From the description of the kit, it sounds like Sun is merely providing something that could be considered to be roughly analogous to a compiler. The referenced article does not establish whether this "compiler" is GPL'd, nor whether it uses GPL'd code. Even if it is not, it would still be
perfectly acceptable to use it to convert GPL source to object code, and Sun is right -- the people that distribute that object code are the ones that have to obey the GPL. In short, Becker can't really object to that.
Now, if Sun itself is distributing object code derived from GPL software, they have an obligation to follow the GPL with regard to distributing source. It is also unclear whether or not they are doing this. If they are not, then they are in clear violation of the GPL, and I don't see where Bruce sees the gray area. (And, FWIW, they should have asked RMS about this, not Bruce.)
So, in essence, from what we know: 1) the idea of compiling source intended for Linux into a Solaris object code is not objectionable nor a violation of the GPL even if the compiler is not GPL'd; and 2) if Sun uses GPL'd code in their compiler, they must include the source. So on #1, Becker is wrong, and on #2, Perens is wrong. If Sun indeed is using GPL'd code and not including source, then they need to be taken to task. Otherwise, they are not doing anything to violate the GPL.
The reasoning that "if a company's, or a party's, webserver runs BSD, they must believe in Free Software" is a hugely incorrect one. They may be using BSD because it is the best to meet their needs, and my be totally ignoring the Free Software issue. Do not read too much into queso.
While the US also has a rail network, we don't have this particular need. However, we could perhaps exploit it in a different way. Wouldn't it be nice to have Internet access available while you're *on* a train? Instead of having to rely on spotty CDPD, Amtrak could install Ethernet jacks. Assuming we also have such spare capacity, and that it can be tapped by the running trains.
The very fact that is uses x86 assembler is the very reason that I won't, and can't, use it -- m box is an alpha. Please do not assume that everyone reading uses x86 hardware.
From: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> Subject: IDG's relationship to me and others To: IDrewelow@idgbooks.com Date: 07 May 2000 15:24:29 -0500
[ An open letter. Anyone has permission to redistribute this letter, verbatim, for no fee. ]
Dear Isabelle:
I am an author that has just completed my first book with IDG, the Linux Programming Bible. I had been very pleased with the way IDG handled the book, process, and legal matters -- until now.
It came to my attention today that you personally, and IDG in general, are sending threatening letters to many members of the Free Software community (of which I am a part) that happen to use the phrase "for dummies" in casual conversation, e-mail, or the title of a webpage.
I must vehemently object to this harassment of my colleagues. These things pose zero risk and no possibility of confusion with your series. If they were printed and sold in bookstores with a yellow cover, I'd easily support your claim.
I feel that this attempt at censoring people that are just trying to do good in the world is despicable and feel that I will have to re-evaluate my future plans to write additional titles with a company that actively is trying to crush members of the Linux community unfortunate enough to use a common English phrase in the course of their daily communications or online documentation.
The specific cases to which I refer include the "Real Beginner's Guide to CVS" guide, which happened to mention farther down that it is "affectionately known as 'CVS for dummies'". I additionally noticed a post on the Slashdot.Org online forum today where you are apparently going after a non-profit group in Australia for using the phrase on a website.
I am left to wonder if I myself may be the target of your pressures by unwittingly using a phrase such as "for dummies" on my own website, in my own e-mail communications, or even on the phone.
I would ask at this time that you ceasee this unwarranted harassment of the good people on the Internet and instead focus on the people that are actually trying to harm you, if any.
I additionally consider it only proper to inform you that I have created a webpage containing the words "for dummies" at http://www.complete.org/news/957731761/index_html
I feel that a common fallacy, illustrated both in the question and in slashdot as a whole, is an ignorance and failure to consider non-i386 architectures. In many cases, these architectures offer superior performance and a better design. Take a look at Sparc and Alpha options.
I might also mention that Squishdot is available. It is a lot easier to set up than Slashdot and its code is a lot cleaner. It runs under Zope, using a modified Confera engine.
I glanced at the headline; it's a bit confusing. Remember that there is an Alpha platform, and in fact, Netscape for Linux Alpha was released barely two days ago, so we're all excited about that:-)
As someone that received my OmniSky yesterday, I want to note a few more details. First, this is in BETA until May, so please keep that in mind.
My experiences have been different from the reviewer in several aspects. I have had very good luck with the included applications. On the other hand, the installation was absolutely terrible. It requires a Windows machine to install (ODD! everything else can be installed from Linux!). The installation requires Palm Desktop, which itself didn't get along well with my Palm (linux had no problems). Having fixed that, got to install, which takes FOREVER. It backs up the entire 6MB of data in my Palm at what must be a very slow speed, then proceeds to restore this data at the same snail's pace, and then for some odd reason, back it all up again.
What else... oh right, apps. ProxiWeb works great, has its advantages (supports SSL! and bookmarks) over AvantGo. OTOH,AvantGo has some more options for tweaking display. All in all, impressive and surprisingly useful.
The biggest benefit: it still fits in your pocket. I do not know of any other device that offers wireless unmetered full Internet access and still manages to do that. This is a tremendous asset. It gives you a lot more freedom that you may not have thought about before.
You're exactly right. For a classic example of how you can make an excellent site that looks great on everything from Lynx to the latest graphical browsers, please surf on over to my site at http://www.aclug.org/. As a hint: most pages validate as standard HTML. None use extensions. All images have ALT tags. I specify a doctype. Cookies are used in a few spots but never required. Graphics are strategically reused to maximize caching.
It really isn't that hard to make a snazzy site that is quick to load and works with every browser.
This a is so far off-base that it ought to be in the "humor" section. Why? Let's look at several points.
Free Software has thrived for years and years without having a web browser or even marginal control of the general "desktop".
Having Mozilla will not address even one of your concerns; binary-only plugins for Windows will still not work on GNU systems.
Having multiple useless examples of bloat in the GUI will do nothing either. Having a clean, powerful system will.
Marketing is not the ultimate answer as you seem to think it is. Marketing is antithetical to what we are all about.
Finally, you miss a fundamental point: Free Software is not about winning any war or even a battle. It is not about competition. It is about Freedom. Period.
One interest effect of this is that it amounts to Lycos exercising editorial control over the content that is presented by its search engine. By doing this, they can be held legally responsible for the content presented by said engine in the same way that a newspaper can be held responsible for the articles that appear within it. They might not be thinking they're so smart if people start suing them for failing to exercise editorial restraint and presenting smut to the kiddies, linking to pages that violate copyright, warez sites, or a host of other shady material out there. This topic came up a lot back in the days of BBSs, when BBS operators could get sued if somebody posted libelous remarks in a public moderated forum -- for failing to exercise proper editorial restraint.
Another interesting possibility is a Federal law violation for anticompetitive behavior. As an example, a telephone company that excludes a competing company from its yellow pages or otherwise discriminates against it solely because the other company is a competitor violates this law.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Perhaps somebody who is could reply and confirm/deny this, with some links to the relevant sections of USC.
When will people learn? All that Kansas BOE did was remove the evolution questions from the standardized tests. They did not endorse creationism or ban evolution. Please get the facts straight. This misreporting is sickening.
Mozilla still has serious problems. From version to version, it's a toss-up as to whether or not it will even pop up a window before crashing on an Alpha platform. When it does manage that, it will crash shortly anyway. This has persisted since early SeaMonkey with no apparent effort to fix.
And if you don't have an alpha, you're not out of the woods. This sort of thing indicates sloppy code. Means bad news for future versions and for you, when you eventually go 64-bit, which you will.
First, GPL makes not point about "public" distribution or internal-only distribution. Secondly, a company can not wave its hands and remove the right of its employees to distribute software that has been licensed to them (the employees) under a license that explicitly guarantees that right, since the company does not own that software. So even if we accept your analogy that beta testers are essently acting as Corel employees, the argument is still flawed.
No, the GPL explicitly states (section 3) that any distribution in "object code or executable form" must be done under the provisions of sections 1 and 2, and further must come with source code or written offer for such. Section 4 says that you may not distribute it except as provided in the license itself. Thus, they MUST include source and MUST adhere to GPL.
Even if it only applies to betas, there is still a serious problem. They are distributing software in a way that violates GPL. Period.
We cannot make exceptions for software that vendors label as "beta". If we do, what's to stop everyone from calling their software "beta" and then continuing on to violate GPL with it?
We must consistently, vigorously defend Free Software.
I, and others, have pondered this possibility. I agree that it is possible. However, this is inexcusable. The Free Software community must vigorously defend its rights against any attempt to thwart them, whether this attempt be hostile or born out of ignorance or stupidity.
Further, if we let Corel off the hook with this excuse, then the next company that tries to thwart GPL (visions of Redmond, anyone?) can simply use the same excuse. Bad.
I must also stress at this point that they wanted people to sign this as a legally-binding contract. I, of course, cannot possibly do so, as I am not willing to relinquish my rights to redistribute GPL software.
As I said before, moderation is completely stupid for a site as large as this. A system more like GroupLens is necessary, where the points for articles are tailored to each individual user's historical preferences. Why is slashdot not using this?
Put simply, moderation as it is employed here rests upon a single, faulty premise: that everyone agrees upon which posts deserve to get the highest score, and which ones don't. The problems that you are seeing are a direct result of this assumption.
What you need is something more like GroupLens. This works as follows: Each person indicates, for each message read, whether or not he liked that message. These markings have no direct impact on the general public.
However, if you decide to use the feature, your markings are compared with others. The markings of people that have made selections similar to you in the past are given the most weight. Therefore, the articles that are given the most points are tailored to your specific preferences.
This is a far better solution. No more of this points madness; if people are not truthfully marking articles, it hurts nobody but themselves.
I think this is an interesting extension to the Free Software philosophy that has driven our cause. That free software not only enriches our lives but also saves them is indeed something to be proud of -- and has shown me, for one, that Free Software can mean much more than I had previously imagined.
Many of these situations prefer to work in an e-mail only situation -- no shell accounts, no home directories, etc. Sendmail, I know, looks for accounts by checking passwd to determine if delivery to a given mailbox is valid. How can you do the same if people don't actually have an account on the box?
Slashdot Mirror
Sun must ship source for GPL'd drivers if they distribute object code for those drivers. I still fail to see the loophole.
Now, if Sun itself is distributing object code derived from GPL software, they have an obligation to follow the GPL with regard to distributing source. It is also unclear whether or not they are doing this. If they are not, then they are in clear violation of the GPL, and I don't see where Bruce sees the gray area. (And, FWIW, they should have asked RMS about this, not Bruce.)
So, in essence, from what we know: 1) the idea of compiling source intended for Linux into a Solaris object code is not objectionable nor a violation of the GPL even if the compiler is not GPL'd; and 2) if Sun uses GPL'd code in their compiler, they must include the source. So on #1, Becker is wrong, and on #2, Perens is wrong. If Sun indeed is using GPL'd code and not including source, then they need to be taken to task. Otherwise, they are not doing anything to violate the GPL.
Got a URL or a phone number or something for RCN?
The reasoning that "if a company's, or a party's, webserver runs BSD, they must believe in Free Software" is a hugely incorrect one. They may be using BSD because it is the best to meet their needs, and my be totally ignoring the Free Software issue. Do not read too much into queso.
While the US also has a rail network, we don't have this particular need. However, we could perhaps exploit it in a different way. Wouldn't it be nice to have Internet access available while you're *on* a train? Instead of having to rely on spotty CDPD, Amtrak could install Ethernet jacks. Assuming we also have such spare capacity, and that it can be tapped by the running trains.
The very fact that is uses x86 assembler is the very reason that I won't, and can't, use it -- m box is an alpha. Please do not assume that everyone reading uses x86 hardware.
From: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
Subject: IDG's relationship to me and others
To: IDrewelow@idgbooks.com
Date: 07 May 2000 15:24:29 -0500
[ An open letter. Anyone has permission to redistribute this letter, verbatim, for no fee. ]
Dear Isabelle:
I am an author that has just completed my first book with IDG, the Linux Programming Bible. I had been very pleased with the way IDG handled the book, process, and legal matters -- until now.
It came to my attention today that you personally, and IDG in general, are sending threatening letters to many members of the Free Software community (of which I am a part) that happen to use the phrase "for dummies" in casual conversation, e-mail, or the title of a webpage.
I must vehemently object to this harassment of my colleagues. These things pose zero risk and no possibility of confusion with your series. If they were printed and sold in bookstores with a yellow cover, I'd easily support your claim.
I feel that this attempt at censoring people that are just trying to do good in the world is despicable and feel that I will have to re-evaluate my future plans to write additional titles with a company that actively is trying to crush members of the Linux community unfortunate enough to use a common English phrase in the course of their daily communications or online documentation.
The specific cases to which I refer include the "Real Beginner's Guide to CVS" guide, which happened to mention farther down that it is "affectionately known as 'CVS for dummies'". I additionally noticed a post on the Slashdot.Org online forum today where you are apparently going after a non-profit group in Australia for using the phrase on a website.
I am left to wonder if I myself may be the target of your pressures by unwittingly using a phrase such as "for dummies" on my own website, in my own e-mail communications, or even on the phone.
I would ask at this time that you ceasee this unwarranted harassment of the good people on the Internet and instead focus on the people that are actually trying to harm you, if any.
I additionally consider it only proper to inform you that I have created a webpage containing the words "for dummies" at http://www.complete.org/news/957731761/index_html
Sincerely,
John Goerzen
jgoerzen@complete.org
References:
One site you succeeded in bullying.
Today's Slashdot story.
An earlier Slashdot story detailing your attempts to censor e-mail.
Which details other cases of your oppression.
Another person you succeeded in censoring.
I feel that a common fallacy, illustrated both in the question and in slashdot as a whole, is an ignorance and failure to consider non-i386 architectures. In many cases, these architectures offer superior performance and a better design. Take a look at Sparc and Alpha options.
I might also mention that Squishdot is available. It is a lot easier to set up than Slashdot and its code is a lot cleaner. It runs under Zope, using a modified Confera engine.
I glanced at the headline; it's a bit confusing. Remember that there is an Alpha platform, and in fact, Netscape for Linux Alpha was released barely two days ago, so we're all excited about that :-)
As someone that received my OmniSky yesterday, I want to note a few more details. First, this is in BETA until May, so please keep that in mind.
My experiences have been different from the reviewer in several aspects. I have had very good luck with the included applications. On the other hand, the installation was absolutely terrible. It requires a Windows machine to install (ODD! everything else can be installed from Linux!). The installation requires Palm Desktop, which itself didn't get along well with my Palm (linux had no problems). Having fixed that, got to install, which takes FOREVER. It backs up the entire 6MB of data in my Palm at what must be a very slow speed, then proceeds to restore this data at the same snail's pace, and then for some odd reason, back it all up again.
What else... oh right, apps. ProxiWeb works great, has its advantages (supports SSL! and bookmarks) over AvantGo. OTOH,AvantGo has some more options for tweaking display. All in all, impressive and surprisingly useful.
The biggest benefit: it still fits in your pocket. I do not know of any other device that offers wireless unmetered full Internet access and still manages to do that. This is a tremendous asset. It gives you a lot more freedom that you may not have thought about before.
Why?
It really isn't that hard to make a snazzy site that is quick to load and works with every browser.
Another interesting possibility is a Federal law violation for anticompetitive behavior. As an example, a telephone company that excludes a competing company from its yellow pages or otherwise discriminates against it solely because the other company is a competitor violates this law.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Perhaps somebody who is could reply and confirm/deny this, with some links to the relevant sections of USC.
When will people learn? All that Kansas BOE did was remove the evolution questions from the standardized tests. They did not endorse creationism or ban evolution. Please get the facts straight. This misreporting is sickening.
And if you don't have an alpha, you're not out of the woods. This sort of thing indicates sloppy code. Means bad news for future versions and for you, when you eventually go 64-bit, which you will.
First, GPL makes not point about "public" distribution or internal-only distribution. Secondly, a company can not wave its hands and remove the right of its employees to distribute software that has been licensed to them (the employees) under a license that explicitly guarantees that right, since the company does not own that software. So even if we accept your analogy that beta testers are essently acting as Corel employees, the argument is still flawed.
No, the GPL explicitly states (section 3) that any distribution in "object code or executable form" must be done under the provisions of sections 1 and 2, and further must come with source code or written offer for such. Section 4 says that you may not distribute it except as provided in the license itself. Thus, they MUST include source and MUST adhere to GPL.
We cannot make exceptions for software that vendors label as "beta". If we do, what's to stop everyone from calling their software "beta" and then continuing on to violate GPL with it?
We must consistently, vigorously defend Free Software.
Further, if we let Corel off the hook with this excuse, then the next company that tries to thwart GPL (visions of Redmond, anyone?) can simply use the same excuse. Bad.
I must also stress at this point that they wanted people to sign this as a legally-binding contract. I, of course, cannot possibly do so, as I am not willing to relinquish my rights to redistribute GPL software.
As I said before, moderation is completely stupid for a site as large as this. A system more like GroupLens is necessary, where the points for articles are tailored to each individual user's historical preferences. Why is slashdot not using this?
What you need is something more like GroupLens. This works as follows: Each person indicates, for each message read, whether or not he liked that message. These markings have no direct impact on the general public.
However, if you decide to use the feature, your markings are compared with others. The markings of people that have made selections similar to you in the past are given the most weight. Therefore, the articles that are given the most points are tailored to your specific preferences.
This is a far better solution. No more of this points madness; if people are not truthfully marking articles, it hurts nobody but themselves.
Why is slashdot not using this type of system?
I think this is an interesting extension to the
Free Software philosophy that has driven our cause. That free software not only enriches our lives but also saves them is indeed something to be proud of -- and has shown me, for one, that
Free Software can mean much more than I had previously imagined.
Many of these situations prefer to work in an e-mail only situation -- no shell accounts, no home directories, etc. Sendmail, I know, looks for accounts by checking passwd to determine if delivery to a given mailbox is valid. How can you do the same if people don't actually have an account on the box?