>GNU was popular before Linus even had a though about Linux.
GNU was around in one form or another before Linus even had a thought about Linux. You'd have to be charitable to call it "popular" even now, except in the sense of base, common and popular.
Look, are you taking the piss? Do you recall what you said? "FSF did do a lot for the whole OSS community". If you meant something by OSS other then Open Source Software (or Solutions in market droidish), please say so now.
Free Software is not Open Source software. This is not my opinion, it is the opinion of the FSF that you are evangelising. You said you'd read the article. Did you comprehend it? Are we clear on this issue?
Linux - even according to RMS - is Free software, not Open Source.
There may be circa 1991 Open Source forks of it kicking around, forked before Linus made it Free (i.e. GPL). Can you find any?
Linux is Free, not Open Source.
Try again. Try the same argument with GCC and BSD. That does work. The same argument can be made for GNU tools helping non-Free, non-Open developers, but that doesn't invalidate the GCC helped BSD argument. It's disappointing that I've had to make that argument for you. I'll try and not draw too many conclusions about what that says about the standard of Free (or Open) software users.
Well, GNU Hurd has run more or less as well as it does today (i.e. not very well, on two specific machines in RMS's basement), since 1993 or perhaps even earlier. It's a toss up whether GNU/Hurd, GNU/BSD or GNU/Linux came first; mostly it depends on what you define as a complete operating system. BSD seems complete enough for most of its users and their rummage sale hardware. Linux will never be complete, because it's always playing driver catch-up with new hardware. Hurd... is complete in the way that special needs children are all winners for taking part.
The author then goes on to say "In general, the issue is where the boundary lies between derivative works and independent works. All programs run on Unix use a Unix API; do they therefore become derivative works? Presumably not. However, when writing a program that runs on Unix, I might look at Unix source code if I have access to it; does that make my program a derivative work? It seems, from SCO's comments, that it might claim this is so."
Thanks for the link, but the API inference is entirely your own, in contradiction with the article, and I still call (with respect) hyperbole on you.
Can you explain precisely what "GNU stuff" (i.e. GPL licensed code) is used by the "Open Source" community, when "Open Source" is defined by the FSF to mean software that isn't Free, i.e. GPL? It's tautology.
Hint: you can argue that Open Source projects can use GPL binaries to produce their software. But so can Microsoft.
You can also find some (not many) examples of code being released under the GPL, then later released under a different Open Source license by its copyright owner. But the FSF never does that, and that's what we were discussing.
Now, exactly what "GNU stuff" are you talking about?
> It's goal was to fight the smear campaign against GNU, Linux, et al.
What article are you reading? The one I'm reading says that GNU's Not linUx, that GNU's not liable, and that GNU doesn't need Linux. Maybe it's because I've met RMS, so I can hear his voice reading this out, but what I'm hearing, sotto vocce, is that RMS has been warning Linus about this for years, and Linux can go screw itself as far as he's concerned.
Niiiiice. Counter an ad hominem with a pro hominem. Way to show me up.
What arguments did he make directly related to this case? If he'd bothered to make a (new) argument, I'd have bothered to comment on it. But this is just the standard FSF press release. We've been over this, again and again. There's nothing new here. It's just the exact same rhetoric as he's been pushing since 1990 or so.
By the way, it's completely correct rhetoric, as I said (and if you've met RMS, you'll know that "filthy socialist hippy" is a completely factual description). But enough with the sharing, Richard. Try creating some new content.
> the compiler sees const == nonconst differently than nonconst == const?
No, but it sees const == non const differently from const = non const. Did you see the difference? This is the number 1 typo made by programmers, and the easiest to catch if you just habitually put the const on the left.
Incidentally, the FSF has done nothing for the "OSS community", because it eschews it. Please don't lecture me about understanding RMS's philosophy when you can't even make the distinction between Free and Open.
Hey, don't get me wrong, he's 100% correct. I just wish he'd drop the evangelising, just once, and deal with the issue at hand rather than turning it into yet another opportunity to deliver the stock lecture.
Also, read what I said: "filthy socialist hippy". Singular. Have you met him? I have. He's filthy. He's a socialist. He's a hippy. It was meant in a jocular way, but it's completely accurate.
I read every single word of the article, and it read very nearly like every single word of every single other article that he's ever written.
He sheds no specific insight on this case, he doesn't "cut through the FUD", he just evangelises his own position, in exactly the same way he always does, while admitting that he has no idea what SCO's position is, except that whatever it is, it's probably wrong. This is not an article about SCO, it's just YARMSAA (Yet Another RMS Autobiographical Article).
By the way, it's ad hominem, not "ad homonem". You humourless dingbat.
Thanks, interesting article. Although I have to point out that by saing "There's Cringely too" you kind of implied that RMS actually talked about SCO instead of just recycling the standard FSF "Say, would you like to try GNU Hurd?" press release.
Huh? Are you sure he actually mentioned the issue at hand rather than dedicating every single word to explaining why GNU's Not linUx? That would be out of character.
Dream on. You're talking about a man who insists that his license has both a preamble to explain what the license is about to tell you, and a coda to explain what it's just told you. RMS is stuck in --very-verbose mode, and this was just the usual FSF press release with "SCO, uh, I dunno" pencilled in to make it look relevant.
You're confusing two things. RMS newspeak (GNUspeak?) means exactly squat. Maybe a dozen hippies worldwide care about it, and Linus isn't one of them. What does count is his paranoid-bordering-on-schitzophrenic obsession with making sure that GNU's Not Unix is true in fact as well as rhetoric.
He'll get his though. Sooner or later, one of the GNU (not Linux) contributors who hasn't assigned copyright to the FSF will go off in a huff, send a cease-and-desist, explicitely revoke the implicitely licensed GPL right to duplicate their source (note: license != contract), and then bring a suit for copyright infringement if the FSF distribute even one more copy of their source.
To achieve his dream, the GPL needs to mandate (at most) assigning copyright to the FSF, or (at least) demanding that the distribution license is irevocable and in perpetuity and that patent licenses must also be so and be explicitely disclosed and licensed in GPL source distributions.
It won't happen, because to do so would highlight that GPL version 2 does not demand this. Oopsie.
It's just the standard FSF press release with "SCO" pencilled in. He barely even mentions SCO except to use it as the latest example of why everyone else in the world is a cretin for confusing GNU and Linux. The usual exhortations to adopt his version of newspeak are in there, as is the ritual flogging of poor dead GNU Hurd, and the reliable old prediction that GNU will shed Linux Real Soon Now anyway.
Notable exceptions are a lack of a lecture about the difference between Free and Open, and there are only five mentions (including the title) of GNU being a "community". C'mon Richard, get with the five year program.
Quick note: I paid for a SuSE linux pro boxed distro precisely because I didn't have to. I actually felt good about it (until I discovered that the cheap bastards had stopped shipping the "powered by" stickers in 8.0). Also, for many businesses, paying for a distro is cheaper than the time required to download and burn it and put together some basic printed documentation.
Fair enough, thanks for that. It's not an exception to the GPL though, as the original poster claimed. It's an assertion of applicability. That the GPL requires this assertion highlights once again just what a badly written, over verbose, under specified mess it is. I'm sticking to my IP lawyer's advice, which is to let some other sucker be the one to pay to clarify the GPL in court. Step up to the plate, IBM.
Instead of waiting for the [MP|RI]AA to kill them, they decide to commit suicide.
They push viruses. They (try to) push spyware. They (try to) sell my CPU and bandwidth. Now they want me to pay them for the priviledge of receiving content from Bob. And they expect me to give that content to Sally when she pays them.
In other words, they want us to pay to commit (in the [MP|RI]AA's eyes) piracy, with only their say-so that it's above board.
Here's a better idea. When I want to download from Bob, I pay Bob and trust him to pass the money on to the rights holders. When Sally wants to download from me, she pays me. Kazaa can go screw themselves, and die penniless and alone. Hell, I'll cheer on the [MP|RI]AA when they finally bring these fuckers down.
You think that a company that's asserting that the technology (peer to peer) is here to stay would realise that the moment they try to turn that technology into Kazaa-to-slave, they'll be dropped faster than SCO shares.
I walked away from Kazaa (lite) a long time ago. eDonkey (well, eMule) is where it's at today. When that goes darkside (maybe tomorrow), there's always gnutella. P2P is here to stay. Rosen and Valenti can't stop it. Kazaa can't sell it out. They need to realise that the days of obscene profits from music and movies are over. It will be lean days ahead, and while that sucks for the working Joes in those industries, well, if you're still making buggy whips when the first automobile drives into town, you belong to the past, not the future.
I agree. SCO can and should be sued by the other rights owners, perhaps as a class action. What I am wondering is how a court will interpret their defence, which will be that the GPL gives them let and leave to do whatever the hell they like, as long as they follow the terms of the license, i.e. either refrain from duplicating the code, or duplicate it with a GPL license text attached...regardless of whether they ignoring this license and are prosecuting third parties for duplicating their copyrighted source.
It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Claiming GPL protection from copyright violation while at the same time ignoring it to prosecute violation of your own GPL'd source. But these will be separate cases, heard by separate courts, each of them run by a judge who is determined to keep the arguments focussed on her case. This could get very messy indeed.
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>GNU was popular before Linus even had a though about Linux.
GNU was around in one form or another before Linus even had a thought about Linux. You'd have to be charitable to call it "popular" even now, except in the sense of base, common and popular.
Look, are you taking the piss? Do you recall what you said? "FSF did do a lot for the whole OSS community". If you meant something by OSS other then Open Source Software (or Solutions in market droidish), please say so now.
Free Software is not Open Source software. This is not my opinion, it is the opinion of the FSF that you are evangelising. You said you'd read the article. Did you comprehend it? Are we clear on this issue?
Linux - even according to RMS - is Free software, not Open Source.
There may be circa 1991 Open Source forks of it kicking around, forked before Linus made it Free (i.e. GPL). Can you find any?
Linux is Free, not Open Source.
Try again. Try the same argument with GCC and BSD. That does work. The same argument can be made for GNU tools helping non-Free, non-Open developers, but that doesn't invalidate the GCC helped BSD argument. It's disappointing that I've had to make that argument for you. I'll try and not draw too many conclusions about what that says about the standard of Free (or Open) software users.
Well, GNU Hurd has run more or less as well as it does today (i.e. not very well, on two specific machines in RMS's basement), since 1993 or perhaps even earlier. It's a toss up whether GNU/Hurd, GNU/BSD or GNU/Linux came first; mostly it depends on what you define as a complete operating system. BSD seems complete enough for most of its users and their rummage sale hardware. Linux will never be complete, because it's always playing driver catch-up with new hardware. Hurd... is complete in the way that special needs children are all winners for taking part.
The author then goes on to say "In general, the issue is where the boundary lies between derivative works and independent works. All programs run on Unix use a Unix API; do they therefore become derivative works? Presumably not. However, when writing a program that runs on Unix, I might look at Unix source code if I have access to it; does that make my program a derivative work? It seems, from SCO's comments, that it might claim this is so."
Thanks for the link, but the API inference is entirely your own, in contradiction with the article, and I still call (with respect) hyperbole on you.
Can you explain precisely what "GNU stuff" (i.e. GPL licensed code) is used by the "Open Source" community, when "Open Source" is defined by the FSF to mean software that isn't Free, i.e. GPL? It's tautology.
Hint: you can argue that Open Source projects can use GPL binaries to produce their software. But so can Microsoft.
You can also find some (not many) examples of code being released under the GPL, then later released under a different Open Source license by its copyright owner. But the FSF never does that, and that's what we were discussing.
Now, exactly what "GNU stuff" are you talking about?
> It's goal was to fight the smear campaign against GNU, Linux, et al.
What article are you reading? The one I'm reading says that GNU's Not linUx, that GNU's not liable, and that GNU doesn't need Linux. Maybe it's because I've met RMS, so I can hear his voice reading this out, but what I'm hearing, sotto vocce, is that RMS has been warning Linus about this for years, and Linux can go screw itself as far as he's concerned.
> GNU, Linux, whoever
No, just GNU. Linux can go screw itself.
Niiiiice. Counter an ad hominem with a pro hominem. Way to show me up.
What arguments did he make directly related to this case? If he'd bothered to make a (new) argument, I'd have bothered to comment on it. But this is just the standard FSF press release. We've been over this, again and again. There's nothing new here. It's just the exact same rhetoric as he's been pushing since 1990 or so.
By the way, it's completely correct rhetoric, as I said (and if you've met RMS, you'll know that "filthy socialist hippy" is a completely factual description). But enough with the sharing, Richard. Try creating some new content.
> the compiler sees const == nonconst differently than nonconst == const?
No, but it sees const == non const differently from const = non const. Did you see the difference? This is the number 1 typo made by programmers, and the easiest to catch if you just habitually put the const on the left.
Incidentally, the FSF has done nothing for the "OSS community", because it eschews it. Please don't lecture me about understanding RMS's philosophy when you can't even make the distinction between Free and Open.
Hey, don't get me wrong, he's 100% correct. I just wish he'd drop the evangelising, just once, and deal with the issue at hand rather than turning it into yet another opportunity to deliver the stock lecture.
Also, read what I said: "filthy socialist hippy". Singular. Have you met him? I have. He's filthy. He's a socialist. He's a hippy. It was meant in a jocular way, but it's completely accurate.
>Did you even read the article?
I read every single word of the article, and it read very nearly like every single word of every single other article that he's ever written.
He sheds no specific insight on this case, he doesn't "cut through the FUD", he just evangelises his own position, in exactly the same way he always does, while admitting that he has no idea what SCO's position is, except that whatever it is, it's probably wrong. This is not an article about SCO, it's just YARMSAA (Yet Another RMS Autobiographical Article).
By the way, it's ad hominem, not "ad homonem". You humourless dingbat.
Thanks, interesting article. Although I have to point out that by saing "There's Cringely too" you kind of implied that RMS actually talked about SCO instead of just recycling the standard FSF "Say, would you like to try GNU Hurd?" press release.
> SCO actually claim that code written by 3rd parties is theirs if it's written to a Unix API.
Where do they claim that? Can you quote it? This situation is bad enough without hyperbole.
Huh? Are you sure he actually mentioned the issue at hand rather than dedicating every single word to explaining why GNU's Not linUx? That would be out of character.
Dream on. You're talking about a man who insists that his license has both a preamble to explain what the license is about to tell you, and a coda to explain what it's just told you. RMS is stuck in --very-verbose mode, and this was just the usual FSF press release with "SCO, uh, I dunno" pencilled in to make it look relevant.
You're confusing two things. RMS newspeak (GNUspeak?) means exactly squat. Maybe a dozen hippies worldwide care about it, and Linus isn't one of them. What does count is his paranoid-bordering-on-schitzophrenic obsession with making sure that GNU's Not Unix is true in fact as well as rhetoric.
He'll get his though. Sooner or later, one of the GNU (not Linux) contributors who hasn't assigned copyright to the FSF will go off in a huff, send a cease-and-desist, explicitely revoke the implicitely licensed GPL right to duplicate their source (note: license != contract), and then bring a suit for copyright infringement if the FSF distribute even one more copy of their source.
To achieve his dream, the GPL needs to mandate (at most) assigning copyright to the FSF, or (at least) demanding that the distribution license is irevocable and in perpetuity and that patent licenses must also be so and be explicitely disclosed and licensed in GPL source distributions.
It won't happen, because to do so would highlight that GPL version 2 does not demand this. Oopsie.
It's just the standard FSF press release with "SCO" pencilled in. He barely even mentions SCO except to use it as the latest example of why everyone else in the world is a cretin for confusing GNU and Linux. The usual exhortations to adopt his version of newspeak are in there, as is the ritual flogging of poor dead GNU Hurd, and the reliable old prediction that GNU will shed Linux Real Soon Now anyway.
Notable exceptions are a lack of a lecture about the difference between Free and Open, and there are only five mentions (including the title) of GNU being a "community". C'mon Richard, get with the five year program.
Jesting aside, it does show some restraint on his part to just use the standard press release, rather than writing a piece along the lines of "I warned you! But did you listen to me? Oh, no, you knew it all, didn't you? Oh, it's just a harmless little bunny, isn't it? Well, it's always the same, I always--". Fair props to RMS, he's been warning about this for years. Who'd have thought that the filthy socialist hippy would be right?
> A few anecdotes do not imply general public knowledge.
Fool! What do you know about marketing?
Also the opposite result. And anyone using "non const == const" instead of "const == non const" needs a beating with a cluestick.
Aaah, nit picking, my favourite pastime.
Quick note: I paid for a SuSE linux pro boxed distro precisely because I didn't have to. I actually felt good about it (until I discovered that the cheap bastards had stopped shipping the "powered by" stickers in 8.0). Also, for many businesses, paying for a distro is cheaper than the time required to download and burn it and put together some basic printed documentation.
Linux is only free if you don't value your time.
Fair enough, thanks for that. It's not an exception to the GPL though, as the original poster claimed. It's an assertion of applicability. That the GPL requires this assertion highlights once again just what a badly written, over verbose, under specified mess it is. I'm sticking to my IP lawyer's advice, which is to let some other sucker be the one to pay to clarify the GPL in court. Step up to the plate, IBM.
Um, you do realise that the lindows default is to log you on as root, right? sudo'd users is a step forward. And why would you sudo rpm?
Think, then type.
Instead of waiting for the [MP|RI]AA to kill them, they decide to commit suicide.
They push viruses. They (try to) push spyware. They (try to) sell my CPU and bandwidth. Now they want me to pay them for the priviledge of receiving content from Bob. And they expect me to give that content to Sally when she pays them.
In other words, they want us to pay to commit (in the [MP|RI]AA's eyes) piracy, with only their say-so that it's above board.
Here's a better idea. When I want to download from Bob, I pay Bob and trust him to pass the money on to the rights holders. When Sally wants to download from me, she pays me. Kazaa can go screw themselves, and die penniless and alone. Hell, I'll cheer on the [MP|RI]AA when they finally bring these fuckers down.
You think that a company that's asserting that the technology (peer to peer) is here to stay would realise that the moment they try to turn that technology into Kazaa-to-slave, they'll be dropped faster than SCO shares.
I walked away from Kazaa (lite) a long time ago. eDonkey (well, eMule) is where it's at today. When that goes darkside (maybe tomorrow), there's always gnutella. P2P is here to stay. Rosen and Valenti can't stop it. Kazaa can't sell it out. They need to realise that the days of obscene profits from music and movies are over. It will be lean days ahead, and while that sucks for the working Joes in those industries, well, if you're still making buggy whips when the first automobile drives into town, you belong to the past, not the future.
Fair enough. I wonder if that's predicated on a good faith interpretation of the GPL though. That's pretty much the opposite of the way SCO view it.
I agree. SCO can and should be sued by the other rights owners, perhaps as a class action. What I am wondering is how a court will interpret their defence, which will be that the GPL gives them let and leave to do whatever the hell they like, as long as they follow the terms of the license, i.e. either refrain from duplicating the code, or duplicate it with a GPL license text attached...regardless of whether they ignoring this license and are prosecuting third parties for duplicating their copyrighted source.
It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Claiming GPL protection from copyright violation while at the same time ignoring it to prosecute violation of your own GPL'd source. But these will be separate cases, heard by separate courts, each of them run by a judge who is determined to keep the arguments focussed on her case. This could get very messy indeed.