At my work our department uses some open source software (including Linux). Price is obviously a consideration, but we also like the flexibility and customizability. Not all of that has to do with actually having the source. Some of it is just a general difference in attitude. When you install most Linux distribution you don't have to worry about whether you're licensed for the Server Edition or the Advanced Server Edition, etc. You just install the packages you want. You can alway add/remove packages any packages later. You don't need to keep track of any stupid 120 digit license keys either.
We're writing some in house software that we'll probably open source when it's working. Why? We started writing the package because we couldn't find anything that did what we wanted. The only commercial packages we found that were close enough to work had lots and lots of features we didn't want, to the point of being needlessly complex. We're considering open sourcing our in house package because there really is no downside for us. We have to keep maintaining this software once we start using it. If we get even a few outside contribution that'll save us some effort/manpower/money.
The point is, I can see why companies that sell software don't like Open Source/Free Software. For the rest of the commercial world though, Free Software is a good thing. It's a release from proprietary lockin, and a middle ground between buying an expensive proprietary package that may not be exactly what you want, and building/maintaining a custom package completely in-house.
Most of us on Slashdot are technical people, so we're more likely to focus on how things affect the tech industry. The fact is though, that there are a lot more non-technical companies using software than there are companies writing and selling commercial software. A lot of these companies are finding Open Source software a good way to facilitate getting their primary business done.
Try checking out Nolo Press (www.nolo.com). They have a bunch of "do-it-yourself" legal books. A quick search on their web site shows several different NDA agreements.
The downside is you'll have to buy whatever books these agreements are in, the upside is these are supposedly written by actual lawyers.
>There's also a possible:
>4) Pay Avery Lee to license his work to SloMedia >(assuming he holds sole copyright).
That is a really good point that I forgot. Thanks!
>You know, I agree with what you're saying, but >advocacy of the GPL doesn't help if you look >like a raving lunatic as you do it.
>Some hints:
>* Only one exclamation point per sentence >is >ever necessary.
Unless your a porn site!:-)
>* It's 'copyright', not 'copywrite'. Think about >it a second. Copyright deals with rights to >copy, not "writes".
>* It's 'their', not 'thier'. i-before-e rules >don't work, so you should ignore anyone who >tries to teach you one.
I'm at work and do have other things to do, so I'm typing fast without benefit of a spell checker or time to proofread. I've already spent more time on this thread than I should.
>It might seem tired and overused argument but >GPL really does force people into GPL
That's just pure stupidity. No one is forcing you to use GPL code. As I've said before, anytime you use ANY copywrited material (outside of fair use) in a derived work, you have agreed to abide by the license given to you by the original copywrite holder. If you don't like that license, don't use THAT code.
There are three easy ways Vidomi could have avoided this whole issue:
1) Use VirtuaDub and release thier software under a GPL compatible license.
2) Don't use VirtuaDub, write thier own code.
3) Look for and use code whose license *is* compatible to Vidomi's license, use that.
Seems simple enough.
>license that is not much different than "evil" >they are trying to fight.
That's ridiculous. The GPL prevents you from using GPL code in a proprietary application. That's not evil, that's *the* primary feature of the GPL.
If you don't *want* that feature, don't license your code under the GPL.
And as always, whatever license you use will have to be compatible to the licenses on any other code you have incorporated into your program. That's not specific to the GPL, that applies to everything that isn't Public Domain!
>Agreed. The problem here is that FSF claims to >be on higher moral ground. They do pride >themselves in vilifying other licenses and >sometimes outright accusing others of limiting >freedom ( a very serious charge.)
Where is the problem here? The FSF does believe that proprietary licenses are depriving people of important freedoms. Given that belief, it would be bizarre if they *didn't* accuse proprietary software companies of limiting other peoples freedoms!!
Regardless of whether you agree with Stallman and the FSF or not, I think they've been remarkably consistant and logical in support of thier beliefs. They've talked the talk, and they've walked the walk. They don't just talk about software freedom, they've written hundreds of thousands of lines of code and release them under a license that fits *thier* beliefs in software freedom.
>Nope, you got it wrong. It is GPL proponents who >are outraged at corporation for their EULAs and >yet they are using the very same methods.At >least commercial entities do not claim to do >have a higher goal like FSF does.
>Who is a bigger hypocrite here ?
Vidomi. Vidomi and the FSF both have the legal right to enforce conditions on the use and redistribution of thier copywrited material.
The FSF doesn't agree with the conditions that proprietary software companies put on thier software, but I haven't seen them try to violate those licenses by, for example, using proprietary code in a free software program.
Vidomi expects us to obey thier license conditions, while at the same time they are attempting to violate and subvert the license conditions of VirtuDub. They seem to believe that thier license matters, other peoples licenses don't.
It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see the hypocracy here.
>Which proves again,GPL is completely unusable in >commerical settings.
>If you want real and usefull code exchange >between profesionals with no social or political >strings attached go for BSD style license.
The GPL has never claimed to be without strings. I don't understand what's so complicated about that. Anytime you use ANY copywrited code (that includes GPL and BSD code) you MUST obey the conditions that code was licensed to you under!!!
The only difference is what conditions the original copywrite holder is asking for. Admittedly, in the case of the BSD license they really aren't asking for anything.
As for the GPL being usable or unusable in commercial settings, it still depends on what you intend to use it *for*. I use lots of GPL'ed code in my job. It works fine for me because my employer isn't planning to re-distribute that code under a more proprietary license. If they *did* wish to release their code under a more proprietary license, then yes, BSD licensed code would then fit our requirements better.
The point is, the original copywrite holder *always* has the right to set the terms on how you can use thier copywrited material. If you don't like thier terms, don't use thier code!!!! Write your own, or find some code that is under a license you *do* like!
Bugs and incompatibilities are taken care of by the maintainer of the software. If RedHat has a patch to fix a problem, they can submit it.
Of course, that's why you don't need any of this Free Software/Open source Crap. Bugs and incompatibilies are taken care of by the vendor. Now all of you uppity little bastards just put down your compilers, go home, and start buying over priced software in in a nice shrink wrapped little package like your supposed to....
djbdns and qmail are Free Software in the GNU sense of the word.
Near as I could tell from looking at Bernstein's web site you are not allowed to distribute modified binaries or source!
According to the FSF, one of the four freedoms provided by "Free" software is "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public". A license that requires you to distribute your improvements as patches can barely be consideded to provide that freedom. Certainly that's enough reason for me to avoid it.
This belies the point that holes are NEVER discovered in Bernstein's software
A completely foolish statement. Even if it is true that there has never been a qmail or djbdns exploit, that does not prove there never will be one. Even OpenBSD has had exploits, and those guys are DAMN careful!
It is impossible to guarentee that a non-trivial piece of software does not have vulnerabilities.
Not allowing distributors, or hell just concerned sys-admins from distributing sources or binaries that with any kind of improvements is just plain fucking rediculous. IMHO Bernstein is just being a jackass. His "Free software" is about as free as Microsoft's "Shared Source" bullshit.
Why don't you just come out and admit that marketing ploys are your only reasons for including or not including something in the dist.
What marketing ploy would that be? Thier attempt to actually follow thier stated values? Thier attempt to support the Free Software that spawned them?
You are a hypocrite.
In this case, they are not. You, however, are a fool.
>They've just been awarded the patent, and are now planning to go after a 'plurality' of existing 3D sites that are supposedly already using "their" technology. In other words, he admits there are a number of other sites that have already been using such technologies for a while --- given that these other sites all developed their technology without literally stealing it from his company, isn't he basically admitting that their is prior art? "We just got this patent and now we're going to go after a bunch of people who actually independently developed these same techniques"
>
Prior art means prior to their filing the patent, not prior to their receiving it. They are basically claiming that between the time they filed and now, several other companies have developed infringing systems.
Still sucks... but that part at least is normal. A patent application is expected to take a while to be approved and granted.
>I would be unable to support my wife and kids if >it weren't for the business I gain through e-mail
I'm sure most buggers and burlgars would use the same argument. The fact is that what you are doing *IS* wrong, and moreover, *IS* F*CKING ANNOYING!!!
I'm sure most of the slashdot community will agree with me that we are sick and tired of slogging through dozens of adds for shit we aren't interested in and have NEVER asked for information about!
>Uh, when you look around on a monitor, do you >regularly move your head extremely fast?
That's because your usually moving your *eyes*, not your entire head. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to stick thier little reflective dot on my eyeball...
This is actually a great idea. There are a lot of great Linux apps (Like Evolution, Konqueror, etc) that are reaching a usable level of feature completeness. This make it easy to show these apps to Windows users and maybe get them hooked on them.
A good example, lots of Slashdotters are always talking about using Evolution as an Outlook replacement. The problem is that there is no Windows version of Evolution. That means either running Evolution on *nix desktops and still running Outlook on Windows desktops, or replacing all of your Windows desktops with *nix desktops. While I love the idea of replacing Windows desktops with *nix systems, replacing your OS just to get rid of Outlook is pretty silly. With this program, an IT guy like me could load Evolution on *all* of the desktops (*nix or Windows) in the company and get rid of Outlook completely!!!!!!
Is Skyshadow still Relevent? (was) Re: is ESR R...
on
ESR On XML-RPC
·
· Score: 2
His mountain of content-free Slashdot postings aside, does anyone think that Skyshadow still has a credible voice in the community? For me, he stopped having credibility long before he started bitching about ESR's relevence. I, along with a lot of other people, interpret his statements as arrogant, thinly-disguised, and frankly insulting whining (the exact stuff we love Linus for *not* doing).
In any event, it seems to me that his role as a Slashdot karma whore could be easily taken over by any idiot.
I know this is marginally off-topic, but I need to know if I'm alone amongst the serious/. inhabitants in not wanting to hear from this guy again (I already know what the trolls think), or am I just being too hard on a guy who still has something worthwhile to say despite letting the dollar-signs go to his head at one point?
</sarcasm>
Seriously though, it's easy for you to belittle ESRs' accomplishments, but what have YOU done?
Nice theory kid. Meanwhile Theo has put his money (or at least his labor:-) where is mouth is and and written an OS with an unmatched security track record.
Before you go shooting you mouth off saying that OpenBSD is "ridiculous" an "should be scrapped" why don't you show us the security record of the OS you've written?? Oh wait, I forgot, you haven't written jack....
I agree that Theo comes across as pretty abrasive, but I can't fault the caliber of the code he's produced.
>4. Theo is obviously so closed minded that no
>efficiency ideas are ever going to occur to him
There's a fine line between closed minded, and very, very focused.
I definately don't want to see ISP's applying QOS to slow down my (to them) non-essential traffic. However, it CAN be used effectively within a companies internal network.
QOS can also be a good solution for controlling internet access from a corporate network. On a lan with 2000 users, even 10% of them listening to streaming Real-Audio radio stations can put a pretty serious drain on most internet connections. The traditional way of dealing with this is to block Real-Audio, Napster, anything else fun... on the firewall. I vastly prefer the idea of using QOS (when possible) to give priority to business essential traffic, while allowing any left-over bandwidth to be used for "non-essential" internet usage. It's a win-win. Employees get the "perk" of being able to continue to use thier instant messagers, Napster, Real-Audio, etc. But the actual business uses that the internet connection is *for* are not negatively impacted.
Either you're a troll, or you've never *actually* worked in an office environment. Most of they companies I've worked for spend millions on printers. Everything from lowly inkjets for exec's who can't be bothered to walk out of thier office to pick up their print jobs, to monster ass network laser printers for the rest of us working stiffs to share.
Finish your degree kid and get a job. The world isn't as simple as you think.
Slashdot Mirror
At my work our department uses some open source software (including Linux). Price is obviously a consideration, but we also like the flexibility and customizability. Not all of that has to do with actually having the source. Some of it is just a general difference in attitude. When you install most Linux distribution you don't have to worry about whether you're licensed for the Server Edition or the Advanced Server Edition, etc. You just install the packages you want. You can alway add/remove packages any packages later. You don't need to keep track of any stupid 120 digit license keys either.
We're writing some in house software that we'll probably open source when it's working. Why? We started writing the package because we couldn't find anything that did what we wanted. The only commercial packages we found that were close enough to work had lots and lots of features we didn't want, to the point of being needlessly complex. We're considering open sourcing our in house package because there really is no downside for us. We have to keep maintaining this software once we start using it. If we get even a few outside contribution that'll save us some effort/manpower/money.
The point is, I can see why companies that sell software don't like Open Source/Free Software. For the rest of the commercial world though, Free Software is a good thing. It's a release from proprietary lockin, and a middle ground between buying an expensive proprietary package that may not be exactly what you want, and building/maintaining a custom package completely in-house.
Most of us on Slashdot are technical people, so we're more likely to focus on how things affect the tech industry. The fact is though, that there are a lot more non-technical companies using software than there are companies writing and selling commercial software. A lot of these companies are finding Open Source software a good way to facilitate getting their primary business done.
Try checking out Nolo Press (www.nolo.com). They have a bunch of "do-it-yourself" legal books. A quick search on their web site shows several different NDA agreements.
The downside is you'll have to buy whatever books these agreements are in, the upside is these are supposedly written by actual lawyers.
>There's also a possible: >4) Pay Avery Lee to license his work to SloMedia >(assuming he holds sole copyright). That is a really good point that I forgot. Thanks!
>You know, I agree with what you're saying, but >advocacy of the GPL doesn't help if you look >like a raving lunatic as you do it.
:-)
:-)
>Some hints:
>* Only one exclamation point per sentence >is >ever necessary.
Unless your a porn site!
>* It's 'copyright', not 'copywrite'. Think about >it a second. Copyright deals with rights to >copy, not "writes".
>* It's 'their', not 'thier'. i-before-e rules >don't work, so you should ignore anyone who >tries to teach you one.
I'm at work and do have other things to do, so I'm typing fast without benefit of a spell checker or time to proofread. I've already spent more time on this thread than I should.
So sue me.
>It might seem tired and overused argument but >GPL really does force people into GPL
That's just pure stupidity. No one is forcing you to use GPL code. As I've said before, anytime you use ANY copywrited material (outside of fair use) in a derived work, you have agreed to abide by the license given to you by the original copywrite holder. If you don't like that license, don't use THAT code.
There are three easy ways Vidomi could have avoided this whole issue:
1) Use VirtuaDub and release thier software under a GPL compatible license.
2) Don't use VirtuaDub, write thier own code.
3) Look for and use code whose license *is* compatible to Vidomi's license, use that.
Seems simple enough.
>license that is not much different than "evil" >they are trying to fight.
That's ridiculous. The GPL prevents you from using GPL code in a proprietary application. That's not evil, that's *the* primary feature of the GPL.
If you don't *want* that feature, don't license your code under the GPL.
And as always, whatever license you use will have to be compatible to the licenses on any other code you have incorporated into your program. That's not specific to the GPL, that applies to everything that isn't Public Domain!
>Agreed. The problem here is that FSF claims to >be on higher moral ground. They do pride >themselves in vilifying other licenses and >sometimes outright accusing others of limiting >freedom ( a very serious charge.)
Where is the problem here? The FSF does believe that proprietary licenses are depriving people of important freedoms. Given that belief, it would be bizarre if they *didn't* accuse proprietary software companies of limiting other peoples freedoms!!
Regardless of whether you agree with Stallman and the FSF or not, I think they've been remarkably consistant and logical in support of thier beliefs. They've talked the talk, and they've walked the walk. They don't just talk about software freedom, they've written hundreds of thousands of lines of code and release them under a license that fits *thier* beliefs in software freedom.
>Nope, you got it wrong. It is GPL proponents who >are outraged at corporation for their EULAs and >yet they are using the very same methods.At >least commercial entities do not claim to do >have a higher goal like FSF does.
>Who is a bigger hypocrite here ?
Vidomi. Vidomi and the FSF both have the legal right to enforce conditions on the use and redistribution of thier copywrited material.
The FSF doesn't agree with the conditions that proprietary software companies put on thier software, but I haven't seen them try to violate those licenses by, for example, using proprietary code in a free software program.
Vidomi expects us to obey thier license conditions, while at the same time they are attempting to violate and subvert the license conditions of VirtuDub. They seem to believe that thier license matters, other peoples licenses don't.
It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see the hypocracy here.
>Which proves again,GPL is completely unusable in >commerical settings.
>If you want real and usefull code exchange >between profesionals with no social or political >strings attached go for BSD style license.
The GPL has never claimed to be without strings. I don't understand what's so complicated about that. Anytime you use ANY copywrited code (that includes GPL and BSD code) you MUST obey the conditions that code was licensed to you under!!!
The only difference is what conditions the original copywrite holder is asking for. Admittedly, in the case of the BSD license they really aren't asking for anything.
As for the GPL being usable or unusable in commercial settings, it still depends on what you intend to use it *for*. I use lots of GPL'ed code in my job. It works fine for me because my employer isn't planning to re-distribute that code under a more proprietary license. If they *did* wish to release their code under a more proprietary license, then yes, BSD licensed code would then fit our requirements better.
The point is, the original copywrite holder *always* has the right to set the terms on how you can use thier copywrited material. If you don't like thier terms, don't use thier code!!!! Write your own, or find some code that is under a license you *do* like!
>Sigh. Another neophyte gamer who thinks Quake
>is the end-all be-all of video games.
I've been playing computer games since the early 80's. I hardly think that makes me a neophyte.
>The mouse is good for SOME video games
Which was exactly my point. There are some (I would say quite a few) computer games that are difficult to use without a mouse.
Almost every good Quake player plays with the mouse. If you play with the keyboard only your going to be a very easy target!
Of course, that's why you don't need any of this Free Software/Open source Crap. Bugs and incompatibilies are taken care of by the vendor. Now all of you uppity little bastards just put down your compilers, go home, and start buying over priced software in in a nice shrink wrapped little package like your supposed to....
djbdns and qmail are Free Software in the GNU sense of the word.
Near as I could tell from looking at Bernstein's web site you are not allowed to distribute modified binaries or source!
According to the FSF, one of the four freedoms provided by "Free" software is "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public". A license that requires you to distribute your improvements as patches can barely be consideded to provide that freedom. Certainly that's enough reason for me to avoid it.
This belies the point that holes are NEVER discovered in Bernstein's software
A completely foolish statement. Even if it is true that there has never been a qmail or djbdns exploit, that does not prove there never will be one. Even OpenBSD has had exploits, and those guys are DAMN careful!
It is impossible to guarentee that a non-trivial piece of software does not have vulnerabilities. Not allowing distributors, or hell just concerned sys-admins from distributing sources or binaries that with any kind of improvements is just plain fucking rediculous. IMHO Bernstein is just being a jackass. His "Free software" is about as free as Microsoft's "Shared Source" bullshit.
Why don't you just come out and admit that marketing ploys are your only reasons for including or not including something in the dist.
What marketing ploy would that be? Thier attempt to actually follow thier stated values? Thier attempt to support the Free Software that spawned them?
You are a hypocrite.
In this case, they are not. You, however, are a fool.
>They've just been awarded the patent, and are now planning to go after a 'plurality' of existing 3D sites that are supposedly already using "their" technology. In other words, he admits there are a number of other sites that have already been using such technologies for a while --- given that these other sites all developed their technology without literally stealing it from his company, isn't he basically admitting that their is prior art? "We just got this patent and now we're going to go after a bunch of people who actually independently developed these same techniques"
>
Prior art means prior to their filing the patent, not prior to their receiving it. They are basically claiming that between the time they filed and now, several other companies have developed infringing systems.
Still sucks... but that part at least is normal. A patent application is expected to take a while to be approved and granted.
I believe Mach is under the BSD license. The BSD license will allow you to keep your modifications proprietary and closed.
>I would be unable to support my wife and kids if >it weren't for the business I gain through e-mail
I'm sure most buggers and burlgars would use the same argument. The fact is that what you are doing *IS* wrong, and moreover, *IS* F*CKING ANNOYING!!!
I'm sure most of the slashdot community will agree with me that we are sick and tired of slogging through dozens of adds for shit we aren't interested in and have NEVER asked for information about!
Actually the BSD's have long been widely known for having a much better TCP/IP stack than Linux.
>Uh, when you look around on a monitor, do you >regularly move your head extremely fast?
That's because your usually moving your *eyes*, not your entire head. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to stick thier little reflective dot on my eyeball...
This is actually a great idea. There are a lot of great Linux apps (Like Evolution, Konqueror, etc) that are reaching a usable level of feature completeness. This make it easy to show these apps to Windows users and maybe get them hooked on them.
A good example, lots of Slashdotters are always talking about using Evolution as an Outlook replacement. The problem is that there is no Windows version of Evolution. That means either running Evolution on *nix desktops and still running Outlook on Windows desktops, or replacing all of your Windows desktops with *nix desktops. While I love the idea of replacing Windows desktops with *nix systems, replacing your OS just to get rid of Outlook is pretty silly. With this program, an IT guy like me could load Evolution on *all* of the desktops (*nix or Windows) in the company and get rid of Outlook completely!!!!!!
His mountain of content-free Slashdot postings aside, does anyone think that Skyshadow still has a credible voice in the community? For me, he stopped having credibility long before he started bitching about ESR's relevence. I, along with a lot of other people, interpret his statements as arrogant, thinly-disguised, and frankly insulting whining (the exact stuff we love Linus for *not* doing).
In any event, it seems to me that his role as a Slashdot karma whore could be easily taken over by any idiot.
I know this is marginally off-topic, but I need to know if I'm alone amongst the serious
</sarcasm>
Seriously though, it's easy for you to belittle ESRs' accomplishments, but what have YOU done?
Try the "Shell" sample applet on the Inferno page. It sure looks like an OS to me. Even has a /dev and a /proc directory!
Free in price. But not "Free Software". You can't get the source to BEOS, you can't modify it, you can't redistribute it without a license.
Nice theory kid. Meanwhile Theo has put his money (or at least his labor :-) where is mouth is and and written an OS with an unmatched security track record.
Before you go shooting you mouth off saying that OpenBSD is "ridiculous" an "should be scrapped" why don't you show us the security record of the OS you've written?? Oh wait, I forgot, you haven't written jack....
I agree that Theo comes across as pretty abrasive, but I can't fault the caliber of the code he's produced.
>4. Theo is obviously so closed minded that no
>efficiency ideas are ever going to occur to him
There's a fine line between closed minded, and very, very focused.
>Eazel's entire existence is a collection of screen shots thus far
You can download Eazel's Nautilus from their web site. I've been running it for weeks.
I definately don't want to see ISP's applying QOS to slow down my (to them) non-essential traffic. However, it CAN be used effectively within a companies internal network.
QOS can also be a good solution for controlling internet access from a corporate network. On a lan with 2000 users, even 10% of them listening to streaming Real-Audio radio stations can put a pretty serious drain on most internet connections. The traditional way of dealing with this is to block Real-Audio, Napster, anything else fun... on the firewall. I vastly prefer the idea of using QOS (when possible) to give priority to business essential traffic, while allowing any left-over bandwidth to be used for "non-essential" internet usage. It's a win-win. Employees get the "perk" of being able to continue to use thier instant messagers, Napster, Real-Audio, etc. But the actual business uses that the internet connection is *for* are not negatively impacted.
Either you're a troll, or you've never *actually* worked in an office environment. Most of they companies I've worked for spend millions on printers. Everything from lowly inkjets for exec's who can't be bothered to walk out of thier office to pick up their print jobs, to monster ass network laser printers for the rest of us working stiffs to share.
Finish your degree kid and get a job. The world isn't as simple as you think.