"For a project to be effectively GPL'd, it needs to have a single person to own the code.
Think about it. Linus owns Linux"
False, Linus own the Linux trademark but he don't own the copyrights rights on the patches you send him (if these atches are more than 10 lines long). So Linus own only a small part of Linux (the one he write) so Linux have a LOT of owners.
The FSF is the single owner of their code because they ask you to give them your copyrights rights (so they can be more efficient in a case of a suit).
"There can be no possibility of a fork".
False, you can take the kernel source and produce your own derivative, nobody will forbid you to do so but anyone can take your change back to the main tree if Linus accept the patch (because of the GPL) and you probably will have no/few support because everybody is confident in Linus and see no need to fork. So, technically you can fork (there is a possibility), but the uselessness of it make it improbable (but not impossible).
"Look at Mozilla [...] This can never work fully, IMHO."
Well, Mozilla seems to work quite well now IMNSHO.
The difference is that with the LGPL ANYBODY can link their program to your program/library.
With the TGPL this is the same as the GPL, that is only GPL compatible software can reuse/link to your code except that the originator can double license it to make it proprietary again.
I would like to have a TGPL license, this would help people to realease copyleft software. The scenario would be: You have a great software/library. You want to open it but you need to gain some money from it in order to live.
If you use the BSD/X license type you can make it proprietary but everybody else too, so if someone come with big bucks he can use your work, improve it quickly than you then outspace you technologically and you are stuck.
If you use the LGPL anybody can use/link to it and you will need to make money on support, which can be harder (because you're on quite the same level as other companies).
If you double license and use the GPL for the open license you probably will have some contribution for the GPL part which will become better than the closed part (because the claused part need to reimplement all the GPL contribution in a proprietary fashion) and the hassle to support both version can be very high (they risk to fork very quickly).
If you do like Aladdin (cf Ghostscript), you use a proprietary license and release the old version with the GPL you have the same risk (the GPL version overthrow yours).
BUT
If you use the TGPL license you have the same effect of the GPL (only GPL projects can use your code) but you can still relicense it under a proprietary license for your products without having the risk of the open version to cut your revenue because everyone use it. This is possible because the license allow you to incorporate the changes made by other into your product under your license. You then can release a proprietary version with all the features of the GPL + some feature you add to attract customers.
The problem with the TGPL as she stands is the second part: like other people said, if someone else can change the TGPL to the GPL for their derived work, then you risk to have the same problem you would have by using the GPL. I think this would be better if only the originator could switch to the real GPL.
The other problem is (like other pointed out) "who is the originator?". If I do a software under the TGPL but stop to develop after version 1.5 because all the feature i wanted are in and almost all bugs are out, will I still be the originator? If somebody else take the lead to the project and produce version 2.0 that is a 80% rewrit eof my crappy code, should I still be the originator? Shouldn't the new maintener be the new originator? Idem if somebody fork with my project.
I think the originator rule should apply while somebody is "actively" maintening a project. If they stop and somebody reactivate the project then they should find a ground to transmit the originator rights.
But this risk to shift the problem to the definition of actively. Am I still active if I contribute a small patch here and there while other are doing huge improvements?...
Ok, I'll stop here because I have to go but there are a lot of questions to talk about this subject, and/. is a great place to discuss (and hop, some shoe-waxing for Rob;-)
I don't think this is nonsense. You may be tied to Windows with Delphi and C++builder but you are less tied than with VisualC++/Basic.
If you have a VB program you are stuck on windows but if you have a Delphi program you have less rewrite to do to have it ported to Linux now (when Delphi comes out at least), so you are less tied. This is a step in the good way.
"The species Alcaligenes eutrophes (probably haven't remembered it properly) can convert things like molasses waste into a short chain polymer called polyhydroxybutanoate (PHB)."
Now that would be cool if we could convert all our PHB's (Pointy Haired Bosses) into fuel. That would be a (quite) infinite ressource given their number and that wouldn't be a big loss ;-)
"We'd be talking to our next-door neighbors if they had the slightest concept of what we do."
I'm not sure. At my old school I saw a lot of people that were talking on IRC when they were just in different rooms/buildings. We don't communicate the same way face-to-face, on IRC, Slashdot or by e-mail. These are different kind of communication that we use differentely. but sometime it is good to talk to someone in real;)
You may not want to trade your liberty for a good software but they are a lot of people that are bound to closed software right now. This is the first step to allow them to expand their view to free software as well.
To paraphrase RMS, it is better to have closed applications on a free OS than free applications on a closed OS. With Linux (and *BSD) we control the foundations to build free applications on and these are strong foundations. RMS did the right thing by beginning to create a free OS rather than free applications.Ok, he began with Emacs but this was necessary to the creation of a free OS whereas a word processor or a spreadsheet would have been useless for this purpose.
Thanks Borland for allowing all the Visual-something developers to develop on Linux.
Delphi and C-Builder are product that allow a visual approach to programmation like Visual-Basic/C++/... without having to deal with MS and all their technology.
But don't forget that this is the first step. We need a free (like in speech) replacement for this kind of software too, we must gave time to Glade, KDevelop and the like to mature I think.
You will try for a long time because you must be French to understand it or have lived in France in quite a while.
One good book (although not perfect) on this topic is "The xenophobic guide to the French" which is very hilarious (but don't take anything said in it for true). I'm trying to find the counterpart for the English and the Americans now.
"Just as Microsoft got it's true start by developing BASIC (read your history kiddies, that's where Billion-dollar Bill got started), Sun developed Java from the ground up..."
I may be mistaken but you seem to imply ("Just as") that MS developed BASIC from the ground up, at least that is how I read this sentence, which is quite false. MS just wrote a compiler for the BASIC language which was developped by somebody else (I don't remember his name right now).
well this is an extract of the definition of the word nigger found at http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
"usage: Nigger in senses 1 and 2 can be found in the works of such writers of the past as Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, but it now ranks as perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English. Its use by and among blacks is not always intended or taken as offensive, but, except in sense 3, it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry."
this extract show off that a word have a power in function of the society, the speaker and the context.
"The GNUStep folks are looking for folks to volunteer to help in that effort."
I haven't contributed to any Free Software project yet but plan to do so soon but I have a little problem: I am in a foreign country for my studies and I don't have a Linux box around. I may have an account to use some X terminal but I'm not sure of that neither of when.
So, the way I could contribute would be either to write some documentation (I'm not sure i have the skill) or to do some localisation/translation in French (my language). Is there some need for these kind of skills on the gnuStep project right now or is it too early right now?
Today if you say to a black he is a nigger you will insult him, not that being black is an insult but because so many people have used the word nigger in a degoratory way that it now is a hate-word. You may find a book or a text in which nigger or another deprecative word is used merely to describe somebody's particularity. Will you say this author is racist? No, because he don't use the word with the deprecation.
The GPL have a lot of power too but this power is given by the society, by the copyright laws, not by the word themselves.
It reminds me of the cartoon afterY2k when Lady Ada Byron is visiting Martha Steward she (Martha) tell Ada that she wants to be a geek. Ada imagine a man eating an alive chicken head but if you are on slashdot today being a geek is quite a "quality" (don't find any word to express myself).
Another example would be the use of the word hacker. During the 60's you were proud to be one but today you have to fight not to be mistaken for a script kiddie because it have been deprecated during the 70's. Depending on the context and the way you call somebody a hacker this can be a compliment or an insult.
Is it possible to use Gnome and GnuStep at the same time AND adding the advantages of both application framework, and this for the user point of view (well, when GnuStep will be at this evel at least) and from the developper point of view (being Gnome aware and using some GnuStep facilities).
Of course in this question Gnome could be replaced by KDE if a KDE developper want to discuss about it.
haven't Compaq opened the source of their True64 compiler a while ago (something a lot of people where waiting for)? Have it been ported under Linux since then?
A few months ago one of my friends was joking about Star Office by saying it was optimised for Java (i.e.: it is really slow), if they rewrite it in Java they will have a lot of optimisation to do before it becomes useable on my K6 233Mhz.
Redhat don't refuse to support the LSB, they just haven't accepted to commit themselves body and soul to something that isn't even finished. Gee, I suppose if they said that they were supporting the LSB at 100% and working on it you would say that they are trying to pervert it (embrace and extend anyone?). i don't say the Redhat is totally white but don't say they REFUSE to support the LSB when the LSB is still in work.
I know that this is totally offtopic but isn't your sig ("I see that I have turned my eyes to a treasure no less dear than the treasure of Thingol that Beren once desired.") what Elassar (Strider) says about Arwen when he falls in love for her in "The Lord Of The Rings"?
"Ask a common guy on the street whether something he gets without paying for is free"
Even if there wasn't the problem of free speech and free beer this program is not free in both case.
It's not free speech because of the reasons given by the others posters.
And it's not free beer in all case. For non-profit use it is free beer but for profit use it is not free.
So this software is free only in specific conditions that you must check before using it. Ask a common manager if this software is free. He may say yes until he got a suit because he used it in a case where it is not free any more.
The BSD license allow to take a program and to make it proprietary and this is also free software. You seem to be confused between Free software (with a license like GPL,BSD,X,Artistic...) and Copylefted software (mainly the GPL). The latter don't allow you to make it proprietary contrary to some of the former . But don't do the mistake of thinking that the two aren't compatible, Copyleft is a subset of Free Software, not a different set.
I don't think that Bill gates is that stupid but rather that he may have been a little bit sleeping while writing this and none of the reviewers noticed it either. Hey man, to err is human.
Ok, we have got one more converted to the Linux sect;)
That's very strange to have all those people that want to see Linux being mainstream after they tried it seriously...oh wait, that is strange for those that haven't tried so they may try to explain this ODT (that would be cool to have under Linux BTW) and end by being converted too;)
Re:You can be sure it doesn't run QNX
on
NASA's X-37
·
· Score: 1
I have heard RTLinux response time was around 12ms and QNX's response time was aroun 1ms...so there still is room for improvement but this is already a great jod done. Rremember, Linux was designed for the 386 and wasn't even planned to be ported on other processors at first. Now linux is ported on many architecture and work well on many situations. I think this is a compliment that Microsoft used such a big server for the Mindcraft test, they acknowledged that Linux may soon be able to compete here.
Slashdot Mirror
"For a project to be effectively GPL'd, it needs to have a single person to own the code.
Think about it. Linus owns Linux"
False, Linus own the Linux trademark but he don't own the copyrights rights on the patches you send him (if these atches are more than 10 lines long). So Linus own only a small part of Linux (the one he write) so Linux have a LOT of owners.
The FSF is the single owner of their code because they ask you to give them your copyrights rights (so they can be more efficient in a case of a suit).
"There can be no possibility of a fork".
False, you can take the kernel source and produce your own derivative, nobody will forbid you to do so but anyone can take your change back to the main tree if Linus accept the patch (because of the GPL) and you probably will have no/few support because everybody is confident in Linus and see no need to fork. So, technically you can fork (there is a possibility), but the uselessness of it make it improbable (but not impossible).
"Look at Mozilla [...] This can never work fully, IMHO."
Well, Mozilla seems to work quite well now IMNSHO.
The difference is that with the LGPL ANYBODY can link their program to your program/library.
/. is a great place to discuss (and hop, some shoe-waxing for Rob ;-)
With the TGPL this is the same as the GPL, that is only GPL compatible software can reuse/link to your code except that the originator can double license it to make it proprietary again.
I would like to have a TGPL license, this would help people to realease copyleft software. The scenario would be: You have a great software/library. You want to open it but you need to gain some money from it in order to live.
If you use the BSD/X license type you can make it proprietary but everybody else too, so if someone come with big bucks he can use your work, improve it quickly than you then outspace you technologically and you are stuck.
If you use the LGPL anybody can use/link to it and you will need to make money on support, which can be harder (because you're on quite the same level as other companies).
If you double license and use the GPL for the open license you probably will have some contribution for the GPL part which will become better than the closed part (because the claused part need to reimplement all the GPL contribution in a proprietary fashion) and the hassle to support both version can be very high (they risk to fork very quickly).
If you do like Aladdin (cf Ghostscript), you use a proprietary license and release the old version with the GPL you have the same risk (the GPL version overthrow yours).
BUT
If you use the TGPL license you have the same effect of the GPL (only GPL projects can use your code) but you can still relicense it under a proprietary license for your products without having the risk of the open version to cut your revenue because everyone use it. This is possible because the license allow you to incorporate the changes made by other into your product under your license. You then can release a proprietary version with all the features of the GPL + some feature you add to attract customers.
The problem with the TGPL as she stands is the second part: like other people said, if someone else can change the TGPL to the GPL for their derived work, then you risk to have the same problem you would have by using the GPL. I think this would be better if only the originator could switch to the real GPL.
The other problem is (like other pointed out) "who is the originator?". If I do a software under the TGPL but stop to develop after version 1.5 because all the feature i wanted are in and almost all bugs are out, will I still be the originator? If somebody else take the lead to the project and produce version 2.0 that is a 80% rewrit eof my crappy code, should I still be the originator? Shouldn't the new maintener be the new originator? Idem if somebody fork with my project.
I think the originator rule should apply while somebody is "actively" maintening a project. If they stop and somebody reactivate the project then they should find a ground to transmit the originator rights.
But this risk to shift the problem to the definition of actively. Am I still active if I contribute a small patch here and there while other are doing huge improvements?...
Ok, I'll stop here because I have to go but there are a lot of questions to talk about this subject, and
I don't think this is nonsense. You may be tied to Windows with Delphi and C++builder but you are less tied than with VisualC++/Basic.
If you have a VB program you are stuck on windows but if you have a Delphi program you have less rewrite to do to have it ported to Linux now (when Delphi comes out at least), so you are less tied. This is a step in the good way.
"The species Alcaligenes eutrophes (probably haven't remembered it properly) can convert things like molasses waste into a short chain polymer called polyhydroxybutanoate (PHB)."
Now that would be cool if we could convert all our PHB's (Pointy Haired Bosses) into fuel. That would be a (quite) infinite ressource given their number and that wouldn't be a big loss
;-)
"We'd be talking to our next-door neighbors if they had the slightest concept of what we do."
;)
I'm not sure. At my old school I saw a lot of people that were talking on IRC when they were just in different rooms/buildings. We don't communicate the same way face-to-face, on IRC, Slashdot or by e-mail. These are different kind of communication that we use differentely. but sometime it is good to talk to someone in real
You may not want to trade your liberty for a good software but they are a lot of people that are bound to closed software right now. This is the first step to allow them to expand their view to free software as well.
To paraphrase RMS, it is better to have closed applications on a free OS than free applications on a closed OS. With Linux (and *BSD) we control the foundations to build free applications on and these are strong foundations. RMS did the right thing by beginning to create a free OS rather than free applications
Thanks Borland for allowing all the Visual-something developers to develop on Linux.
Delphi and C-Builder are product that allow a visual approach to programmation like Visual-Basic/C++/... without having to deal with MS and all their technology.
But don't forget that this is the first step. We need a free (like in speech) replacement for this kind of software too, we must gave time to Glade, KDevelop and the like to mature I think.
You will try for a long time because you must be French to understand it or have lived in France in quite a while.
One good book (although not perfect) on this topic is "The xenophobic guide to the French" which is very hilarious (but don't take anything said in it for true). I'm trying to find the counterpart for the English and the Americans now.
"Just as Microsoft got it's true start by developing BASIC (read your history kiddies, that's where Billion-dollar Bill got started), Sun developed Java from the ground up..."
I may be mistaken but you seem to imply ("Just as") that MS developed BASIC from the ground up, at least that is how I read this sentence, which is quite false. MS just wrote a compiler for the BASIC language which was developped by somebody else (I don't remember his name right now).
well this is an extract of the definition of the word nigger found at http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
"usage: Nigger in senses 1 and 2 can be found in the works of such writers of the past as Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, but it now ranks as perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English. Its use by and among blacks is not always intended or taken as offensive, but, except in sense 3, it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry."
this extract show off that a word have a power in function of the society, the speaker and the context.
"The GNUStep folks are looking for folks to volunteer to help in that effort."
I haven't contributed to any Free Software project yet but plan to do so soon but I have a little problem: I am in a foreign country for my studies and I don't have a Linux box around. I may have an account to use some X terminal but I'm not sure of that neither of when.
So, the way I could contribute would be either to write some documentation (I'm not sure i have the skill) or to do some localisation/translation in French (my language). Is there some need for these kind of skills on the gnuStep project right now or is it too early right now?
"and the French have God knows what kind of mentality."
Well, we have the French mentality, what other mentality do you want us to have?
Today if you say to a black he is a nigger you will insult him, not that being black is an insult but because so many people have used the word nigger in a degoratory way that it now is a hate-word. You may find a book or a text in which nigger or another deprecative word is used merely to describe somebody's particularity. Will you say this author is racist? No, because he don't use the word with the deprecation.
The GPL have a lot of power too but this power is given by the society, by the copyright laws, not by the word themselves.
It reminds me of the cartoon afterY2k when Lady Ada Byron is visiting Martha Steward she (Martha) tell Ada that she wants to be a geek. Ada imagine a man eating an alive chicken head but if you are on slashdot today being a geek is quite a "quality" (don't find any word to express myself).
Another example would be the use of the word hacker. During the 60's you were proud to be one but today you have to fight not to be mistaken for a script kiddie because it have been deprecated during the 70's. Depending on the context and the way you call somebody a hacker this can be a compliment or an insult.
I hope you see what I mean.
Is it possible to use Gnome and GnuStep at the same time AND adding the advantages of both application framework, and this for the user point of view (well, when GnuStep will be at this evel at least) and from the developper point of view (being Gnome aware and using some GnuStep facilities).
Of course in this question Gnome could be replaced by KDE if a KDE developper want to discuss about it.
I hope we won't have to wait as long as with Transmeta before seing the first alpha release
You could also find a cool website like the Transmeta one (which is one of the few website I have viewed in totality).
haven't Compaq opened the source of their True64 compiler a while ago (something a lot of people where waiting for)? Have it been ported under Linux since then?
A few months ago one of my friends was joking about Star Office by saying it was optimised for Java (i.e.: it is really slow), if they rewrite it in Java they will have a lot of optimisation to do before it becomes useable on my K6 233Mhz.
Redhat don't refuse to support the LSB, they just haven't accepted to commit themselves body and soul to something that isn't even finished. Gee, I suppose if they said that they were supporting the LSB at 100% and working on it you would say that they are trying to pervert it (embrace and extend anyone?). i don't say the Redhat is totally white but don't say they REFUSE to support the LSB when the LSB is still in work.
I know that this is totally offtopic but isn't your sig ("I see that I have turned my eyes to a treasure no less dear than the treasure of Thingol that Beren once desired.") what Elassar (Strider) says about Arwen when he falls in love for her in "The Lord Of The Rings"?
"Ask a common guy on the street whether something he gets without paying for is free"
Even if there wasn't the problem of free speech and free beer this program is not free in both case.
It's not free speech because of the reasons given by the others posters.
And it's not free beer in all case. For non-profit use it is free beer but for profit use it is not free.
So this software is free only in specific conditions that you must check before using it. Ask a common manager if this software is free. He may say yes until he got a suit because he used it in a case where it is not free any more.
Yes it is Free software.
The BSD license allow to take a program and to make it proprietary and this is also free software. You seem to be confused between Free software (with a license like GPL,BSD,X,Artistic...) and Copylefted software (mainly the GPL). The latter don't allow you to make it proprietary contrary to some of the former . But don't do the mistake of thinking that the two aren't compatible, Copyleft is a subset of Free Software, not a different set.
I don't think that Bill gates is that stupid but rather that he may have been a little bit sleeping while writing this and none of the reviewers noticed it either. Hey man, to err is human.
It reminds me more of a Mogwai robot that is naked (C3PO:why are saying that I am naked?)
Ok, we have got one more converted to the Linux sect
That's very strange to have all those people that want to see Linux being mainstream after they tried it seriously...oh wait, that is strange for those that haven't tried so they may try to explain this ODT (that would be cool to have under Linux BTW) and end by being converted too
I have heard RTLinux response time was around 12ms and QNX's response time was aroun 1ms...so there still is room for improvement but this is already a great jod done. Rremember, Linux was designed for the 386 and wasn't even planned to be ported on other processors at first. Now linux is ported on many architecture and work well on many situations.
I think this is a compliment that Microsoft used such a big server for the Mindcraft test, they acknowledged that Linux may soon be able to compete here.