (to be defined) by anyone. We want a single license, not one for apps and another for libraries.
2) Inclusion of software or non-trivial portions within other "copyleft" projects. If your license can guarantee that my code will be Free in all instances, go ahead and use it. This enlarges the number of compatible licenses.
This new license will have to define "trivial" and "copyleft", but that shouldn't be too hard. Alternatively, the Artistic license could be "tightened" up and released at AL version 2.
First of all it was a joke. Second, it was probably true! In the context of the question, "power" was defined as "energy". If you're the type that finds sex lowers your energy, I humbly suggest that you're doing it wrong. Having a mutually beneficial and loving relationship *IS* empowering to both parties (God, I'm starting to sound like Dr. Laura!).
If you erroneously mistook his comment to mean he uses sex to get control over people, I humbly suggest you loosen up a bit and stop reading stuff that isn't there.
If I recall your public letter correctly, it was not a piece of constructive criticism. Rather, it was almost as if you were accusing ESR of religious heresy. Asking Eric is private, "have you lost your fscking marbles?", is one thing, but announcing to the entire world that in essence "Eric is a bad boy and we need to slap his wrists" is something else entirely. As I read through that original letter, I almost expected the last paragraph to announce the forcable ejection of ESR from the OSI.
The government has police, soldiers, judges, guns, tanks, jails, etc. Microsoft only has lawyers.
Microsoft's EULA is a voluntary agreement between Microsoft and you. The government on the other hand can involuntarily bind you to a law and throw you in jail if you violate it. This is hardly equivalent. If I don't like Microsoft's rules I can always go to Mac, Linux, OS/2, BSD, etc. If I don't like the laws, however, I'm SOL.
But you argue, Microsoft can still sue you. So what? I can sue them as well if they violate the EULA (my chances are slim, but I can do it). What Microsoft does NOT do is come to your house with guns.
The number of potential programmers remains a relatively constant percentage of the population. What is not constant is the opportunities to program, and this is rising exponentially.
So why aren't there more programmers working on fetchmail? A couple of reasons. First, consider how long it takes to get up to speed with programming. The average programmer isn't introduced to coding in January and skilled enough to do serious work in fetchmail by December. Second, the number of available projects to work on is also rising exponentially. If no new projects were introduced since fetchmail was started, then we would certainly expect an increase of fetchmail coders as the pool of coders increases. However, there are tons of new projects out there.
Richard Stallman stated for years that he wished there were a better term than "Free Software", since that was often confused with freeware. Then you and some fellows come along an coin the term "Open Source Software". However, Richard says that's worse because it doesn't emphasize Freedom. Others lambaste you as a heretic, scoundrel and ideological impure for it.
Other than the FSF checklists of Free Software attributes, what exactly does the "Free" in "Free Software" mean? Is it "Liberty" in the sense that we can defend it with force and make war on those that would take it away? Is it "Free" as in "free to use" like your neighbor's swimming pool? Is Free Software akin to Free Verse since they're both creative works? Is it really "gratis" since every example of it out there can be obtained for zero dollars? Is the use of "free" just an emotionally positive word meant to build a following? Or does the "Free" mean something else entirely.
"The free software movement raises some big questions. Does it provide a new method of producing high-quality software, or does it apply to only some programme categories?"
It only applies to two categories well. First, it's very useful, and will most likely replace proprietary software altogether, in the area of infrastructure and "commodity" software. This includes web servers, text editors, kernels, compilers, etc. These are the projects that thousands of people code on. Some things that aren't "commodity" classed yet, could be in the future if an Open Source version makes it so. For example, office suites aren't a commodity yet, but the release of KOffice and Workspace could very well make it so.
The second category is "hobby" software. Someone has an itch and scratches it. It's written because someone wanted to have fun writing it. This software doesn't get the benefit of ESR's thousand eyes peering at the source code. Often, only one or two people ever code on it. But sometimes these programs will mushroom out and take on a life of their own.
Other categories of software will be a mix of Open and closed source programs. I don't see Open Source taking over more than a small minority of games or vertical apps.
"What does it mean for the economics of cyberspace?"
I hate buzzwords. If by 'cyberspace' you mean the internet and its sucessors, it has already changed the economics of it. The infrastructure of the internet is already Open Source. The commodity software of the internet (browsers, media players, commerce solutions) are rapidly becoming Open Source now. Javascript, perl, HTML and XML have open source code right now, it's only a small step to make them true Open Source.
"How can free software coexist with hard-nosed profit-maximising companies?"
For infrastructure/commodity software, it's the proprietary companies that will have to learn how to coexist. For other categories, Free Software developers are going to have to learn the rules of the game: marketing and targeting. People who buy vertical applications don't choose their application out of ideology. They choose based on suitability to their needs. This will mean that Open Source solutions will fail if the proprietary solutions are targeted and marketed better.
"And will the movement, riven by tensions between Open Source pragmatists and free software fundamentalists, fall apart under the pressures of success?
They movement may fall apart, the concept of open software will not. It existed with the first mainframe and will continue to exist until we replace the generalized computing device with something better.
It's important to note that every movement has it's "true believers", the "core group", and the "hanger-ons". True believers are always in the tiny minority, whether it be a political party, a religion, or anything else. Hangers-on are always the largest group but they rarely contribute anything. The core is what drives the group. They aren't fanatics but they aren't followers either. If they feel that Open Source has to change, right or wrong, it will do so
"Open Source works in practice; will it work in theory?"
If it don't, change the theory.
Back in the days of the dinosaurs, when I was learning to program on Unix Vaxen, a single print page cost 1 cent from my account, which was still cheaper than staying logged on for hours wading through the code. So I always printed everything out, logged off, and spent those hours of wading in the student lounge.
I am trying to get out of this habit but it's hard. One thing that helps is a larger monitor, multiple windows, and a decent class browser. However, it's still nice to take the stack of dead trees and a red pen and go over them in the park under a live tree with the sun shining.
Whoops! I double checked. libxml comes with two license files, COPYING (GPL) and COPYING.LIB (LGPL). I missed the second one, read the first, and assumed that since it said "GPL V2" is was indeed GPL V2. Nothing in the README file though.
"For instance, the KDE web site just seems more pointed toward users while the GNOME site is concentrating on a developer style site."
I think you just nailed the biggest difference between Gnome and KDE at the present time! It also shows in other areas. KDE got the UI complete first (1.0) and left a lot of the advanced underpinnings for later (2.0). Gnome did just the opposite. With only a very few exceptions, everything in KDE is accessible via the keyboard, but in Gnome there are many applications that are unusable without a mouse. However, Gnome has myriads of bindings but KDE is still 95% C++.
Here at work, those people that use KDE are the ones that need to get their work done. Those that use Gnome are the Linux "evangelists". I'm using WindowMaker.
The taxations that this bill would eliminate are sales taxes. This is not the only source of revenue to local and national government. It won't eliminate income taxes (damn), property taxes, tarriffs, capital gains, inhertiance taxes, etc.
Although not "fully grown", libxml will do what you want it to do. However, it has one major drawback: it is a GPL, not a LGPL library. This means that only other GPL programs can make use of it. Since libxml is part of the Gnome libraries, this is normally not a problem as all Gnome applications must be GPL (hmmm, are LGPL libraries allowed link to GPL libraries?). However, the question was wondering about broad XML support, and thus libxml won't work for other licenses such as BSD, Artistic or MPL (a lot of XML utilities are licensed under MPL).
However, there are two other C/C++ alternatives. The first is expat which is a C library that's pretty extension with extremely liberal licensing. The second is still beta, it's a new feature in the Qt 2.1 snapshot. The KOffice project is using this. There are, of course, dozens of Java and Perl XML libraries as well.
I don't think that you will ever see one single XML library for all purposes, but there are enough XML libraries available now in a range of Free licensing and languages that it won't be a problem.
"Americans charge after success at any cost -- & the sacrifice of friendships or family ties is considered not only normal, but expected."
Do you think Hollywood epitomizes the US? Yes, there are SOME people who lead such shallow lives that they have to be numero uno at everything. But they are not the majority, or even a substantial minority. They are aberrations. It is not expected or condoned. I've lived in several cities and rural areas of the US, and just recently in the Silicon Valley. It is Silicon Valley that is not the norm. People here are different than anywhere else in the country. San Jose might as well be on a different planet for all the similarity it has with San Fransisco, a mere fifty miles north. And neither is Hollywood similar in any way to Los Angeles, Pasadena or Anaheim.
Instead, what seperates the US from some other societies is a tolerance for individualism. Sometimes this leads to ruthless competition. It also leads to new forms of expression, new counter cultures, and new political ideologies.
"Now let's say you banned a certain model of grenade, and made a 5 day waiting period mandatory before buying a bazooka, do you think it will make any difference?"
These items are not firearms. No way. No how. In regards to Afghanistan, they are in the middle of a de facto combat zone. First the Russians, then the Iraqis, plus every terrorist organization that can get there. If I was in such a situation I would want the equivalent firepower of those raping my sisters and killing my brothers.
"I can drive 1/2 an hour here in California and buy a fully loaded machine gun, no questions asked."
Where in the world did this come from? There's nowhere in the state of California you can buy a machine gun legally, loaded, unloaded or otherwise! Give my an address where I can go see and if you're right that I can purchase a fully loaded machine gun with no questions asked, I will personally purchase one and melt it down live on Slashdot webcam!
"Of course, thanks to enlightened citizens such as yourself, we have a record number of prisoners in jail, breaking the world record for a western democracy."
So what would you do with a murderer? Sorry, we're over our prisoner quota, go home. Give me a break! Oh, and the reason our prisons are full is not because we have lots of guns, but the combination of criminalizing narcotics and the explosion of gangs.
The number of gun-related murders in the US is at an all time high. Yet restrictions on the ownership and use of guns is also at an all time high. The restrictions are doing no good at all! Something has changed and it's not the number of guns, because they're going down. Schoolyard killings are new. Very new. Unthinkable fifty years ago.
The Valentine's Day Massacre in the 1930's shocked a nation, yet today similar gangland massacres happen on a weekly basis. And these killings are being committed with weapons that are already illegal and hard to get! Making more weapons illegal won't change anything. We're trying to put a bandaid on a severed arm! There is an illness in US society and guns are merely a scab over the wound.
But restricting guns only restricts them for the lawful citizen. I cannot today purchase an assault rifle. But the gangs still have them, boatloads of them. Banning them didn't do one ounce of good. The criminals are better armed than the police!
Solutions? Harsh and swift punishments for violent crimes and especially those committed with guns to keep these people off the streets. Require gun safety classes for purchasers of guns to prevent accidents. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. We also need to find out what has changed between then and now and fix it.