Bruce Perens' site, techoncrat.net has packaged all last's years content & comments and made them available (somewhere - I couln't find a URL)
Bruce, if you are reading - what's the licence, and do you require permission of the comment posters to make their comments available for redistribution?
If you are refering to the Walnut Creek CD's (which you probably are), then I believe that yes, some of the proceeds are donated to FreeBSD, bit they do make a profit out of it.
OTOH, I could sell you FreeBSD for $199.95, and not donate anything to the project, and I'd be nothing wrong. Is this a shock to you or something? You can do the same with Linux, you know - although with Linux you have to make the source code available, but with BSD you don't.
This pisses me off a lot.
on
BSD Quickies
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· Score: 3
This isn't meant to be flamebait, or a troll. I really can't work this out, and I'd like to here what people have to say.
Link off deamonnews site ( here if you don't believe me)
Linus dispargaged BSD in his keynote...guess he must be feeling the heat at little.
Now, I wasn't there, so I may be wrong about this, but, I heard about the way some guy got up during the question time after Linus' keynote and asked him something about how he felt having all these companies moving to Linux, when BSD is a technicically superior operating system.
Linus handled it quite well, saying there is a place for both operating systems, etc, etc..
(From linuxworld.com:
Another gentleman asked why Linux was doing so well compared to FreeBSD, a technically superior OS. Linus replied that luck and timing certainly had a hand in Linux's success relative to FreeBSD, but he added, "It's not just all about technology." He underscored the point that Linux has an active community behind it, not just a few people writing good software.
)
How do you get "dispargaged", or "feeling the heat" from that?
Now I use Linux, WinNT, and I've used NetBSD on a sun3, so don't call me an anti BSD bigot or something, but what the hell?
What's with the big chip on (it seems) most BSDers shoulders? Most Linux people know about BSD, but choose not to use it - perhaps from laziness, or whatever. Why do you get so annoyed about it? BSD has its places, and perhaps one day it will replace Linux, or Linux will replace it. Who cares?
And a comment like that, at Linuxworld.. well, if it had been on Slashdot, it would have been moderated out of existance as a Uber-Troll.
It's all free software, right? Please - enough of the stupid anti-Linux comments. Aim them at MS, or Solaris if you want more of a challenge/
Maybe if you actually bothered to read/. instead of just whining, you would have read the "official message" right here
Rob said:
As you may have heard, VA Linux and Andover.Net are gonna be joining up. We thought it would be dishonest not to say something about it, but as you probably understand, we're sorta restricted in what we can say. Of course, you can say whatever you want, and you can read the press release if you're curious about some of the details. Creative control of Slashdot will remain where it always has been.
Now whether that satisfies you or not is up to you. If you ask me, I'm fine with it - go and read the Slashdot Interview with Rob and Hermos (where we got to ask questions) if it's not. They were at pains to point out that they had a pretty good lawyer who got them a contract that let them say what they like.
For example,/. posted plenty of stories about the linux.com bidding war, and who was going to buy it, etc. Now if that wasn't in direct competition with/. and Andover (although I'm not sure if Andover owned them then), then I don't know what is.
I know this isn't going to shut people up. The way I look at it, if you don't like/., don't read it - or go and start your own competition. You can even use the slash code, now - so what's stopping you?
I never post on Usenet - I think my last post would have been in about '97 or something - and that email address got spammed out of existance
I still find www.Deja.com (or Dejanews for those who loved it from long ago) the best site anywhere on the 'net for finding something fast.
I do which they hadn't changed their interface though - having to go to another page to try and do a search on more than the last couple of monts news is pretty annoying.
Their database makes up for it, though. I think it goes back to '95 - or maybe even 94. I first stated using it in 95, I think, and I'ved loved it ever since. It was one of the first big sites using Linux, too, which makes it even cooler.
I found a hole a while back that would allow you to post images via the poll.pl script. They fixed that, and the url in my post didn't work anymore (because/. stripped the encoded HTML from it automatically). Probably the same thing happened to you.
I didn't get -5'ed though - infact, I think I ended up +1 (after a huge moderation war). I've never seen -5 before.
BTW, there is still a hole that lets you post images - not on the story, though. That was a cool hack.
I love patterns. I suspect that many/. readers are going to say "patterns - and all that OO stuff is just another software development technique that will die in five years".
It's not - and those of you who code large systems that are underfunded, and have too short deadlines know this.
Patterns - and to a certian extent - OO design, allow software development to become engineering, with all the advantages that brings.
In particular, reuse of subsystems has made (non-software) engineering a profession that produces reliable products most of the time.
If you compare that to software engineering, we are still in the early years of last century. Before standadised engineering components (girders, bolts, whatever) everyone had to make them for themselves. Now, you can just go and buy them and know how reliable they are.
Patterns allow us to develop systems in repeatable ways that are known (proven) to work. Combined with component reuse, I'm convinced they are the only way that we are going to be able to keep up with the increase in complexity of the systems we build.
The other advantage is that Patterns give us a shared vocabulary. Yesterday, I was discussing with another programmer how we could allow various parts of the system we are building to get notification of user logons and log offs.
He starts trying to explain this complex system of events, and callback registration, and I go - "The Observer Pattern?", he goes "Yep" and we both know exactly what we are doing. You can't beat that.
I don't know about this book - I'm not a big C++ fan anyway, but if you haven't read about patterns get yourself the Gang of Four's book and do yourself a favour.
It is vitally important for the future of Linux/Open Source that LinuxOne does not succed.
If they become even mildly successful (I don't have a good definition for that, though), then all the companies that are jumping on the Linux/OpenSource bandwagon will think "Hey, we can have the hype of Linux, and ignore the community".
That is exactly the way software companies operated before the Internet - there was very little community of software users, and so they could shovel crap at us, and we wouldn't know any better. The Internet has improved communication now, so people know of alternative products, and Open Source has been shown to be a way to produce (mostly) reliable software that the community will embrace as it's own.
If LinuxOne succeds, some companies will think "Screw the community - we don't need it. Look at LinuxOne - their community hated them and they are going fine"
That's my opinion, anyway. I'd love to hear what others thought about this.
So WHY do you prefer Gibson? Sometimes Stephenson's stories have slightly weak endings - I'll give you that. Apart from that, I just don't see it.
Gibson seems to do a Katz - use lots of long, cool sounding words & phrase - and the story seems to come a distant second. With Stephenson, at least you'll get a decent storyline.
So he invented a couple of cool words: "Neuromacer" in particular. Apart from that... his writing is... average, I'd say. Neal Stephanson's stories are much easier to read, and make a lot more sense.
Sure, he was somewhat of a pioneer, but the more I read his books, the more I think that people shouldn't judge him as one of the "science fiction greats"
For instance:
Q. I thought your nanotechnology stuff in "All Tomorrow's Parties" was really interesting -- the idea of an old watch descending into a bed of nanobots and emerging brand-new. I was wondering: Are there "Neuromancer" fans who are working on nanotechnology and call you and say, "Check out what we're working on"? Do you get any "inside information"?
A. [laughs] In a way, I'd like to pretend I'm sort of like the Tom Clancy of cyberspace, and I hang out with these guys. And sometimes I DO hang out with them, but I'm more inclined to take note of what they're wearing.
That isn't the attitude I like to hear from a "hard" science fiction author - I might excuse it is his stories were better written, but they aren't. If I want to hear about clothes, I'll read Vouge or something.
I want software that doesn't suck. It's as simple as that.
Open source, while it has philsopical points that I think are important, main attraction is that it is the best long term means of accomplising that - for me at least.
Who cares is Linux is just the current "big thing", and in a years time all these companies that have jumped on the bandwagon have gone?
Provided they have open-sourced their stuff, the source will still be around to integrate (licence allowing) into things that we/I will find useful.
Not only that, but no longer do we need to put up with crappy software and feel powerless to do anything about it. Hate Windows? Contribute to Gnome/KDE. Think ASP sux? There's PHP for you.
Remember back in say '93 or '94 how bad Windows 3.11 was? Remember the first time you tried Linux and - after installing everything you could find, then deinstalling half of it - that it still didn't crash!
That's what it is about for me. I don't care if all these companies abandon Linux - provided the source is still around, no company can afford to put out crappy software anymore.
Surely current laws can be used against things like this?
While it is true that the Internet allows quicker communication, it also makes them easy to track. If someone puts up a hate site (apart from something on Geocities or something, where it will get taken down quickly), they need to pay for it. That creates a paper trail which is easy to trace, if they really want to "Crack down on hate crime"
It also makes it easier to penetrate their "underground" networks. I'm sure if you join some Nazi mailing list, and then start sending some hate letters, I bet you'll meet some people who know people, etc.
That's the way to fight crime - actually enforce current laws, rather than create new laws like "Though shalt not create bad web pages" and wonder why everyone ignores them.
Remember how the CEO (or whatever he was) of Lotus (Papows - now ex- Lotus) said "Lotus Notes will never run on Linux". That lasted a whole what - six months maybe?
Since SunStore is selling Redhat for SPAC (here, if you don't believe me) right now, I don't know how long "never" means to the "Sun Official". I'd guess just about as long as it takes them to realize that it would be cheaper to Open-Source Solaris, and hope for a great Solaris/Linux/BSD hybrid operating system that will fly on Sun's hardware. Actually, considering this is Sun - never might mean a depressingly long time.
It's a pity, really. Now Sun is giving away Solaris, what would Open Sourcing cost them? Control, I guess.
When I posted this message, the message it was attached to was rated 0 - Offtopic. Please fix this.. sure, it isn't a ground breaking comment, but it shouldn't be rated 0 - maybe 2 would be appropriate.
I don't think it was Offtopic for this article, anyway. The CNN article was contrasting MS's security practices with other Operating Systems, and this comment was On Topic with respect to that.
To the Moderator who moderated that down: Shame on you.
To anyone thinking about moderating this down (and I admit it might be a little off-topic):
I LOVE THE SMELL OF KARMA BURNING
ie: I can afford to be moderated down, hence I can say what someone nees to say.
LinuxCare has a business model that is actually going to make money. It is true that it might take a year or two, but it will work.
Unlike Redhat, who basically make money by selling a disribution, and then support for it, LinuxCare's primary busines is support. There is a huge market for that.
When a company does a role out of Windows today, they will normally get a support company in to help. The same will be true for Linux (if it succedes on the Desktop). Even in the server area, there is a big market for security auditing, and general support for Linux boxes.
LinuxCare has hired some really good developers - the core developers of Samba & PHP among others. That gives them a good reputation, and excellent expertise in two core Linux areas - file serving & web serving.
They have a "stategic relationships" to die for (from the IPO statement):
As a result of our early leadership in services for Linux, we have forged strategic relationships with leading technology vendors including Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM Global Services, Motorola, NEC Software, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and TurboLinux
That's going to look good on a pitch to any manager - "sure, you could go with a Microsoft certified solutions provider for your Linux support, or you could go with us.... does the MCSP have IBM on their list of clients?"
Just incase you aren't convinced, look at this (also from the IPO thing):
Our technical support services business unit has grown rapidly since its inception. We handled 140 incidents in the second quarter of 1999, increasing to approximately 15,000 incidents in the fourth quarter of 1999. We capture the knowledge gained in resolving these incidents in the knowledge database, increasing our level of automation and improving our service quality.
140 to 15,000 incidents in a year. That is nice growth!
Then there is the other big money maker - education. Sure, most of us learnt Linux by mucking around with it, but I think most people would agree there is room for education courses in a corporate environment. We might complain about "Linux Administrator in 3 days", but at $1000 a day (or whatever), it's going to be a pretty good money spinner for LinuxCare.
In summary, this is a good investment - not only for the huge amount of money that will be made initially, but because this is a good company.
(I noticed this got moderated as funny.. so now I'm not sure if it is supposed to be a joke or not.)
Anyway, LinuxCare is nothing like LinuxOne. They have a good reputation, and have hired some very big names in Linux Development. One of the core Samba developers (Andrew Tridgell) works for them, as does one of the guys who developed PHP (Rasmus Lerdoff). Try matching that expertise!
I believe that one of the "three major customers" is IBM, who has contracted out all|some (not sure) of it's Linux support work to LinuxCare. That is a pretty good recommendation - Tech Support reputations don't some much better than IBM's
Sure, (just about) anyone can set up a Linux web server, but I'd pay to have the guy who developed PHP available if I couldn't get something to work in PHP. Same with Samba. And say you want to develop a Kernel Driver - you could hire someone, or LinuxCare will do it for you.
I disagree totally with you - what is it we always say the way to make money off Open Source software is? Sell support! And when it comes to Linux Support, these guys have the best reputation I've heard of.
Compare that to Red Hat, say. How are they going to make money? Selling CDs? I doubt it - they are going after the support market, too - bu LinuxCare is vendor neutral, and tightly focused.
Looks fairly reasonable - although it is more restrictive than LGPL, which allows linking to non-free code - yours does not seem to (Clause 2)
Also, it still has the same problem as GPLed code with linking to other free, but non-GPL licences (MPL, QPL, etc, etc). If that is your intent, that is fair enough, but there is some useful software that is ruled out then (Mozilla for a start)
What about source code? Do you need to distribute that with any modifications? If I take your source code, and sell my modified version, providing the code back to you, in a form that is usless to you - say without instructions as to what it does or where it goes, I don't think I woudl be in breach of the licence.
Finally, and most importantly, the clause:
You will provide us, and any recipient of your derived work, with timely access to your modifications, including the program source code for your derived work, in a convenient electronic form.
is going to be unaccptable to the OSS, I suspect. What happens if you are un reachable, dead or out of business? I believe the Apple source licence has the same problem.
What happens if someone wants to fork the code? Do they need to GPL it? If the code has been GPL'ed, can it be relicenced with this licence, with the new forker as the new owner who must recieve all updates?
With the MIT or BSD licenses, I can include the entire readable and understandable license at the top of each and every source file. I don't have to wonder if I'm going to be sued for using library A with library B. In short, since there are fewer restrictions with the BSD or MIT, programming is easier (unless you like the lack of choice inherent in marxism).
But neither thr BSD or MIT licence force you to include the source, do they? That is what I like about the GPL.
But it's absolutely ludicrous to call the GPL more free than the BSDL on the fact that the GPL is more restrictive. And though it's not evil, it is questionable that the GPL requires its users to redistribute political propaganda.
No one is claiming that the GPL is more free than the BSDL. It's not - and that is why I like it.
As for political propaganda - well, I guess it forces you to redistribute the source, which can empower those who normally wouldn't have it, but apart from that I don't know what you are talking about.
The source code is available for FreeBSD & OpenBSD, right? There is no difference between that, and GPL'ed code, except that GPL'ed code can never be hidden, while BSDL code can.
That means that if a company wants to make some advance then with Linux they have to release the code (ignoring Binary Kernel Modules) while with *BSD they don't.
I guess you'll say "but they often do release the code after a while" - well, I don't want to wait and hope. I want it guarrented!
No, it makes programming much harder by imposing a long, complex, baroque, restrictive license -- loaded with political baggage -- upon the code. The GPL is to open source software what Soviet Communism was to socialism -- a scheme which claimed to be idealistic but in fact had much more base motivations. Want programming to be easier? Want to see the state of the art advance? Use an open source license that makes the source truly available for reuse by all with virtually no strings attached. The GPL is not that license.
Sure I want to see "the state of the art advance" - and I want to see the code. With the GPL I can and will.
I'm not just watching out for the IRS; I'm watching out for anyone who pays taxes or contributes to United Way. By dubbing itself a "charity," the FSF has extracted money both from the taxpayers and from people who believed they were making donations to truly charitable causes. The FSF is not a charity, since it does not reserve its work for those in need and because its primary purpose is to compete directly with for-profit businesses.
None of the labels you mention is entirely off base. His writings definitely do borrow rhetorical techniques and concepts from those of Marxism. I don't know about "Svengali," but there is some legitimacy to the claims that he is a fraud.
What's wrong with a bit of Marxism, anyway? It sure makes programmming easier - which is what I care about.
I personally believe that the FSF's 501(c)(3) tax exemption was obtained fraudulently, because the purpose of the FSF is (and always has been) to compete directly with for-profit businesses. This is not allowed, and since he intended to do this from the start, it may well be that he could be accused of defrauding the IRS.
Glad to see someone is watching out for the poor IRS!
Not just by "giving back" -- that's commonly done under other licenses such as the MIT X and BSD licenses. Rather, the GPL demands that the author give up any prospect of licensing his or her work for money. He or she must give the code not only to the original developers but to everyone for free. This is an onerous requirement which, as Richard Stallman himself states, is designed to reduce programmers' salaries and compromise their livelihoods.
But at least then when that programmer is gone you can guarentee that you have an up to date copy of the source - try that with a commercial licence - and don't give me that line about how all BSDL software producers are nice guys who throw in the code for free - that is the same as GPL, and invalidates your arguement.
Not true. I can pay a fee to license a commercial, royalty-free software library and use it in my work without being forced to compromise my livelihood as a programmer.
Until you need to fix a bug in that library, and find you don't have the source and the company is out of business.
RMS's discussion of such licenses isn't reasoned. It's demagoguery which is designed to deceive and to hide his true intent.
As opposed to your well resasoned and level headed criticisms of the GPL, say?
You know what I like best about the BSD licence? The fact you can re-licence code under it to the GPL. Life is beautiful, sometimes!
Look, I have nothing against the BSDL - it is a nice licence if you want to let others make money off your code. Just don't try telling me on one hand that the GPL is evil because it forces people to give away their code, and then encourge people to licence under the BSD so the code can be "truly free".
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce Perens' site, techoncrat.net has packaged all last's years content & comments and made them available (somewhere - I couln't find a URL)
Bruce, if you are reading - what's the licence, and do you require permission of the comment posters to make their comments available for redistribution?
If you are refering to the Walnut Creek CD's (which you probably are), then I believe that yes, some of the proceeds are donated to FreeBSD, bit they do make a profit out of it.
OTOH, I could sell you FreeBSD for $199.95, and not donate anything to the project, and I'd be nothing wrong. Is this a shock to you or something? You can do the same with Linux, you know - although with Linux you have to make the source code available, but with BSD you don't.
This isn't meant to be flamebait, or a troll. I really can't work this out, and I'd like to here what people have to say.
Link off deamonnews site ( here if you don't believe me)
Now, I wasn't there, so I may be wrong about this, but, I heard about the way some guy got up during the question time after Linus' keynote and asked him something about how he felt having all these companies moving to Linux, when BSD is a technicically superior operating system.
Linus handled it quite well, saying there is a place for both operating systems, etc, etc..
(From linuxworld.com:
)
How do you get "dispargaged", or "feeling the heat" from that?
Now I use Linux, WinNT, and I've used NetBSD on a sun3, so don't call me an anti BSD bigot or something, but what the hell?
What's with the big chip on (it seems) most BSDers shoulders? Most Linux people know about BSD, but choose not to use it - perhaps from laziness, or whatever. Why do you get so annoyed about it? BSD has its places, and perhaps one day it will replace Linux, or Linux will replace it. Who cares?
And a comment like that, at Linuxworld.. well, if it had been on Slashdot, it would have been moderated out of existance as a Uber-Troll.
It's all free software, right? Please - enough of the stupid anti-Linux comments. Aim them at MS, or Solaris if you want more of a challenge/
Maybe if you actually bothered to read /. instead of just whining, you would have read the "official message" right here
Rob said:
Now whether that satisfies you or not is up to you. If you ask me, I'm fine with it - go and read the Slashdot Interview with Rob and Hermos (where we got to ask questions) if it's not. They were at pains to point out that they had a pretty good lawyer who got them a contract that let them say what they like.
For example, /. posted plenty of stories about the linux.com bidding war, and who was going to buy it, etc. Now if that wasn't in direct competition with /. and Andover (although I'm not sure if Andover owned them then), then I don't know what is.
I know this isn't going to shut people up. The way I look at it, if you don't like /., don't read it - or go and start your own competition. You can even use the slash code, now - so what's stopping you?
I never post on Usenet - I think my last post would have been in about '97 or something - and that email address got spammed out of existance
I still find www.Deja.com (or Dejanews for those who loved it from long ago) the best site anywhere on the 'net for finding something fast.
I do which they hadn't changed their interface though - having to go to another page to try and do a search on more than the last couple of monts news is pretty annoying.
Their database makes up for it, though. I think it goes back to '95 - or maybe even 94. I first stated using it in 95, I think, and I'ved loved it ever since. It was one of the first big sites using Linux, too, which makes it even cooler.
I'll let you try and work that one out for yourself.
I found a hole a while back that would allow you to post images via the poll.pl script. They fixed that, and the url in my post didn't work anymore (because /. stripped the encoded HTML from it automatically). Probably the same thing happened to you.
I didn't get -5'ed though - infact, I think I ended up +1 (after a huge moderation war). I've never seen -5 before.
BTW, there is still a hole that lets you post images - not on the story, though. That was a cool hack.
I love patterns. I suspect that many /. readers are going to say "patterns - and all that OO stuff is just another software development technique that will die in five years".
It's not - and those of you who code large systems that are underfunded, and have too short deadlines know this.
Patterns - and to a certian extent - OO design, allow software development to become engineering, with all the advantages that brings.
In particular, reuse of subsystems has made (non-software) engineering a profession that produces reliable products most of the time.
If you compare that to software engineering, we are still in the early years of last century. Before standadised engineering components (girders, bolts, whatever) everyone had to make them for themselves. Now, you can just go and buy them and know how reliable they are.
Patterns allow us to develop systems in repeatable ways that are known (proven) to work. Combined with component reuse, I'm convinced they are the only way that we are going to be able to keep up with the increase in complexity of the systems we build.
The other advantage is that Patterns give us a shared vocabulary. Yesterday, I was discussing with another programmer how we could allow various parts of the system we are building to get notification of user logons and log offs.
He starts trying to explain this complex system of events, and callback registration, and I go - "The Observer Pattern?", he goes "Yep" and we both know exactly what we are doing. You can't beat that.
I don't know about this book - I'm not a big C++ fan anyway, but if you haven't read about patterns get yourself the Gang of Four's book and do yourself a favour.
A scare campaign is the easiest campaign on earth to run- especially about things most people don't understand - computers, economics & law.
If that is the best MS can do they really need to worry.
It is vitally important for the future of Linux/Open Source that LinuxOne does not succed.
If they become even mildly successful (I don't have a good definition for that, though), then all the companies that are jumping on the Linux/OpenSource bandwagon will think "Hey, we can have the hype of Linux, and ignore the community".
That is exactly the way software companies operated before the Internet - there was very little community of software users, and so they could shovel crap at us, and we wouldn't know any better. The Internet has improved communication now, so people know of alternative products, and Open Source has been shown to be a way to produce (mostly) reliable software that the community will embrace as it's own.
If LinuxOne succeds, some companies will think "Screw the community - we don't need it. Look at LinuxOne - their community hated them and they are going fine"
That's my opinion, anyway. I'd love to hear what others thought about this.
Oh Shit. I've started a flamewar, haven't I?
So WHY do you prefer Gibson? Sometimes Stephenson's stories have slightly weak endings - I'll give you that. Apart from that, I just don't see it.
Gibson seems to do a Katz - use lots of long, cool sounding words & phrase - and the story seems to come a distant second. With Stephenson, at least you'll get a decent storyline.
So he invented a couple of cool words: "Neuromacer" in particular. Apart from that... his writing is... average, I'd say. Neal Stephanson's stories are much easier to read, and make a lot more sense.
Sure, he was somewhat of a pioneer, but the more I read his books, the more I think that people shouldn't judge him as one of the "science fiction greats"
For instance:
That isn't the attitude I like to hear from a "hard" science fiction author - I might excuse it is his stories were better written, but they aren't. If I want to hear about clothes, I'll read Vouge or something.
I want software that doesn't suck. It's as simple as that.
Open source, while it has philsopical points that I think are important, main attraction is that it is the best long term means of accomplising that - for me at least.
Who cares is Linux is just the current "big thing", and in a years time all these companies that have jumped on the bandwagon have gone?
Provided they have open-sourced their stuff, the source will still be around to integrate (licence allowing) into things that we/I will find useful.
Not only that, but no longer do we need to put up with crappy software and feel powerless to do anything about it. Hate Windows? Contribute to Gnome/KDE. Think ASP sux? There's PHP for you.
Remember back in say '93 or '94 how bad Windows 3.11 was? Remember the first time you tried Linux and - after installing everything you could find, then deinstalling half of it - that it still didn't crash!
That's what it is about for me. I don't care if all these companies abandon Linux - provided the source is still around, no company can afford to put out crappy software anymore.
Surely current laws can be used against things like this?
While it is true that the Internet allows quicker communication, it also makes them easy to track. If someone puts up a hate site (apart from something on Geocities or something, where it will get taken down quickly), they need to pay for it. That creates a paper trail which is easy to trace, if they really want to "Crack down on hate crime"
It also makes it easier to penetrate their "underground" networks. I'm sure if you join some Nazi mailing list, and then start sending some hate letters, I bet you'll meet some people who know people, etc.
That's the way to fight crime - actually enforce current laws, rather than create new laws like "Though shalt not create bad web pages" and wonder why everyone ignores them.
Remember how the CEO (or whatever he was) of Lotus (Papows - now ex- Lotus) said "Lotus Notes will never run on Linux". That lasted a whole what - six months maybe?
Since SunStore is selling Redhat for SPAC (here, if you don't believe me) right now, I don't know how long "never" means to the "Sun Official". I'd guess just about as long as it takes them to realize that it would be cheaper to Open-Source Solaris, and hope for a great Solaris/Linux/BSD hybrid operating system that will fly on Sun's hardware. Actually, considering this is Sun - never might mean a depressingly long time.
It's a pity, really. Now Sun is giving away Solaris, what would Open Sourcing cost them? Control, I guess.
When I posted this message, the message it was attached to was rated 0 - Offtopic. Please fix this.. sure, it isn't a ground breaking comment, but it shouldn't be rated 0 - maybe 2 would be appropriate.
I don't think it was Offtopic for this article, anyway. The CNN article was contrasting MS's security practices with other Operating Systems, and this comment was On Topic with respect to that.
To the Moderator who moderated that down: Shame on you.
To anyone thinking about moderating this down (and I admit it might be a little off-topic):
ie: I can afford to be moderated down, hence I can say what someone nees to say.
Actually, most guys do, too, come to think of it.
LinuxCare has a business model that is actually going to make money. It is true that it might take a year or two, but it will work.
Unlike Redhat, who basically make money by selling a disribution, and then support for it, LinuxCare's primary busines is support. There is a huge market for that.
When a company does a role out of Windows today, they will normally get a support company in to help. The same will be true for Linux (if it succedes on the Desktop). Even in the server area, there is a big market for security auditing, and general support for Linux boxes.
LinuxCare has hired some really good developers - the core developers of Samba & PHP among others. That gives them a good reputation, and excellent expertise in two core Linux areas - file serving & web serving.
They have a "stategic relationships" to die for (from the IPO statement):
That's going to look good on a pitch to any manager - "sure, you could go with a Microsoft certified solutions provider for your Linux support, or you could go with us.... does the MCSP have IBM on their list of clients?"
Just incase you aren't convinced, look at this (also from the IPO thing):
(I noticed this got moderated as funny.. so now I'm not sure if it is supposed to be a joke or not.)
Anyway, LinuxCare is nothing like LinuxOne. They have a good reputation, and have hired some very big names in Linux Development. One of the core Samba developers (Andrew Tridgell) works for them, as does one of the guys who developed PHP (Rasmus Lerdoff). Try matching that expertise!
I believe that one of the "three major customers" is IBM, who has contracted out all|some (not sure) of it's Linux support work to LinuxCare. That is a pretty good recommendation - Tech Support reputations don't some much better than IBM's
Sure, (just about) anyone can set up a Linux web server, but I'd pay to have the guy who developed PHP available if I couldn't get something to work in PHP. Same with Samba. And say you want to develop a Kernel Driver - you could hire someone, or LinuxCare will do it for you.
I disagree totally with you - what is it we always say the way to make money off Open Source software is? Sell support! And when it comes to Linux Support, these guys have the best reputation I've heard of.
Compare that to Red Hat, say. How are they going to make money? Selling CDs? I doubt it - they are going after the support market, too - bu LinuxCare is vendor neutral, and tightly focused.
What, someone who actualy knows what they are talking about?
Anyone would think this was /. 1998!
IANAL, or a licence expert.
Looks fairly reasonable - although it is more restrictive than LGPL, which allows linking to non-free code - yours does not seem to (Clause 2)
Also, it still has the same problem as GPLed code with linking to other free, but non-GPL licences (MPL, QPL, etc, etc). If that is your intent, that is fair enough, but there is some useful software that is ruled out then (Mozilla for a start)
What about source code? Do you need to distribute that with any modifications? If I take your source code, and sell my modified version, providing the code back to you, in a form that is usless to you - say without instructions as to what it does or where it goes, I don't think I woudl be in breach of the licence.
Finally, and most importantly, the clause:
is going to be unaccptable to the OSS, I suspect. What happens if you are un reachable, dead or out of business? I believe the Apple source licence has the same problem.
What happens if someone wants to fork the code? Do they need to GPL it? If the code has been GPL'ed, can it be relicenced with this licence, with the new forker as the new owner who must recieve all updates?
But neither thr BSD or MIT licence force you to include the source, do they? That is what I like about the GPL.
No one is claiming that the GPL is more free than the BSDL. It's not - and that is why I like it.
As for political propaganda - well, I guess it forces you to redistribute the source, which can empower those who normally wouldn't have it, but apart from that I don't know what you are talking about.
The source code is available for FreeBSD & OpenBSD, right? There is no difference between that, and GPL'ed code, except that GPL'ed code can never be hidden, while BSDL code can.
That means that if a company wants to make some advance then with Linux they have to release the code (ignoring Binary Kernel Modules) while with *BSD they don't.
I guess you'll say "but they often do release the code after a while" - well, I don't want to wait and hope. I want it guarrented!
Sure I want to see "the state of the art advance" - and I want to see the code. With the GPL I can and will.
LMAO! Somebody has a big chip on his shoulder!
What's wrong with a bit of Marxism, anyway? It sure makes programmming easier - which is what I care about.
Glad to see someone is watching out for the poor IRS!
But at least then when that programmer is gone you can guarentee that you have an up to date copy of the source - try that with a commercial licence - and don't give me that line about how all BSDL software producers are nice guys who throw in the code for free - that is the same as GPL, and invalidates your arguement.
Until you need to fix a bug in that library, and find you don't have the source and the company is out of business.
As opposed to your well resasoned and level headed criticisms of the GPL, say?
You know what I like best about the BSD licence? The fact you can re-licence code under it to the GPL. Life is beautiful, sometimes!
Look, I have nothing against the BSDL - it is a nice licence if you want to let others make money off your code. Just don't try telling me on one hand that the GPL is evil because it forces people to give away their code, and then encourge people to licence under the BSD so the code can be "truly free".
GPL - all the source, all the time!