Analysts believe that the core issue at stake is whether open source software increases litigation risks.
We need to get IBM to issue a statement in response to this. Their attempt at stockpiling patents/IP regarding Linux has been documented in the past, as well as their commitment to refrain from legal action against anyone who wants to use it.
IBM are a very fortunate ally for the Linux community to have where the likes of Microsoft are concerned...especially considering that IBM probably have justifiable motivation for a certain amount of competitive revenge themselves. As the old saying goes...an elephant never forgets.;-)
As proof of this, the author is encouraged to visit IRC...specifically #mp3_collective or #mp3passion on the Undernet, as but two examples.
A couple of major reasons why mp3 won't be going anywhere soon:-
1. AFAIK anywayz, it doesn't have DRM attached at all, unlike the proprietary formats. The corps can crow about better sound fidelity all they want; as long as they keep DRM, mp3 will stay. This is one instance where freedom is something people do care about.
2. Encoding software is free. (as in beer, and possibly according to Stallman's definition as well) I don't know of any non-shareware (or at least closed source) encoder for Microsoft's formats at all.
3. Inertia. If you aren't aware of the absolute ocean of mp3 files already available, you haven't been paying attention. There also is no proprietary format in existence which can come close to competing to mp3 in terms of the number of pre-existing files. This also means that even if a proprietary format gains traction in the future, mp3 players will still be necessary in order to listen to old files.
4. Given a bitrate of 160+ and a sufficiently decent set of speakers, sound quality is perfectly adequate for mainstream consumption at least, and I tend to suspect that pedantry is the only reason why it isn't for so-called "audiophiles" as well.
What the author of this article doesn't seem to be aware of is that the "backbone" issue is only present when using a tree topology or network layout.
The tree topology uses trunks or main branches with smaller branches extending out from there, but there is generally only one or two connections or lines of interaction between the main branches/trunks. Thus if there is a blockage at any point in the trunk, the branch machines/sites along the trunk become unreachable.
It was this very design flaw which caused the IRC phenomenon of "netsplits." One IRC server would become inoperable, (for whatever reason - restarts, server maintenance, mechanical failure etc) and because perhaps half the network was arranged in a straight line beyond the inoperable server, it could very often mean that both halves of the IRC network were no longer reachable to each other. It is also worth pointing out that such a phenomenon was actually the very thing which the Internet was originally designed to avoid.
The Internet was so named (at least partially) because it was originally intended to use a net or mesh topology. What this means is that any given node on the network has connections extending out to other nodes *on all sides*, rather than merely one or two. This can be visualised mentally as a grid formation, and the large number of connections between nodes was the very thing which was intended to enable the network's survival during a nuclear attack. The idea was that the node connections themselves would be sufficiently numerous that information would still be able to pass through the connections between the remaining nodes, even if a very large percentage of the nodes on the network had been destroyed.
This design however has now largely been circumvented, thanks mainly to many countries only having one or two international connections, which are of course entirely owned and run by the usual rapacious ("money is more important than life itself") corporations. Because of this, widespread use of the flawed tree topology is currently largely unavoidable.
The way to create a more fully peer to peer network would be to create a network which both locally and internationally has more connections between individual nodes (computers). If this were done, it would mean that the network would become less vulnerable to said corporations' manipulation.
The Internet is only vulnerable to breakage, manipulation, and deliberate abuse if the principles underlying its' design are not fully/properly adhered to. Said principles are extremely solid...they aren't the problem. The problem is actually that the net isn't as fully fledged yet as it could be. If a true global mesh topology existed, the idea of someone turning it off wouldn't be something we'd need to worry about...it would be genuinely impossible.
>The broadband is just a means to your end of getting your data. Whatever that >data is - it's not just bits per second, but data that you use some way.
What I meant was that although said data gets used in different ways, the net is to me what the hive mind was to the Borg. There have been times where, when being disconnected due to an inability to pay a phone or isp bill, I've remained largely bedridden until I was able to reconnect...My initial reaction was literally similar to that of Seven of Nine when she is initially disconnected from the Borg, in Voyager. ("Where are the others?! I can't hear the others!")
Most people would probably argue that that is extremely unhealthy, but my response would be that I'm actually a lot more psychologically stable living online than I ever was living off. I had it expressed to me quite early in life, and on a consistent basis, that many of the people around me offline would have been happier if I hadn't existed. I've found that it is a lot easier for people to accept me if they can't see me or know more than a certain amount about me...if I'm just text on a screen.
>When broadband is a necessary means to some end, some killer app, they'll want >broadband.
Some of us need killer apps. Some of us make our own. For me the killer app is simply the data itself - as in more of it. More of whatever it is I want. I went from 56k dialup to 1.5mb dsl, and I spent the first three days literally in mild shock. I felt like I'd been rectally implanted with a warp drive.;-)
So yes, initially it takes getting used to...but would I go back? NEVER!
If Hillary Clinton or Jack Thompson get hold of this article, they're likely to have a field day with it.
I will admit that probably the most realistic game I've played was Half Life, which probably wasn't realistic, for the most part. I've also played a lot of Doom, (who hasn't?) and the game which I overwhelmingly excel at is the original Max Payne. (Although of course, that is completely and entirely unrealistic. I use Bullet Time in virtually any game I can find it, including via modifications, as it allows me to compensate for my lack of marksmanship)
I don't actually like more realistic games, because my marksmanship ability is almost entirely non-existent...if I'm forced to rely on a machine gun, that is. If there's a shotgun available, I'll usually fare a lot better. Most of the more supposedly realistic ones though are almost entirely about machine guns, it seems.
In terms of learning tactics, Half Life was interesting from the point of view that I felt like it might have taught something about fighting in close quarters. I remember when I saw Stargate and the soldiers in the temple were being picked off one at a time by the Anubis guards; what HL would have taught me to do in that situation would be to get into a corner of the building with my back against a wall, preferably with a shotgun, night vision, and some grenades, (either regulars, or prox would be even better) and let the guards come to me. You'd probably still die in that scenario anyway, but it'd feel as though I'd have a slightly better chance.
I also did learn I think over the span of a number of games what my own weapons of choice/most likely proficiency would possibly be; as I said, primarily a shotgun and some form of explosives/incendiaries.
In looking at Microsoft's TCO claims in particular, I've been unable to avoid noticing that a lot of the company's material on this subject consists of, to put it simply, straight lies. Aside from anything else, nothing is mentioned by them about their licensing fees. How they can state with a straight face that after their licensing fees, Windows can still be cheaper than Linux is beyond me.
Legitimate performance competition is one thing, but I'm curious to know how the ODSL is able to deal with Microsoft's lack of ethics in this regard? Given Microsoft's marketing power, how are Linux advocates able to communicate to people that many of Microsoft's claims in this area are deceptive?
I have. I would hope most people have. You make it sound like either people are stupid and gullible
I don't think people are stupid and gullible as such. I however do think that some people have swallowed Stallman's philosophy whole without bothering to dig too deeply beneath the surface, if only because it's easier to adopt someone else's ideas than it is to come up with our own. The way that I also know that such people exist is that I see them posting here on a fairly regular basis...several of them have already assigned me to their foes list, in fact.;-)
If it sounded like I was making a generalisation about everyone, then I apologise...I was actually only talking about a fairly small group.
I just hope this doesn't blind you completely to what Stallman says.
I will admit that I'm probably not still hugely receptive to Stallman's message; mainly because there are so many other people around who not only also advocate open source, but who do so without the authoritarian element you mentioned...so it's difficult for me not to find their message more desirable than his. I tend to prefer Linus's message, and that of others like him, because to me what it says is that people don't have to simply adhere to one license or one perspective...there's an opportunity for some kind of diversity to exist in his scenario.
A lot of this attempt to choke off debate in favour of take it or leave it is pretty rich - in fact, puke-making - coming from the alleged supporters of "freedom". If the attacks on Linus Torvalds continue then it won't be exactly difficult to conclude that the FSF's more rabid fans have a kind of Bolshevik agenda:
They do. We're seeing now with Stallman what happened to Stalin from a philosophical standpoint. It's exactly what Orwell wrote about in Animal Farm. A revolution takes place, but owing to human nature, in the end the founders of said revolution become just as bad (if not much worse) than the tyrant/s they were originally rebelling against, and the whole sick pattern repeats itself.
Stallman is a Communist, and he has betrayed the revolution...as owing to human nature, everyone eventually must.
This is not a straw man. GNU has in the past rejected all moral embargos on the use of free software. See their condemnation of the Hacktivismo license, which prevents the software being used by authoritarian governments and spyware makers:
The point that people keep missing though is that whether a condemnation or an endorsement, these are all still cases of Stallman issuing decrees and trying to tell people how to think, as Linus said.
It proves that the St Ignucius stuff *wasn't* completely a joke. Stallman fairly clearly wants (and expects) to be the leader of an organisation which has the ability to dictate the morality of its' adherents; Ergo, what most of us would call a religious cult.
Stallman wants the kernel to be called Linux, and distros to be referred to as GNU/Linux. So why is he suddenly... seemingly intentionally... trying to make it sound like the kernel is a small (virtually insignificant, if I understand his words) part of "the system"? What system?
It sounds like you're assuming that Stallman is consistent. Contrary to what people try and say, he is actually anything but. The only real way in which he is consistent at all is with the usual four-rule screed with which he prefixes interviews.
The one thing that truly is consistent about Stallman is his desire to take credit for, and assume jurisdiction over, as much as is humanly possible...which now apparently includes the Linux kernel itself. In his arguments however he will make things more or less important on a per-incident basis, depending on how it affects his overall accumulation of recognition or authority. If he is credited for something and it can be used to increase any form of authority over people, chances are he will consider it very important. Anything which is written by other people however, (which he cannot take credit for) or which cannot be used to increase his importance will be considered irrelevant.
I've been wondering the same thing. The man preaches "Freedom! Freedom!", yet people are quick to judge him as some sort of a control freak.
Freedom by definition IMHO needs to include the freedom to disagree with him...which is one element of it that he has repeatedly indicated that he does not want people to have.
The Linux community has been fragmented since its' inception. Linus might use the GPL, but as he says, the FSF's zealotry only holds Linux back. The divide between the FSF/GNU crowd and the more sane perspective that Linus represents has been an issue for a long time, and this is as good a time as any to drag it out of the closet and settle it once and for all.
The people who initially got involved with Linux should IMHO have written their own userland rather than simply adopting the GNU project, and Linus should have written his own license. The major mistake there was allowing Stallman to in any way be affiliated with Linux at all.
The FSF has come to represent a scorpion on Linux's back; one which tragically, we may now not be able to remove. Nearly every other part of the GNU project which a typical Linux distro uses is replaceable, but even the BSDs use gcc. That would apparently be the toughest one. Stallman however needs to be routed around, and it needs to happen soon. He's doing damage, and has been for some time now.
Stallman is repeating his behaviour with Ulrich Drepper and Glibc, here. Ergo, if the leader of a project refuses to go the way he wants them to, he will attempt to turn other people associated with the project against said project leader.
I have found myself wondering what it is going to take before people will acknowledge the type of man that Richard Stallman truly is. He is seeking division here, and he is doing so purely for the sake of his own ego; because he cannot stand to be in any position other than one of complete control. I keep reading of example after example of this...it's his way or no way. Is that honestly what freedom means?
People try and claim that the real threat to the future of F/OSS is on the other side of the ideological/economic divide...that Stallman is a hero. To people who would continue to maintain such a view of the man, I ask you to look at what he is doing here.
Why gets me is why people keep feeling surprised or shocked when RMS restates his ideals and views: free as in freedom, complete freedom, no restrictions.
The point however is that he is NOT about complete freedom at all, despite what he claims. The BSD license is complete freedom. The GPL dictates what happens downstream.
If he were honest, Stallman would admit that he values genuine freedom about as much as the rest of us value bird flu. He wants to be the leader of a religion. He wants credit for things which do not belong to him, and he wants legions of the adoring faithful who capitulate unquestioningly to his decrees.
Real freedom is a threat to Stallman. If you're really free, you're free to do something other than what he thinks you should do...and he doesn't want that at all.
This is exactly the kind of confusion that will weaken the definition of OSS without an RMS enforcing the ideal.
We have Linus. We have ESR. More importantly, though, we have (spare the thought!) *ourselves.*
You might need an external ideological father figure telling you how to think. I don't. I understand how important and necessary the ability to view/modify source code is.
It's precisely the fact that I have my own brain that causes me to disagree with RMS as vehemently as I do on certain points. Some people are more content to be followers; I understand that. I however am not one of them.
The same idea applies 1-to-1 to OSS. Tivo's software is one example of how the OSS ideal was distorted. If RMS is not out there as an idealogical enforcer, then OSS becomes meaningless as soon as clever people exploit it some more.
This would be true if Stallman was the only proponent of the definition of open source. (i.e., editable source with binaries) He isn't.
Try going here sometime and looking through all of the licenses which Stallman not only had no part in authoring, but which he also would actually say are not "GPL compatible."
Linux not only is now sufficiently well known, but is also sufficiently profitable that FOSS is entirely capable of surviving on its' own. The other thing you're not taking into account is that virtually all of the threats to its' continued existence originate in the US. The US itself is welcome to become as draconian as it wants; thanks to the unceasing efforts of George W. Bush, the country is becoming less relevant to the rest of the planet by the day, and hence, US domestic law soon won't be something that the rest of the planet needs to care about either. Thus, even if FOSS vanished from the US, it will not from the rest of the world any time soon.
Stallman does harm to Linux's forward progress because of the image he conveys; that of an aging, "neurologically diverse", (to use the politically correct term) Marxist hippie who refuses to deal even marginally with anybody who has views differing from his own. This is not an image or a person that most businesses or individuals wish to be in any way associated with, and for good reason.
Stallman was a lot more relevant back when FOSS was still the exclusive domain of individuals like him; they're the type of people you'll see almost exclusively if you hire a DVD of the documentary "Trekkies," sometime. Because these days however, Linux and other FOSS projects are increasingly becoming the domain of more normal people, and because FOSS's long term survival depends on it becoming as widely adopted as possible, Stallman is no longer an appropriate figurehead for it. It makes sense that geeks and hippies would want a fellow hippie as a leader, (if they want one at all, that is) as such would be someone that they could relate to. Mainstream individuals however want someone mainstream to deal with, and whatever other word you might want to apply to Stallman, "mainstream" certainly is not one that could be.
Times change, and what is useful during one period in history does not necessarily remain useful in another. There indeed was a time when Stallman was valuable, necessary, and relevant...but that time has fairly long since passed.
I know what a foaming-at-the-mouth "RMS is the antichrist" troll I used to be here on Slashdot, but I've lately come to realise the error of my ways, for two reasons:-
a) It makes me look like a fool, and b) There is now absolutely no need for me to do it anyway. With the amount of crazed diatribes he's been releasing lately, he's doing a far better job himself of convincing everyone of what a generally undesirable human being he is than I ever could. His fame for his prior contributions has served as the rope, and over the past 2-3 years he's done an absolutely smashing job of using it to hang himself. He's now on the fast track to complete irrelevance.
How true the mathematical proverb is. Every problem does, indeed, have its own solution.
*I* think that you are the victim of group-think. *I* seen this pattern of RMS bashing many times of the years. It is the result of "not thinking for yourself" and falling in line with a particular kind of anti-RMS camp.
I will concede that extremism on either side is undesirable, and that I displayed such.
Don't be surprised if other FLOSS licenses follow suit.
I will also concede that that is entirely possible. My objection is not so much about the idea of condemning/expressing disapproval towards DRM as such. Rather it was that a) the term "DRM" perhaps was not sufficiently clearly defined in the draft, and that b) it did sound, at least superficially, like the FSF was trying to dictate/decree policy for their "group." Because of that, if as you say more licenses than merely the GPL itself adopt such clauses in the future, I will be willing to believe that they are doing so for other reasons.
In terms of the idea of the FSF attempting to issue decrees for their "followers," you may be correct that viewing the FSF/GNU project as a religion is somewhat inaccurate. However, even if in fact this perception is inaccurate, there are concrete reasons why said perception exists, and as you've already said, I am not the only person who holds it. Some people might answer that Microsoft and the RIAA already established the idea that you're either in one camp or the other, and that hence it wasn't the FSF who did so...but in a more objective mode of thought I'm able to believe that such intense factionalism isn't entirely necessary.
True you have used a similar rhetorical style as a particular school of RMS-bashers (Marxists, commie-pinko, anti-capitalism, followed by legions of RMS worshiping drones)
I believe that Richard Stallman desires to be worshipped, and that he has at least implied that desire on more than one occasion. Granted, most of said insinuations would be claimed as satirical humour (the "St. Ignucius" material, etc) by his advocates, but as Shakespeare said, often it is the humour a person uses which reveals the most information about said person's serious nature.
Also, my labelling of Stallman as a Marxist or Communist is not entirely based on reactionary ignorance. One of Marx's core beliefs was that workers themselves should own the means of production. Granted, said belief in that form does not *exactly* scale to Stallman's concept of Free Software...but especially given that the issue of hardware has entered the picture, it is a fairly close fit, don't you think?
I also don't necessarily believe that somebody being a Marxist is on its' own a bad thing; I'd only be inclined to believe it was a bad thing in the case of someone who believed that Marxism *alone* had any validity. Stallman's seeming inability to accept the validity of perspectives other than his own has been one of my main objections to his stated philosophy.
I view Capitalism and Communism as being poles at each end of a spectrum or continuum. I realise that such is not an original thought, however, I would add to that that I believe that *both* are vital parts of the economic/social/political ecosystem. Try and claim that either one of them, in exclusivity, is supreme, and totally neglect the other, and you will rapidly run into very serious problems in my experience.
(DMCA, Sonny Bono copyright extension act, the RIAA/MPAA are trying to close the analog hole, sue their customer base into accepting their antiquated and now obsolete business model, and finally they are trying to stop the march of technological progress by making it illegal to do ANYTHING "non-customary" with their "content")
I notice here that you use the word "trying," a few times...and that's appropriate. We've heard on Slashdot about some of the RIAA's recent adventures in court. They both involve women who are on record as scarcely knowing what a computer is, let alone how to share mp3s.
Hence, in using the legal system to persecute people who are fairly obviously innocent, all the RIAA succeed in doing is to portray themselves as exactly the kind of blind, avaricious jackasses that we already knew they were. They're not a serious long-term threat to anybody but themselves.
As for the DMCA, who cares? It's the proverbial pie-crust law. ("Easily made, easily broken," ergo largely unenforceable) If you're an American corporate entity, then yes, you might have to care about it, but nobody else on the planet really should.
The thing that so many people on Slashdot and in other places don't seem to understand is that the corporate greed addicts are a tiny minority of the population. I was reading yet another article yesterday about how the sky is supposedly falling because Verizon and the Bells want to try and lock up the Internet, and do various other economically suicidal things. As far as I'm concerned, they're entirely welcome to try.
For starters, they only have direct control over the net in certain parts of the US, which doesn't include the rest of the planet. For another thing, even if they were able to completely monopolise whatever network space they *do* have control over, they'd very rapidly become amazed at how nobody would come to their party. People who don't understand the Internet don't understand perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of it; namely, that it is composed of individual machines, owned by disparate individuals. Ergo, Verizon and the Bells can make as much of a monopolistic mess of their *part* of the network as they want; the rest of us can (and will) simply divert around it, and they'll be left potentially bankrupt and looking like fools.
The bottom line here is that American corporations can hatch whatever evil schemes they want, and the rest of us will simply continue on with our lives. The US is *not* the center of the universe, and it does *not* have control of the entire planet, as much as it might like to. Large-scale hardware-based DRM is not going to happen. The total prevention of p2p file sharing is not going to happen. The destruction of open source is not going to happen. George W. Bush and his demoniac handlers taking over the world is not going to happen.
Why not? It's very simple. The overwhelming majority simply do not want it, and will not accept it...and any governmental or corporate entity which wants to survive, ultimately either accepts the will of the majority, or ceases to exist.
You can tell me I'm wrong if you like...but watch it happen.
Yes, but if you actually knew how to think for yourself, chances are you wouldn't want Stallman (or anyone else, for that matter) defining freedom for you. Those of us who *are* capable of using our own brains prefer to reach our own definition. I'm guessing Linus specifically wanted copyleft himself in order to ensure that downstream developers/companies couldn't lock up his work; however I also suspect that he actually would have thought it through. He might have even looked at some of the other licenses in existence at the time (including non-copyleft ones - *horrors!*) before deciding on the GPL. I'm curious...how much do you know about the other OSS licenses that exist?
The other issue is, Linus *wasn't* off the mark with DRM...what he was concerned about was how the term DRM is defined, which is something that the draft does not elaborate very much on. His point was that some of the things which could conceivably be defined as DRM (he gives encryption as one example) can actually be extremely beneficial in some circumstances.
DRM is a war being waged on consumers, developing such systems COSTS money that gets passed on to you but provides NO benefit you YOU as consumer.
Right. That's exactly why what you're defining here as DRM is failing, and will ultimately fail. Capitalist economic theory 101: Corporations ultimately exist for (and profit from) the purpose of meeting public needs. If they don't do that, eventually they cease to exist. I'm not claiming that that happens overnight, and I'm also not claiming that they don't do a hell of a lot of damage in the process, (environmental damage probably being the best example) but eventually it happens. Someone else comes along who not only more efficiently meets the original need, but who also figures out ways of solving the problems that the original corporation created. It's happening to an extent with Linux and Microsoft, even though Linux is not the domain of a single corporation.
Richard Stallman is a Marxist fanatic in the truest and most literal sense of the word. I will agree with anyone who claims that big business causes a lot of problems. Yes, many large corporations *are* run by rapacious moral degenerates, and yes, they can do a tremendous amount of damage, but just because that happens in some or even most cases does not mean it happens in *every* case. The economic system in a contemporary sense also may have metastasized into something undesirable and dangerous, (which does, I concede, now need to at least be partly replaced) but for a long time, and in ways smaller than those which are currently most visible, it has served as a valid and even positive framework for solving human problems.
Stallman sold Emacs tapes himself during the 80s for $1,500 US apiece, and the "Deluxe distribution package," is being sold for $5,000 US. I'm aware that the conventional Marxist justification for this would be to claim to be "using the system in order to bring it down," however a more accurate term for it would simply be rank hypocrisy. He has stated on more than one occasion that he wants to see an end to people being able to earn money from software, and yet he himself has done so in the past, and his foundation currently obviously has no qualms whatsoever about doing so.
I suspect that you, like many of his other followers, simply focus on how wonderful his philosophy looks on the surface, and don't bother digging any deeper than that. For those of us who have been looking, however, the gnu costume has never been able to entirely conceal Stallman's Red underwear.
a) Activision should simply let the Indians boycott the game if they want. For one thing, if it wasn't them conducting the boycott, it'd probably be fundamentalist Christians. For another, I suspect that we're not talking about a large group of people here...it's not like Activision are going to lose a lot of money if they don't buy the game.
b) By all accounts, it's the usual type of mediocre, soulless crap that the big publishers try and feed us anyway. Then again though, that's probably the reason Activision are worried...because hardly anyone will likely buy the game anyway, they need to get everyone they can on side.
I was diagnosed at 16 with NVLD, an "autistic spectrum" condition similar (but not identical) to Asperger's.
I had enormous social problems as a child; school was a very traumatic experience, which ended with me spending some time in a psychiatric inpatient unit after I left.
The older I've become though, the easier it gets. After leaving school, I read heavily in the area of relational psychology. The main books were Machiavelli's The Prince, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People, and the Art of Seduction and the 48 Laws of Power by Robert E. Greene. The works of Internet author David D'Angelo were also enlightening. I am now in a romantic relationship as well which is entering its third year, so I figure I must have learned something. I'm aware that a number of better known autistic people are celibate, and the stereotype does tend towards celibacy, so I tend to consider my success with the opposite sex to be a fairly major achievement.
Another thing which happened that I actually consider extremely beneficial in hindsight was an 18 month encounter with marijuana. I had heard about marijuana being used medically to treat people with autism, and due to my own experience highly recommend it for such, although I do not recommend smoking on a permanent basis. Marijuana does lessen intelligence and damage neurology I believe...but for an autistic person, that also has the effect of making us human.
The thing about it is, I've tended to believe from observation that there is a neurological tradeoff between mathematical/computer related ability and the ability to know how to socially interact. Interestingly, I discovered that my own computer-related ability appeared to markedly decrease as I became more effective at interacting socially. It's a difficult struggle, but I think it is worth it.
Semantics, along with an attempt at emotional manipulation.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:- When Richard Stallman uses the word freedom, it is worth no more than when George W. Bush uses it. They're both liars, they're both hypocrites, and they're both aspirant tyrants.
Slashdot Mirror
Analysts believe that the core issue at stake is whether open source software increases litigation risks.
;-)
We need to get IBM to issue a statement in response to this. Their attempt at stockpiling patents/IP regarding Linux has been documented in the past, as well as their commitment to refrain from legal action against anyone who wants to use it.
IBM are a very fortunate ally for the Linux community to have where the likes of Microsoft are concerned...especially considering that IBM probably have justifiable motivation for a certain amount of competitive revenge themselves. As the old saying goes...an elephant never forgets.
As proof of this, the author is encouraged to visit IRC...specifically #mp3_collective or #mp3passion on the Undernet, as but two examples.
A couple of major reasons why mp3 won't be going anywhere soon:-
1. AFAIK anywayz, it doesn't have DRM attached at all, unlike the proprietary formats. The corps can crow about better sound fidelity all they want; as long as they keep DRM, mp3 will stay. This is one instance where freedom is something people do care about.
2. Encoding software is free. (as in beer, and possibly according to Stallman's definition as well) I don't know of any non-shareware (or at least closed source) encoder for Microsoft's formats at all.
3. Inertia. If you aren't aware of the absolute ocean of mp3 files already available, you haven't been paying attention. There also is no proprietary format in existence which can come close to competing to mp3 in terms of the number of pre-existing files. This also means that even if a proprietary format gains traction in the future, mp3 players will still be necessary in order to listen to old files.
4. Given a bitrate of 160+ and a sufficiently decent set of speakers, sound quality is perfectly adequate for mainstream consumption at least, and I tend to suspect that pedantry is the only reason why it isn't for so-called "audiophiles" as well.
What the author of this article doesn't seem to be aware of is that the "backbone" issue is only present when using a tree topology or network layout.
The tree topology uses trunks or main branches with smaller branches extending out from there, but there is generally only one or two connections or lines of interaction between the main branches/trunks. Thus if there is a blockage at any point in the trunk, the branch machines/sites along the trunk become unreachable.
It was this very design flaw which caused the IRC phenomenon of "netsplits." One IRC server would become inoperable, (for whatever reason - restarts, server maintenance, mechanical failure etc) and because perhaps half the network was arranged in a straight line beyond the inoperable server, it could very often mean that both halves of the IRC network were no longer reachable to each other. It is also worth pointing out that such a phenomenon was actually the very thing which the Internet was originally designed to avoid.
The Internet was so named (at least partially) because it was originally intended to use a net or mesh topology. What this means is that any given node on the network has connections extending out to other nodes *on all sides*, rather than merely one or two. This can be visualised mentally as a grid formation, and the large number of connections between nodes was the very thing which was intended to enable the network's survival during a nuclear attack. The idea was that the node connections themselves would be sufficiently numerous that information would still be able to pass through the connections between the remaining nodes, even if a very large percentage of the nodes on the network had been destroyed.
This design however has now largely been circumvented, thanks mainly to many countries only having one or two international connections, which are of course entirely owned and run by the usual rapacious ("money is more important than life itself") corporations. Because of this, widespread use of the flawed tree topology is currently largely unavoidable.
The way to create a more fully peer to peer network would be to create a network which both locally and internationally has more connections between individual nodes (computers). If this were done, it would mean that the network would become less vulnerable to said corporations' manipulation.
The Internet is only vulnerable to breakage, manipulation, and deliberate abuse if the principles underlying its' design are not fully/properly adhered to. Said principles are extremely solid...they aren't the problem. The problem is actually that the net isn't as fully fledged yet as it could be. If a true global mesh topology existed, the idea of someone turning it off wouldn't be something we'd need to worry about...it would be genuinely impossible.
>The broadband is just a means to your end of getting your data. Whatever that >data is - it's not just bits per second, but data that you use some way.
What I meant was that although said data gets used in different ways, the net is to me what the hive mind was to the Borg. There have been times where, when being disconnected due to an inability to pay a phone or isp bill, I've remained largely bedridden until I was able to reconnect...My initial reaction was literally similar to that of Seven of Nine when she is initially disconnected from the Borg, in Voyager. ("Where are the others?! I can't hear the others!")
Most people would probably argue that that is extremely unhealthy, but my response would be that I'm actually a lot more psychologically stable living online than I ever was living off. I had it expressed to me quite early in life, and on a consistent basis, that many of the people around me offline would have been happier if I hadn't existed. I've found that it is a lot easier for people to accept me if they can't see me or know more than a certain amount about me...if I'm just text on a screen.
>When broadband is a necessary means to some end, some killer app, they'll want >broadband.
;-)
Some of us need killer apps. Some of us make our own. For me the killer app is simply the data itself - as in more of it. More of whatever it is I want. I went from 56k dialup to 1.5mb dsl, and I spent the first three days literally in mild shock. I felt like I'd been rectally implanted with a warp drive.
So yes, initially it takes getting used to...but would I go back? NEVER!
If Hillary Clinton or Jack Thompson get hold of this article, they're likely to have a field day with it.
I will admit that probably the most realistic game I've played was Half Life, which probably wasn't realistic, for the most part. I've also played a lot of Doom, (who hasn't?) and the game which I overwhelmingly excel at is the original Max Payne. (Although of course, that is completely and entirely unrealistic. I use Bullet Time in virtually any game I can find it, including via modifications, as it allows me to compensate for my lack of marksmanship)
I don't actually like more realistic games, because my marksmanship ability is almost entirely non-existent...if I'm forced to rely on a machine gun, that is. If there's a shotgun available, I'll usually fare a lot better. Most of the more supposedly realistic ones though are almost entirely about machine guns, it seems.
In terms of learning tactics, Half Life was interesting from the point of view that I felt like it might have taught something about fighting in close quarters. I remember when I saw Stargate and the soldiers in the temple were being picked off one at a time by the Anubis guards; what HL would have taught me to do in that situation would be to get into a corner of the building with my back against a wall, preferably with a shotgun, night vision, and some grenades, (either regulars, or prox would be even better) and let the guards come to me. You'd probably still die in that scenario anyway, but it'd feel as though I'd have a slightly better chance.
I also did learn I think over the span of a number of games what my own weapons of choice/most likely proficiency would possibly be; as I said, primarily a shotgun and some form of explosives/incendiaries.
In looking at Microsoft's TCO claims in particular, I've been unable to avoid noticing that a lot of the company's material on this subject consists of, to put it simply, straight lies. Aside from anything else, nothing is mentioned by them about their licensing fees. How they can state with a straight face that after their licensing fees, Windows can still be cheaper than Linux is beyond me.
Legitimate performance competition is one thing, but I'm curious to know how the ODSL is able to deal with Microsoft's lack of ethics in this regard? Given Microsoft's marketing power, how are Linux advocates able to communicate to people that many of Microsoft's claims in this area are deceptive?
I have. I would hope most people have. You make it sound like either people are stupid and gullible
;-)
I don't think people are stupid and gullible as such. I however do think that some people have swallowed Stallman's philosophy whole without bothering to dig too deeply beneath the surface, if only because it's easier to adopt someone else's ideas than it is to come up with our own. The way that I also know that such people exist is that I see them posting here on a fairly regular basis...several of them have already assigned me to their foes list, in fact.
If it sounded like I was making a generalisation about everyone, then I apologise...I was actually only talking about a fairly small group.
I just hope this doesn't blind you completely to what Stallman says.
I will admit that I'm probably not still hugely receptive to Stallman's message; mainly because there are so many other people around who not only also advocate open source, but who do so without the authoritarian element you mentioned...so it's difficult for me not to find their message more desirable than his. I tend to prefer Linus's message, and that of others like him, because to me what it says is that people don't have to simply adhere to one license or one perspective...there's an opportunity for some kind of diversity to exist in his scenario.
A lot of this attempt to choke off debate in favour of take it or leave it is pretty rich - in fact, puke-making - coming from the alleged supporters of "freedom". If the attacks on Linus Torvalds continue then it won't be exactly difficult to conclude that the FSF's more rabid fans have a kind of Bolshevik agenda:
They do. We're seeing now with Stallman what happened to Stalin from a philosophical standpoint. It's exactly what Orwell wrote about in Animal Farm. A revolution takes place, but owing to human nature, in the end the founders of said revolution become just as bad (if not much worse) than the tyrant/s they were originally rebelling against, and the whole sick pattern repeats itself.
Stallman is a Communist, and he has betrayed the revolution...as owing to human nature, everyone eventually must.
This is not a straw man. GNU has in the past rejected all moral embargos on the use of free software. See their condemnation of the Hacktivismo license, which prevents the software being used by authoritarian governments and spyware makers:
The point that people keep missing though is that whether a condemnation or an endorsement, these are all still cases of Stallman issuing decrees and trying to tell people how to think, as Linus said.
It proves that the St Ignucius stuff *wasn't* completely a joke. Stallman fairly clearly wants (and expects) to be the leader of an organisation which has the ability to dictate the morality of its' adherents; Ergo, what most of us would call a religious cult.
Stallman wants the kernel to be called Linux, and distros to be referred to as GNU/Linux. So why is he suddenly ... seemingly intentionally ... trying to make it sound like the kernel is a small (virtually insignificant, if I understand his words) part of "the system"? What system?
It sounds like you're assuming that Stallman is consistent. Contrary to what people try and say, he is actually anything but. The only real way in which he is consistent at all is with the usual four-rule screed with which he prefixes interviews.
The one thing that truly is consistent about Stallman is his desire to take credit for, and assume jurisdiction over, as much as is humanly possible...which now apparently includes the Linux kernel itself. In his arguments however he will make things more or less important on a per-incident basis, depending on how it affects his overall accumulation of recognition or authority. If he is credited for something and it can be used to increase any form of authority over people, chances are he will consider it very important. Anything which is written by other people however, (which he cannot take credit for) or which cannot be used to increase his importance will be considered irrelevant.
I've been wondering the same thing. The man preaches "Freedom! Freedom!", yet people are quick to judge him as some sort of a control freak.
Freedom by definition IMHO needs to include the freedom to disagree with him...which is one element of it that he has repeatedly indicated that he does not want people to have.
Why segment the Open Source community like this?
The Linux community has been fragmented since its' inception. Linus might use the GPL, but as he says, the FSF's zealotry only holds Linux back. The divide between the FSF/GNU crowd and the more sane perspective that Linus represents has been an issue for a long time, and this is as good a time as any to drag it out of the closet and settle it once and for all.
The people who initially got involved with Linux should IMHO have written their own userland rather than simply adopting the GNU project, and Linus should have written his own license. The major mistake there was allowing Stallman to in any way be affiliated with Linux at all.
The FSF has come to represent a scorpion on Linux's back; one which tragically, we may now not be able to remove. Nearly every other part of the GNU project which a typical Linux distro uses is replaceable, but even the BSDs use gcc. That would apparently be the toughest one. Stallman however needs to be routed around, and it needs to happen soon. He's doing damage, and has been for some time now.
Stallman is repeating his behaviour with Ulrich Drepper and Glibc, here. Ergo, if the leader of a project refuses to go the way he wants them to, he will attempt to turn other people associated with the project against said project leader.
I have found myself wondering what it is going to take before people will acknowledge the type of man that Richard Stallman truly is. He is seeking division here, and he is doing so purely for the sake of his own ego; because he cannot stand to be in any position other than one of complete control. I keep reading of example after example of this...it's his way or no way. Is that honestly what freedom means?
People try and claim that the real threat to the future of F/OSS is on the other side of the ideological/economic divide...that Stallman is a hero. To people who would continue to maintain such a view of the man, I ask you to look at what he is doing here.
Take a long, hard look.
Why gets me is why people keep feeling surprised or shocked when RMS restates his ideals and views: free as in freedom, complete freedom, no restrictions.
The point however is that he is NOT about complete freedom at all, despite what he claims. The BSD license is complete freedom. The GPL dictates what happens downstream.
If he were honest, Stallman would admit that he values genuine freedom about as much as the rest of us value bird flu. He wants to be the leader of a religion. He wants credit for things which do not belong to him, and he wants legions of the adoring faithful who capitulate unquestioningly to his decrees.
Real freedom is a threat to Stallman. If you're really free, you're free to do something other than what he thinks you should do...and he doesn't want that at all.
This is exactly the kind of confusion that will weaken the definition of OSS without an RMS enforcing the ideal.
We have Linus. We have ESR. More importantly, though, we have (spare the thought!) *ourselves.*
You might need an external ideological father figure telling you how to think. I don't. I understand how important and necessary the ability to view/modify source code is.
It's precisely the fact that I have my own brain that causes me to disagree with RMS as vehemently as I do on certain points. Some people are more content to be followers; I understand that. I however am not one of them.
The same idea applies 1-to-1 to OSS. Tivo's software is one example of how the OSS ideal was distorted. If RMS is not out there as an idealogical enforcer, then OSS becomes meaningless as soon as clever people exploit it some more.
This would be true if Stallman was the only proponent of the definition of open source. (i.e., editable source with binaries) He isn't.
Try going here sometime and looking through all of the licenses which Stallman not only had no part in authoring, but which he also would actually say are not "GPL compatible."
Linux not only is now sufficiently well known, but is also sufficiently profitable that FOSS is entirely capable of surviving on its' own. The other thing you're not taking into account is that virtually all of the threats to its' continued existence originate in the US. The US itself is welcome to become as draconian as it wants; thanks to the unceasing efforts of George W. Bush, the country is becoming less relevant to the rest of the planet by the day, and hence, US domestic law soon won't be something that the rest of the planet needs to care about either. Thus, even if FOSS vanished from the US, it will not from the rest of the world any time soon.
Stallman does harm to Linux's forward progress because of the image he conveys; that of an aging, "neurologically diverse", (to use the politically correct term) Marxist hippie who refuses to deal even marginally with anybody who has views differing from his own. This is not an image or a person that most businesses or individuals wish to be in any way associated with, and for good reason.
Stallman was a lot more relevant back when FOSS was still the exclusive domain of individuals like him; they're the type of people you'll see almost exclusively if you hire a DVD of the documentary "Trekkies," sometime. Because these days however, Linux and other FOSS projects are increasingly becoming the domain of more normal people, and because FOSS's long term survival depends on it becoming as widely adopted as possible, Stallman is no longer an appropriate figurehead for it. It makes sense that geeks and hippies would want a fellow hippie as a leader, (if they want one at all, that is) as such would be someone that they could relate to. Mainstream individuals however want someone mainstream to deal with, and whatever other word you might want to apply to Stallman, "mainstream" certainly is not one that could be.
Times change, and what is useful during one period in history does not necessarily remain useful in another. There indeed was a time when Stallman was valuable, necessary, and relevant...but that time has fairly long since passed.
I know what a foaming-at-the-mouth "RMS is the antichrist" troll I used to be here on Slashdot, but I've lately come to realise the error of my ways, for two reasons:-
a) It makes me look like a fool, and
b) There is now absolutely no need for me to do it anyway. With the amount of crazed diatribes he's been releasing lately, he's doing a far better job himself of convincing everyone of what a generally undesirable human being he is than I ever could. His fame for his prior contributions has served as the rope, and over the past 2-3 years he's done an absolutely smashing job of using it to hang himself. He's now on the fast track to complete irrelevance.
How true the mathematical proverb is. Every problem does, indeed, have its own solution.
*I* think that you are the victim of group-think. *I* seen this pattern of RMS bashing many times of the years. It is the result of "not thinking for yourself" and falling in line with a particular kind of anti-RMS camp.
I will concede that extremism on either side is undesirable, and that I displayed such.
Don't be surprised if other FLOSS licenses follow suit.
I will also concede that that is entirely possible. My objection is not so much about the idea of condemning/expressing disapproval towards DRM as such. Rather it was that a) the term "DRM" perhaps was not sufficiently clearly defined in the draft, and that b) it did sound, at least superficially, like the FSF was trying to dictate/decree policy for their "group." Because of that, if as you say more licenses than merely the GPL itself adopt such clauses in the future, I will be willing to believe that they are doing so for other reasons.
In terms of the idea of the FSF attempting to issue decrees for their "followers," you may be correct that viewing the FSF/GNU project as a religion is somewhat inaccurate. However, even if in fact this perception is inaccurate, there are concrete reasons why said perception exists, and as you've already said, I am not the only person who holds it. Some people might answer that Microsoft and the RIAA already established the idea that you're either in one camp or the other, and that hence it wasn't the FSF who did so...but in a more objective mode of thought I'm able to believe that such intense factionalism isn't entirely necessary.
True you have used a similar rhetorical style as a particular school of RMS-bashers (Marxists, commie-pinko, anti-capitalism, followed by legions of RMS worshiping drones)
I believe that Richard Stallman desires to be worshipped, and that he has at least implied that desire on more than one occasion. Granted, most of said insinuations would be claimed as satirical humour (the "St. Ignucius" material, etc) by his advocates, but as Shakespeare said, often it is the humour a person uses which reveals the most information about said person's serious nature.
Also, my labelling of Stallman as a Marxist or Communist is not entirely based on reactionary ignorance. One of Marx's core beliefs was that workers themselves should own the means of production. Granted, said belief in that form does not *exactly* scale to Stallman's concept of Free Software...but especially given that the issue of hardware has entered the picture, it is a fairly close fit, don't you think?
I also don't necessarily believe that somebody being a Marxist is on its' own a bad thing; I'd only be inclined to believe it was a bad thing in the case of someone who believed that Marxism *alone* had any validity. Stallman's seeming inability to accept the validity of perspectives other than his own has been one of my main objections to his stated philosophy.
I view Capitalism and Communism as being poles at each end of a spectrum or continuum. I realise that such is not an original thought, however, I would add to that that I believe that *both* are vital parts of the economic/social/political ecosystem. Try and claim that either one of them, in exclusivity, is supreme, and totally neglect the other, and you will rapidly run into very serious problems in my experience.
(DMCA, Sonny Bono copyright extension act, the RIAA/MPAA are trying to close the analog hole, sue their customer base into accepting their antiquated and now obsolete business model, and finally they are trying to stop the march of technological progress by making it illegal to do ANYTHING "non-customary" with their "content")
I notice here that you use the word "trying," a few times...and that's appropriate. We've heard on Slashdot about some of the RIAA's recent adventures in court. They both involve women who are on record as scarcely knowing what a computer is, let alone how to share mp3s.
Hence, in using the legal system to persecute people who are fairly obviously innocent, all the RIAA succeed in doing is to portray themselves as exactly the kind of blind, avaricious jackasses that we already knew they were. They're not a serious long-term threat to anybody but themselves.
As for the DMCA, who cares? It's the proverbial pie-crust law. ("Easily made, easily broken," ergo largely unenforceable) If you're an American corporate entity, then yes, you might have to care about it, but nobody else on the planet really should.
The thing that so many people on Slashdot and in other places don't seem to understand is that the corporate greed addicts are a tiny minority of the population. I was reading yet another article yesterday about how the sky is supposedly falling because Verizon and the Bells want to try and lock up the Internet, and do various other economically suicidal things. As far as I'm concerned, they're entirely welcome to try.
For starters, they only have direct control over the net in certain parts of the US, which doesn't include the rest of the planet. For another thing, even if they were able to completely monopolise whatever network space they *do* have control over, they'd very rapidly become amazed at how nobody would come to their party. People who don't understand the Internet don't understand perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of it; namely, that it is composed of individual machines, owned by disparate individuals. Ergo, Verizon and the Bells can make as much of a monopolistic mess of their *part* of the network as they want; the rest of us can (and will) simply divert around it, and they'll be left potentially bankrupt and looking like fools.
The bottom line here is that American corporations can hatch whatever evil schemes they want, and the rest of us will simply continue on with our lives. The US is *not* the center of the universe, and it does *not* have control of the entire planet, as much as it might like to. Large-scale hardware-based DRM is not going to happen. The total prevention of p2p file sharing is not going to happen. The destruction of open source is not going to happen. George W. Bush and his demoniac handlers taking over the world is not going to happen.
Why not? It's very simple. The overwhelming majority simply do not want it, and will not accept it...and any governmental or corporate entity which wants to survive, ultimately either accepts the will of the majority, or ceases to exist.
You can tell me I'm wrong if you like...but watch it happen.
The issue with Freedom 0 http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is that IF I can run any "free" software that I want then I can run it for any purpose.
Yes, but if you actually knew how to think for yourself, chances are you wouldn't want Stallman (or anyone else, for that matter) defining freedom for you. Those of us who *are* capable of using our own brains prefer to reach our own definition. I'm guessing Linus specifically wanted copyleft himself in order to ensure that downstream developers/companies couldn't lock up his work; however I also suspect that he actually would have thought it through. He might have even looked at some of the other licenses in existence at the time (including non-copyleft ones - *horrors!*) before deciding on the GPL. I'm curious...how much do you know about the other OSS licenses that exist?
The other issue is, Linus *wasn't* off the mark with DRM...what he was concerned about was how the term DRM is defined, which is something that the draft does not elaborate very much on. His point was that some of the things which could conceivably be defined as DRM (he gives encryption as one example) can actually be extremely beneficial in some circumstances.
DRM is a war being waged on consumers, developing such systems COSTS money that gets passed on to you but provides NO benefit you YOU as consumer.
Right. That's exactly why what you're defining here as DRM is failing, and will ultimately fail. Capitalist economic theory 101: Corporations ultimately exist for (and profit from) the purpose of meeting public needs. If they don't do that, eventually they cease to exist. I'm not claiming that that happens overnight, and I'm also not claiming that they don't do a hell of a lot of damage in the process, (environmental damage probably being the best example) but eventually it happens. Someone else comes along who not only more efficiently meets the original need, but who also figures out ways of solving the problems that the original corporation created. It's happening to an extent with Linux and Microsoft, even though Linux is not the domain of a single corporation.
Richard Stallman is a Marxist fanatic in the truest and most literal sense of the word. I will agree with anyone who claims that big business causes a lot of problems. Yes, many large corporations *are* run by rapacious moral degenerates, and yes, they can do a tremendous amount of damage, but just because that happens in some or even most cases does not mean it happens in *every* case. The economic system in a contemporary sense also may have metastasized into something undesirable and dangerous, (which does, I concede, now need to at least be partly replaced) but for a long time, and in ways smaller than those which are currently most visible, it has served as a valid and even positive framework for solving human problems.
Stallman sold Emacs tapes himself during the 80s for $1,500 US apiece, and the "Deluxe distribution package," is being sold for $5,000 US. I'm aware that the conventional Marxist justification for this would be to claim to be "using the system in order to bring it down," however a more accurate term for it would simply be rank hypocrisy. He has stated on more than one occasion that he wants to see an end to people being able to earn money from software, and yet he himself has done so in the past, and his foundation currently obviously has no qualms whatsoever about doing so.
I suspect that you, like many of his other followers, simply focus on how wonderful his philosophy looks on the surface, and don't bother digging any deeper than that. For those of us who have been looking, however, the gnu costume has never been able to entirely conceal Stallman's Red underwear.
a) Activision should simply let the Indians boycott the game if they want. For one thing, if it wasn't them conducting the boycott, it'd probably be fundamentalist Christians. For another, I suspect that we're not talking about a large group of people here...it's not like Activision are going to lose a lot of money if they don't buy the game.
b) By all accounts, it's the usual type of mediocre, soulless crap that the big publishers try and feed us anyway. Then again though, that's probably the reason Activision are worried...because hardly anyone will likely buy the game anyway, they need to get everyone they can on side.
I was diagnosed at 16 with NVLD, an "autistic spectrum" condition similar (but not identical) to Asperger's.
I had enormous social problems as a child; school was a very traumatic experience, which ended with me spending some time in a psychiatric inpatient unit after I left.
The older I've become though, the easier it gets. After leaving school, I read heavily in the area of relational psychology. The main books were Machiavelli's The Prince, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People, and the Art of Seduction and the 48 Laws of Power by Robert E. Greene. The works of Internet author David D'Angelo were also enlightening. I am now in a romantic relationship as well which is entering its third year, so I figure I must have learned something. I'm aware that a number of better known autistic people are celibate, and the stereotype does tend towards celibacy, so I tend to consider my success with the opposite sex to be a fairly major achievement.
Another thing which happened that I actually consider extremely beneficial in hindsight was an 18 month encounter with marijuana. I had heard about marijuana being used medically to treat people with autism, and due to my own experience highly recommend it for such, although I do not recommend smoking on a permanent basis. Marijuana does lessen intelligence and damage neurology I believe...but for an autistic person, that also has the effect of making us human.
The thing about it is, I've tended to believe from observation that there is a neurological tradeoff between mathematical/computer related ability and the ability to know how to socially interact. Interestingly, I discovered that my own computer-related ability appeared to markedly decrease as I became more effective at interacting socially. It's a difficult struggle, but I think it is worth it.
Semantics, along with an attempt at emotional manipulation.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:- When Richard Stallman uses the word freedom, it is worth no more than when George W. Bush uses it. They're both liars, they're both hypocrites, and they're both aspirant tyrants.
It would be ironic(?) since Stallman started GNU because of restrictions placed on him by unix vendors.
Granted, but that is exactly what needs to happen, and it's something that I've often thought about. If only I was more of a programmer... *sigh*