Well, nothing is easier that that. Number of people reading slashdot every day. Then you divide that number by the number of people owning a computer.
I don't have these figures (And I don't care about getting them), but I would be very surprised if it is more than 1%.
And please don't try to pretend there is more than 2 million people reading slashdot or less than 200 million computer in use worldwide.
Your question is like asking: "How do you know there is more stars in the universe than coins in my purse?" I know it because it is so freaking obvious.
Yeah, but we represent fraction of percents in regard to the "global market". How are our numbers representative at all in from of n millions computers sold to other people?
You misunderstood me. I meant: "What difference does it make" if the patch is only released in June or August? It's not like there is a serious emergency today
The problem is not user error. I use Photoshop and ImageReady for my icons/pictures processing purposes. I have very rarely encoutered an icon that would be smaller with PNG. So I still stick to GIF for most purposes.
Now maybe the PNG compresor is a piece of crap in IR. How am I supposed to know? I'm not going to try 100 different compressors.
A format that has no decent popular implementation will fail. No matter how good it is. This is a MAJOR problem for PNG. And it is not a user error.
While the second link you provide is a great resource, the first one isn't really answering the question. First it's not free, so I might as well buy a second HDD and install a Linux. Second it doesn't allow you to scroll down to see the entire pages. Third, you cannot test rollovers and any Javascript you may have.
It is still nice though, but just answers 10% of the question.
If there is anything worth seeing on the website, then users will find a way to see it But how will the user know if there is something worth seeing on the website if he can't see it?
Web developers complain about having to code around IE's bugs, yet by continuing to do so they perpetuate the problem If you don't care whether your web page works on IE, then you don't care about it at all. That's the other alternative.
The BSD license doesn't restrict anything. That's where you are mistaken. It allows people to relicense. The BSD license allows people to do things. You cannot say that the fact that someone might want to relicense in a closed license, makes BSD less free. The person removing the freedom is the person that relicenses the code, not the BSD license.
The GPL license doesn't allow you "to modify derivatives" as you put it. It just enforces derivative works to be in the same license. A lot of derivatives of BSD (Let's take FreeBSD for example) are still in a form that you can modify. Of course, MS, Apple & others took a lot, but Linux, all the other BSD languages did the exact same thing.
The fact that all derivatives of some GPL code must be GPL is a feature of the GPL license.
Would you consider yourself more or less free in a country where there would be no law? Less safe, for sure. Less confident, evidently. But more free.
The issue is that you just think: The GPL is better and enforces something I like, so it has to be more free. Freedom is not always good. As with everything in life, it's all about finding a balance between too much freedom and too much restrictions. Closed licenses are too restricted. BSD is too free. GPL is better because it mixes interesting stuff that removes "bad freedom" to relicense.
And no, it doesn't give you freedom to modify all derivatives. It allows you to do so. This is an improper use of the word freedom, and that's where the issue is.
When I give you food, I allow you to eat. I enable you to eat. I might even save your life. But I don't give you freedom to eat. That doesn't make sense. This is just not what freedom is.
I keep on reading: The GPL restricts... The BSD allows And you people keep on saying that GPL is more free. This is just amazing. GPL is a lot of things: Better, guarantees more code availability, you like it more. It has a lot of advantages, but they are all based on the fact that it is less free. Which is better, no doubt about that. But do not confuse "better" or "more code availability" with freedom, because that's not what it is.
You example doesn't stand bacause you compare a piece of proprietary code with a piece of GPL code, then just say that BSD is obviously worse. But that's not what you are comparing. When a closed-source company takes a piece of BSD code and make it a proprietary software, it doesn't "lock it down". The original BSD code is still out there, with a BSD license attached to it. What they "lock down" is their modifications to that code, not that code itself.
To be a little extreme, I'd say that far from setting the code "free", the GPL do enslave it. Once it's GPL, it cannot be relicensed with any other license (not GPL compat that is). The code is locked forever in the GPL license.
Now that might be good or bad. This is a personal point of view. But this is certainly not freedom.
1. Being more free is not necessarily better. I agree with that 100%. 2. I am also glad that I can license my code with the GPL and ensure that all users of my code are free to modify and redistribute it This is true for BSD, not for GPL. For GPL, you should read: I am also glad that I can license my code with the GPL and ensure that all users of my code are free to modify and are bounded to redistribute it GPL. See the difference?
That is my point very exactly. GPL is less free, but it's for the best interests.
Both licenses are there for you to choose. GPL is "less free" than BSD. Does that make it worse? Certainly not. But as a matter of fact,
Just because Kazaa is more free in the literal sense doesn't mean it's a better choice When did I say that BSD being more free makes it a better choice over GPL? That's not my point...
My point is: GPL is "less free" than BSD because it has more restrictions. I never said that this implied BSD to be better!
A closed source fork IS NOT A BSD application. So you are saying that a closed source fork of a BSD application is less "free" than a GPL application, and with that I agree.
THE GPL DOESN'T GUARANTEE ANY FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!! It just guarantees that all derivatives of your code will be available under the same license. How you can relate that to freedom is a total mystery to me. A piece of code cannot be "free" as you put it, because it is not a living thing. You can't kill it, you can't free it up either. However you can release it, or make it available. This is not freedom, because freedom relates to rights and restrictions. A piece of code doesn't have rights or restriction, hence it can't be free. It's license can have restrictions however.
You telling me I can't is restricting my freedon! Yes, I do. BTW, who said Free is Good? Total and absolute freedom is also known as anarchy. And that isn't good by any means. What is it with you guys that get it all wrong? If you prevent someone from doing domething, you limit his/her freedom. Period. That doesn't have to be bad!
What about my freedom as a user to get hold of the code of any application I'm using to make changes to it? Mind you, you can get a hold on the code of any BSD application you are using and make changes to it.
What about my freedom to move changes from a future release of the code, back into my current version? Can do that with BSD code as well.
Can I backport features from a future release using code from a GPL based license? Do I have that same freedom with code with a BSD base? Yes you do. Take anything from any BSD OS and put it anywhere in any BSD os. Your choice really.
And if you screw up a burger, it only costs the company about $0.17
We are not living in the same world then. If you screw it up bad enough for someone to get injured or - god forbid - die by it, the figures will probably be 10 million times as big as what you are mentionning.
The GPL allows one "restriction" Got it! The BSD license doesn't have any restrictions. That's what [absolute] freedom is all about. No restrictions. One person that has absolute freedom could shoot you in the head. That's it! Freedom - at least in its absolute form - is screwed up. That's how it is.
Now I'm not saying "GPL is less free" means it's worse. It's probably better. But it's not "more free" tham GPL.
in BSD land the person who writes the restrictive extension makes one restriction That's where I don't get it. The person doesn't make a restriction! The person adds to something BSD and does not give it back. He doesn't restrict anything! The author of the BSD piece still have the piece.
If I wrote a law that would FORCE you to give half your income to a charity of your choice once you've taken anything from one, would you consider it more or less restrictive? Fair, maybe (that's your judgement) but not less restrictive! By no means!
BTW, your math is screwed up, because you consider 1+1 > 1*2. "2 or more people want to make restrictive extensions" In the BSD world: They both make a restrictive extension (even if I disagree with it). 1 + 1 = 2. In the GPL world: They are both restricted by the same restriction: 1*2 = 2.
So by your math, you barely make them match.
And for the sentence "wanted to further restrict the software", nobody can in either license. They can take it, make modifications and restrict their modifications, but the original software remains in the original license in both cases.
I could call my cats free, declare that the plural of that is freedom and then declare that I have more freedom than you. Sure. But by no means will I be more free than you with the common sense of the word. With my word and in my little world, yes I am, but in fact, I'm just a fool.
The fact that you know your code will not end up closed down in a closed source product (at least legally) is not: 1. an exemptiom from any power or control 2. a Liberty 3. an independance 4. a privilege 5. a franchise 6. an immunity 7. an exemption from necessity
Hence it is unrelated to all the definitions you gave me. It's just the way you want your software to be distrubuted. You can call it many words: Your ideal, the way you like it, a 'good' way, an 'open' way,... but it is not freedom. At least by any common definitions of the word freedom. It's your choice for your software, no more, no less.
As I explained elsewhere on this thread, there is no such thing as universal "freedom" that everyone can agree upon Well you agreed on my definition "being free as in having no restrictions" in the grandparent, didn't you? While it is an ideal that is unattainable, it is still an ideal.
I think you will find that more of 95% of the people agree that once you add a restriction you remove a liberty. Hence - according to your definition - you remove some freedom.
Now does restriction A removes more freedom than restriction B, is certainly debatable in most of the cases. But does restriction A removes more freedom than restriction A + restriction B, only a fool - or a devil's advocate loving hard pleas - will try to defend that.
The fact that no one can take your source code and redistribute it on its binary form only is just the way you want your source code used and distributed. There's no concept of freedom here. Unless you want to add your own definition, that I feel is shared by many people in the GPL community.
Maybe that's just what it is after all. All of you guys want to call that freedom, so it'll just pop-up as freedom. A new word. Why not?
Slashdot Mirror
how do you know we are only a small percentage ?
Well, nothing is easier that that. Number of people reading slashdot every day. Then you divide that number by the number of people owning a computer.
I don't have these figures (And I don't care about getting them), but I would be very surprised if it is more than 1%.
And please don't try to pretend there is more than 2 million people reading slashdot or less than 200 million computer in use worldwide.
Your question is like asking: "How do you know there is more stars in the universe than coins in my purse?" I know it because it is so freaking obvious.
Yeah, but we represent fraction of percents in regard to the "global market". How are our numbers representative at all in from of n millions computers sold to other people?
You misunderstood me. I meant: "What difference does it make" if the patch is only released in June or August? It's not like there is a serious emergency today
My bad.
Given that less than 5% of the current CPUs sold support that feature, what difference will this make?
And here goes the danger of thinking that your family if somewhat representative. Or the slashdot community for that matter.
The problem is not user error. I use Photoshop and ImageReady for my icons/pictures processing purposes. I have very rarely encoutered an icon that would be smaller with PNG. So I still stick to GIF for most purposes.
Now maybe the PNG compresor is a piece of crap in IR. How am I supposed to know? I'm not going to try 100 different compressors.
A format that has no decent popular implementation will fail. No matter how good it is. This is a MAJOR problem for PNG. And it is not a user error.
While the second link you provide is a great resource, the first one isn't really answering the question. First it's not free, so I might as well buy a second HDD and install a Linux. Second it doesn't allow you to scroll down to see the entire pages. Third, you cannot test rollovers and any Javascript you may have.
It is still nice though, but just answers 10% of the question.
Thanks for the links though!
If there is anything worth seeing on the website, then users will find a way to see it
But how will the user know if there is something worth seeing on the website if he can't see it?
Web developers complain about having to code around IE's bugs, yet by continuing to do so they perpetuate the problem
If you don't care whether your web page works on IE, then you don't care about it at all. That's the other alternative.
Is there a lot of browsers with no stylesheet support? I mean, browsers that are more than 0.01% of the browser population?
doesn't do a damn thing
Has it ever occured to you that managing a project is not necessarily nothing?
The BSD license doesn't restrict anything. That's where you are mistaken. It allows people to relicense. The BSD license allows people to do things. You cannot say that the fact that someone might want to relicense in a closed license, makes BSD less free. The person removing the freedom is the person that relicenses the code, not the BSD license.
The GPL license doesn't allow you "to modify derivatives" as you put it. It just enforces derivative works to be in the same license. A lot of derivatives of BSD (Let's take FreeBSD for example) are still in a form that you can modify. Of course, MS, Apple & others took a lot, but Linux, all the other BSD languages did the exact same thing.
The fact that all derivatives of some GPL code must be GPL is a feature of the GPL license.
Would you consider yourself more or less free in a country where there would be no law? Less safe, for sure. Less confident, evidently. But more free.
The issue is that you just think: The GPL is better and enforces something I like, so it has to be more free. Freedom is not always good. As with everything in life, it's all about finding a balance between too much freedom and too much restrictions. Closed licenses are too restricted. BSD is too free. GPL is better because it mixes interesting stuff that removes "bad freedom" to relicense.
And no, it doesn't give you freedom to modify all derivatives. It allows you to do so. This is an improper use of the word freedom, and that's where the issue is.
When I give you food, I allow you to eat. I enable you to eat. I might even save your life. But I don't give you freedom to eat. That doesn't make sense. This is just not what freedom is.
Got damn mod points! Never there when you need 'em! People are actually lurking in my cube to see why I laughed that hard!
Had to many beers yesterday....
Thanks
I keep on reading: The GPL restricts... The BSD allows And you people keep on saying that GPL is more free. This is just amazing. GPL is a lot of things: Better, guarantees more code availability, you like it more. It has a lot of advantages, but they are all based on the fact that it is less free. Which is better, no doubt about that. But do not confuse "better" or "more code availability" with freedom, because that's not what it is.
You example doesn't stand bacause you compare a piece of proprietary code with a piece of GPL code, then just say that BSD is obviously worse. But that's not what you are comparing. When a closed-source company takes a piece of BSD code and make it a proprietary software, it doesn't "lock it down". The original BSD code is still out there, with a BSD license attached to it. What they "lock down" is their modifications to that code, not that code itself.
To be a little extreme, I'd say that far from setting the code "free", the GPL do enslave it. Once it's GPL, it cannot be relicensed with any other license (not GPL compat that is). The code is locked forever in the GPL license.
Now that might be good or bad. This is a personal point of view. But this is certainly not freedom.
All that you are saying is that:
1. Being more free is not necessarily better. I agree with that 100%.
2. I am also glad that I can license my code with the GPL and ensure that all users of my code are free to modify and redistribute it This is true for BSD, not for GPL. For GPL, you should read: I am also glad that I can license my code with the GPL and ensure that all users of my code are free to modify and are bounded to redistribute it GPL. See the difference?
That is my point very exactly. GPL is less free, but it's for the best interests.
Both licenses are there for you to choose. GPL is "less free" than BSD. Does that make it worse? Certainly not. But as a matter of fact,
Just because Kazaa is more free in the literal sense doesn't mean it's a better choice
When did I say that BSD being more free makes it a better choice over GPL? That's not my point...
My point is: GPL is "less free" than BSD because it has more restrictions. I never said that this implied BSD to be better!
Thanks for agreeing though.
A closed source fork IS NOT A BSD application. So you are saying that a closed source fork of a BSD application is less "free" than a GPL application, and with that I agree.
THE GPL DOESN'T GUARANTEE ANY FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!! It just guarantees that all derivatives of your code will be available under the same license. How you can relate that to freedom is a total mystery to me. A piece of code cannot be "free" as you put it, because it is not a living thing. You can't kill it, you can't free it up either. However you can release it, or make it available. This is not freedom, because freedom relates to rights and restrictions. A piece of code doesn't have rights or restriction, hence it can't be free. It's license can have restrictions however.
You telling me I can't is restricting my freedon!
Yes, I do. BTW, who said Free is Good? Total and absolute freedom is also known as anarchy. And that isn't good by any means. What is it with you guys that get it all wrong? If you prevent someone from doing domething, you limit his/her freedom. Period. That doesn't have to be bad!
This is a good thing.
That's where you GPL people get confused. Yes, it is a good thing. No it isn't freedom. Just a terminology problem.
The fact that you enforce that your code remains available doesn't make it more free, it makes it "your way". That doesn't mean it's "bad".
What about my freedom as a user to get hold of the code of any application I'm using to make changes to it?
Mind you, you can get a hold on the code of any BSD application you are using and make changes to it.
What about my freedom to move changes from a future release of the code, back into my current version?
Can do that with BSD code as well.
Can I backport features from a future release using code from a GPL based license? Do I have that same freedom with code with a BSD base?
Yes you do. Take anything from any BSD OS and put it anywhere in any BSD os. Your choice really.
Hey, I didn't say BSD was better and resulted in more freedom than GPL. Heck, I didn't even say that "more free" is good. But you got my point.
Is the B + the "improved" A stronger then A alone
You got it! My point exactly!
B+A is stronger than A. Absolutely. Not more free, but just plain stronger!
Everything doesn't have to be free to be strong and good!
And if you screw up a burger, it only costs the company about $0.17
We are not living in the same world then. If you screw it up bad enough for someone to get injured or - god forbid - die by it, the figures will probably be 10 million times as big as what you are mentionning.
The GPL allows one "restriction"
Got it!
The BSD license doesn't have any restrictions. That's what [absolute] freedom is all about. No restrictions. One person that has absolute freedom could shoot you in the head. That's it! Freedom - at least in its absolute form - is screwed up. That's how it is.
Now I'm not saying "GPL is less free" means it's worse. It's probably better. But it's not "more free" tham GPL.
in BSD land the person who writes the restrictive extension makes one restriction
That's where I don't get it. The person doesn't make a restriction! The person adds to something BSD and does not give it back. He doesn't restrict anything! The author of the BSD piece still have the piece.
If I wrote a law that would FORCE you to give half your income to a charity of your choice once you've taken anything from one, would you consider it more or less restrictive? Fair, maybe (that's your judgement) but not less restrictive! By no means!
BTW, your math is screwed up, because you consider 1+1 > 1*2. "2 or more people want to make restrictive extensions"
In the BSD world: They both make a restrictive extension (even if I disagree with it). 1 + 1 = 2.
In the GPL world: They are both restricted by the same restriction: 1*2 = 2.
So by your math, you barely make them match.
And for the sentence "wanted to further restrict the software", nobody can in either license. They can take it, make modifications and restrict their modifications, but the original software remains in the original license in both cases.
I could call my cats free, declare that the plural of that is freedom and then declare that I have more freedom than you. Sure. But by no means will I be more free than you with the common sense of the word. With my word and in my little world, yes I am, but in fact, I'm just a fool.
... but it is not freedom. At least by any common definitions of the word freedom. It's your choice for your software, no more, no less.
The fact that you know your code will not end up closed down in a closed source product (at least legally) is not:
1. an exemptiom from any power or control
2. a Liberty
3. an independance
4. a privilege
5. a franchise
6. an immunity
7. an exemption from necessity
Hence it is unrelated to all the definitions you gave me. It's just the way you want your software to be distrubuted. You can call it many words: Your ideal, the way you like it, a 'good' way, an 'open' way,
As I explained elsewhere on this thread, there is no such thing as universal "freedom" that everyone can agree upon
Well you agreed on my definition "being free as in having no restrictions" in the grandparent, didn't you? While it is an ideal that is unattainable, it is still an ideal.
I think you will find that more of 95% of the people agree that once you add a restriction you remove a liberty. Hence - according to your definition - you remove some freedom.
Now does restriction A removes more freedom than restriction B, is certainly debatable in most of the cases. But does restriction A removes more freedom than restriction A + restriction B, only a fool - or a devil's advocate loving hard pleas - will try to defend that.
The fact that no one can take your source code and redistribute it on its binary form only is just the way you want your source code used and distributed. There's no concept of freedom here. Unless you want to add your own definition, that I feel is shared by many people in the GPL community.
Maybe that's just what it is after all. All of you guys want to call that freedom, so it'll just pop-up as freedom. A new word. Why not?
Thanks. I'm not the only one! Yeeeeee-Haaaa!