This is what my dictionary says "free" means. The following definitions are what the "free" in free software mean:
3. Not controlled by an outside power; autonomous. 4. Not bound by restrictions or regulations: free trade. 9. Not controlled, restricted, or hampered by outside agents or influences. 12. Available to all; open: a free port.
These are some notable definitions that Stallman does not mean by free software:
1. Having personal liberty. 2. Having civil, political, or religious liberty. 15. Given or provided for without charge or cost: free seats.
So the phrase "free software" does mean what he intends it to mean, "unrestricted". Anyone who believes he means definition 1 or 2 in my dictionary, is a fool. If this is propaganda, its rather poor, don't you think?
Also, free software doesn't necessarily mean free of *all* restrictions, which seems to be your only complaint, just as free trade doesn't mean trade without *any* restriction. In both cases, it simply means you are generally not restricted in what you may do. By all accounts, the GPL is an unrestrictive license even if it doesn't allow you to relicense the work. Without the GPL, you wouldn't be able to copy the program, obtain source code, or distribute your own modifications.
"So now I'm not sure what to think of RMS. His views are extreme, and they don't sell very well to the average person. But extremeism is needed, so let him do all that he can to further the cause."
This is unfortunate but happens a lot. I hate to use a cliche, but its like what your elementary teachers told you, everyone thought Columbus was crazy when he told people the earth was round (which is way simplified, of course, and wrong in many ways--but I don't want to digress).
The point is that RMS isn't flawed in his thinking because your friend didn't like your idea. And you can't counter his arguments with his personality.
Now perhaps I'm being a little rash, since you don't seem to have said that he is wrong. But it disturbs me when people are disturbed with ideas because they are unpopular.
And this is one of the reasons I have a great amount of admiration for Richard Stallman. His ideas aren't popular, yet no one has convinced him that he is wrong, so he holds to his beliefs and is the greatest advocate of his beliefs. Of course, this could mean he is a nut and holds onto his beliefs irrationally. But everything I've read, everything I've heard from this man says otherwise.
So even if you don't have the sort of respect for him that I do, respond to his ideas, not the reaction of other people to him. Don't discount him because some screw-off on Slashdot hates his guts, or even because Torvalds thinks he thinking with his gonads. If someone has a real objection to his philosophy, I'd love to hear them. But so far, not Torvalds, not Bill Gates, not many people have offered them. Too many people right off these ideas as "extremist". Remember, extremist means a certain idea or group are unpopular, it doesn't mean they are wrong.
I am replying to this assuming you're not a troll.
You have things quite a bit muddled up.
Before you begin again spouting FUD about RMS, please at least read it from the horse's mouth. Most of his essays are at www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html . His views are quite legitimate and are highly regarded by a lot of people. No where does he believe that information should be free. Rather, he beleives quite strongly that software should be free. They are not quite the same thing.
I'm sure every troll can come up with his own definition of free. But RMS has defined what he considers free quite explicit. On the philosophy page, click on the link called What is Free Software? and you should find the FSF definition. If you have a difference of opinion, then you could of course email Stallman himself. His email address has always been the same: rms@gnu.org . And he usually does reply to most people's email.
But if you choose to do so, I hope you would offer quite a bit more humility than you have shown here. There has been quite a bit of FUD, even lies, spouted here on Slashdot, including your "informations should be free" characterization. It would be unfair to confront him with these misconceptions. Think of emailing Stallman in the same way as emailing Linus Torvalds, Miguel de Izaca, or Steve Jobs. He's in the same league of hackers, perhaps moreso.
As far as rhetoric goes, I think it is quite far from giving an "I have a dream" speech. I advocate a specific form a freedom and a specific form of ethics. This does not make it any less important, however.
Frankly, I'm quite excited by this movement. Its a positive change, and my rhetoric will continue to express my excitement.
"I'm not sure if you intended this to have a positive or negative connotation, or any connotation at all."
Actually, the whole post was simply how I felt the relationship between Apple and the free software community would end up. Issues about intellectual property are going to be what divides them.
Now I'll offer my own opinion.
"But in the interest of being fair, Apple came by their intellectual property the hard way: by tucking in and innovating the hell out of the personal computer."
You're right. Apple is smart. But intellectual property is merely a form of power, a power that can be used for Great Good, Great Evil, and Great Wealth, some times all three at the same time.
Free software, ultimately is a rebellion against that form of power.
"Every time Apple sends a cease-and-desist letter to some kid who posted an Aqua theme for windowmanager-you-like on the web, I let out a little cheer, because it means Apple still cares about doing it right."
Thats a scary position to take. And funny if it wasn't so serious. This kind of power is a destruction of liberty.
"When people like RMS say things like, ``software should be free,'' and ``intellectual property patents are bad,'' they're not speaking in specific or limited terms."
Actually, the free software definition can be found here.
And I agree with the other reply to your post with the definition of monopoly.
I'm not sure if Apple and the GNU/Linux community are as compatible as you might think, for the following reasons:
Apple at times seems rather militaristic about its intellectual property. Unless Apple gets a change in attitude, this will continue to piss off free software people.
In a sense, the GPL is a force against the spirit of intellectual property, even though it uses this system. The purpose of the GNU GPL is to allow and protect free software.
For the core free software people, the APSL is almost, but not quite free software since it has a disrespect for the privacy of the developers of the software. See here for the FSF position.
But I imagine that the Apple and free software community will get along for the most part, mostly because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They both share specifc goals in common including:
They both want to unlock the Microsoft monopoly of the operating system.
So far, it seems Apple doesn't have any DRM plans and in fact, their advertising seems to show some kind of rebellion against this technology.
However, there is a very large risk with the free software community getting too friendly with Apple and Co. Nobody wants to see one monopoly simply replaced with another. And if Apple managed this position, their monopoly would be much stronger. With the control over the hardware as they do, they'd have no one to publish specifications of the hardware.
In other words, if Apple was in Microsoft's position right now, a free software rebellion couldn't happen. GNU/Linux would simply not exist.
Software development isn't cheap. Anyone can tell you that. Programmers make quite a bit more money than I do.
And I can definitely see your point of view. Since I now use entirely free software, I don't have to worry about copyright anymore. But copyright is an issue with proprietary software. For the most part, it isn't right to pirate software (such an awful term) because copyright is the law and these industries are honest in basing their business on the law. But there is a rather large ethical exception to this, in my opinion.
Its when developers use copyright as a means to force upgrades. Believe it or not, people don't always upgrade their software because of some compelling feature or improvement in the software. Some people are being charged an arm and a leg just to remain compatible with everyone else. Thankfully, some clear-minded people have decided to use free software in the infrastructure of the internet. But we still have the same problem in other areas. People upgrading to the next version of Word so that they can read the files they recieve. And what about in third world countries. It sounds like they can not even install a proprietary operating system, simply because the price is not adjusted to their economy. No wonder piracy is such a large problem there. I see no ethical problem here, either.
Also there is the matter of the technical divide. I honestly don't know a lot about it, but it seems that the difference between the haves and havenots is also one of technology. Now computer prices have gone down quite a bit, but software seems to have not have. Is it legitamate to pirate the software in this case? I'm not really certain.
Also, there's the problem of when your friend wants to borrow your Windows CD because he lost his or he has to reinstall the OS that came with his computer. If I'm not mistaken, some software licenses won't allow you to resell the software, or disassemble it. At this point, its no longer an issue of copyright but of control.
The law it seems is relatively well defined compared to the ethical issues copyright raises. So if you want argue against piracy on ethical grounds, there has to be more than "look at all the hard work and expense they put into this software." And it should be noted that free software removes all these ethical problems since the effects of copyright are reversed.
When software was a luxury, things were a lot more excusable. But people need softwarwe. If they can't afford it, they will take it. And a system that says "if you can afford the software, pay, if not, just take it" wouldn't work either (who decides?).
(I hope no one takes this an in depth analysis because its all off the top of my head, and I'm rather baffled by these problems, personally)
But when do the training wheels come off? Either you learn to adapt to new environments easily, or you use an environment that will always be there and will always provide what you need it to do.
While you can rely on a language, you shouldn't need to rely on the tool. Especially proprietary tools.
This is probably one reason a lot of really good developers prefer the unix tools, mostly emacs or vi rather than the latest fad, because a fad is exactly what it is. One year its C++ and Visual Studio, the next year its Java, now its.NET and C#. Yet Unix people are still using the same tools they've always used, emacs or vi, and just drop in a new compiler and extend the syntax rules in the editor for the new programming language. On proprietary systems, developers purchase a new system.
So I think you're right when saying that developing in a "visual" environment is easier and you can catch on to programming quicker. But I believe that investing some more time into a "unix" tool is more valuable for your programming career. Actually, this isn't my idea--something I read on USENET.
And that's why I am spending time learning emacs. Because I don't think I'm wasting my time.
"All code under the GPL is copyrighted (owned) by the person (or group, or organisation) that wrote the code. GPLed code has owners. Why is this so hard for people to understand?"
There is a tangled web here to trap people trying to grapple this argument. I'm not sure if I can unravel it myself, but I will try.
It is true that code under the GPL is copyrighted, but does that necessarily mean it is owned? Of course, this depends on what you mean by ownership or even if ownership has any validity with intellectual works. This is all deeply philosophical, but its perhaps useful to know that Stallman (who launched the GNU Project) has an essay online called Why Software Should Not Have Owners. Its worth reading to understand the free software philosophy.
And this is the tangle. It seems the GPL was written to explicitly to write software that doesn't have owners, basically software that even the original hackers don't have any explicit control over.
This is far from being property-stripping (the right to license software is still exclusive to the writer of the code). But saying that copyright means ownership isn't always true in the sense that copyright means an exclusive right to copy. Since the GPL and other well known licenses explicitly allow you to distribute the software, the notion of copyright has been turned upside down--rather than preventing distribution copyright has been used to explicitly allow it. Some people use the term copyleft. And if ownership can be said to mean an exclusive right to distribute, then GPLed software isn't owned at all. Its public software (which is what the P in GPL stands for, after all) and much better than public domain for all but the more trivial works.
But it is true that any claims of "property-stripping" is just pure FUD.
Don't publish until you're ready. Besides, more complete projects tend to gain more developer interest than pre-alpha code.
But once you release the project, you're not in control anymore. Basically, you'll have to give reasons behind your code and hopefully your team will be able to figure out on what is The Right Way.
While it seems they had to pick what they considered the top 100 important events, surely the writing of the GNU GPL has to be more important to the development of Linux than many of the other things they choose to put in. Someone else responded that ESR publishing CatB was also not on there. CatB is really what made the term "Open Source" stick (people were calling it free software before then).
In all, the timeline seems to favor a lot of the publicity the operating system has had rather than many of the things that actually attracted developer interest.
Maybe Corel releasing a short-lived distribution and porting Word Perfect gained a lot of interest in the press, but it had no effect on my use of the OS.
Also, the GNU project seems to be strangely ignored (other than quotes from RMS saying how GNU has been ignored). There is still an incomplete GNU system out there, most components are still being developed, and these components are what make the system viable at all. Its just that both GNU and Linux are free so they have become rather indistinguishable in that they complement each other (people haven't found a need yet to write a serious competitor to the Gimp, or gcc, because they are free software).
So RMS does have a point when calling the system GNU/Linux, even if his advocacy is lacking somewhat in the finesse department:)
Of course, there are other projects like X Windows and TeX that GNU "adopted" as well as large contributions by Red Hat (which still makes its contributions free even with competitors that make some of their distributions binary-only). But somehow I doubt that these developments, while important, would make it into the top 100.
Personally, I love the LWN yearly timelines. They go into quite a bit more detail and thus lack these kinds of biases.
In my opinion, I would rank these things as important to the operating system in this order:
Actually, in the beginnings of Slashdot, the most prominent posters were coders. I remember Alan Cox, Bruce Perens, Rasterman, and plenty of other not-so-rememberable names posted here.
I don't think Linus ever posted here. Nor has RMS (even though he has had stories submitted).
"As usual, an open source drone has spouted business advice that has no relationship to the real world."
Of course, you don't mean to say that all free software advocates are drones, do you?
"They can't give it away for free. It has value. There are investors who paid hard cash for the development of the code and while they now know that they're not going to get it all back, they'd like to recoup some of their costs at least."
True. Most software companies are locked into a proprietary model.
But you don't mean to imply that everything that has value must be profited from, do you? I'd call that stance radical capitalism.
"I like open source software, and it has its place, but it's not the be-all and end-all of software development, no matter what RMS and his cronies may believe."
Actually, it could be and likely will. And maybe if you read what Stallman has to say with an open mind will you have a better understanding of what it is he has been spending most his life trying to do.
In fact, I am replying here to say I agree with you, despite being labelled an "RMS crony" and it is likely RMS would too. RMS has advocated a software tax in the past as a way of offsetting development costs. This is similar to what the Blender foundation are doing, in that with the tax scheme people get to choose which project they want their funds to go to.
Hey, I don't say software development is cheap even with the enormous amount of free software that is available. But proprietary software is not an acceptable model, we need to find a better way. I don't think this is it, but its a positive step IMHO.
But please keep in mind that there is a difference between someone who advocates the use and development of free software, and someone who wants all software for no cost.
The GPL exists because the government has, in a fit of profoundly illadvised stupidity, created a regime of government enforced monopolies designed to empower publishers while disempowering artists and consumers. As such, being an artificially maintained monopoly marketplace, the realm of copyright (and patents) is not something you can shrug off with physical, competetive market equivelents.
I am a GNU advocate and I believe that software should be free in the sense of freedom. I, however, don't agree with what you wrote.
But even Stallman uses copyright powers on every essay he writes, and his essays aren't free in the sense of freedom. Other than fair use, you aren't allowed modify his essays and publish them on your own website.
He reasons that there is not valid purpose to modify his views and opinions. But, he believes with everything (including music, books, and movies) there should be an unlimited right to redistribute verbatim.
On this point, I tend to disagree with Stallman.
But he makes an important distinction between what he calls "functional" works and "non-functional" works (sorry, he classifies MS Windows as "functional":). With functional works, he reasons that we must have the right to copy, modify, and redistribute. This is because we don't simply admire a piece of software, but we actually use it for our daily work. So if we want modify a piece of software to make our lives easier or to correct a nasty bug, that should be our right.
But with non-functional works, the same arguments become difficult to defend. Because while we all enjoyed "A Beautiful Mind" in the movie theatres, we don't have any real need to be allowed to modify the movie itself. However, I agree with the EFF's position that we should be allowed to time-shift and space-shift all works.
Now here is where I disagree with Stallman. The original reason for copyright was very valid. It gave authors a limited exclusive right to their works. This was so that authors could work on large intellectual works that would benefit culture and society, without having to find another job on the side as well. In addition, it was to protect publishers from having other publishers from just copying a popular work once it was published.
Now I find _The C++ Programming Language_ as a very useful reference and it would be sad if that work didn't exist because Stroustrup (and his publisher) didn't see much benefit from all that work into producing the book.
This is really the only point I disagree with Stallman. He is right in that free software needs free manuals to go along with it (it makes no sense to have rewrite a manual everytime the software changes).
However, I'd like the term of copyright for most works to be reduced quite a bit. For this reason, I am pretty anti-DRM and anti-Palladium, for the time being.
Really? Well, lets look at the actual license
on
Nick Moffitt Interview
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I don't know how you got moderated up. Perhaps this misconception is more prevalent than I thought.
If I actually buy a copy of Linux I can tear it apart and modify it, but I don't have the rights to simply resell my new creation.
If you are speaking about the GNU GPL, lets take a look at a part of the actual license:
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
(emphasis is mine)
Let me hit you over the head with it one more time. You can sell GPLed software for any cost you like, any cost that you think the market will allow.
The difference is that you don't get any exclusive right to the software. And that is what the Free Software Foundation means by freedom. That everyone who gets a copy of the software gets the right to copy, modify, redistribute, and even sell the software. These rights shouldn't be exclusive.
I have to essentially provide a free copy of my changes in raw form to Big Brother and everyone else in order to do that.
This is also wrong, simply with the quote from the GNU GPL above. The word "may" is important, it means you have the freedom to "may" or "may not" distribute the software. That means, I can't tell you to give me a copy of your GPLed web browser off your computer, even if you modified it. Its called privacy.
In fact, no respect for privacy was one of the original reasons the FSF considered the original version of the APSL as non-free.
After studying Apple's new source code license, the APSL, I have concluded that it falls short of being a free software license. It has three fatal flaws, any of which would be sufficient to make the software less than free.
Disrespect for privacy
The APSL does not allow you to make a modified version and use it for your own private purposes, without publishing your changes.
This is why people like me consider people like you, Mac Nuts.
You realize you are congratulating Apple for charging more? If Microsoft ups their prices, people say "damn", if Red Hat ups their prices (and you don't have a CD burner), people say "damn". But when Apple does pretty much absolutely anything, people say "Good job Apple, that'll show em."
First, I want to say how crazy that is.
Second, it reminds me of something. It was a speech Malcom X made he refered to what he considered black house slaves. The slaves that lived in the house with the owner were very obediant. They said "Yes sir!" with enthusiasm. Malcom X despised these people because they were so used to being slaves, that in some sense they didn't want to be free. And they loved their owner.
And that is what Mac Nuts remind me of. Mac users are very dependent on Apple for their computing needs. They visit "rumor" sites to find out what Apple is going to do next--because they know with all likelyhood whatever changes Apple makes is going to end up on their desktop. Their choice is two-fold, to upgrade or not to upgrade.
And the parent post is the kind of post that reminds me that Apple users have a natural regard to how well business is for Apple. This natural, because of their dependence of this company. If business is good for Apple, they will get better stuff. Apple users learn not to byte the hand that feeds them.
I know I am generalizing here and I'm sorry about this. Perhaps I am only responding to a vocal minorty.
But this form of loyalty to a company, to a brand, can not be good. No matter how good their stuff is.
And you're a Mac user for 18 years? Can anyone say addict?
Well, I thought you meant the technologies Mac OS X is using, like their PDF display engine.
As far as ease of use, we have that. From what I've heard, GNOME 2 has taken out a lot of its configuration options. Additionally, Sun has been doing a lot of usability studies on the GNOME interface.
Really, with KDE and GNOME, GNU/Linux is very easy to use.
Just remember, ease of use comes at a price. Making things too easy just isn't worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what my dictionary says "free" means. The following definitions are what the "free" in free software mean:
3. Not controlled by an outside power; autonomous. 4. Not bound by restrictions or regulations: free trade. 9. Not controlled, restricted, or hampered by outside agents or influences. 12. Available to all; open: a free port.
These are some notable definitions that Stallman does not mean by free software:
1. Having personal liberty. 2. Having civil, political, or religious liberty. 15. Given or provided for without charge or cost: free seats.
So the phrase "free software" does mean what he intends it to mean, "unrestricted". Anyone who believes he means definition 1 or 2 in my dictionary, is a fool. If this is propaganda, its rather poor, don't you think?
Also, free software doesn't necessarily mean free of *all* restrictions, which seems to be your only complaint, just as free trade doesn't mean trade without *any* restriction. In both cases, it simply means you are generally not restricted in what you may do. By all accounts, the GPL is an unrestrictive license even if it doesn't allow you to relicense the work. Without the GPL, you wouldn't be able to copy the program, obtain source code, or distribute your own modifications.
"So now I'm not sure what to think of RMS. His views are extreme, and they don't sell very well to the average person. But extremeism is needed, so let him do all that he can to further the cause."
This is unfortunate but happens a lot. I hate to use a cliche, but its like what your elementary teachers told you, everyone thought Columbus was crazy when he told people the earth was round (which is way simplified, of course, and wrong in many ways--but I don't want to digress).
The point is that RMS isn't flawed in his thinking because your friend didn't like your idea. And you can't counter his arguments with his personality.
Now perhaps I'm being a little rash, since you don't seem to have said that he is wrong. But it disturbs me when people are disturbed with ideas because they are unpopular.
And this is one of the reasons I have a great amount of admiration for Richard Stallman. His ideas aren't popular, yet no one has convinced him that he is wrong, so he holds to his beliefs and is the greatest advocate of his beliefs. Of course, this could mean he is a nut and holds onto his beliefs irrationally. But everything I've read, everything I've heard from this man says otherwise.
So even if you don't have the sort of respect for him that I do, respond to his ideas, not the reaction of other people to him. Don't discount him because some screw-off on Slashdot hates his guts, or even because Torvalds thinks he thinking with his gonads. If someone has a real objection to his philosophy, I'd love to hear them. But so far, not Torvalds, not Bill Gates, not many people have offered them. Too many people right off these ideas as "extremist". Remember, extremist means a certain idea or group are unpopular, it doesn't mean they are wrong.
I am replying to this assuming you're not a troll.
You have things quite a bit muddled up.
Before you begin again spouting FUD about RMS, please at least read it from the horse's mouth. Most of his essays are at www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html . His views are quite legitimate and are highly regarded by a lot of people. No where does he believe that information should be free. Rather, he beleives quite strongly that software should be free. They are not quite the same thing.
I'm sure every troll can come up with his own definition of free. But RMS has defined what he considers free quite explicit. On the philosophy page, click on the link called What is Free Software? and you should find the FSF definition. If you have a difference of opinion, then you could of course email Stallman himself. His email address has always been the same: rms@gnu.org . And he usually does reply to most people's email.
But if you choose to do so, I hope you would offer quite a bit more humility than you have shown here. There has been quite a bit of FUD, even lies, spouted here on Slashdot, including your "informations should be free" characterization. It would be unfair to confront him with these misconceptions. Think of emailing Stallman in the same way as emailing Linus Torvalds, Miguel de Izaca, or Steve Jobs. He's in the same league of hackers, perhaps moreso.
As far as rhetoric goes, I think it is quite far from giving an "I have a dream" speech. I advocate a specific form a freedom and a specific form of ethics. This does not make it any less important, however.
Frankly, I'm quite excited by this movement. Its a positive change, and my rhetoric will continue to express my excitement.
Dude, stop trolling. That was a nasty troll too.
Actually, the whole post was simply how I felt the relationship between Apple and the free software community would end up. Issues about intellectual property are going to be what divides them.
Now I'll offer my own opinion.
You're right. Apple is smart. But intellectual property is merely a form of power, a power that can be used for Great Good, Great Evil, and Great Wealth, some times all three at the same time.
Free software, ultimately is a rebellion against that form of power.
Thats a scary position to take. And funny if it wasn't so serious. This kind of power is a destruction of liberty.
Actually, the free software definition can be found here.
And I agree with the other reply to your post with the definition of monopoly.
I'm not sure if Apple and the GNU/Linux community are as compatible as you might think, for the following reasons:
But I imagine that the Apple and free software community will get along for the most part, mostly because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They both share specifc goals in common including:
However, there is a very large risk with the free software community getting too friendly with Apple and Co. Nobody wants to see one monopoly simply replaced with another. And if Apple managed this position, their monopoly would be much stronger. With the control over the hardware as they do, they'd have no one to publish specifications of the hardware.
In other words, if Apple was in Microsoft's position right now, a free software rebellion couldn't happen. GNU/Linux would simply not exist.
This is not fair.
Hell, close down slashdot before LWN. This site is pitiful in comparison.
Even during the most furious times, LWN has always been mature.
What the hell. What the hell.
Yet, on the LWN comments page, it looks the money is rolling in.
Maybe they will get their miracle. Wish I could help too--no money.
Thank you LWN. May the source be with you.
Always.
Software development isn't cheap. Anyone can tell you that. Programmers make quite a bit more money than I do.
And I can definitely see your point of view. Since I now use entirely free software, I don't have to worry about copyright anymore. But copyright is an issue with proprietary software. For the most part, it isn't right to pirate software (such an awful term) because copyright is the law and these industries are honest in basing their business on the law. But there is a rather large ethical exception to this, in my opinion.
Its when developers use copyright as a means to force upgrades. Believe it or not, people don't always upgrade their software because of some compelling feature or improvement in the software. Some people are being charged an arm and a leg just to remain compatible with everyone else. Thankfully, some clear-minded people have decided to use free software in the infrastructure of the internet. But we still have the same problem in other areas. People upgrading to the next version of Word so that they can read the files they recieve. And what about in third world countries. It sounds like they can not even install a proprietary operating system, simply because the price is not adjusted to their economy. No wonder piracy is such a large problem there. I see no ethical problem here, either.
Also there is the matter of the technical divide. I honestly don't know a lot about it, but it seems that the difference between the haves and havenots is also one of technology. Now computer prices have gone down quite a bit, but software seems to have not have. Is it legitamate to pirate the software in this case? I'm not really certain.
Also, there's the problem of when your friend wants to borrow your Windows CD because he lost his or he has to reinstall the OS that came with his computer. If I'm not mistaken, some software licenses won't allow you to resell the software, or disassemble it. At this point, its no longer an issue of copyright but of control.
The law it seems is relatively well defined compared to the ethical issues copyright raises. So if you want argue against piracy on ethical grounds, there has to be more than "look at all the hard work and expense they put into this software." And it should be noted that free software removes all these ethical problems since the effects of copyright are reversed.
When software was a luxury, things were a lot more excusable. But people need softwarwe. If they can't afford it, they will take it. And a system that says "if you can afford the software, pay, if not, just take it" wouldn't work either (who decides?).
(I hope no one takes this an in depth analysis because its all off the top of my head, and I'm rather baffled by these problems, personally)
But when do the training wheels come off? Either you learn to adapt to new environments easily, or you use an environment that will always be there and will always provide what you need it to do.
.NET and C#. Yet Unix people are still using the same tools they've always used, emacs or vi, and just drop in a new compiler and extend the syntax rules in the editor for the new programming language. On proprietary systems, developers purchase a new system.
While you can rely on a language, you shouldn't need to rely on the tool. Especially proprietary tools.
This is probably one reason a lot of really good developers prefer the unix tools, mostly emacs or vi rather than the latest fad, because a fad is exactly what it is. One year its C++ and Visual Studio, the next year its Java, now its
So I think you're right when saying that developing in a "visual" environment is easier and you can catch on to programming quicker. But I believe that investing some more time into a "unix" tool is more valuable for your programming career. Actually, this isn't my idea--something I read on USENET.
And that's why I am spending time learning emacs. Because I don't think I'm wasting my time.
Who runs java apps, anyway?
"All code under the GPL is copyrighted (owned) by the person (or group, or organisation) that wrote the code. GPLed code has owners. Why is this so hard for people to understand?"
There is a tangled web here to trap people trying to grapple this argument. I'm not sure if I can unravel it myself, but I will try.
It is true that code under the GPL is copyrighted, but does that necessarily mean it is owned? Of course, this depends on what you mean by ownership or even if ownership has any validity with intellectual works. This is all deeply philosophical, but its perhaps useful to know that Stallman (who launched the GNU Project) has an essay online called Why Software Should Not Have Owners. Its worth reading to understand the free software philosophy.
And this is the tangle. It seems the GPL was written to explicitly to write software that doesn't have owners, basically software that even the original hackers don't have any explicit control over.
This is far from being property-stripping (the right to license software is still exclusive to the writer of the code). But saying that copyright means ownership isn't always true in the sense that copyright means an exclusive right to copy. Since the GPL and other well known licenses explicitly allow you to distribute the software, the notion of copyright has been turned upside down--rather than preventing distribution copyright has been used to explicitly allow it. Some people use the term copyleft. And if ownership can be said to mean an exclusive right to distribute, then GPLed software isn't owned at all. Its public software (which is what the P in GPL stands for, after all) and much better than public domain for all but the more trivial works.
But it is true that any claims of "property-stripping" is just pure FUD.
Don't publish until you're ready. Besides, more complete projects tend to gain more developer interest than pre-alpha code.
But once you release the project, you're not in control anymore. Basically, you'll have to give reasons behind your code and hopefully your team will be able to figure out on what is The Right Way.
(not that I am speaking from experience)
Actually, he's right.
While it seems they had to pick what they considered the top 100 important events, surely the writing of the GNU GPL has to be more important to the development of Linux than many of the other things they choose to put in. Someone else responded that ESR publishing CatB was also not on there. CatB is really what made the term "Open Source" stick (people were calling it free software before then).
In all, the timeline seems to favor a lot of the publicity the operating system has had rather than many of the things that actually attracted developer interest.
Maybe Corel releasing a short-lived distribution and porting Word Perfect gained a lot of interest in the press, but it had no effect on my use of the OS.
Also, the GNU project seems to be strangely ignored (other than quotes from RMS saying how GNU has been ignored). There is still an incomplete GNU system out there, most components are still being developed, and these components are what make the system viable at all. Its just that both GNU and Linux are free so they have become rather indistinguishable in that they complement each other (people haven't found a need yet to write a serious competitor to the Gimp, or gcc, because they are free software).
So RMS does have a point when calling the system GNU/Linux, even if his advocacy is lacking somewhat in the finesse department :)
Of course, there are other projects like X Windows and TeX that GNU "adopted" as well as large contributions by Red Hat (which still makes its contributions free even with competitors that make some of their distributions binary-only). But somehow I doubt that these developments, while important, would make it into the top 100.
Personally, I love the LWN yearly timelines. They go into quite a bit more detail and thus lack these kinds of biases.
In my opinion, I would rank these things as important to the operating system in this order:
more or less :)
Actually, in the beginnings of Slashdot, the most prominent posters were coders. I remember Alan Cox, Bruce Perens, Rasterman, and plenty of other not-so-rememberable names posted here.
I don't think Linus ever posted here. Nor has RMS (even though he has had stories submitted).
"What's the difference between free/open source software and shareware, again?"
Freedom
"As usual, an open source drone has spouted business advice that has no relationship to the real world."
Of course, you don't mean to say that all free software advocates are drones, do you?
"They can't give it away for free. It has value. There are investors who paid hard cash for the development of the code and while they now know that they're not going to get it all back, they'd like to recoup some of their costs at least."
True. Most software companies are locked into a proprietary model.
But you don't mean to imply that everything that has value must be profited from, do you? I'd call that stance radical capitalism.
"I like open source software, and it has its place, but it's not the be-all and end-all of software development, no matter what RMS and his cronies may believe."
Actually, it could be and likely will. And maybe if you read what Stallman has to say with an open mind will you have a better understanding of what it is he has been spending most his life trying to do.
In fact, I am replying here to say I agree with you, despite being labelled an "RMS crony" and it is likely RMS would too. RMS has advocated a software tax in the past as a way of offsetting development costs. This is similar to what the Blender foundation are doing, in that with the tax scheme people get to choose which project they want their funds to go to.
Hey, I don't say software development is cheap even with the enormous amount of free software that is available. But proprietary software is not an acceptable model, we need to find a better way. I don't think this is it, but its a positive step IMHO.
But please keep in mind that there is a difference between someone who advocates the use and development of free software, and someone who wants all software for no cost.
I am a GNU advocate and I believe that software should be free in the sense of freedom. I, however, don't agree with what you wrote.
But even Stallman uses copyright powers on every essay he writes, and his essays aren't free in the sense of freedom. Other than fair use, you aren't allowed modify his essays and publish them on your own website.
He reasons that there is not valid purpose to modify his views and opinions. But, he believes with everything (including music, books, and movies) there should be an unlimited right to redistribute verbatim.
On this point, I tend to disagree with Stallman.
But he makes an important distinction between what he calls "functional" works and "non-functional" works (sorry, he classifies MS Windows as "functional" :). With functional works, he reasons that we must have the right to copy, modify, and redistribute. This is because we don't simply admire a piece of software, but we actually use it for our daily work. So if we want modify a piece of software to make our lives easier or to correct a nasty bug, that should be our right.
But with non-functional works, the same arguments become difficult to defend. Because while we all enjoyed "A Beautiful Mind" in the movie theatres, we don't have any real need to be allowed to modify the movie itself. However, I agree with the EFF's position that we should be allowed to time-shift and space-shift all works.
Now here is where I disagree with Stallman. The original reason for copyright was very valid. It gave authors a limited exclusive right to their works. This was so that authors could work on large intellectual works that would benefit culture and society, without having to find another job on the side as well. In addition, it was to protect publishers from having other publishers from just copying a popular work once it was published.
Now I find _The C++ Programming Language_ as a very useful reference and it would be sad if that work didn't exist because Stroustrup (and his publisher) didn't see much benefit from all that work into producing the book.
This is really the only point I disagree with Stallman. He is right in that free software needs free manuals to go along with it (it makes no sense to have rewrite a manual everytime the software changes).
However, I'd like the term of copyright for most works to be reduced quite a bit. For this reason, I am pretty anti-DRM and anti-Palladium, for the time being.
I don't know how you got moderated up. Perhaps this misconception is more prevalent than I thought.
If you are speaking about the GNU GPL, lets take a look at a part of the actual license:
The actual license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
(emphasis is mine)
Let me hit you over the head with it one more time. You can sell GPLed software for any cost you like, any cost that you think the market will allow.
The difference is that you don't get any exclusive right to the software. And that is what the Free Software Foundation means by freedom. That everyone who gets a copy of the software gets the right to copy, modify, redistribute, and even sell the software. These rights shouldn't be exclusive.
This is also wrong, simply with the quote from the GNU GPL above. The word "may" is important, it means you have the freedom to "may" or "may not" distribute the software. That means, I can't tell you to give me a copy of your GPLed web browser off your computer, even if you modified it. Its called privacy.
In fact, no respect for privacy was one of the original reasons the FSF considered the original version of the APSL as non-free.
From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html
Marketing doesn't have to mean treating your potential customers like idiots.
"Good job, Apple."
This is why people like me consider people like you, Mac Nuts.
You realize you are congratulating Apple for charging more? If Microsoft ups their prices, people say "damn", if Red Hat ups their prices (and you don't have a CD burner), people say "damn". But when Apple does pretty much absolutely anything, people say "Good job Apple, that'll show em."
First, I want to say how crazy that is.
Second, it reminds me of something. It was a speech Malcom X made he refered to what he considered black house slaves. The slaves that lived in the house with the owner were very obediant. They said "Yes sir!" with enthusiasm. Malcom X despised these people because they were so used to being slaves, that in some sense they didn't want to be free. And they loved their owner.
And that is what Mac Nuts remind me of. Mac users are very dependent on Apple for their computing needs. They visit "rumor" sites to find out what Apple is going to do next--because they know with all likelyhood whatever changes Apple makes is going to end up on their desktop. Their choice is two-fold, to upgrade or not to upgrade.
And the parent post is the kind of post that reminds me that Apple users have a natural regard to how well business is for Apple. This natural, because of their dependence of this company. If business is good for Apple, they will get better stuff. Apple users learn not to byte the hand that feeds them.
I know I am generalizing here and I'm sorry about this. Perhaps I am only responding to a vocal minorty.
But this form of loyalty to a company, to a brand, can not be good. No matter how good their stuff is.
And you're a Mac user for 18 years? Can anyone say addict?
Well, I thought you meant the technologies Mac OS X is using, like their PDF display engine.
As far as ease of use, we have that. From what I've heard, GNOME 2 has taken out a lot of its configuration options. Additionally, Sun has been doing a lot of usability studies on the GNOME interface.
Really, with KDE and GNOME, GNU/Linux is very easy to use.
Just remember, ease of use comes at a price. Making things too easy just isn't worth it.
You make a good point but I believe Miguel deserves quite a bit of credit for all the work he has done and his optimism.
In other words, give him a break. If you know someone specifically who has had this problem, let him speak for himself.
Oh, and Miguel if you get around to reading this, thanks.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the kernel, I'm more interested in other areas.
Is there a link or something explaining what a preemptible kernel is?
"Free software should look to Mac OS X for some ideas on how to make a good interface."
Absolutely. And, well, my senses say that something like that is cooking.
All software should be free.
(if you don't know what I mean by free, then click on my sig)