Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Library GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Library GPL for that library.
This is why we used the Library GPL for the GNU C library. After all, there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software developers to use another--no problem for them, only for us.
However, when a library provides a significant unique capability, like GNU Readline, that's a horse of a different color. The Readline library implements input editing and history for interactive programs, and that's a facility not generally available elsewhere. Releasing it under the GPL and limiting its use to free programs gives our community a real boost.
This is a marketing stategy that would make any MBA proud.
but if the main point is to keep the code free, what would you choose something that lets anyone take the code and make it non-free?
Argh, I hear this newspeak usage of `free' over and over and it never makes sense.
`make it non-free' makes it sound like somehow you lost some freedom. But none of your freedoms has changed: there is nothing that you could do before that you can't do know
You don't have access to the other persons changes, but you never had that access to begin with.
The only sense that free applies is if you somehow imagined that code has a consciousness and the person who modified your code has caged that code up so it no longer can roam freely. This is a such a warped use of the word `free'.
This of course isn't your fault, it is the FSF. I just wish they would drop the doublespeak and state it plainly:
GPL code is not `free' by any normal definition of free (beer or freedom). It is simply code that is for sale, but not for money: the price of use is sharing changes you make to it.
In fact they use many of the same techniques that ruthless companies use. The official FSF policy on LGPL is really interesting: if there is significant competition in an area, they recommend first lowering the price of the code by issuing it under LGPL so companies don't have to give up any writes to use. Once competition is driven out, the license can be changed to GPL and they can reap the benefits.
If we just maintain the current rate of 165 Gigakeys/sec, the entire key space will be exhausted in 1.79 years (3/29/03). The odds are 50% that we should find the answer before exhausting half the remaining keyspace, and that will take.9 years (5/6/02).
If we maintain the current acceleration (151 Megakeys/second/day), then we will finish a little more quickly: exhausting the key space in 1.44 years (11/22/02) and covering half the remaining space in.79 years (3/29/02).
Yes, they seem a little degree happy. They require a PHD in Computer Science for their VP of Engineering. The description better matches one for Chief Scientist.
Bad example. It was later discovered that these changes just happened to make DES *stronger* against differential crypto-analysis. Something the public crypto world didn't discover until years after NSA made those modifications.
Nonsense. It is just as illegal for you to copy Stephen King's latest novel and give the copy to a friend as it is for you to copy Microsoft Word and give the copy to a friend.
So let me get this straight. In order to protest that small percentage of a CD price that is paid to a band, you are going to obtain a free MP3 copy and cheat the band out of even that small amount?
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This is a marketing stategy that would make any MBA proud.
Argh, I hear this newspeak usage of `free' over and over and it never makes sense.
`make it non-free' makes it sound like somehow you lost some freedom. But none of your freedoms has changed: there is nothing that you could do before that you can't do know
You don't have access to the other persons changes, but you never had that access to begin with.
The only sense that free applies is if you somehow imagined that code has a consciousness and the person who modified your code has caged that code up so it no longer can roam freely. This is a such a warped use of the word `free'.
This of course isn't your fault, it is the FSF. I just wish they would drop the doublespeak and state it plainly:
GPL code is not `free' by any normal definition of free (beer or freedom). It is simply code that is for sale, but not for money: the price of use is sharing changes you make to it.
In fact they use many of the same techniques that ruthless companies use. The official FSF policy on LGPL is really interesting: if there is significant competition in an area, they recommend first lowering the price of the code by issuing it under LGPL so companies don't have to give up any writes to use. Once competition is driven out, the license can be changed to GPL and they can reap the benefits.
The version I knew was about a dairy and the punchline was:
'Consider a spherical cow isotropically emitting milk'
If we just maintain the current rate of 165 Gigakeys/sec, the entire key space will be exhausted in 1.79 years (3/29/03). The odds are 50% that we should find the answer before exhausting half the remaining keyspace, and that will take .9 years (5/6/02).
.79 years (3/29/02).
If we maintain the current acceleration (151 Megakeys/second/day), then we will finish a little more quickly: exhausting the key space in 1.44 years (11/22/02) and covering half the remaining space in
Yes, they seem a little degree happy. They require a PHD in Computer Science for their VP of Engineering. The description better matches one for Chief Scientist.
It can be a bad sign when people mix up the two.
As the alt tag for the little bare-foot icon says: "Its funny: Laugh".
Bad example. It was later discovered that these changes just happened to make DES *stronger* against differential crypto-analysis. Something the public crypto world didn't discover until years after NSA made those modifications.
Nonsense. It is just as illegal for you to copy Stephen King's latest novel and give the copy to a friend as it is for you to copy Microsoft Word and give the copy to a friend.
So let me get this straight. In order to protest that small percentage of a CD price that is paid to a band, you are going to obtain a free MP3 copy and cheat the band out of even that small amount?
And this seems logical to you?
> When you start distributing it, then you're
> treading on thin ice.
AFAIK there is no doubt. Any form of distribution (excluding perhaps small clips used for research or discussion) violates fair use.