You're wrong about Gates being so humble about it. I remember a story earlier this year about Microsoft bragging about charitable giving and how it ended up making the Ford Foundation and afew other charities looking bad. It turned out that much of the valuation of the giving of Microsoft was in their software, whereas the giving by the others was more cash-related. I think Microsoft and Gates has no shame at all.
Please read more carefully: I said a situation that was condemned. Yeah, there were nuts who condemned Troll and the KDE developers themselves, but we can just ignore those silly people. The bottom line is that it was a situation that was fixed due to pressure from the free software community. Troll was just learning the proper rules of how to play this game. Now, of course, we have things like SuSE with YAST, etc., but hopefully that will be rectified eventually. Notice I have not said "only GPL" (they could use another free software license, of course); I've just pointed to examples of nonfree software contaminating free software.
Yeah, Cox is pragmatic. So is Linus, RMS, Walls, etc. Who ever said "Only GPL?" RMS doesn't say that. KDE/Qt is now past a licensing situation which was rightly condemned in the past.
No, you are trivializing here; we can all agree that compiling takes some source code and translates it into another form and that this kind of translating process will eventually lead to code that can be executed. Things like word processors and spreadsheets, including bloated and flaky ones like Word and Excel, do not qualify.
There must be only a few people on/. who appreciate true hackers. To take an example from the Levy classic Hackers (p. 426):
...A virtual John Henry of computer code, RMS had singlehandedly attempted to match the work of over a dozen world-class hackers, and managed to keep doing it during most of 1982 and almost all of 1983. "In a fairly real sense," Greenblatt noted at the time, "he's been outhacking the whole bunch of them."
For the clewbies out there, Greenblatt is also one of the greatest hackers of all time.
One of the other great hackers, Gosper, noted at that time:
"But wait a minute--Stallman doesn't have anybody to argue with all night over there. He's working alone! It's incredible anyone could do this alone!"
Yes, I am appealing to authority here, and if you cannot appreciate the likes of Greenblatt and Gosper (you can read about them in Part One and the Epilogue of Hackers), then you you certainly cannot appreciate any hacker, including Linus.
Finally, this ignorant bashing of LISP is so typical of clueless folk. To take a seldom-mentioned example of its performance feats, the STALIN scheme (variant of LISP) compiler has outperformed even FORTRAN on some numerical tasks.
OK, I know this in itself was not influential, but the stuff it documents was, is, and will be, influential. Every Slashdotter must read that story! If you are too cheap to buy it, get it from the library. The whole book is great, but Part One and the Epilogue (together less than 170 fast-moving pages) give a fascinating portrayal of the best kind of spirit that is behind computer innovation.
It is sometimes glaringly obvious that some Slashdotters have not read this stuff. Please read it, and even if you have read it, but a couple of years have gone by and you have grown stale, read it again.
But Netscape is clearly identifiable as proprietary and is certainly not essential to a distribution, as, say, YAST is to SuSE. YAST is more insidious in the sense that it is almost free, but not really. These kind of silly games do not help the free software effort. Again, SuSE may be a great distribution, but if it is so great -- and I do not doubt that it is, why don't they just rely on that merit instead of sneaking in with an almost-but-not-quite-free license of YAST?
Re:SuSE is not much of a believer in free software
on
SuSE 6.2 in August
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· Score: 1
Lets say SuSE GPL's YAST. So what, is redhat gonna use it? Debian? Caldera? bfd on gpl'ing a distro's config tool. The value added of the config is the only thing that makes distro's truly worth paying for.
You imply that it should be obvious that making YAST free software would not impact other distributions much. If that is so obvious then why doesn't SuSE just do that then? Unfortunately, I believe they do not find this to be so obvious
I do not mean to trash SuSE; they do good things, but OTOH they are not doing the free software community any favors by making YAST non-free.
This is interesting but way too hypothetical and speculative; as you say, an unlikely scenario. Would not likelier scenarios be more interesting -- such as the fact the the continued use of the GPL disperses the power from the computing elite to computing newcomers, thus making computer technology have a more democratic basis? That is much more likely to happen and fortunately makes for a better society.
SuSE is not much of a believer in free software
on
SuSE 6.2 in August
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· Score: 1
Fact: YAST is not free software. Clearly, SuSE lacks confidence in the role of free software as a part of its business plan if it cannot put YAST under a BSD, GPL, or other free software license. SuSE is certainly not as free as Redhat is. Those who care about free software should consider this important point.
I am not trying to be beligerent here. I myself try to be different, for example, trying out the exokernel, Haskell, SML, etc.
Clearly, an Amiga on top of QNX sets you apart from the crowd better than GNU/Linux.
With the very tasty suggestion that Amiga has something going on with Transmeta, I don't see any reason why Amigans cannot have their established OS and still be differentiated by cool hardware.
No need to be so coy, AC--I'm convinced!
on
Storm Linux
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· Score: 0
I think what this AC-run-amok really is trying to say is that the GPL sucks. Although I agree, there is a problem: which license out there is better? I haven't found it yet.
But you are just really kidding, aren't you? If you really had a conviction on the matter, you would be trying to come up with a better license. Until then, I will do all I can to promote all things GPL. And there's many more like me--don't believe me? Just check out how things are getting licensed on Freshmeat!
Only the kernel is GPLed. Even binary-only drivers may be distributed with it. It looks like Amiga will be adding proprietary value mainly outside the kernel, so I do not see what the problem is.
This has turned into a *BSD hate campaign.
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Storm Linux
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Generally, GNU/Linux and *BSD advocates are reasonable people. But this morning there is a crazed Anonymous COWARD who is making *BSD look extremely uncool. I don't care, no matter how hard he tries, I will still try out FreeBSD.
GNU/Linux vs. *BSD posts should be moderated down
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Storm Linux
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GNU/Linux vs. *BSD posts should be moderated down_because they are so devoid of character, about like KDE vs. GNOME.
Look folks, if flaming is so much fun, why not bring out the old warhorses, such as emacs vs. vi or c vs. c++.
This recent spate of *BSD vs. GNU/Linux tripe suggests the cute conspiracy theory of MSFT-instigated rabble-rousing. They certainly are capable of such dumb stuff--ask any OS/2er.:)
Re:LET THE FRAGMENTATION BEGIN!
on
Storm Linux
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As soon as the FSF makes their own Linux distribution
I think you are confused, AC. You don't mean distribution, you mean kernel, right? Don't worry about it, the Hurd still lives and GNU/Hurd will eventually be released by Debian. When? I am not sure, the FSF is a non-prophet organization.:)
Re:LET THE FRAGMENTATION BEGIN!
on
Storm Linux
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· Score: 1
No, the canonical form is GNU/kernel, where kernel is Linux, Hurd, etc.
The more the merrier and a note on Linux vs. *BSD
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Storm Linux
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Regarding yet another GNU/Linux distribution, I think too many people fail to appreciate evolutionary behavior and competitive benefits.
This GNU/Linux vs. *BSD thing is so silly. How many of us like one or the other? Quite a few, huh? Well, what's the problem, then? Here is an idea for any doubters: work on fun projects that benefit both, such as KDE, GNUStep, or GNOME. I hope this settles this pathetically petty bickering.
You are missing the point. The "hype" is about more than some kernel called Linux. It is about free software development, a revolution in the making. It is not hype. It is for real and it will not go away, unlike many proprietary efforts. What is there to be upset about? Now it will be possible for anyone to help improve the Amiga at very low levels!
Slashdot Mirror
AIDS has a lot of media impact, so curing AIDS would also have a lot of impact. So it is a logical choice for good PR points.
You're wrong about Gates being so humble about it. I remember a story earlier this year about Microsoft bragging about charitable giving and how it ended up making the Ford Foundation and afew other charities looking bad. It turned out that much of the valuation of the giving of Microsoft was in their software, whereas the giving by the others was more cash-related. I think Microsoft and Gates has no shame at all.
That stuff makes too much sense; why would most people support it then? ;-(
Linux's push towards the enterprise is premature.
That's quite amusing. And NT's push is not premature, I guess?
Where's the force coming from? Does someone have a gun to your head?
Please read more carefully: I said a situation that was condemned. Yeah, there were nuts who condemned Troll and the KDE developers themselves, but we can just ignore those silly people. The bottom line is that it was a situation that was fixed due to pressure from the free software community. Troll was just learning the proper rules of how to play this game. Now, of course, we have things like SuSE with YAST, etc., but hopefully that will be rectified eventually. Notice I have not said "only GPL" (they could use another free software license, of course); I've just pointed to examples of nonfree software contaminating free software.
Yeah, Cox is pragmatic. So is Linus, RMS, Walls, etc. Who ever said "Only GPL?" RMS doesn't say that. KDE/Qt is now past a licensing situation which was rightly condemned in the past.
No, you are trivializing here; we can all agree that compiling takes some source code and translates it into another form and that this kind of translating process will eventually lead to code that can be executed. Things like word processors and spreadsheets, including bloated and flaky ones like Word and Excel, do not qualify.
There must be only a few people on /. who appreciate true hackers. To take an example from the Levy classic Hackers (p. 426):
For the clewbies out there, Greenblatt is also one of the greatest hackers of all time.
One of the other great hackers, Gosper, noted at that time:
"But wait a minute--Stallman doesn't have anybody to argue with all night over there. He's working alone! It's incredible anyone could do this alone!"
Yes, I am appealing to authority here, and if you cannot appreciate the likes of Greenblatt and Gosper (you can read about them in Part One and the Epilogue of Hackers), then you you certainly cannot appreciate any hacker, including Linus.
Finally, this ignorant bashing of LISP is so typical of clueless folk. To take a seldom-mentioned example of its performance feats, the STALIN scheme (variant of LISP) compiler has outperformed even FORTRAN on some numerical tasks.
OK, I know this in itself was not influential, but the stuff it documents was, is, and will be, influential. Every Slashdotter must read that story! If you are too cheap to buy it, get it from the library. The whole book is great, but Part One and the Epilogue (together less than 170 fast-moving pages) give a fascinating portrayal of the best kind of spirit that is behind computer innovation.
It is sometimes glaringly obvious that some Slashdotters have not read this stuff. Please read it, and even if you have read it, but a couple of years have gone by and you have grown stale, read it again.
But Netscape is clearly identifiable as proprietary and is certainly not essential to a distribution, as, say, YAST is to SuSE. YAST is more insidious in the sense that it is almost free, but not really. These kind of silly games do not help the free software effort. Again, SuSE may be a great distribution, but if it is so great -- and I do not doubt that it is, why don't they just rely on that merit instead of sneaking in with an almost-but-not-quite-free license of YAST?
Lets say SuSE GPL's YAST. So what, is redhat gonna use it? Debian? Caldera? bfd on gpl'ing a distro's config tool. The value added of the config is the only thing that makes distro's truly worth paying for.
You imply that it should be obvious that making YAST free software would not impact other distributions much. If that is so obvious then why doesn't SuSE just do that then? Unfortunately, I believe they do not find this to be so obvious
I do not mean to trash SuSE; they do good things, but OTOH they are not doing the free software community any favors by making YAST non-free.
This is interesting but way too hypothetical and speculative; as you say, an unlikely scenario. Would not likelier scenarios be more interesting -- such as the fact the the continued use of the GPL disperses the power from the computing elite to computing newcomers, thus making computer technology have a more democratic basis? That is much more likely to happen and fortunately makes for a better society.
Fact: YAST is not free software. Clearly, SuSE lacks confidence in the role of free software as a part of its business plan if it cannot put YAST under a BSD, GPL, or other free software license. SuSE is certainly not as free as Redhat is. Those who care about free software should consider this important point.
They cry for a standard when it's not theirs. What about clearly MSOffice file formats, hmmm?
I am not trying to be beligerent here. I myself try to be different, for example, trying out the exokernel, Haskell, SML, etc.
Clearly, an Amiga on top of QNX sets you apart from the crowd better than GNU/Linux.
With the very tasty suggestion that Amiga has something going on with Transmeta, I don't see any reason why Amigans cannot have their established OS and still be differentiated by cool hardware.
I think what this AC-run-amok really is trying to say is that the GPL sucks. Although I agree, there is a problem: which license out there is better? I haven't found it yet.
But you are just really kidding, aren't you? If you really had a conviction on the matter, you would be trying to come up with a better license. Until then, I will do all I can to promote all things GPL. And there's many more like me--don't believe me? Just check out how things are getting licensed on Freshmeat!
Ouch, that really made me laugh! :^)
Only the kernel is GPLed. Even binary-only drivers may be distributed with it. It looks like Amiga will be adding proprietary value mainly outside the kernel, so I do not see what the problem is.
Generally, GNU/Linux and *BSD advocates are reasonable people. But this morning there is a crazed Anonymous COWARD who is making *BSD look extremely uncool. I don't care, no matter how hard he tries, I will still try out FreeBSD.
GNU/Linux vs. *BSD posts should be moderated down_because they are so devoid of character, about like KDE vs. GNOME.
Look folks, if flaming is so much fun, why not bring out the old warhorses, such as emacs vs. vi or c vs. c++.
This recent spate of *BSD vs. GNU/Linux tripe suggests the cute conspiracy theory of MSFT-instigated rabble-rousing. They certainly are capable of such dumb stuff--ask any OS/2er. :)
As soon as the FSF makes their own Linux distribution
I think you are confused, AC. You don't mean distribution, you mean kernel, right? Don't worry about it, the Hurd still lives and GNU/Hurd will eventually be released by Debian. When? I am not sure, the FSF is a non-prophet organization. :)
No, the canonical form is GNU/kernel, where kernel is Linux, Hurd, etc.
Regarding yet another GNU/Linux distribution, I think too many people fail to appreciate evolutionary behavior and competitive benefits.
This GNU/Linux vs. *BSD thing is so silly. How many of us like one or the other? Quite a few, huh? Well, what's the problem, then? Here is an idea for any doubters: work on fun projects that benefit both, such as KDE, GNUStep, or GNOME. I hope this settles this pathetically petty bickering.
You are missing the point. The "hype" is about more than some kernel called Linux. It is about free software development, a revolution in the making. It is not hype. It is for real and it will not go away, unlike many proprietary efforts. What is there to be upset about? Now it will be possible for anyone to help improve the Amiga at very low levels!