There are two real problems with nuclear power: Disposal of spent fuel (waste) and accidents. Once you analyze them, you realize there is but one problem with nuclear power: Longevity.
Accidents are the joker card in this game. Nuclear power would be fantasic -- if nothing ever went wrong. Unfortunately, one of the few constants in our existance seems to be Murphy's Law: What can go wrong, will go wrong. And when things go wrong in nuclear power, the resulting fallout (pun quite intended) can be drastic.
If a coal plant catches fire, you have a lot of smoke, some toxic chemicals, possibly explosions, the usual sort of industrial accident. But within a few days, a week or two at the outside, the fire will be out and you can start picking up the pieces.
At Chernobyl, they won't be able to pick up the pieces for hundreds of years.
Spent fuel (nuclear waste) is the second problem I mentioned. When the oil is finished burning, all your waste has gone up the stack, for better or worse. With nuclear power, the spent fuel rods must be kept until they decay to the point where they are no longer hazzardous.
Again, this process takes hundreds of years. During all that time, you keep accumulating more and more waste. You cannot handle it without special suits or robots. You need to keep it away from water, to prevent contamination of the water table. You need to do this for a long, long time.
And that is the real problem with nuclear power (or nuclear anything): Longevity. Nuclear waste remains hazardous far longer then anything else we have to deal with. Unlike a conventional industrial accident, the result of a nuclear accident may well last until your grandchildren are dead. Just creating a storage container that lasts long enough stretches our technology.
The people who design nuclear waste storage facilities spend a good deal of time trying to make the place look as dangerous as possible, using universal symbols that any human will understand. The reason why is simple: This stuff will remain deadly longer then modern civilization has been around. They have to account for anything up to and including the collapse of our society in their designs. That is the time scale we're dealing with here.
Once you realize that, you realize the problem. With almost everything else, we can afford to make mistakes. It may be bad, but we can fix the problem and move on. Not with nuclear power. Nuclear power demands perfection -- and that is one thing we cannot provide.
The GPL, by its very nature, creates conflicts between open source developers and honest businesses... by putting them at odds with one another.
That is, unfortunately, an inevitable result of the restrictions the GPL places on how you can redistribute code based on GPL'ed software. Many people like the benefits of the GPL, and they will have to live with those conflicts.
It doesn't take more than a few minutes' reading at the FSF Web site... to see the antagonism.
The GPL has a number of advantages to many people. Just because the people who originated it are somewhat, shall we say, vocal in their opinions, does not mean we should abandon it. When I evaluate the GPL, I look at the words in the license, not the rhetoric on the FSF website.
Everyone... would be better off if we adopted the win/win, "live and let livee" approach of other software licenses...
There is some debate over that issue (to put it mildly).
People have made the very good point that the GPL helps prevent the forking we've seen with Unix. The lack of restrictions on the BSD license lead to the fragmentation of BSD into tens of free and commercial OSes, all mutually incompatible with each other.
There is also the "Free Ride" syndrome. The GPL seeks to encourage open source development by preventing people from taking open code and using in their closed products, with no return to those who wrote the original code.
I often think of this as an alternative form of payment. With commercial software, you pay a fee to use source code. With GPL software, you are required to give something back to the community to make use of the GPL code. You are always free to not use the GPL code, of course.
The GPL hasn't "forced" the opening of any code...
You are certainly correct there. The GPL cannot force you to do anything. Again, it comes down to what you are willing to "pay". If you are willing to open your own code, to the benefit of the community, the GPL is fine. Otherwise, you will have to invest time and money in reimplementing what the GPLed code would have done for you. This is no different then any other software license; if you are not willing to pay the price, you don't use the software.
The reason I say lawsuits are inevitable, period, is because so many are sue-happy these days. What if some company decides that you are using a patented algorithm in your BSDL'ed code? A lawsuit, I am sure. Will the GPL lead to more lawsuits then the BSDL? Possibly. But those who use the GPL will doubtless say that the lawsuits are worth it.
So which is it? Does posting gobs of "echelon keywords" in cleartext bog down the NSA or not?
Like I said in my first message:
It is pretty doubtful that putting random keywords at the bottom of your message traffic is going to fool even a computer... even if you did have an effect, all you are going to do is increase my tax bill.
At some point or other, Echelon is going to clue in to the fact that you're not a terrorist, and dump your message out of whatever queue it's in. If it is sooner, then you accomplish nothing, if it is later, you're wasting my money. Get it?
...the NSA, who commands multi billion dollar budgets to spy on you...
Where do you get that? They're spying on other countries and international organizations, not you and me. They couldn't care less about US citizens, unless said citizens are the other end of a comm to some middle-eastern terroist or whatever.
[How are tax dollars] being wasted by the trivial protests intended to make that espionage harder?
I agree that any impact is likely going to be trivial compared to the overall cost. But if that is the case, why do you bother?
The point is to raise awareness of the downright criminal desire of government agencies to spy on innocent citizens...
If the point is to raise awareness, then fine. But wouldn't a short tagline saying "The NSA is doing so-and-so, check out this website for more!" do a better job?
By the way, is it gall or just a short attention span that causes you to complain about an inflammatory subject line, which was a reply to a post with an inflammatory subject line?
Gall. Okay, so I guess I deserved to be flamed for that one. Sorry.:-)
You know, I just wanted to post this because I got a chuckle imagining alt.terrorist.evil, but now I wonder just how many alt.binaries.* posts actually have steganographic content.
Believe it or not, this hits on my point exactly.
Do you really think a terrorist is going to post all their plans plaintext on Usenet? Why don't they just run front page adds in the New York Times (free registration required) instead?
The fact of that matter is, the people in alt.kill-the-president (or those posting in comp.os.linux.misc who should be posting alt.kill-the-president) are exactly the sorts of shallow kooks that the NSA is not interested in.
The NSA is interested in real threats, not (1) nutcases who don't do more then make a lot of noise or (2) people who pretend to be be nutcases by posting random keywords. You're just wasting my tax dollars. Cut it out.
BTW, great subject line. Calling me a "fool" obviously proves your intellectual superiority over me.
Someone moderated this AC posting down as "Flamebait". Grrrrr. Just because you don't agree with them, doesn't mean it is flamebait. In fact, this AC makes a good point. So I repost it:
The problem, though, is that Opera only accepts W3C specs. It consistently chokes on even minor errors in HTML, and renders the page in a broken manner. Sometimes this even makes the page unreadable.
That's not good enough. "Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you produce." Good software must be willing to work around being fed bad data. The Opera approach has instead been "Be conservative in what you accept, and tell your users to whine."
Yes, standards support is good. Support for the Web as it exists, full of invalid markup that most people don't fix, and don't need to fix because 95% of their readership is using a browser derived from Netscape or IE, is better.
If Lynx choked the same way Opera does, I'd call it a goddamn failure. I don't know why I don't think the same about Opera. Maybe I just have a generous spirit about Norweigans.
(The above post is an Anonymous Coward's, not mine.)
Placing code under the GPL sets its market value to the end user at zero. That is to say, because the end user can obtain its functionality for free, he will not pay any money for it.
First, value can not always be measured in dollars. See any recent "MasterCard" ad for demonstrations.:)
Second, the GPL places restrictions on what you can do with the code. Removing those restrictions may be very valuable. Changling the license on intellectual property essentially makes it a different product. Neat, eh?:)
If a developer pays a nonzero amount to license the code, he is digging himself into a hole, as that cost can never be recovered.
What if he makes money selling the product which is based on the also GPLed code?
Many authors of GPLed code share Stallman's anti-business ideology and will not do so;
And many more authors refuse to release their code at all, under any license, GPL, BSD, AL, or whatever. Blaiming a license for the actions of an author doesn't make much sense to me.
Because the code has zero market value, licensing it is a dead loss.
If the code were truely worthless, nobody would want to license it. If someone wants to license it, it must have value to them. No?
I often look at the redistribution restrictions of the GPL as a form of payment. Rather then paying money for code, you are given limitations: If you wish to incorporate GPL code into your own code, you must release your own code under the GPL. Rather then paying the developer, you pay the community. Of course, you are free to not use the GPL code at any time, removing all such restrictions.
I don't mean the NSA, either. I mean a rather vocal portion of the Slashdot readership.:-(
"Hey, let's post Echoelon fodder!" Yes, brilliant. First, it is pretty doubtful that putting random keywords at the bottom of your message traffic is going to fool even a computer. They're looking at where your message is from, where it is to, and what it is about. They really couldn't care less about your posts to comp.os.linux.misc with "plutonium" and "Iraq" at the bottom. Second, even if you did have an effect, all you are going to do is increase my tax bill. Increase the workload, and more people/computer power is needed, which is paid for out of my wallet. And while you're at it, you might actually be reducing the attention a real problem might otherwise get. Yeah, great idea.
Folks: Governments spy on other governments and organizations. If you think this is news, you really need to wake up and smell something. The CIA and NSA and Armed Forces and whoever else are going to go right on spying on other governments, because I can guarantee you, the other governments aren't going to stop spying on us.
Personally, I'm glad we have a reasonably good military and intelligence operation, because it greatly reduces the chances that we'll be speaking Chinese or Russian in the future, or be reduced to radioactive cinders for that matter.
And if you really think the government is out to get you, you should seek the aide of a professional psychiatrist. They can help you overcome your paranoia, and help you realize that the "X-Files" is just a TV show.
IMHO, there is no possibility of the machine EVER being fired up again, unfortunately. While it's a nice dream, it's likely that trying to restart the thing would do nothing but cause a large fire. These are 50-year-old vacuum tubes, people!
It is worth pointing out that "restored" does not mean "made operational". Restoration could simply mean dusting it off and replacing gaping holes in the front panels so that it looks like it did when it was operational.
no, kilowatt is a measure of power, which is energy per time. so kilowatts per hour is energy per time^2
It has been long enough since I took a science course that I can't remeber the science aspect of all these formula (formuli? formulas?). But I do have to worry about my electric bill, so I know how this works.
Watts is how much juice it takes to run something. (I say "juice" because I can't remember if the technical term is power or energy or what.) For example, a 100 watt lightbulb means it draws 100 watts whenever it is turned on.
The watt-hour is a measure of power usage. If you run a 100 watt lightbulb for an hour, you just used 100 watt-hours. If you run a 50-watt lightbulb for two hours, you still use 100 watt-hours.
This is how the power company bills you. If the only thing in your house is a space heater that draws 1000 watts, running it all the time will use 24000 watt-hours, or 2.4 kilowatt-hours, per day. If you run two of them, you will use 4.8 kw*h per day. The "hours" in "kilowatt-hours" is a theoretical hour, not a real-time hour.
Thus, I would assume CSIRAC draws 30 kilowatts of power whenever it is turned on. I suppose you could say it uses 30 kW an hour -- if you leave it on for an hour.:) Leave it on for two hours, and it will have used 60 kW*h. Use it only for half an hour, and you only use 15 kW*h. Get the idea?
Tom is nothing more than a Perl monkey. Let him hang out with those other loser Perl bastards.
I happen to be one of those "loser Perl bastards", as you so eloquently put it. I don't think Tom's a moron at all. Frankly, his understanding of Perl and UNIX systems amazes me, and he's done a great job at making Perl documentation just plain happen.
I'm not sure if he just misunderstands the GPL, is blinded by zealotry (it happens to the best of us), or is simply over-zealous in his beliefs. In any event, debating it with him will at least give me some insights into why he thinks what he does. Even if it just leads me to believe that he is fundamentally opposed to the GPL to the point of not accepting anything favorable about it, that tells me something. Though I cannot stand dogma, and will have to revise my estimate of him if that is the case.
In any event, we don't need trolls like you trying to add fuel to the fire. Normally I wouldn't even respond to such garbage, but I wouldn't want Tom to think Slashdot likes this kind of puke.
No, spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt in an attempt to "prove" an opinion, and insulting me and whoever else disagrees with you. To wit:
You:I keep thinking you'll understand if I speak slowly, or something.
I'm not going to dignify that by replying in kind.
Me:The GPL is designed to ensure that the source code for a piece of software remains available to everyone at all times. That is all. Nothing more, and nothing less.
You:Many licences do that, the LGPL, BSDL, and AL being amongst those.
Incorrect. The BSD license (AFAIK: reference) and the Artistic license both allow distribution of binary-only, modified versions of the original source code. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although some think it is. However, regardless of whether it is good or bad, both the BSDL and AL do not include the protections against "embrace and extend" and freeloading that the GPL does.
You:It [the GPL] sneaks its viral fingers into code
This is FUD. There is nothing sneaky about the GPL. Indeed, many (myself included) think certain people are far too vocal about why the GPL should be the One True License. Calling the GPL "viral" is about the same as calling Perl an "unreadable" language. Both have an element of truth, and neither are fair.
It is worth pointing out that FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) is not the same as a lie. FUD must have some truth in it, or it is easily refuted as a lie. FUD exists in the margins of error that human language and understanding allow, and in areas of opinion and subjectivity.
But let's get back to the matter at hand. Does the GPL infect code you write? No. What it does is prevent you from taking GPL code and including it in your own works. There is a difference. You still retain complete and total ownership of your code. The restrictions come from the inability to distribute the other, GPL code. Your code is not affected! The only problems arise from the copyright violation that would occur if you redistributed the GPL code in your own code, without credit and return.
What is this credit and return business? Basically, the GPL is designed to help promote open source/free software/whatever, and to ensure that closed-source developers do not get a free ride. Again, all it "forces" anyone to do is keep the original code free.
In an effort to keep open source going, the GPL prevents another company from using GPL'ed code to create a propriatary, sourceless product. For example, Microsoft's Windows operating system includes the BSD FTP client, without source, with the copyright hidden deep inside the binary. With the GPL, this would not have been possible. Again, the good or bad value of this action is another matter entirely -- my point here is actions, not values.
I think -- and this is strictly my personal opinion -- that it is reasonable that, if I am going to take the time and effort to create some software, that some other company should not get a free ride from me, or take my code and lock it up in their product. Others do not agree. Fine by me. It is, after all, their choice. I am not going to insult them for wanting to make money from a product. But don't tell me how to license my work, either.
You:In other words, just because I might be wrong does not mean I am insincere.
Granted. If you sincerely believe speaking (or typing, for that matter) slowly will improve my understanding of the subject, by all means, do so.
You:As for my complaining about the BSD advertising stuff, you are making an assumption. And you would be wrong.
You are correct, I was making an assumption there. I apologize, and stand corrected.
Me:The only thing you are not allowed to do is include GPL code in a non-GPL program and redistribute it.
You:The BSDs are (obviously) non-GPL, and this is why the BSD guys couldn't just take the Linux driver, fiddle with it, and whack it into the BSDs. This is what he was trying to explain to the clueless rep.
I realized that was what Mr. Glass was trying to do. Mr. Christiansen was doing something entirely different -- that is, spreading FUD that the GPL forces you to lose control of your software. Please mind the thread of discussion.
You:The BSD guys, could, on the other hand, have included the driver under the GPL, and then the rest of the OS under the BSDL, but they understandably and justifiably won't do this. The reason is that the GPL would end up encroaching and "polluting" the rest of BSD.
Well, if they want to play politics, they can. Politics is part of licensing issues. (Linux is not immune to politics, either -- try suggesting a standard driver API on the linux-kernel list sometime.) But that is hardly the fault of the GPL.
Me:The GPL is designed to ensure that the source code for a piece of software remains available to everyone at all times. That is all. Nothing more, and nothing less.
You:I see a typo there: you wrote GPL when you meant LGPL.
You know that is not true. For someone who talks about letting lies seep in, you are deliberately spreading FUD, which I find rather distasteful. My opinion of you just dropped a few points, Tom. I had thought you were above such tactics.
Anyway, what I said about the GPL is 100% correct, and you and I both know it. I beg you to prove otherwise.
I'm not saying the GPL doesn't make things difficult for people sometimes. Such is life. It also protects people sometimes. The difficulties with the GPL are why the LGPL was created, after all -- to allow you to statically link GPL code with your non-GPL executable.
However, there is nothing in the GPL that prevents you from using it with non-GPL code. There is nothing in the GPL that prevents you from modifying GPL code to work with non-GPL code. The only thing you are not allowed to do is include GPL code in a non-GPL program and redistribute it.
Again, this has its advantages and disadvantages. I'm not going to reiterate them here. However, it is worth noting that until recently, the BSD license had a clause (the "Advertising clause") that used a similar technique for different intent. You didn't complain about that. Why does your pet favorite get special rights that someone else's does not?
If you are going to stoop to double-standards and big business FUD, then go back to writing books on Perl, something you do much better, and which benefits everyone.
Would a bevy of moderators please track down all these cowards who are trying to create a bsd bashing festival and zap them into negativity?
Don't reply to Anon Cowards like these people, Tom. They're just trying to troll you. And by all rights, they are succeeding.:-)
Ever notice how you don't see raving loonies bashing Linux the way you see them bashing BSD.
They come out for pro-Linux articles too, trust me. It's worse, then, because we have Microsoft astroturfers then, too, as Linux is officially on Microsoft's hit list now.
No. NT includes an optional POSIX subsystem. By all accounts, it is unstable, incomplete, and fails to implement much of what is required for decent POSIX compliance. It also has huge security problems; Microsoft recommends you disable it completely, or NT will not be considered secure.
In short, Microsoft did what was needed to pass the POSIX compatibility, tests. Running actual POSIX software was not one of their goals.
What's your point? How does POSIX compliance really help us, if at all?
POSIX is essentially the UNIX operating system turned into an OS API standard.
If you write a program that is POSIX compliant, and the underlying OS provides a good POSIX implementation, then your program will port to other OSes with little to no modification.
Signal 11, sir, is there a reason you cannot use a useful subject line in your posts? Sometimes it seems like half of the comments you post have subjects of "...". I'm sure someone of your intelligence can come up with a useful subject line. It doesn't take that much effort. And it helps people reading your comments. So why don't you use it? Or do we need a "-1 Bad subject line" option in the moderation actions?:)
First, understand: From everything I've read, and the little I've used, the various BSDs are nice, solid OSes, with outstanding UNIX and POSIX compatibility, (makes sense, BSD was one of the first), excellent reliability, and so on and so forth. All in all, wonderful systems.
But then Mr. Glass goes on to state the following:
I noted that Digi was displaying some new serial hardware in the Red Hat booth, and asked them about BSD drivers. They said that they didn't have them, but "why don't you just port them from Linux?" (I tried to explain to them that the GPL, which is designed to monkey-wrench exactly such activities, precluded this...
That is FUD in the finest Microsoft tradition, and I'm surprised and ashamed that someone from the BSD camp is emitting it. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt, and assume it was a slip of the tongue (er, finger), but I also want to set the record straight.
The GPL is designed to ensure that the source code for a piece of software remains available to everyone at all times. That is all. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Thus, the GPL prevents Microsoft or some other Evil Empire taking the code, "embracing it and extending it", and releasing proprietary, incompatible versions.
It also prevents a single company (for example, Red Hat) from taking control of the Linux world. No matter how many developers and maintainers Red Hat buys, the GPL ensures that Linux remains free.
A lot of people, developers and users both, consider this a Good Thing. In any event, it is the developer's choice. The BSD people choose their license, Microsoft chooses their own, and so on. All fine by me, personally. Some people seem to think there is only One True License, but that goes against the ideas of freedom and choice that most of the Linux and BSD movements are all about.
The problem the author sees is that the BSD license allows you to do pretty much whatever you like with their software, except claim that you wrote it. Thus, you cannot take GPL code and integrate it into a potentially proprietary BSD package. Right so far.
However, the author drops it at that. Perhaps he should look beyond his personal dislike of the GPL. There are several options open. One would be to create a GPL'ed BSD fork. That is pretty radical, though, and I doubt it would be what most people want.
Another possibility is to port the driver to the appropriate BSD kernels, but keep the driver seperate from the main distribution. All your GPL drivers would have to be distributed separately under their own license, but that is not that big a deal. As long as you keep your interfaces clean (always a good idea), the GPL can co-exist with BSD just fine.
A third possibility would be to contact the driver authors and see if the would be willing to relicense the driver to the BSD folks. A good many driver authors will be quite happy with doing this.
My point is, the author seems to think the GPL is some virus that infects all code it goes near and prevents anybody from touching it. That is a common misconception, and far from the truth.
Seriously. I've got a 300 MHz AMD, and the CPU speed suits me just fine. Meanwhile, my multiple 7200 RPM SCSI drives, NVidia TNT video card, and six expansion cards are all generating heat like crazy. I've got a temperature probe on the video processor, and it hovers around 110 degrees Fahrenheit with the window open. I've also got five fans in this beast, so it isn't lacking in air flow.
I want a Kryotech system that cools the whole case. Not chilling the CPU to sub-zero, but cooling the entire case to 50 degrees or so. I would be willing to pay serious money for such a system. Lower overall temperature prolongs life, reduces failures and errors, and can even improve performance.
As the article says (you did read the article, right? *grin*), the main point would be to run Linux in parallel with other S/390 OSes like MVS. As everyone seems to be pointing out, Virtual Machines are very popular in the mainframe world, and it is quite common to run more then one OS at a time. Thus, Linux would be just one more OS.
The suggested application was Lotus Domino. I can also see web servers, application servers, general Internet servers, that sort of thing, being useful. Perhaps a company running a big back-end mainframe database would want to use Linux for the front-end interface, with (for example) Cold Fusion. I can see quite a few uses for it.
Is a big bank going to dump MVS and move to Linux on the S/390? No, of course not. That isn't the point.
Plus, there is hack value. We can now say with a fair amount of confidence that Linux is the most scalable OS on the planet. It runs on everything from large IBM mainframes to hand-held Palm Pilot devices.
I'll believe it when I see it.
It is already partly done, from what I understand. My comment here has links with details.
Contrary to popular beleif, the inner ear problem is not much of a problem at all. If you provide an immersive enough visual environment, the human brain will compensate for not receiving the acceleration inputs for moderate accelerations, such as those involved in walking, etc.
Very interesting. Would that mean that prolonged use might cause motion sickness? That's what causes motion sickness, after all - different sensory inputs not agreeing with each other. The brain gets confused, and you feel sick.
Slashdot Mirror
There are two real problems with nuclear power: Disposal of spent fuel (waste) and accidents. Once you analyze them, you realize there is but one problem with nuclear power: Longevity.
Accidents are the joker card in this game. Nuclear power would be fantasic -- if nothing ever went wrong. Unfortunately, one of the few constants in our existance seems to be Murphy's Law: What can go wrong, will go wrong. And when things go wrong in nuclear power, the resulting fallout (pun quite intended) can be drastic.
If a coal plant catches fire, you have a lot of smoke, some toxic chemicals, possibly explosions, the usual sort of industrial accident. But within a few days, a week or two at the outside, the fire will be out and you can start picking up the pieces.
At Chernobyl, they won't be able to pick up the pieces for hundreds of years.
Spent fuel (nuclear waste) is the second problem I mentioned. When the oil is finished burning, all your waste has gone up the stack, for better or worse. With nuclear power, the spent fuel rods must be kept until they decay to the point where they are no longer hazzardous.
Again, this process takes hundreds of years. During all that time, you keep accumulating more and more waste. You cannot handle it without special suits or robots. You need to keep it away from water, to prevent contamination of the water table. You need to do this for a long, long time.
And that is the real problem with nuclear power (or nuclear anything): Longevity. Nuclear waste remains hazardous far longer then anything else we have to deal with. Unlike a conventional industrial accident, the result of a nuclear accident may well last until your grandchildren are dead. Just creating a storage container that lasts long enough stretches our technology.
The people who design nuclear waste storage facilities spend a good deal of time trying to make the place look as dangerous as possible, using universal symbols that any human will understand. The reason why is simple: This stuff will remain deadly longer then modern civilization has been around. They have to account for anything up to and including the collapse of our society in their designs. That is the time scale we're dealing with here.
Once you realize that, you realize the problem. With almost everything else, we can afford to make mistakes. It may be bad, but we can fix the problem and move on. Not with nuclear power. Nuclear power demands perfection -- and that is one thing we cannot provide.
The GPL, by its very nature, creates conflicts between open source developers and honest businesses ... by putting them at odds with one another.
... to see the antagonism.
... would be better off if we adopted the win/win, "live and let livee" approach of other software licenses...
That is, unfortunately, an inevitable result of the restrictions the GPL places on how you can redistribute code based on GPL'ed software. Many people like the benefits of the GPL, and they will have to live with those conflicts.
It doesn't take more than a few minutes' reading at the FSF Web site
The GPL has a number of advantages to many people. Just because the people who originated it are somewhat, shall we say, vocal in their opinions, does not mean we should abandon it. When I evaluate the GPL, I look at the words in the license, not the rhetoric on the FSF website.
Everyone
There is some debate over that issue (to put it mildly).
People have made the very good point that the GPL helps prevent the forking we've seen with Unix. The lack of restrictions on the BSD license lead to the fragmentation of BSD into tens of free and commercial OSes, all mutually incompatible with each other.
There is also the "Free Ride" syndrome. The GPL seeks to encourage open source development by preventing people from taking open code and using in their closed products, with no return to those who wrote the original code.
I often think of this as an alternative form of payment. With commercial software, you pay a fee to use source code. With GPL software, you are required to give something back to the community to make use of the GPL code. You are always free to not use the GPL code, of course.
The GPL hasn't "forced" the opening of any code...
You are certainly correct there. The GPL cannot force you to do anything. Again, it comes down to what you are willing to "pay". If you are willing to open your own code, to the benefit of the community, the GPL is fine. Otherwise, you will have to invest time and money in reimplementing what the GPLed code would have done for you. This is no different then any other software license; if you are not willing to pay the price, you don't use the software.
The reason I say lawsuits are inevitable, period, is because so many are sue-happy these days. What if some company decides that you are using a patented algorithm in your BSDL'ed code? A lawsuit, I am sure. Will the GPL lead to more lawsuits then the BSDL? Possibly. But those who use the GPL will doubtless say that the lawsuits are worth it.
So which is it? Does posting gobs of "echelon keywords" in cleartext bog down the NSA or not?
...the NSA, who commands multi billion dollar budgets to spy on you...
:-)
Like I said in my first message:
It is pretty doubtful that putting random keywords at the bottom of your message traffic is going to fool even a computer... even if you did have an effect, all you are going to do is increase my tax bill.
At some point or other, Echelon is going to clue in to the fact that you're not a terrorist, and dump your message out of whatever queue it's in. If it is sooner, then you accomplish nothing, if it is later, you're wasting my money. Get it?
Where do you get that? They're spying on other countries and international organizations, not you and me. They couldn't care less about US citizens, unless said citizens are the other end of a comm to some middle-eastern terroist or whatever.
[How are tax dollars] being wasted by the trivial protests intended to make that espionage harder?
I agree that any impact is likely going to be trivial compared to the overall cost. But if that is the case, why do you bother?
The point is to raise awareness of the downright criminal desire of government agencies to spy on innocent citizens...
If the point is to raise awareness, then fine. But wouldn't a short tagline saying "The NSA is doing so-and-so, check out this website for more!" do a better job?
By the way, is it gall or just a short attention span that causes you to complain about an inflammatory subject line, which was a reply to a post with an inflammatory subject line?
Gall. Okay, so I guess I deserved to be flamed for that one. Sorry.
You know, I just wanted to post this because I got a chuckle imagining alt.terrorist.evil, but now I wonder just how many alt.binaries.* posts actually have steganographic content.
Believe it or not, this hits on my point exactly.
Do you really think a terrorist is going to post all their plans plaintext on Usenet? Why don't they just run front page adds in the New York Times (free registration required) instead?
The fact of that matter is, the people in alt.kill-the-president (or those posting in comp.os.linux.misc who should be posting alt.kill-the-president) are exactly the sorts of shallow kooks that the NSA is not interested in.
The NSA is interested in real threats, not (1) nutcases who don't do more then make a lot of noise or (2) people who pretend to be be nutcases by posting random keywords. You're just wasting my tax dollars. Cut it out.
BTW, great subject line. Calling me a "fool" obviously proves your intellectual superiority over me.
I don't want my web browser to support mail or news.
I happen to agree with you, but there are a great many people who like the unified interface/one program for web, mail, and news.
Someone moderated this AC posting down as "Flamebait". Grrrrr. Just because you don't agree with them, doesn't mean it is flamebait. In fact, this AC makes a good point. So I repost it:
The problem, though, is that Opera only accepts W3C specs. It consistently chokes on even minor errors in HTML, and renders the page in a broken manner. Sometimes this even makes the page unreadable.
That's not good enough. "Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you
produce." Good software must be willing to work around being fed bad data. The Opera
approach has instead been "Be conservative in what you accept, and tell your users to
whine."
Yes, standards support is good. Support for the Web as it exists, full of invalid markup
that most people don't fix, and don't need to fix because 95% of their readership is using a browser derived from Netscape or IE, is better.
If Lynx choked the same way Opera does, I'd call it a goddamn failure. I don't know why I don't think the same about Opera. Maybe I just have a generous spirit about Norweigans.
(The above post is an Anonymous Coward's, not mine.)
Placing code under the GPL sets its market value to the end user at zero. That is to say, because the end user can obtain its functionality for free, he will not pay any money for it.
:)
:)
First, value can not always be measured in dollars. See any recent "MasterCard" ad for demonstrations.
Second, the GPL places restrictions on what you can do with the code. Removing those restrictions may be very valuable. Changling the license on intellectual property essentially makes it a different product. Neat, eh?
If a developer pays a nonzero amount to license the code, he is digging himself into a hole, as that cost can never be recovered.
What if he makes money selling the product which is based on the also GPLed code?
Many authors of GPLed code share Stallman's anti-business ideology and will not do so;
And many more authors refuse to release their code at all, under any license, GPL, BSD, AL, or whatever. Blaiming a license for the actions of an author doesn't make much sense to me.
Because the code has zero market value, licensing it is a dead loss.
If the code were truely worthless, nobody would want to license it. If someone wants to license it, it must have value to them. No?
I often look at the redistribution restrictions of the GPL as a form of payment. Rather then paying money for code, you are given limitations: If you wish to incorporate GPL code into your own code, you must release your own code under the GPL. Rather then paying the developer, you pay the community. Of course, you are free to not use the GPL code at any time, removing all such restrictions.
This is my absolute last post to this article. I doubt anyone will read it anyway, so I don't give a shit.
I did. *ducking*
;-)
I don't mean the NSA, either. I mean a rather vocal portion of the Slashdot readership. :-(
"Hey, let's post Echoelon fodder!" Yes, brilliant. First, it is pretty doubtful that putting random keywords at the bottom of your message traffic is going to fool even a computer. They're looking at where your message is from, where it is to, and what it is about. They really couldn't care less about your posts to comp.os.linux.misc with "plutonium" and "Iraq" at the bottom. Second, even if you did have an effect, all you are going to do is increase my tax bill. Increase the workload, and more people/computer power is needed, which is paid for out of my wallet. And while you're at it, you might actually be reducing the attention a real problem might otherwise get. Yeah, great idea.
Folks: Governments spy on other governments and organizations. If you think this is news, you really need to wake up and smell something. The CIA and NSA and Armed Forces and whoever else are going to go right on spying on other governments, because I can guarantee you, the other governments aren't going to stop spying on us.
Personally, I'm glad we have a reasonably good military and intelligence operation, because it greatly reduces the chances that we'll be speaking Chinese or Russian in the future, or be reduced to radioactive cinders for that matter.
And if you really think the government is out to get you, you should seek the aide of a professional psychiatrist. They can help you overcome your paranoia, and help you realize that the "X-Files" is just a TV show.
IMHO, there is no possibility of the machine EVER being fired up again, unfortunately. While it's a nice dream, it's likely that trying to restart the thing would do nothing but cause a large fire. These are 50-year-old vacuum tubes, people!
It is worth pointing out that "restored" does not mean "made operational". Restoration could simply mean dusting it off and replacing gaping holes in the front panels so that it looks like it did when it was operational.
no, kilowatt is a measure of power, which is energy per time. so kilowatts per hour is energy per time^2
:) Leave it on for two hours, and it will have used 60 kW*h. Use it only for half an hour, and you only use 15 kW*h. Get the idea?
It has been long enough since I took a science course that I can't remeber the science aspect of all these formula (formuli? formulas?). But I do have to worry about my electric bill, so I know how this works.
Watts is how much juice it takes to run something. (I say "juice" because I can't remember if the technical term is power or energy or what.) For example, a 100 watt lightbulb means it draws 100 watts whenever it is turned on.
The watt-hour is a measure of power usage. If you run a 100 watt lightbulb for an hour, you just used 100 watt-hours. If you run a 50-watt lightbulb for two hours, you still use 100 watt-hours.
This is how the power company bills you. If the only thing in your house is a space heater that draws 1000 watts, running it all the time will use 24000 watt-hours, or 2.4 kilowatt-hours, per day. If you run two of them, you will use 4.8 kw*h per day. The "hours" in "kilowatt-hours" is a theoretical hour, not a real-time hour.
Thus, I would assume CSIRAC draws 30 kilowatts of power whenever it is turned on. I suppose you could say it uses 30 kW an hour -- if you leave it on for an hour.
Tom is nothing more than a Perl monkey. Let him hang out with those other loser Perl bastards.
I happen to be one of those "loser Perl bastards", as you so eloquently put it. I don't think Tom's a moron at all. Frankly, his understanding of Perl and UNIX systems amazes me, and he's done a great job at making Perl documentation just plain happen.
I'm not sure if he just misunderstands the GPL, is blinded by zealotry (it happens to the best of us), or is simply over-zealous in his beliefs. In any event, debating it with him will at least give me some insights into why he thinks what he does. Even if it just leads me to believe that he is fundamentally opposed to the GPL to the point of not accepting anything favorable about it, that tells me something. Though I cannot stand dogma, and will have to revise my estimate of him if that is the case.
In any event, we don't need trolls like you trying to add fuel to the fire. Normally I wouldn't even respond to such garbage, but I wouldn't want Tom to think Slashdot likes this kind of puke.
You: What tactics? Telling the truth?
No, spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt in an attempt to "prove" an opinion, and insulting me and whoever else disagrees with you. To wit:
You: I keep thinking you'll understand if I speak slowly, or something.
I'm not going to dignify that by replying in kind.
Me: The GPL is designed to ensure that the source code for a piece of software remains available to everyone at all times. That is all. Nothing more, and nothing less.
You: Many licences do that, the LGPL, BSDL, and AL being amongst those.
Incorrect. The BSD license (AFAIK: reference) and the Artistic license both allow distribution of binary-only, modified versions of the original source code. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although some think it is. However, regardless of whether it is good or bad, both the BSDL and AL do not include the protections against "embrace and extend" and freeloading that the GPL does.
You: It [the GPL] sneaks its viral fingers into code
This is FUD. There is nothing sneaky about the GPL. Indeed, many (myself included) think certain people are far too vocal about why the GPL should be the One True License. Calling the GPL "viral" is about the same as calling Perl an "unreadable" language. Both have an element of truth, and neither are fair.
It is worth pointing out that FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) is not the same as a lie. FUD must have some truth in it, or it is easily refuted as a lie. FUD exists in the margins of error that human language and understanding allow, and in areas of opinion and subjectivity.
But let's get back to the matter at hand. Does the GPL infect code you write? No. What it does is prevent you from taking GPL code and including it in your own works. There is a difference. You still retain complete and total ownership of your code. The restrictions come from the inability to distribute the other, GPL code. Your code is not affected! The only problems arise from the copyright violation that would occur if you redistributed the GPL code in your own code, without credit and return.
What is this credit and return business? Basically, the GPL is designed to help promote open source/free software/whatever, and to ensure that closed-source developers do not get a free ride. Again, all it "forces" anyone to do is keep the original code free.
In an effort to keep open source going, the GPL prevents another company from using GPL'ed code to create a propriatary, sourceless product. For example, Microsoft's Windows operating system includes the BSD FTP client, without source, with the copyright hidden deep inside the binary. With the GPL, this would not have been possible. Again, the good or bad value of this action is another matter entirely -- my point here is actions, not values.
I think -- and this is strictly my personal opinion -- that it is reasonable that, if I am going to take the time and effort to create some software, that some other company should not get a free ride from me, or take my code and lock it up in their product. Others do not agree. Fine by me. It is, after all, their choice. I am not going to insult them for wanting to make money from a product. But don't tell me how to license my work, either.
You: In other words, just because I might be wrong does not mean I am insincere.
Granted. If you sincerely believe speaking (or typing, for that matter) slowly will improve my understanding of the subject, by all means, do so.
You: As for my complaining about the BSD advertising stuff, you are making an assumption. And you would be wrong.
You are correct, I was making an assumption there. I apologize, and stand corrected.
Me: The only thing you are not allowed to do is include GPL code in a non-GPL program and redistribute it.
You: The BSDs are (obviously) non-GPL, and this is why the BSD guys couldn't just take the Linux driver, fiddle with it, and whack it into the BSDs. This is what he was trying to explain to the clueless rep.
I realized that was what Mr. Glass was trying to do. Mr. Christiansen was doing something entirely different -- that is, spreading FUD that the GPL forces you to lose control of your software. Please mind the thread of discussion.
You: The BSD guys, could, on the other hand, have included the driver under the GPL, and then the rest of the OS under the BSDL, but they understandably and justifiably won't do this. The reason is that the GPL would end up encroaching and "polluting" the rest of BSD.
Well, if they want to play politics, they can. Politics is part of licensing issues. (Linux is not immune to politics, either -- try suggesting a standard driver API on the linux-kernel list sometime.) But that is hardly the fault of the GPL.
Well, duh.
I can't get much better air flow, short of mounting the entire system in a wind tunnel.
Me: The GPL is designed to ensure that the source code for a piece of software remains available to everyone at all times. That is all. Nothing more, and nothing less.
You: I see a typo there: you wrote GPL when you meant LGPL.
You know that is not true. For someone who talks about letting lies seep in, you are deliberately spreading FUD, which I find rather distasteful. My opinion of you just dropped a few points, Tom. I had thought you were above such tactics.
Anyway, what I said about the GPL is 100% correct, and you and I both know it. I beg you to prove otherwise.
I'm not saying the GPL doesn't make things difficult for people sometimes. Such is life. It also protects people sometimes. The difficulties with the GPL are why the LGPL was created, after all -- to allow you to statically link GPL code with your non-GPL executable.
However, there is nothing in the GPL that prevents you from using it with non-GPL code. There is nothing in the GPL that prevents you from modifying GPL code to work with non-GPL code. The only thing you are not allowed to do is include GPL code in a non-GPL program and redistribute it.
Again, this has its advantages and disadvantages. I'm not going to reiterate them here. However, it is worth noting that until recently, the BSD license had a clause (the "Advertising clause") that used a similar technique for different intent. You didn't complain about that. Why does your pet favorite get special rights that someone else's does not?
If you are going to stoop to double-standards and big business FUD, then go back to writing books on Perl, something you do much better, and which benefits everyone.
Would a bevy of moderators please track down all these cowards who are trying to create a bsd
:-)
bashing festival and zap them into negativity?
Don't reply to Anon Cowards like these people, Tom. They're just trying to troll you. And by all rights, they are succeeding.
Ever notice how you don't see raving loonies bashing Linux the way you see them bashing BSD.
They come out for pro-Linux articles too, trust me. It's worse, then, because we have Microsoft astroturfers then, too, as Linux is officially on Microsoft's hit list now.
NT is POSIX compliant, no?
No. NT includes an optional POSIX subsystem. By all accounts, it is unstable, incomplete, and fails to implement much of what is required for decent POSIX compliance. It also has huge security problems; Microsoft recommends you disable it completely, or NT will not be considered secure.
In short, Microsoft did what was needed to pass the POSIX compatibility, tests. Running actual POSIX software was not one of their goals.
What's your point? How does POSIX compliance really help us, if at all?
POSIX is essentially the UNIX operating system turned into an OS API standard.
If you write a program that is POSIX compliant, and the underlying OS provides a good POSIX implementation, then your program will port to other OSes with little to no modification.
Signal 11, sir, is there a reason you cannot use a useful subject line in your posts? Sometimes it seems like half of the comments you post have subjects of "...". I'm sure someone of your intelligence can come up with a useful subject line. It doesn't take that much effort. And it helps people reading your comments. So why don't you use it? Or do we need a "-1 Bad subject line" option in the moderation actions? :)
First, understand: From everything I've read, and the little I've used, the various BSDs are nice, solid OSes, with outstanding UNIX and POSIX compatibility, (makes sense, BSD was one of the first), excellent reliability, and so on and so forth. All in all, wonderful systems.
But then Mr. Glass goes on to state the following:
I noted that Digi was displaying some new serial hardware in the Red Hat booth, and asked them about BSD drivers. They said that they didn't have them, but "why don't you just port them from Linux?" (I tried to explain to them that the GPL, which is designed to monkey-wrench exactly such activities, precluded this...
That is FUD in the finest Microsoft tradition, and I'm surprised and ashamed that someone from the BSD camp is emitting it. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt, and assume it was a slip of the tongue (er, finger), but I also want to set the record straight.
The GPL is designed to ensure that the source code for a piece of software remains available to everyone at all times. That is all. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Thus, the GPL prevents Microsoft or some other Evil Empire taking the code, "embracing it and extending it", and releasing proprietary, incompatible versions.
It also prevents a single company (for example, Red Hat) from taking control of the Linux world. No matter how many developers and maintainers Red Hat buys, the GPL ensures that Linux remains free.
A lot of people, developers and users both, consider this a Good Thing. In any event, it is the developer's choice. The BSD people choose their license, Microsoft chooses their own, and so on. All fine by me, personally. Some people seem to think there is only One True License, but that goes against the ideas of freedom and choice that most of the Linux and BSD movements are all about.
The problem the author sees is that the BSD license allows you to do pretty much whatever you like with their software, except claim that you wrote it. Thus, you cannot take GPL code and integrate it into a potentially proprietary BSD package. Right so far.
However, the author drops it at that. Perhaps he should look beyond his personal dislike of the GPL. There are several options open. One would be to create a GPL'ed BSD fork. That is pretty radical, though, and I doubt it would be what most people want.
Another possibility is to port the driver to the appropriate BSD kernels, but keep the driver seperate from the main distribution. All your GPL drivers would have to be distributed separately under their own license, but that is not that big a deal. As long as you keep your interfaces clean (always a good idea), the GPL can co-exist with BSD just fine.
A third possibility would be to contact the driver authors and see if the would be willing to relicense the driver to the BSD folks. A good many driver authors will be quite happy with doing this.
My point is, the author seems to think the GPL is some virus that infects all code it goes near and prevents anybody from touching it. That is a common misconception, and far from the truth.
End of tirade.
Seriously. I've got a 300 MHz AMD, and the CPU speed suits me just fine. Meanwhile, my multiple 7200 RPM SCSI drives, NVidia TNT video card, and six expansion cards are all generating heat like crazy. I've got a temperature probe on the video processor, and it hovers around 110 degrees Fahrenheit with the window open. I've also got five fans in this beast, so it isn't lacking in air flow.
I want a Kryotech system that cools the whole case. Not chilling the CPU to sub-zero, but cooling the entire case to 50 degrees or so. I would be willing to pay serious money for such a system. Lower overall temperature prolongs life, reduces failures and errors, and can even improve performance.
What would the purpose of this be?
As the article says (you did read the article, right? *grin*), the main point would be to run Linux in parallel with other S/390 OSes like MVS. As everyone seems to be pointing out, Virtual Machines are very popular in the mainframe world, and it is quite common to run more then one OS at a time. Thus, Linux would be just one more OS.
The suggested application was Lotus Domino. I can also see web servers, application servers, general Internet servers, that sort of thing, being useful. Perhaps a company running a big back-end mainframe database would want to use Linux for the front-end interface, with (for example) Cold Fusion. I can see quite a few uses for it.
Is a big bank going to dump MVS and move to Linux on the S/390? No, of course not. That isn't the point.
Plus, there is hack value. We can now say with a fair amount of confidence that Linux is the most scalable OS on the planet. It runs on everything from large IBM mainframes to hand-held Palm Pilot devices.
I'll believe it when I see it.
It is already partly done, from what I understand. My comment here has links with details.
This is Old News, in computer terms.
LinuxToday ran a story on this back in mid-October. In it, they referenced an article in the Danish version of ComputerWorld. The feedback comments to LinuxToday are interesting, and several of them pointed out one project's home page.
Contrary to popular beleif, the inner ear problem is not much of a problem at all. If you provide an immersive enough visual environment, the human brain will compensate for not receiving the acceleration inputs for moderate accelerations, such as those involved in walking, etc.
Very interesting. Would that mean that prolonged use might cause motion sickness? That's what causes motion sickness, after all - different sensory inputs not agreeing with each other. The brain gets confused, and you feel sick.
Does anyone have any information about what Richard Stallman thinks of the Red Hat+Cygnus merger?
;-)
(Other then what they should call their products, I mean.