If graphical interfaces are so great, why are they constantly being re-invented? I learned the basic Unix commands 10 years ago, and still use them every day. I'm still learning, but the new knowledge adds to the old. Ten years ago the GUI world was ruled by Windows 3.1 and MacOS 6.2. How relevent is that experience? Sure, we still use menus and icons, but GUI's don't become productive until you learn all the toolbars, buttons, tricks, shortcuts, and quirks that let you avoid the menus and icons. You can toss what you learn along those lines every time someone from Cupertino or Redmond proclaims the latest "innovation." I would rather be working than learning new interfaces.
FSF claims, in their FAQ and the preamble to the LGPL, that any linking to a GPL library makes the whole program derived. However, they do not give reference to any statute or judicial interpretation that supports their statement. IMHO, linking does not necessarily make a derived work.
I decided to distribute my library (tkgeomap.sourceforge.net) under the GPL with some trepidation. It is a library, and I worried that FSF's statements about linking would scare away proprietary developers, who have helped me in the past. Then I noticed the GPL does not contain the word "link" anywhere in the license (just do a search). In my view, if your program falls on its face without my library, then it's a derived work. If your program is still functional without my library, and my stuff just adds some optional features, then your program is independent. For example, if you have a big database program that occassionally spits out latitudes and longitudes, and you add link in my library to draw some maps with them (that's its job), but your database program works fine without maps, then the database program is independent, and exempt from my distribution requirements. I would still require you to GPL any modifications TO MY WORK needed to enable the link, if any, but the main program is all yours. I would objectively say that if you can load and unload my library during runtime, you are independent. If the linking is static or startup-dynamic, there will be gray areas.
That's my opinion, which isn't backed up by statutes or precedents, either. All I can do is indicate circumstances under which I might make a complaint, which is how most legal boundaries are set, anyway. I hope open source does not become a bonanza for lawyers. Hopefully, developers who use other licenses and end up in the gray area will contact me, and if need be, I'll issue a license amendment to the effect of "Copyright holder of library A accepts that program B uses the library but is otherwise independent, and therefore exempt from the distribution terms of library A." Court is the last resort.
Are there any distro's that ask the user who she/he is (home user, small business terminal, small business server, corporate terminal, corporate server, developer, isp, custom)?
In what I've seen so far (Mandrake, Redhat), you can either do the default install (everything and the kicthen sink) or slog through gazillions of lists of applications and libraries. I like Mandrake's choice of "Default Install" or "Minimal Install & with graphics & with documentation" but it seems the idea could do with more refinement.
If Operating System designers made microwaves, we would not have to deal with "counterintuitive" power levels and timers. For more heat you would drag log icons onto the oven icon, or operate a virtual bellows with the mouse. Done-ness would be indicated with a cartoon chicken going from white to brown to black, and then being replaced with an animated ball of fire. This would ensure old fashioned hearth users would not be intimidated by the new technology.
Linux is hard to use, Windoze is hard to use, MacOS is hard to use. The perceptive reader should have seen a pattern by now. Computers are complex machines, and using them productively is not a trivial task, ever. When I was in 7th grade learning to type, nobody told me the typewriter is easy to use. Sure, one can get output by hunting and pecking with one finger, but learning to use the typewriter productively took a lot of hard work. The same is true of driving, making music, writing with a pencil, or anything else that entails non-trivial interaction between a human and a device. Nonetheless, many people sit down in front of a computer - the most complex thing they'll ever work with - and if they can't figure it all out by "hunting and pecking" with the cursor for a few minutes, they become indignant. RTFM, buy a book, hire a brain, and get to work, d*mmit!
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If graphical interfaces are so great, why are they constantly being re-invented? I learned the basic Unix commands 10 years ago, and still use them every day. I'm still learning, but the new knowledge adds to the old. Ten years ago the GUI world was ruled by Windows 3.1 and MacOS 6.2. How relevent is that experience? Sure, we still use menus and icons, but GUI's don't become productive until you learn all the toolbars, buttons, tricks, shortcuts, and quirks that let you avoid the menus and icons. You can toss what you learn along those lines every time someone from Cupertino or Redmond proclaims the latest "innovation." I would rather be working than learning new interfaces.
My software is my property. I use the GPL to assert my legal rights over it. How does that make me a communist?
FSF claims, in their FAQ and the preamble to the LGPL, that any linking to a GPL library makes the whole program derived. However, they do not give reference to any statute or judicial interpretation that supports their statement. IMHO, linking does not necessarily make a derived work.
I decided to distribute my library (tkgeomap.sourceforge.net) under the GPL with some trepidation. It is a library, and I worried that FSF's statements about linking would scare away proprietary developers, who have helped me in the past. Then I noticed the GPL does not contain the word "link" anywhere in the license (just do a search). In my view, if your program falls on its face without my library, then it's a derived work. If your program is still functional without my library, and my stuff just adds some optional features, then your program is independent. For example, if you have a big database program that occassionally spits out latitudes and longitudes, and you add link in my library to draw some maps with them (that's its job), but your database program works fine without maps, then the database program is independent, and exempt from my distribution requirements. I would still require you to GPL any modifications TO MY WORK needed to enable the link, if any, but the main program is all yours. I would objectively say that if you can load and unload my library during runtime, you are independent. If the linking is static or startup-dynamic, there will be gray areas.
That's my opinion, which isn't backed up by statutes or precedents, either. All I can do is indicate circumstances under which I might make a complaint, which is how most legal boundaries are set, anyway. I hope open source does not become a bonanza for lawyers. Hopefully, developers who use other licenses and end up in the gray area will contact me, and if need be, I'll issue a license amendment to the effect of "Copyright holder of library A accepts that program B uses the library but is otherwise independent, and therefore exempt from the distribution terms of library A." Court is the last resort.
Are there any distro's that ask the user who she/he is (home user, small business terminal, small business server, corporate terminal, corporate server, developer, isp, custom)?
In what I've seen so far (Mandrake, Redhat), you can either do the default install (everything and the kicthen sink) or slog through gazillions of lists of applications and libraries. I like Mandrake's choice of "Default Install" or "Minimal Install & with graphics & with documentation" but it seems the idea could do with more refinement.
If Operating System designers made microwaves, we would not have to deal with "counterintuitive" power levels and timers. For more heat you would drag log icons onto the oven icon, or operate a virtual bellows with the mouse. Done-ness would be indicated with a cartoon chicken going from white to brown to black, and then being replaced with an animated ball of fire. This would ensure old fashioned hearth users would not be intimidated by the new technology.
Actually its a call to email $BIGCORP and tell them their site sucks. Suites won't pay extra for fancy features that scare away potential customers.
Linux is hard to use, Windoze is hard to use, MacOS is hard to use. The perceptive reader should have seen a pattern by now. Computers are complex machines, and using them productively is not a trivial task, ever. When I was in 7th grade learning to type, nobody told me the typewriter is easy to use. Sure, one can get output by hunting and pecking with one finger, but learning to use the typewriter productively took a lot of hard work. The same is true of driving, making music, writing with a pencil, or anything else that entails non-trivial interaction between a human and a device. Nonetheless, many people sit down in front of a computer - the most complex thing they'll ever work with - and if they can't figure it all out by "hunting and pecking" with the cursor for a few minutes, they become indignant. RTFM, buy a book, hire a brain, and get to work, d*mmit!