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I mentioned the license differences as an incentive to Dell.
That, however, is FUD. The licenses make no difference at all to Dell, unless Dell chooses to get into the OS business. If and when they do that, then they might care -- or perhaps not, depending on exactly what they want to do in the OS business. Depending on what they want to do, BSD might be a bad idea, too.
Under no circumstances will using BSD-licensed software be a worse idea, than GPLed software. In a lot of situations there is no practical difference, and in some cases using BSD is easier/less restrictive. But it is never harder.
Thus, there is something in it for Dell to adopt a BSD-licensed OS — assuming other things are equal. And they are — if you choose to be charitable towards Linux, that is:-)
In any case, the debate between GPL and BSD is completely different from the debate between DRM or non-DRM music distribution.
Yes, of course it is. And I already apologized for using DRM (DRM to music is like threat of legal action to software licensing) in my example. What is similar, nay, identical, is the creators' desire to release their creations under particular rules — as they please.
I'm not prepared to debate morality of placing restrictions on one's creation. But the creators' desire (however unreasonable it may seem) should be respected, and that's my (secondary) point.
What does that have to do with Dell's current initiative to satisfy the desires of their customers to have Linux pre-installed?
Most of these people will be just as happy with FreeBSD — and without the "Windows tax". Sadly, FreeBSD is still viewed by many as just "another distro".
So, why is it that you want FreeBSD?
Because I already use (and contribute to) the FreeBSD project. I mentioned the license differences as an incentive to Dell. Almost every appeal to a vendor to do something (open the source, adapt Linux, etc.) is accompanied by how lucrative and/or otherwise useful the step would be for the vendor (they'll sell more stuff, etc.). I did not want my appeal (which started this thread) to seem purely self-serving either:-)
To this I reply, that only a pirate would object to DRM.
Both nonsense *and* unrelated. You're really reaching.
Well, I misspoke. DRM is just means of enforcement. I should've said: "only a pirate would object to anti-filesharing efforts". But you got it:
most DRM technology makes no attempt to enforce copyrights, rather it enforces whatever arbitrary set of restrictions the copyright holder wants to enforce
Just as someone, who objects to GPL's limitations, should not pick GPL-ed software, someone else, who objects to the music copyright holder's whims, should not buy the holder's muzak.
Very simple and square. One's right to license their software any way they want (and enforce that license) is really no different from another's right license their music and other art as they please.
It is just that/. is a forum of software authors (and wannabees), rather than that of musicians or photographers. BTW, I'm sure, the latter are not above justifying use of cracked music-, video-, or photo-editing software either...
People don't die because of droughts. The food is there. It's greed causing the lack of infrastructure that kills 'em.
Hunters and gatherers "work" way less than you. 20 hours a week is the number that comes to mind, but it has been 10 years since I picked up my BA in Anthropology.
And for the rest of the time they were.... I know! They were building better infrastructure!
Is Dell going to try to subvert the GPL to obtain control over Linux?
No idea. But whatever Dell may want to do now or in the future, BSD-licensed platform is less restrictive than a GPL one.
Why would they want to do that? How would it even benefit them? Dell wants to sell hardware, not corner the market on selling Linux.
No idea. Maybe. But other things are pretty much equal (FreeBSD vs. Linux), so picking the one with easier to obey license is a smart choice.
My point was that it doesn't matter to Dell either way, unless they're going to close it or otherwise try to stop others from distributing it.
Maybe they would want to do so. More likely, they may want to add some proprietary stuff (like drivers for something) or a media-player, whatever. They'd be foolish not to offer the source for it, but they may want to be able to (be foolish) anyway.
Your point seems to be, that GPL is not restrictive, unless you are a scumbag. To this I reply, that only a pirate would object to DRM.
with all of our current problems -- homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad -- our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions.
Which is opposite of:
with all the billions spent on at home and abroad, they could not find a lousy $40 to keep grandma's old TV-set functional?
Great business decision Dell.:) Pre-install an operating system with barely more users than developers.
Dell could hire Matt and own DragonFlyBSD altogether. Like Apple, they'll have an OS of their own. Unlike Apple, they wouldn't need to create a fork of an existing one for that...
Win-win...
But if they don't, I'll be happy with Dell systems coming with FreeBSD pre-installed instead.
I'm not biting. Check a few days-worth of earlier SlashDot articles for the GNU-related troubles, that Novell either has already or may have in the future, should FSF turn more zealous.
Well, if you own it, than it is not anonymous — can be traced back to you easily... It is just a speed-bump on the way to you. Using a public proxy (a busy one, preferably) is a road-block — still passable, but harder...
You can write your own Proxy Auto-Config file (in JavaScript), which would make your browser use a randomly-picked proxy from the list you code in for each request.
With a large enough list you can make the job of the people after you very difficult (they would need to contact and persuade a lot more people), and you will not even attract your ISP's attention as much as when your only destination seems to be one (proxy-running) site... Even if some of the proxies you pick are run by police themselves, they are likely to be different (competing) departments and agencies, and they are still unlikely to have complete picture of even a single one of your web-sessions.
They can still force your ISP to cooperate, but that means, they already know, who you are, so it is too late for "anonymity".
They want the HQ to be closer to the majority of the fields they operate and to the bulk of their customers, which is Asia. Their main business is "oil services", mind you. And the biggest oil fields are around the Gulf...
Unmanned probes that can reach not just Beirut but Tehran, and stay up for days waiting for the target? It's a sure seller, and the rich uncle Sam will as always pay for the new toys.
A modern "Western" society (including Israel) is too advanced socially and culturally to deal with the inconvenient people the old-fashioned way — through massive killings, destruction, and/or religious conversions (the latter being the mildest form).
While undoubtedly a good thing, this inability is seen by some as dangerous (sometimes even fatal) weakness — the underdeveloped enemy usually has no such self-imposed limitations.
This article, however, reminds of the flip-side of the advanced society — the mind-boggling speed of technological and scientific progress, which will allow us to prevail without the above-mentioned ugliness. Israel, for example, will not need to "pull a Darfur", where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and raped, and millions driven out from their homes by the Arabs hordes unleashed by the government to suppress some insurrection or another...
Instead, Israel will be able to use these machines to target the real enemies, keeping the innocents alive, even if enraged.
Progress in weapons is a good thing — better weapons kill fewer people.
So in other words the "passport" you had to carry around was little different from an id card, which you are required to carry on you in a large percentage of the worlds countries today, including most of Europe.
You lost me right there at the denying to creators the power over their creations — and the property rights. Previous attempts to strip owners of their property were rather disastrous and anyone advocating anything similar is not worth studying to me.
an earnestly-held argument made in the public interest.
Then again, this is a country where most governement departments are switching to Linux, so...
No, I think, it is more likely, that your sample (just the circle of people you know personally, right?) is just too limited to be statistically meaningful.
Would be interesting to get similar stats from a French site, that's visited by different sides, rather then just a club of people in agreement with each other.
In Soviet Russia you were legally obliged to have your passport with you at all times — although many weren't carrying it with them, that could was grounds for involuntary visit to the precinct...
Oh, and no, you could not leave the country with that passport — you needed a different, special one. An impossible one to receive for ordinary citizens, BTW.
Sad to see UK getting a step closer to that, but it is still very far away from it...
No. There is no moral component to copyright law; it's purely utilitarian. But if there were a moral component to it, it would actually be on the side of the pirates.
Certainly not. And here is why. Even the vilest pirates claim, they only steal from the RIAA/MPAA — not the original authors: musicians, artists, whoever.
Ergo, morality is involved. That's one.
Pirating from **AA is also wrong — claiming otherwise is equivalent to claiming, that the products of those original authors' — which they (pre)sell to the record companies — have no value. Because if stealing them is not a wrong, then they can not be sold. Ergo, you are hurting the original authors, that we all love and pledge to respect. This is trivial — you just have not given it a thought.
3) Change the laws so that music that is sold is sold in the way you want, whether the music industry is pleased at that or not.
Sorry, that would go against a lot of Constitution-guaranteed freedoms. You are, essentially, advocating government regulation of an industry — without showing a good cause for it whatsoever. Unlike for regulating food, medicine, cars (which arguably shouldn't be regulated either), there is no justification for regulating music — even if all of it just disappears one day, or, worse, if nothing but Spice Girls becomes available, nothing will happen... It is just a non-issue, and should be allowed to stay the way free market wants it.
And before you say, oh, but DMCA was written for them — yes, it was. But DMCA is intended to simply aid enforcement of the existing rights of copyright holders. You, on contrast, want a more fundamental change, apparently. But, anyway, I'm all eyes — what exactly are you proposing? Better yet — don't post it here, send it to your elected law-maker...
RIAA just needs to keep pushing until all we listen to is pirated, ripped MP3s all day, everyday.
Illegally...
That really is no small addition. The advice to stop pushing applies to RIAA only, who is unlikely to be reading these pages anywa.
You, on the other hand, seem to justify illegal behavior. And not just illegal, which is not in itself necessarily wrong, but immoral too.
If you don't like the way the music is sold, the honest choices are:
buy it anyway (while, perhaps, complaining).
don't buy it (more effective).
Acquiring it in a way different from the owner's wishes (I deliberately avoid getting side-tracked into debate over whether this is "stealing") is dishonest.
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We care.
Under no circumstances will using BSD-licensed software be a worse idea, than GPLed software. In a lot of situations there is no practical difference, and in some cases using BSD is easier/less restrictive. But it is never harder.
Thus, there is something in it for Dell to adopt a BSD-licensed OS — assuming other things are equal. And they are — if you choose to be charitable towards Linux, that is :-)
Yes, of course it is. And I already apologized for using DRM (DRM to music is like threat of legal action to software licensing) in my example. What is similar, nay, identical, is the creators' desire to release their creations under particular rules — as they please.
I'm not prepared to debate morality of placing restrictions on one's creation. But the creators' desire (however unreasonable it may seem) should be respected, and that's my (secondary) point.
Most of these people will be just as happy with FreeBSD — and without the "Windows tax". Sadly, FreeBSD is still viewed by many as just "another distro".
Because I already use (and contribute to) the FreeBSD project. I mentioned the license differences as an incentive to Dell. Almost every appeal to a vendor to do something (open the source, adapt Linux, etc.) is accompanied by how lucrative and/or otherwise useful the step would be for the vendor (they'll sell more stuff, etc.). I did not want my appeal (which started this thread) to seem purely self-serving either :-)
Well, I misspoke. DRM is just means of enforcement. I should've said: "only a pirate would object to anti-filesharing efforts". But you got it:
Just as someone, who objects to GPL's limitations, should not pick GPL-ed software, someone else, who objects to the music copyright holder's whims, should not buy the holder's muzak.
Very simple and square. One's right to license their software any way they want (and enforce that license) is really no different from another's right license their music and other art as they please.
It is just that /. is a forum of software authors (and wannabees), rather than that of musicians or photographers. BTW, I'm sure, the latter are not above justifying use of cracked music-, video-, or photo-editing software either...
Thank you for more examples of demagoguery.
And for the rest of the time they were .... I know! They were building better infrastructure!
No idea. But whatever Dell may want to do now or in the future, BSD-licensed platform is less restrictive than a GPL one.
No idea. Maybe. But other things are pretty much equal (FreeBSD vs. Linux), so picking the one with easier to obey license is a smart choice.
Maybe they would want to do so. More likely, they may want to add some proprietary stuff (like drivers for something) or a media-player, whatever. They'd be foolish not to offer the source for it, but they may want to be able to (be foolish) anyway.
Your point seems to be, that GPL is not restrictive, unless you are a scumbag. To this I reply, that only a pirate would object to DRM.
Sorry, I was talking about Dell's potential troubles (a'la Novell's), not the end-users'.
My point was, it would be in Dell's interest to pick a BSD-licensed alternative to Microsoft, rather than a GNU-licensed one.
Which is opposite of:
Demagoguery works both ways...
Dell could hire Matt and own DragonFlyBSD altogether. Like Apple, they'll have an OS of their own. Unlike Apple, they wouldn't need to create a fork of an existing one for that...
Win-win...
But if they don't, I'll be happy with Dell systems coming with FreeBSD pre-installed instead.
I'm not biting. Check a few days-worth of earlier SlashDot articles for the GNU-related troubles, that Novell either has already or may have in the future, should FSF turn more zealous.
Or, maybe, DragonFlyBSD. A complete OS targeting i386 platforms, with fewer GNU-licensing issues to worry about.
Well, if you own it, than it is not anonymous — can be traced back to you easily... It is just a speed-bump on the way to you. Using a public proxy (a busy one, preferably) is a road-block — still passable, but harder...
You can write your own Proxy Auto-Config file (in JavaScript), which would make your browser use a randomly-picked proxy from the list you code in for each request.
With a large enough list you can make the job of the people after you very difficult (they would need to contact and persuade a lot more people), and you will not even attract your ISP's attention as much as when your only destination seems to be one (proxy-running) site... Even if some of the proxies you pick are run by police themselves, they are likely to be different (competing) departments and agencies, and they are still unlikely to have complete picture of even a single one of your web-sessions.
They can still force your ISP to cooperate, but that means, they already know, who you are, so it is too late for "anonymity".
Idiots. Voter-appeasing idiots... It is like the AT&T fiasco never happened...
They want the HQ to be closer to the majority of the fields they operate and to the bulk of their customers, which is Asia. Their main business is "oil services", mind you. And the biggest oil fields are around the Gulf...
Not sure, why all this is /. material, though...
You forgot arguments. Please, try again.
A modern "Western" society (including Israel) is too advanced socially and culturally to deal with the inconvenient people the old-fashioned way — through massive killings, destruction, and/or religious conversions (the latter being the mildest form).
While undoubtedly a good thing, this inability is seen by some as dangerous (sometimes even fatal) weakness — the underdeveloped enemy usually has no such self-imposed limitations.
This article, however, reminds of the flip-side of the advanced society — the mind-boggling speed of technological and scientific progress, which will allow us to prevail without the above-mentioned ugliness. Israel, for example, will not need to "pull a Darfur", where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and raped, and millions driven out from their homes by the Arabs hordes unleashed by the government to suppress some insurrection or another...
Instead, Israel will be able to use these machines to target the real enemies, keeping the innocents alive, even if enraged.
Progress in weapons is a good thing — better weapons kill fewer people.
Yes. That is true...
You lost me right there at the denying to creators the power over their creations — and the property rights. Previous attempts to strip owners of their property were rather disastrous and anyone advocating anything similar is not worth studying to me.
Try writing it into a Manifesto...
Too long to foolish. Not at all convincing. Yawn...
No, I think, it is more likely, that your sample (just the circle of people you know personally, right?) is just too limited to be statistically meaningful.
Would be interesting to get similar stats from a French site, that's visited by different sides, rather then just a club of people in agreement with each other.
Illiberal Left using proprietary software. I'm not surprised — I'm surprised, anyone else is surprised, though :-)
In Soviet Russia you were legally obliged to have your passport with you at all times — although many weren't carrying it with them, that could was grounds for involuntary visit to the precinct...
Oh, and no, you could not leave the country with that passport — you needed a different, special one. An impossible one to receive for ordinary citizens, BTW.
Sad to see UK getting a step closer to that, but it is still very far away from it...
Certainly not. And here is why. Even the vilest pirates claim, they only steal from the RIAA/MPAA — not the original authors: musicians, artists, whoever.
Ergo, morality is involved. That's one.
Pirating from **AA is also wrong — claiming otherwise is equivalent to claiming, that the products of those original authors' — which they (pre)sell to the record companies — have no value. Because if stealing them is not a wrong, then they can not be sold. Ergo, you are hurting the original authors, that we all love and pledge to respect. This is trivial — you just have not given it a thought.
Sorry, that would go against a lot of Constitution-guaranteed freedoms. You are, essentially, advocating government regulation of an industry — without showing a good cause for it whatsoever. Unlike for regulating food, medicine, cars (which arguably shouldn't be regulated either), there is no justification for regulating music — even if all of it just disappears one day, or, worse, if nothing but Spice Girls becomes available, nothing will happen... It is just a non-issue, and should be allowed to stay the way free market wants it.
And before you say, oh, but DMCA was written for them — yes, it was. But DMCA is intended to simply aid enforcement of the existing rights of copyright holders. You, on contrast, want a more fundamental change, apparently. But, anyway, I'm all eyes — what exactly are you proposing? Better yet — don't post it here, send it to your elected law-maker...
Illegally...
That really is no small addition. The advice to stop pushing applies to RIAA only, who is unlikely to be reading these pages anywa.
You, on the other hand, seem to justify illegal behavior. And not just illegal, which is not in itself necessarily wrong, but immoral too.
If you don't like the way the music is sold, the honest choices are:
Acquiring it in a way different from the owner's wishes (I deliberately avoid getting side-tracked into debate over whether this is "stealing") is dishonest.