Perhaps you should be writing software that builds on top of GPL software, rather than building parallel to something that exists?
Yes, as a closed source developer that's what I would often like to do (e.g. build on top of standardized libraries) but the GPL's requirement that I open the source to the entire application effectively forces me to engage in parallel efforts. See this post above.
I am a lone coder within the engineering department of a large company, writing in house software,
For for in-house software the GPL is ideal. It doesn't matter that it forces you to make all your source code available to your users, since you're probably doing that anyway.
Sorry, but I'm not in the camp that thinks the GPL is somehow bad because it lets you stand on the shoulders of giants while requiring you to do the same (if you distribute).
I have no problem with "not standing on the shoulders of giants". But the GPL unnecessarily gets in the way of a basic communal sharing of ideas between commercial and noncommercial distributors. For example, there are plenty of "commodity" libraries for doing simple, mundane little things that take up a hundred or so lines of code- like parsing command line arguments, importing and exporting standard file formats, etc.- and that are effectively unusable by commercial software because their authors released them under the GPL. There are strong reasons to want to use standardized libraries. People may be used to the way free software works (since it's free, and they're likely to have at least tried it), and they may want to leverage their experience with free software, or their existing infrastructure that includes free software, to include commercially licensed software as well. But the GPL is designed to provide a competitive disadvantage to commercial software. So either you turn your program into GPL for want of a completely minor feature, or you implement these little features yourself- in not quite the same way- and end up wasting everyone's time.
You're not losing any "rights" by not being able to exploit the commons.
You're not losing any rights by not being able to "exploit" Microsoft's software either. But still, people (rightly) complain about Microsoft's closed file formats.
I have no doubt there would be an affordable and competitive C compiler, even with no GPL. Cheapskates need to compile too, you know.
After time one program will typically dominate the free end of a category, whether it's compilers, operating systems, or web servers. In the case of C compilers, that program is gcc, which is offered under the GPL. But gcc doesn't owe its success to the GPL any more than Linux does. Just look at the web server space. Apache is kicking Microsoft's ass, and it's both free, competitive, and non-GPL. (Although one might argue this is Microsoft's own fault for making IIS such a disaster.) Companies like IBM have sold software based on Apache, without forefeiting any rights to their own work, and Apache has not done badly for it either.
It's probably implemented in C, compiled with gcc, which has a GPL license.
So?
You were insinuating (assuming you're the same AC) that if it weren't for the GPL, no free C compilers would exist at all. Gcc doesn't owe its existence to the GPL, and if the GPL didn't exist it would be offered under some other public license.
And the compiler's license isn't transmitted to the compiled code. That would be a pretty nasty license.
Funny - I make my living by writing, integrating and providing valueadd support for BSD & GPL'd solutions (mostly web-based).
The BSD license does not resemble a proprietary license. Neither does the Apache license, and people make plenty of money building on and supporting both Apache-licensed and BSD-licensed solutions, even though they are not as aggressive as the GPL.
The Apache and BSD licenses are truly free licenses. The GPL looks like a free license, and enjoys the reputation of a free license, when it more closely resembles a proprietary license that belongs to no one.
Most software is a commodity now
It's a strange commodity that makes you lose rights to your own work if you attempt to incorporate it.
So which compiler would you choose, if you were Mr. Lone Coder, and Microsoft and Intel would charge an arm and a leg because they would sominate the market?
That's easy. I'd program in Haskell. That one comes with a BSD license.
Without the GPL Mr. Lone Coder most probably couldn't even get a compiler.
Plenty of non-GPL compilers exist, even free ones. The "it's not GPL so it can't exist" meme is closely related to the "it's not GPL so I won't use it" meme.
This isn't going to be a popular sentiment here, but I'd say that the GPL and P2P generally make it tougher to make a living.
I agree with you completely on the GPL. From the perspective of anyone who depends on writing software to make a living, it is an especially obnoxious proprietary license. It differs from typical proprietary licenses only in that the "proprietor" hires anybody who wants to work for it, pays them absolutely nothing, dumps all its products on the market for free, and will refuse to sell you a license no matter how much you offer. Add to that the growing sentiment I hear often of "it's not GPL so I'm not gonna use it", and competing with the GPL is like competing with Microsoft.
I'm also glad they are protecting me from those dangerous Canadian prescription drugs.
They're also working hard to prevent terrorists from finding out about their own assets and insider trading:
Tucked within the House's 497-page version of the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act" is a provision to repeal the requirement that senior-level officials report their personal financial assets valued at more than $2.5 million. It also would end the practice of disclosing the dates of stock transactions.
The proposal to limit financial disclosures initially covered only top-level intelligence officials. It was recently expanded to include all executive branch officials, according to a draft version of the bill.
Courtesy of the LA Times. It's good to know they're working in our best interests.
Re:Replacement will send signal
on
Colin Powell Resigns
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"From now on"? Gee, I haven't seen too much truth coming out for awhile now.
The CIA seems to be in need of some purging. This seems like a good thing to me.
Well that all depends on who in the CIA gets purged, doesn't it?
The CIA does need to be purged of its yes-men and hacks. It is about to lose everyone but these people.
Re:Replacement will send signal
on
Colin Powell Resigns
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think it's good that they appoint someone with similar views to the president no matter how crappy they are.
I suppose you're comfortable, then, with the upcoming purge of the CIA. All intelligence officers holding views "disloyal" to the president are about to be ratfucked, and from now on the truth will never come out about anything. Straight out of Shirer.
For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and found a patent attorney. Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, "Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.' His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, "Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.' His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. "And I was afraid, and went away and consulted a patent attorney, and buried your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.' And his attorney spoke unto his master, and the two slaves, "you wicked, lazy slaves, you infringed on my client's intellectual property rights, and knew that you reap where you did not sow and gathered where you scattered no seed. Therefore I file a motion that your encumbered talents be taken away from both of you, and demand a tribute for licensing fees demanded unto my client. And his master answered and said to him, "Well done, good and litigious slave, enter into the joy of your master. Therefore take away the talents given to these two slaves, and give it to the one who has the one." For to the one who does not have, more shall be given, and he will issue forth an abundance of licenses for talents not given; but to everyone who has, less shall be given, and what he does have shall be taken away. But throw out the worthless attorney into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
If you listen to the so-called free-marketeers, anything that makes shitloads of money is, by definition, good -- or at least the only good that means anything.
And if they check the "Post Anonymously" checkbox, they favor massive unemployment for everybody too. There are simply not enough burgers in the world that need flipping to accomodate the number of educated people that they feel should be flipping burgers.
But if that checkbox is unchecked then they just want to keep their guns.
Oh I agree, they all suck. But you can't boycott 100 companies at once, and expect to exert any pressure on any of them to stop abusing employees. But if you restrict your boycotting to the smaller subset of game companies which get press attention for employee abuse, you can at least exert some pressure on all of them to avoid press attention for abusing employees.
You really are dumb. Ever been to China ? Didn't think so.. the place is very much improved over the last ten years. I mean by an order of magnitude.
That is true. China has undergone a boom at least partially fueled by its habit of providing slave labor in prisons to multinational corporations. If you don't trust newsmax (although I suspect you do) another link is here. They even stick factories in the middle of schools and have schoolkids make cheap stuff like fireworks.
I'm sorry you're pissed off that people who would have starved otherwise took your birthright "job". I guess you'll have to go work at the burger place.. oh yeah that's right you're way too good for that.:)
What do you have against people who work for a living?
Microsoft will just write them a check that amounts to less than 1% of their war chest.
"Less than 1% of their war chest"? That's a rather weak prediction. Microsoft has a $40 billion war chest. This puts an upper limit of $400 million on the check.
I'll bet Novell wins this case easily and receives a check amounting to 0.0000000025% of Microsoft's war chest.
This is just the 'boycott Nestle' movement from the 70's repeating itself.
The Nestle boycott ended in 1981 because it actually worked. It had to be restarted recently because Nestle reverted to its old habits after figuring the boycott was over. We are still boycotting Nestle at my house.
Because boycotting is only effective when it's concentrated on one company at a time. You can't spread a boycott across 1000 companies and expect to change anyone's behavior.
Eventually, there will be enough of the old EA gurus around to pool together resources and start their own game company, then beat EA at their own game (pun intended).
Assuming they don't run into a wall of software patents and non-compete agreements.
If they are breaking the law, why are you advocating 'underground' fighting methods. Get them prosecuted. Then the issue can be resolved, i.e. the laws can be repealed, or enforced. Why go to mob-rule tactics immediately? Or are they not breaking the law, and that was just an excercise in rhetoric?
When the laws were written by your industry's own lobbyists, it's unlikely that you've broken them at all.
EA is there to make money, not take care of people. If they are treating their employees poorly who cares?
Maybe you don't give a flying fuck as you push your cart around in Wal-Mart, but as someone who works in a technical industry I find this highly interesting. The labor market for educated and technical people is in the process of a major deterioration in this country and this is just one more symptom of America's slide toward the kind of economic system that existed in India- where you have a few rich people, and everyone else is poor and destitute. (They have a small middle class now, which grows at the expense of our own.)
If the game is good I'll buy it, if it's not I won't.
If the game is good I'll buy it, unless I see it was made by Electronic Arts. The leverage afforded to workers is mostly gone, and the only force affecting EA anymore is the power of consumers- which is largely ineffective anyway.
If the employees are treated poorly they should quit. That's how capitalism works, if all the good employees quit, or start demanding more and more money to make up for the poor working environment then EA will see that it's policies are not best for the bottom line and they will change.
Take off your rose colored glasses. Capitalism works that way only under certain conditions which are largely disappearing- labor and management need to have equity. If one gets an upper hand this idealized scenario breaks down.
Now that several billion desperate people have been dumped into our labor markets (added to the millions of geeks who have always wanted to program games), if the employees of EA quit for being worked 80 hours a week for X dollars they'll be replaced instantly by more desperate geeks worked 120 hours a week for X>>1 dollars. Or better yet, Chinese prisoners. It's getting to the point where almost everything I have was made in a Chinese prison.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps you should be writing software that builds on top of GPL software, rather than building parallel to something that exists?
Yes, as a closed source developer that's what I would often like to do (e.g. build on top of standardized libraries) but the GPL's requirement that I open the source to the entire application effectively forces me to engage in parallel efforts. See this post above.
I am a lone coder within the engineering department of a large company, writing in house software,
For for in-house software the GPL is ideal. It doesn't matter that it forces you to make all your source code available to your users, since you're probably doing that anyway.
Sorry, but I'm not in the camp that thinks the GPL is somehow bad because it lets you stand on the shoulders of giants while requiring you to do the same (if you distribute).
I have no problem with "not standing on the shoulders of giants". But the GPL unnecessarily gets in the way of a basic communal sharing of ideas between commercial and noncommercial distributors. For example, there are plenty of "commodity" libraries for doing simple, mundane little things that take up a hundred or so lines of code- like parsing command line arguments, importing and exporting standard file formats, etc.- and that are effectively unusable by commercial software because their authors released them under the GPL. There are strong reasons to want to use standardized libraries. People may be used to the way free software works (since it's free, and they're likely to have at least tried it), and they may want to leverage their experience with free software, or their existing infrastructure that includes free software, to include commercially licensed software as well. But the GPL is designed to provide a competitive disadvantage to commercial software. So either you turn your program into GPL for want of a completely minor feature, or you implement these little features yourself- in not quite the same way- and end up wasting everyone's time.
You're not losing any "rights" by not being able to exploit the commons.
You're not losing any rights by not being able to "exploit" Microsoft's software either. But still, people (rightly) complain about Microsoft's closed file formats.
And the commons is supposed to include everybody.
I have no doubt there would be an affordable and competitive C compiler, even with no GPL. Cheapskates need to compile too, you know.
After time one program will typically dominate the free end of a category, whether it's compilers, operating systems, or web servers. In the case of C compilers, that program is gcc, which is offered under the GPL. But gcc doesn't owe its success to the GPL any more than Linux does. Just look at the web server space. Apache is kicking Microsoft's ass, and it's both free, competitive, and non-GPL. (Although one might argue this is Microsoft's own fault for making IIS such a disaster.) Companies like IBM have sold software based on Apache, without forefeiting any rights to their own work, and Apache has not done badly for it either.
It's probably implemented in C, compiled with gcc, which has a GPL license.
So?
You were insinuating (assuming you're the same AC) that if it weren't for the GPL, no free C compilers would exist at all. Gcc doesn't owe its existence to the GPL, and if the GPL didn't exist it would be offered under some other public license.
And the compiler's license isn't transmitted to the compiled code. That would be a pretty nasty license.
Funny - I make my living by writing, integrating and providing valueadd support for BSD & GPL'd solutions (mostly web-based).
The BSD license does not resemble a proprietary license. Neither does the Apache license, and people make plenty of money building on and supporting both Apache-licensed and BSD-licensed solutions, even though they are not as aggressive as the GPL.
The Apache and BSD licenses are truly free licenses. The GPL looks like a free license, and enjoys the reputation of a free license, when it more closely resembles a proprietary license that belongs to no one.
Most software is a commodity now
It's a strange commodity that makes you lose rights to your own work if you attempt to incorporate it.
So which compiler would you choose, if you were Mr. Lone Coder, and Microsoft and Intel would charge an arm and a leg because they would sominate the market?
That's easy. I'd program in Haskell. That one comes with a BSD license.
Without the GPL Mr. Lone Coder most probably couldn't even get a compiler.
Plenty of non-GPL compilers exist, even free ones. The "it's not GPL so it can't exist" meme is closely related to the "it's not GPL so I won't use it" meme.
This isn't going to be a popular sentiment here, but I'd say that the GPL and P2P generally make it tougher to make a living.
I agree with you completely on the GPL. From the perspective of anyone who depends on writing software to make a living, it is an especially obnoxious proprietary license. It differs from typical proprietary licenses only in that the "proprietor" hires anybody who wants to work for it, pays them absolutely nothing, dumps all its products on the market for free, and will refuse to sell you a license no matter how much you offer. Add to that the growing sentiment I hear often of "it's not GPL so I'm not gonna use it", and competing with the GPL is like competing with Microsoft.
They're also working hard to prevent terrorists from finding out about their own assets and insider trading:
Courtesy of the LA Times. It's good to know they're working in our best interests.
"From now on"? Gee, I haven't seen too much truth coming out for awhile now.
Yes you have.
You might never again in your lifetime see the CIA issue a report this critical of a sitting American president.
The CIA seems to be in need of some purging. This seems like a good thing to me.
Well that all depends on who in the CIA gets purged, doesn't it?
The CIA does need to be purged of its yes-men and hacks. It is about to lose everyone but these people.
I think it's good that they appoint someone with similar views to the president no matter how crappy they are.
I suppose you're comfortable, then, with the upcoming purge of the CIA. All intelligence officers holding views "disloyal" to the president are about to be ratfucked, and from now on the truth will never come out about anything. Straight out of Shirer.
Isn't the Washington Times the same paper that is owned by the Moonies?
Yep... if you're uncomfortable getting your news from Rev. Moon (a.k.a. God himself) there are plenty of non-cult-affiliated links for this story.
For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and found a patent attorney. Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, "Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.' His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, "Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.' His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. "And I was afraid, and went away and consulted a patent attorney, and buried your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.' And his attorney spoke unto his master, and the two slaves, "you wicked, lazy slaves, you infringed on my client's intellectual property rights, and knew that you reap where you did not sow and gathered where you scattered no seed. Therefore I file a motion that your encumbered talents be taken away from both of you, and demand a tribute for licensing fees demanded unto my client. And his master answered and said to him, "Well done, good and litigious slave, enter into the joy of your master. Therefore take away the talents given to these two slaves, and give it to the one who has the one." For to the one who does not have, more shall be given, and he will issue forth an abundance of licenses for talents not given; but to everyone who has, less shall be given, and what he does have shall be taken away. But throw out the worthless attorney into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
If you listen to the so-called free-marketeers, anything that makes shitloads of money is, by definition, good -- or at least the only good that means anything.
And if they check the "Post Anonymously" checkbox, they favor massive unemployment for everybody too. There are simply not enough burgers in the world that need flipping to accomodate the number of educated people that they feel should be flipping burgers.
But if that checkbox is unchecked then they just want to keep their guns.
Oh I agree, they all suck. But you can't boycott 100 companies at once, and expect to exert any pressure on any of them to stop abusing employees. But if you restrict your boycotting to the smaller subset of game companies which get press attention for employee abuse, you can at least exert some pressure on all of them to avoid press attention for abusing employees.
You really are dumb. Ever been to China ? Didn't think so.. the place is very much improved over the last ten years. I mean by an order of magnitude.
.. oh yeah that's right you're way too good for that. :)
That is true. China has undergone a boom at least partially fueled by its habit of providing slave labor in prisons to multinational corporations. If you don't trust newsmax (although I suspect you do) another link is here. They even stick factories in the middle of schools and have schoolkids make cheap stuff like fireworks.
I'm sorry you're pissed off that people who would have starved otherwise took your birthright "job". I guess you'll have to go work at the burger place
What do you have against people who work for a living?
Microsoft will just write them a check that amounts to less than 1% of their war chest.
"Less than 1% of their war chest"? That's a rather weak prediction. Microsoft has a $40 billion war chest. This puts an upper limit of $400 million on the check.
I'll bet Novell wins this case easily and receives a check amounting to 0.0000000025% of Microsoft's war chest.
This is just the 'boycott Nestle' movement from the 70's repeating itself.
The Nestle boycott ended in 1981 because it actually worked. It had to be restarted recently because Nestle reverted to its old habits after figuring the boycott was over. We are still boycotting Nestle at my house.
Because boycotting is only effective when it's concentrated on one company at a time. You can't spread a boycott across 1000 companies and expect to change anyone's behavior.
So it was just an excercise in rhetoric?
Wow, is that really your final argument? We stole democracy so nyaah nyaah?
If you're sick of working for a place like EA, and you have the drive, you can start your own company.
s/drive/lawyers
Eventually, there will be enough of the old EA gurus around to pool together resources and start their own game company, then beat EA at their own game (pun intended).
Assuming they don't run into a wall of software patents and non-compete agreements.
If they are breaking the law, why are you advocating 'underground' fighting methods. Get them prosecuted.
Then the issue can be resolved, i.e. the laws can be repealed, or enforced. Why go to mob-rule tactics immediately?
Or are they not breaking the law, and that was just an excercise in rhetoric?
When the laws were written by your industry's own lobbyists, it's unlikely that you've broken them at all.
EA is there to make money, not take care of people. If they are treating their employees poorly who cares?
Maybe you don't give a flying fuck as you push your cart around in Wal-Mart, but as someone who works in a technical industry I find this highly interesting. The labor market for educated and technical people is in the process of a major deterioration in this country and this is just one more symptom of America's slide toward the kind of economic system that existed in India- where you have a few rich people, and everyone else is poor and destitute. (They have a small middle class now, which grows at the expense of our own.)
If the game is good I'll buy it, if it's not I won't.
If the game is good I'll buy it, unless I see it was made by Electronic Arts. The leverage afforded to workers is mostly gone, and the only force affecting EA anymore is the power of consumers- which is largely ineffective anyway.
If the employees are treated poorly they should quit. That's how capitalism works, if all the good employees quit, or start demanding more and more money to make up for the poor working environment then EA will see that it's policies are not best for the bottom line and they will change.
Take off your rose colored glasses. Capitalism works that way only under certain conditions which are largely disappearing- labor and management need to have equity. If one gets an upper hand this idealized scenario breaks down.
Now that several billion desperate people have been dumped into our labor markets (added to the millions of geeks who have always wanted to program games), if the employees of EA quit for being worked 80 hours a week for X dollars they'll be replaced instantly by more desperate geeks worked 120 hours a week for X>>1 dollars. Or better yet, Chinese prisoners. It's getting to the point where almost everything I have was made in a Chinese prison.