If the GPL is not valid in China, then the software is supplied without any license whatsoever, thus making copying it illegal under most laws. Remember that it is only the GPL which grants you the right to distribute, modify and distribute the modifications. If you take away the GPL, you have none of these rights.
This is somewhat off-topic, but I'd like to know what free software alternatives there are for doing Voice over IP, multi-part conferanancing etc etc on Linux. The only thing thats important is that they should be compatible with some Windows applications. Having just Linux clients just won't cut it.
I'd love to get my hands on some VA shares; they've done far more in areas I'm concerned with than SuSE, RedHat or some other such company. But I suspect that I'm once again screwed because I don't live in the US. Oh well, such is life.
If I were to do something like this, I think I would try to use the Network Block Device support to export raw devices onto a single host in the network. That host could then run any type of raid, or linear concatening of the individual devices, and then reexport it using NFS to the other hosts.
Moderating anything up in this discussion just because you think someone deserves the award is rather pointless. We don't decide who should get the award based on who got enough points on Slashdot.
Instead, what you want to do is to send your award nomination to <award-nominations@gnu.org> with the name of the person you're nominating in the subject and a short explanation as to why you think that person should get the award in the body.
This is what we use on www.gnu.org; "Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved."
If you wish to allow people to modify the page (most of the time, this isn't needed), you might want to consider the licensing terms that apply to most GNU manuals. I don't have it at hand now, but you can probably dig it up yourself.
I second that. It's a great position and you'll learn a lot about free software and the GNU project by being a sysadmin. But at the same time, it's not a sysadmin job as any other. You wouldn't get full run of the systems. You'd have other volunteer sysadmins, and sometimes even users, changing configurations when things doesn't work to their liking, you'd be dealing with what appears to many people to be a strange view on security. The positive sides are that it's an interesting job, you get to experience an aura that you will never find in any other company and you'll get to read lots of amusing things lying around the disks since the mid-80'th.
It's not always a mess though. Our web server and new cvs server are relatively sane and once you've gotten a feel of how things are connected, it's almost (but just almost) logical.
If I were in Boston, I really couldn't think of a better job, but it does take a certain type of people. Working for the FSF isn't for everyone.
Re: Where does GNU get their funding?
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GNU Project Hiring
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· Score: 2
A lot of money comes from selling deluxe distributions of GNU software, t-shirts, manuals, reference cards and source code CD-ROM's but we also get some money from donations, both by individuals and by corporations.
For the economy aspects of running a business, please check out the new initiative, GNU Enterprise.
This is only vaporware at the moment, but we're duscussing business software and the needs around it on our mailing list. If you're interested in that topic, please join us.
I've had first hand experience on the differences between PostgreSQL and MySQL. Some time ago, I was asked to take over maintanance of a web application (e-commerce system) that was using MySQL as the RDBM. This database layout hasn't to my knowledge had any real problems, but when I was asked to build another, similar system, for another client, I was faced with the choice between MySQL and PostgreSQL. This time, I sat down and read through some more advanced SQL features. Let's face it; almost everyone can learn basic SQL rather quickly, but most of us (myself included at that point) just never bother with the more advanced features. Sometimes we even make databases using SQL that could just as well have been GDBM's.
So what I discovered was that PostgreSQL had a lot of advanced features, and when I saw from examples how these could be used, there was no question about that I should use PostgreSQL instead. I used to love MySQL, and I still do as a quick web-application database, but whenever I make a more serious system these days, I tend to use PostgreSQL because the features it provides allows me to construct a database layout that is superior than that which can be made with MySQL.
I'm stunned. After reading this I sat for a minute and just stared at the screen. I guess I should have been warned when Roblimo wrote it was sent to them in Word format. I'm looking forward to seeing something from Alan Cox though!
How does this relate to us who have connections 24hrs per day? I can't really relate to "use Internet more than 4 hours per day". I mean, it's so natural, it's just -there-. If I want to check the news, I might to over to the CNN web pages or Slashdot. I check my email constantly, but I'm not surfing the web more than half an hour per day, sometimes even less than that.
Of course, I take part in online discussions more than three hours per day and I sometimes spend 14-16 hours every day programming and since I program on my server which is some 7 feet away from my workstation, and I connect to it using the Internet, I must be a real addict, right?
I think these so called results and decisions they've made is inconclusive at best.
I wrote a comment to this on LinuxToday too and I don't want to duplicate the effort, but I think it's important to point out that we will see some very natural fragmentation in the community which is the fragmentation that occurs when developers realise that Linux isn't bleeding-edge anymore and goes on to work on something else which in time will probably replace atleast the Linux kernel.
Eventually, the Linux kernel will be kept alive by corporations who has an interest in the kernel because they can make money off it. These companies might be working together to reunify Unix, but we'll see some fragmentation between companies and the bleeding-edge hackers. And I think we'll see this very soon.
Re:Serial Console was:I have 1
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High Tech Junk
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· Score: 2
Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. The reason I need console access is that I'm spoiled by the SPARC's and the VAXen.
I never said "must" and if you wish I can mail you the calculations I've done on the cost. Granted, with some more thought I can get it down to $1500 (thats roughly 12000 SEK, which is not that much higher than what normal computers sell for in Sweden (the extra cost accounted for by the monitor)), but that's about as low as I can go without making any changes in the quality.
If you want can show me how to get it cheaper here in Sweden, by all means do. I'd love to get it for less money.
I would have sent this through email if you had provided one, but perhaps you didn't read all the text? If you did you'd have seen that I need a good monitor. $500 won't buy me a good monitor. In the price I quoted is a monitor for roughly $1000. I suspect there's a $200-$500 fee for living in Sweden too and not in the US..
There's actually some very good reasons why this won't work exactly as you describe it. First of all, it will not be very convenient to mirror the software because you've got to pay for every new release. And there are always going to be people who do not want to pay for the software, or they have already payed and want a new download, so they'd go looking for it on other ftp sites and chances are pretty good that they'll end up with an old version of the software and you're going to get all sorts of trouble when they report bugs.
In order to make the most of peoples bug reports, you want them to always get the latest version and the only reliable way to do that is to make them download it from the main ftp site or some verifiable mirror.
Now, the other problem is that we don't want people to expect there to be a small cost for the software. We want them to expect that there will be a substantial cost, but that there will also be a substantial donation to the development when they buy it. So that when they buy a software for $1, they should think that there is something wrong.
So what you do is that you make your software available for download as usual and then you start selling CD-ROM's with the software and nicely printed documentation for a fee equivalent to what the software would cost if it were proprietary, or even higher. Most people will download your software for free from the FTP site, but some people will actually pay for the software because they either like it so much or they have a manual-fetish.
And this is something that really works. We don't have to have any "micropayment infrastructure" because you can do this today with existing means. There's an incentive in this to create good documentation for free software too, because that's something we really need.
There's an inherent problem with going into business yourself, and that's the monetary requirements. If you're like me, then you can probably work as a software consultant and make at least a decent living doing improvements on free software requested by other companies. But that's assuming you have something to begin with because it's going to take a lot of time and effort into building a customer base that can guarantee you some constant income.
I'm not saying that it's impossible though, just that it's a little harder than most people think. Just because you're good at programming free software, that doesn't mean that a company will hire you to improve the software they use. Most companies probably never used GNU/Linux anyway, at least that's the case in Sweden, although that is constantly improving.
So you need to sell yourself in some way. Hopefully you can do this through contacts that you have made with other companies earlier. That's the easiest way to do it. If you don't, well, you'd better start knocking on doors real soon.
As for me, well, I could probably do a lot more free software work than I do today if I had the money for it. I'm using a 486 as my console, you can imagine how fun it is to run X and compile programs on it. Sure, it works, but it takes a lot of time and effort so I don't do X. For some of you, $2000 to buy a new system (yes, that's how much I need. My eyes are bad so I need a very good monitor) might not be that much. But if you've been living on the edge for most of your life, barely having enough money to make ends meet, $2000 is way over the roof. I could live on that kind of money for more than 3 months!
So I'm trying to make the best of it. I'm trying to save money so I can one day buy a new monitor and a new system and get some real work done, but at the same time, I have to make a living somehow. Jobs are hard enough to get in Sweden as it is, and if you only want to work 50%, and work with free software, I've found out the hard way that you're pretty much out of luck.
Today, I'm hardly able to make ends meet. I've been lucky enough not having to pay rent this summer so I've been able to get along fairly cheap, but now that summer is over, things are changing and I have no idea what will come. I've got a few leads and I can probably get around 40-50% of the money I need working from home on free software, but the rest? Well, I hope to find either people who can pay me to work on free software from my home in the form of donations, or companies who can hire me to do some part-time programming or system administration for them. Now only time will tell.
So this became a little more about myself than was intended, but I want to make everyone who thinks that they can make money by doing only free software realise exactly what they're getting in to. There will be times when you simply won't be able to pay your rent and your income will be very irregular at best. Think once, twice, three times and more about that. If you're not absolutely certain that free software is something you must work with full time, then you're probably better off taking a regular job and putting down some hours on your spare time to do free software development.
You can be a free software advocate and work from "within the system" to try to change the company you work for and introduce them to free software.
Then again, if you can pull it off, then there's rewards greater than anyone can even begin to imagine waiting for you. It's the reward of being able to look back at what you've done and feel genuinely happy about it. The feeling of having done something with your life that has helped hundreds, perhaps thousands of people around the world. That's what I feel every day when I go to sleep, a genuine satisfaction about the work I've done that night. Sure, I haven't been able to make ends meet this month and I don't know where that will take me, but I'm happy. I haven't been this happy for many, many years and I wouldn't want to have it any other way.
It's been an option forever, even LILO can use a serial console, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't change any BIOS settings from a serial console, if the computer dies and it refuses to boot, I can't use a serial console to see "CMOS Checksum Failure" and press F1 to continue. That's what they're really lacking; a good and solid boot-prom. If I had a choice, I'd take a real computer over a PC any day.
I have two 486'es here, err, no wait, thats three... four 486'es. They're great work-horses for stuff you just need to get running and then forget about. I'm using one 486dx-33 with 8MB RAM as a workstation, it works like a charm. Remember that computers don't get any slower; only your perception of how fast they were changes with time. In reality, with the Linux kernel, I can do more on my 486 workstation than I could on the same computer running Windows a few years back. The only real problem with PC computers are their inability to use a serial console, and that's a big drawback, but one has to live with what one gets.
I tend to leave all my cases on nowdays. I didn't when I was running DOS/Windows though for some reason. Ever since I switched to GNU/Linux, I just stick the computer somewhere out of sight and forget about it.
Then you should be glad that Andover is aquiring freshmeat. I know scoop has a lot of ideas for Freshmeat and Andover can give him the resources needed to carry them out. I don't think it's so far fetched to think that we will see ways to customize the contents on Freshmeat according to personal taste.
I think Larry has a very good point in that by doing what's good for the community, the company will in turn become more successful. This is really rather good business practice because a lot of the people who are using the GNU/Linux system today are people who can have an influence when their company will upgrade their servers. So if they remember that VA has done a lot of good for the community, then I'm positive that they will turn to VA for their needs.
I have only one remark; people who think that Linux, GNU and all other free software is about bringing down Microsoft is short-sighted and would be better off with a new pair of glases.
Slashdot Mirror
This is somewhat off-topic, but I'd like to know what free software alternatives there are for doing Voice over IP, multi-part conferanancing etc etc on Linux. The only thing thats important is that they should be compatible with some Windows applications. Having just Linux clients just won't cut it.
I'd love to get my hands on some VA shares; they've done far more in areas I'm concerned with than SuSE, RedHat or some other such company. But I suspect that I'm once again screwed because I don't live in the US. Oh well, such is life.
If I were to do something like this, I think I would try to use the Network Block Device support to export raw devices onto a single host in the network. That host could then run any type of raid, or linear concatening of the individual devices, and then reexport it using NFS to the other hosts.
Instead, what you want to do is to send your award nomination to <award-nominations@gnu.org> with the name of the person you're nominating in the subject and a short explanation as to why you think that person should get the award in the body.
If you wish to allow people to modify the page (most of the time, this isn't needed), you might want to consider the licensing terms that apply to most GNU manuals. I don't have it at hand now, but you can probably dig it up yourself.
It's not always a mess though. Our web server and new cvs server are relatively sane and once you've gotten a feel of how things are connected, it's almost (but just almost) logical.
If I were in Boston, I really couldn't think of a better job, but it does take a certain type of people. Working for the FSF isn't for everyone.
A lot of money comes from selling deluxe distributions of GNU software, t-shirts, manuals, reference cards and source code CD-ROM's but we also get some money from donations, both by individuals and by corporations.
This is only vaporware at the moment, but we're duscussing business software and the needs around it on our mailing list. If you're interested in that topic, please join us.
So what I discovered was that PostgreSQL had a lot of advanced features, and when I saw from examples how these could be used, there was no question about that I should use PostgreSQL instead. I used to love MySQL, and I still do as a quick web-application database, but whenever I make a more serious system these days, I tend to use PostgreSQL because the features it provides allows me to construct a database layout that is superior than that which can be made with MySQL.
It's very possible to create uncompressed GIFs anyway (pseudo-gifs), but that's really not an answer to the problem.
I'm stunned. After reading this I sat for a minute and just stared at the screen. I guess I should have been warned when Roblimo wrote it was sent to them in Word format. I'm looking forward to seeing something from Alan Cox though!
Of course, I take part in online discussions more than three hours per day and I sometimes spend 14-16 hours every day programming and since I program on my server which is some 7 feet away from my workstation, and I connect to it using the Internet, I must be a real addict, right?
I think these so called results and decisions they've made is inconclusive at best.
Eventually, the Linux kernel will be kept alive by corporations who has an interest in the kernel because they can make money off it. These companies might be working together to reunify Unix, but we'll see some fragmentation between companies and the bleeding-edge hackers. And I think we'll see this very soon.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. The reason I need console access is that I'm spoiled by the SPARC's and the VAXen.
If you want can show me how to get it cheaper here in Sweden, by all means do. I'd love to get it for less money.
I would have sent this through email if you had provided one, but perhaps you didn't read all the text? If you did you'd have seen that I need a good monitor. $500 won't buy me a good monitor. In the price I quoted is a monitor for roughly $1000. I suspect there's a $200-$500 fee for living in Sweden too and not in the US..
In order to make the most of peoples bug reports, you want them to always get the latest version and the only reliable way to do that is to make them download it from the main ftp site or some verifiable mirror.
Now, the other problem is that we don't want people to expect there to be a small cost for the software. We want them to expect that there will be a substantial cost, but that there will also be a substantial donation to the development when they buy it. So that when they buy a software for $1, they should think that there is something wrong.
So what you do is that you make your software available for download as usual and then you start selling CD-ROM's with the software and nicely printed documentation for a fee equivalent to what the software would cost if it were proprietary, or even higher. Most people will download your software for free from the FTP site, but some people will actually pay for the software because they either like it so much or they have a manual-fetish.
And this is something that really works. We don't have to have any "micropayment infrastructure" because you can do this today with existing means. There's an incentive in this to create good documentation for free software too, because that's something we really need.
I'm not saying that it's impossible though, just that it's a little harder than most people think. Just because you're good at programming free software, that doesn't mean that a company will hire you to improve the software they use. Most companies probably never used GNU/Linux anyway, at least that's the case in Sweden, although that is constantly improving.
So you need to sell yourself in some way. Hopefully you can do this through contacts that you have made with other companies earlier. That's the easiest way to do it. If you don't, well, you'd better start knocking on doors real soon.
As for me, well, I could probably do a lot more free software work than I do today if I had the money for it. I'm using a 486 as my console, you can imagine how fun it is to run X and compile programs on it. Sure, it works, but it takes a lot of time and effort so I don't do X. For some of you, $2000 to buy a new system (yes, that's how much I need. My eyes are bad so I need a very good monitor) might not be that much. But if you've been living on the edge for most of your life, barely having enough money to make ends meet, $2000 is way over the roof. I could live on that kind of money for more than 3 months!
So I'm trying to make the best of it. I'm trying to save money so I can one day buy a new monitor and a new system and get some real work done, but at the same time, I have to make a living somehow. Jobs are hard enough to get in Sweden as it is, and if you only want to work 50%, and work with free software, I've found out the hard way that you're pretty much out of luck.
Today, I'm hardly able to make ends meet. I've been lucky enough not having to pay rent this summer so I've been able to get along fairly cheap, but now that summer is over, things are changing and I have no idea what will come. I've got a few leads and I can probably get around 40-50% of the money I need working from home on free software, but the rest? Well, I hope to find either people who can pay me to work on free software from my home in the form of donations, or companies who can hire me to do some part-time programming or system administration for them. Now only time will tell.
So this became a little more about myself than was intended, but I want to make everyone who thinks that they can make money by doing only free software realise exactly what they're getting in to. There will be times when you simply won't be able to pay your rent and your income will be very irregular at best. Think once, twice, three times and more about that. If you're not absolutely certain that free software is something you must work with full time, then you're probably better off taking a regular job and putting down some hours on your spare time to do free software development.
You can be a free software advocate and work from "within the system" to try to change the company you work for and introduce them to free software.
Then again, if you can pull it off, then there's rewards greater than anyone can even begin to imagine waiting for you. It's the reward of being able to look back at what you've done and feel genuinely happy about it. The feeling of having done something with your life that has helped hundreds, perhaps thousands of people around the world. That's what I feel every day when I go to sleep, a genuine satisfaction about the work I've done that night. Sure, I haven't been able to make ends meet this month and I don't know where that will take me, but I'm happy. I haven't been this happy for many, many years and I wouldn't want to have it any other way.
Feel free to mail me at .
It's been an option forever, even LILO can use a serial console, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't change any BIOS settings from a serial console, if the computer dies and it refuses to boot, I can't use a serial console to see "CMOS Checksum Failure" and press F1 to continue. That's what they're really lacking; a good and solid boot-prom. If I had a choice, I'd take a real computer over a PC any day.
I have two 486'es here, err, no wait, thats three... four 486'es. They're great work-horses for stuff you just need to get running and then forget about. I'm using one 486dx-33 with 8MB RAM as a workstation, it works like a charm. Remember that computers don't get any slower; only your perception of how fast they were changes with time. In reality, with the Linux kernel, I can do more on my 486 workstation than I could on the same computer running Windows a few years back.
The only real problem with PC computers are their inability to use a serial console, and that's a big drawback, but one has to live with what one gets.
I tend to leave all my cases on nowdays. I didn't when I was running DOS/Windows though for some reason. Ever since I switched to GNU/Linux, I just stick the computer somewhere out of sight and forget about it.
Then you should be glad that Andover is aquiring freshmeat. I know scoop has a lot of ideas for Freshmeat and Andover can give him the resources needed to carry them out. I don't think it's so far fetched to think that we will see ways to customize the contents on Freshmeat according to personal taste.
As usual, best of luck.
I have only one remark; people who think that Linux, GNU and all other free software is about bringing down Microsoft is short-sighted and would be better off with a new pair of glases.