Um, FSF isn't just claiming to own the code; they actually DO own it. Just because most of the development isn't done by people paid by the FSF doesn't mean much - a lot of the GCC 2.7 developers work on egcs. I suppose you think all of GCC development prior to egcs was the FSF fucking it up? You complain about GCC 2.8 being buggy when egcs is nearly by definition buggy and experimental? I'm not certain about all the reasons behind removing glibc 2.1, but the developers would certainly know what is capable of compiling it before they release it.
The G isn't silent in GNU. And since Linux only makes less than 1% of a distribution, obviously, calling it GNU. with the period being part of the L in 'Linux' is much more reasonable.
The thoughts brought up by the name Linux are very different than the thoughts brought up by the name GNU. Very similar to the differing philosophies of Open Source (tm) and Free Software. Open Source (tm)'s benefits are PR and quality. Free Software's benefit is freedom. Calling the OS 'Linux' is a cry for popularity. Calling the OS 'GNU/Linux' is a cry for understanding. Yes, the name 'GNU/Linux' is a bit unwieldy, bit I'd rather have my words a bit more difficult to say than not mean my intentions.
1) By looking at the source code of windows, and incorporating knowledge gained from it, Wine becomes a derivative work. The only way around this is a clean-room reimplementation, which is what Wine is currently doing. If any of the developers see windows source code, they are said to be 'tainted' and can't work on the clean side of the project, i.e., they can't write any code for it.
2) Windows being Open Source (tm) does not imply its license is compatible with the Wine license. ASPL and QPL are Open Source (tm) (or at least ESR says so), but their source isn't beneficial to other projects as their licenses are incompatible with everything else in existence.
egcs is owned by the FSF. It is definitely GNU. So they'd have to use some other compiler. It's the same people who want to make a BSD/Linux as want to implement unix in Perl. By making BSD/Linux, there becomes even more reason to say GNU/Linux to distinguish the two.
Actually, MS releasing their source code makes it *much* more difficult for the Wine people to work. If the Wine people so much as glance at the windows source, and such glancing can be 'proved' then bye-bye Wine.
ESR hates Microsoft with a more mindless passion than anyone I know. See his Gates-Hitler crap, the whole Robin Hood thing, Halloween commentary, Jargon file, etc. Sure, one of these alone could be interpreted as humor, but not all of them together.
He knows they're not serious about releasing parts of their OS under an Open Source (tm) license and he's poking at them for claiming to consider it.
What MS means by 'open source' is open source, not Open Source (tm), and certainly not Free software.
Of course, if MS releases their OS under the GPL, I'll gladly stick my foot in my mouth.
Interesting to note that many of the changes involve terms dealing with Microsoft. Not surprising, given ESR's hatred of them. Of course, once they release their kernel under some crazy restrictive 'open-source' license, I'm sure ESR will adjust the jargon file to look more favorably upon them.
Yes, movsb is horribly slow (compared to equivalent instructions on pentium+). xor is slightly smaller than mov, and it did used to be faster, but on k6, pII, etc., the mov is no slower and is actually faster in some cases.
The big thing I disliked about these games is that they sit busylooping while not doing anything, so sitting at a menu while nothing is happening eats 100% cpu. Using blocking calls is pretty simple and makes other things happier. Some of us are actually doing stuff in the background while we play games...
No matter how bad this is, it's still not as bad as EGAVGA.BGI; I mean Borland actually had to try hard to come up with something that awkward.
I think it has to do with the way cookies work - cookies sent from slashdot.org can't be read if the current page is www.slashdot.org
And if you don't want netscape turning slashdot -> www.slashdot.org, you can always add a line to your/etc/hosts. Of course, this won't help the cookie problem.
RMS didn't found the FSF because of people who could not afford software. Free software is *not* about price - it's about freedom. The author wants to charge money for software (which is fine), but he wants to do so at the expense of freedom. This is not 'Commercial Open-Source Software' - it's proprietary software. Cygnus is a good example of a commercial free software company. They make their money developing and selling GPLed software.
The more I read stuff, the more I find that 'open source' is meaning 'free of charge' rather than anything else. I suppose this is even partly intentional, to hide any freedom issues. Amusing how 'open source' was supposedly coined to avoid this specific meaning, when this is the only meaning ESR presents.
Free software isn't about technical or economic goals; communism is irrelevant. It's about social goals. Yes, so is communism, to a certain degree, but free software is more about freedom and less about equality, though it has the side effect of increased equality.
Amusingly, ESR's stance (availability and technical merits) is more communistic than RMS's (freedom).
The problem is simply that he dismisses anyone who disagrees with him as immature. He flames and calls names and expects us to revere him. He, of all people, should know that this is not how things work. Apparently he doesn't read what he writes.
Seems to have the annoyingness of the QPL combined with the annoyingness of APSL, along with other annoyances. Probably safe to call it non-free. Patch clause (slightly less annoying than QPL's), required notification of AT&T (worse than APSL), along with a "don't distribute for profit" clause. This doesn't look like free software to me. It doesn't even look like Open Source (sic).
No - the idea is that source follows binaries. If you access to the binaries, you must be allowed access to the source. If your server doesn't provide its users with the binaries, they don't have to provide the users with the source.
Extra restrictions of QPL over GPL: 1) All modifications may only be distributed as patches or compiled binaries. 2) If you compile and distribute your modifications, you must license your code under the QPL which gives TT exclusive rights to use your modification in the propietary version of QT. 3) You cannot use parts of QPLed programs in other applications, at least not in any sane way.
These restrictions make it illegal to distribute GPLed programs which rely on QPL unless the QPL is part of the OS. They also make it a big pain if you actually want to do anything with QPLed code. It's a nonsymmetric license which gives the original creater *far* more power than any modifiers.
GNU is the operating system; Hurd and Linux are kernels. And if you think a kernel by itself is an OS, show me how you get it to boot with just itself. RMS wanted people to develop Hurd instead of Linux because originally Linus said that he was only interested in getting Linux to do a very small number of tasks on a 386, and RMS wanted to do more than that, so he looked elsewhere. He picks and chooses pieces to complete his OS. So he decided to start Hurd, which is significantly behind Linux in development, but is still progressing. No, replacing some utilities in AIX or Solaris doesn't make mean you should call it GNU, because it isn't. GNU's Not Unix, and Solaris and AIX and BSD are definitely unix. Linux is not unix as well, so it fits in perfectly. You say 'to philosophies, to licenses, to libraries' Yes, there are two philosophies, RMS's and ESR's, RMS's being that freedom is good, ESR's being that working together is good for capitalism. Two licenses? I assume you mean GPL and BSD, both of which are free. Two libraries? Hardly. libc is a derivative of glibc1, and glibc2 is a better, updated version. RMS has done more harm than good? Um, I don't think so. Do you think linux would exist *at all* if it weren't for RMS? People do what the people around them are doing, and if we didn't have RMS continuing his crusade, everyone would be writing proprietary software. Linus says that his best decision was to go with the GPL for Linux, which he did *soley* because GCC was GPLed. Guess who wrote GCC? Guess who wrote the GPL? Trying to control OSS? I presume you mean Micros~1's initialism, 'Open Source Software.' Hardly. He's merely a voice. A voice people listen to. Withdrawl of glibc-2.1 was done for legal issues, not because some people say gcc sucks. In case you hadn't heard, glibc-2.1 requires egcs. RMS an obstacle? He certainly wants to be an obstacle to proprietary software.
RMS never intended to create a completely FSF OS. His life work is the creation of GNU, a free OS. XFree86, various BSD utilities, and more are fine to be part of GNU, as they are free. He only needed a kernel, and Linux fits the job of being a kernel for his OS. His objection to calling it 'Linux' isn't a matter of getting recognition or ego - it's because so many people, Linus included, don't talk about the value of freedom. GNU is about freedom. Many Linux users don't realize GNU is, and to remind people that they are using an OS, most of which is based on reaching freedom, he suggests calling it GNU/Linux. Sure, the name isn't quite as catchy, and I think it's silly for him to be pedantic about people calling it GNU/Linux every time they speak to him, but there does need to be some way to educate the users. Perhaps you don't care about freedom? Well at least let other people know that it exists. I think there must be a better way to do it than requiring people to call it GNU/Linux, but until I can think of a better idea, I won't complain about RMS.
It's not about credit, not about numbers of lines of code, or percent of tools or their usefulness, not even about RMS's personality. It's about freedom. Linus doesn't think freedom is important - like ESR, he thinks practical gains are more important. Thus, we have a lot of linux users who aren't even exposed to the *idea* of freedom. RMS wants the GNU name attached so that someone will ask "what's that GNU thing?" and can be told about freedom, and if they don't care for freedom, at least they'll be often reminded of the ideas of freedom which created their OS, if not their kernel (*).
(*) Many kernel developers, like Alan Cox, have a much more RMS-like idea about the purpose of free software.
Well, you can compile and run a fake login program, and hope to trick some people into giving you their passwords.
This is actually one advantage (eeeagh) of NT over linux. Of course, since on NT, logging in as any user gives you the ability to get Administrator access, it doesn't really matter...
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Um, FSF isn't just claiming to own the code; they actually DO own it. Just because most of the development isn't done by people paid by the FSF doesn't mean much - a lot of the GCC 2.7 developers work on egcs.
I suppose you think all of GCC development prior to egcs was the FSF fucking it up?
You complain about GCC 2.8 being buggy when egcs is nearly by definition buggy and experimental?
I'm not certain about all the reasons behind removing glibc 2.1, but the developers would certainly know what is capable of compiling it before they release it.
The G isn't silent in GNU. And since Linux only makes less than 1% of a distribution, obviously, calling it GNU. with the period being part of the L in 'Linux' is much more reasonable.
The thoughts brought up by the name Linux are very different than the thoughts brought up by the name GNU. Very similar to the differing philosophies of Open Source (tm) and Free Software. Open Source (tm)'s benefits are PR and quality. Free Software's benefit is freedom. Calling the OS 'Linux' is a cry for popularity. Calling the OS 'GNU/Linux' is a cry for understanding.
Yes, the name 'GNU/Linux' is a bit unwieldy, bit I'd rather have my words a bit more difficult to say than not mean my intentions.
1) By looking at the source code of windows, and incorporating knowledge gained from it, Wine becomes a derivative work. The only way around this is a clean-room reimplementation, which is what Wine is currently doing. If any of the developers see windows source code, they are said to be 'tainted' and can't work on the clean side of the project, i.e., they can't write any code for it.
2) Windows being Open Source (tm) does not imply its license is compatible with the Wine license. ASPL and QPL are Open Source (tm) (or at least ESR says so), but their source isn't beneficial to other projects as their licenses are incompatible with everything else in existence.
This brings up several interesting points:
egcs is owned by the FSF. It is definitely GNU. So they'd have to use some other compiler.
It's the same people who want to make a BSD/Linux as want to implement unix in Perl.
By making BSD/Linux, there becomes even more reason to say GNU/Linux to distinguish the two.
Actually, MS releasing their source code makes it *much* more difficult for the Wine people to work. If the Wine people so much as glance at the windows source, and such glancing can be 'proved' then bye-bye Wine.
ESR hates Microsoft with a more mindless passion than anyone I know. See his Gates-Hitler crap, the whole Robin Hood thing, Halloween commentary, Jargon file, etc. Sure, one of these alone could be interpreted as humor, but not all of them together.
He knows they're not serious about releasing parts of their OS under an Open Source (tm) license and he's poking at them for claiming to consider it.
What MS means by 'open source' is open source, not Open Source (tm), and certainly not Free software.
Of course, if MS releases their OS under the GPL, I'll gladly stick my foot in my mouth.
"general public virus" has been in there for a while, and seems to be a fairly common feeling among *BSD people.
Interesting to note that many of the changes involve terms dealing with Microsoft.
Not surprising, given ESR's hatred of them. Of course, once they release their kernel under some crazy restrictive 'open-source' license, I'm sure ESR will adjust the jargon file to look more favorably upon them.
But hey, it's good for a laugh or two.
Yes, movsb is horribly slow (compared to equivalent instructions on pentium+). xor is slightly smaller than mov, and it did used to be faster, but on k6, pII, etc., the mov is no slower and is actually faster in some cases.
The big thing I disliked about these games is that they sit busylooping while not doing anything, so sitting at a menu while nothing is happening eats 100% cpu. Using blocking calls is pretty simple and makes other things happier. Some of us are actually doing stuff in the background while we play games...
No matter how bad this is, it's still not as bad as EGAVGA.BGI; I mean Borland actually had to try hard to come up with something that awkward.
I think it has to do with the way cookies work - cookies sent from slashdot.org can't be read if the current page is www.slashdot.org
/etc/hosts. Of course, this won't help the cookie problem.
And if you don't want netscape turning slashdot -> www.slashdot.org, you can always add a line to your
RMS didn't found the FSF because of people who could not afford software. Free software is *not* about price - it's about freedom. The author wants to charge money for software (which is fine), but he wants to do so at the expense of freedom. This is not 'Commercial Open-Source Software' - it's proprietary software.
Cygnus is a good example of a commercial free software company. They make their money developing and selling GPLed software.
The more I read stuff, the more I find that 'open source' is meaning 'free of charge' rather than anything else. I suppose this is even partly intentional, to hide any freedom issues. Amusing how 'open source' was supposedly coined to avoid this specific meaning, when this is the only meaning ESR presents.
Free software isn't about technical or economic goals; communism is irrelevant. It's about social goals. Yes, so is communism, to a certain degree, but free software is more about freedom and less about equality, though it has the side effect of increased equality.
Amusingly, ESR's stance (availability and technical merits) is more communistic than RMS's (freedom).
The problem is simply that he dismisses anyone who disagrees with him as immature. He flames and calls names and expects us to revere him. He, of all people, should know that this is not how things work. Apparently he doesn't read what he writes.
Guh-Noo, the first syllable being very short.
Seems to have the annoyingness of the QPL combined with the annoyingness of APSL, along with other annoyances. Probably safe to call it non-free.
Patch clause (slightly less annoying than QPL's), required notification of AT&T (worse than APSL), along with a "don't distribute for profit" clause.
This doesn't look like free software to me. It doesn't even look like Open Source (sic).
They may not be able to delete their email, but they've already shown their ability to delete the source code to windows...
No - the idea is that source follows binaries. If you access to the binaries, you must be allowed access to the source. If your server doesn't provide its users with the binaries, they don't have to provide the users with the source.
Extra restrictions of QPL over GPL:
1) All modifications may only be distributed as patches or compiled binaries.
2) If you compile and distribute your modifications, you must license your code under the QPL which gives TT exclusive rights to use your modification in the propietary version of QT.
3) You cannot use parts of QPLed programs in other applications, at least not in any sane way.
These restrictions make it illegal to distribute GPLed programs which rely on QPL unless the QPL is part of the OS.
They also make it a big pain if you actually want to do anything with QPLed code.
It's a nonsymmetric license which gives the original creater *far* more power than any modifiers.
GNU is the operating system; Hurd and Linux are kernels. And if you think a kernel by itself is an OS, show me how you get it to boot with just itself.
RMS wanted people to develop Hurd instead of Linux because originally Linus said that he was only interested in getting Linux to do a very small number of tasks on a 386, and RMS wanted to do more than that, so he looked elsewhere. He picks and chooses pieces to complete his OS. So he decided to start Hurd, which is significantly behind Linux in development, but is still progressing.
No, replacing some utilities in AIX or Solaris doesn't make mean you should call it GNU, because it isn't. GNU's Not Unix, and Solaris and AIX and BSD are definitely unix. Linux is not unix as well, so it fits in perfectly.
You say 'to philosophies, to licenses, to libraries' Yes, there are two philosophies, RMS's and ESR's, RMS's being that freedom is good, ESR's being that working together is good for capitalism. Two licenses? I assume you mean GPL and BSD, both of which are free. Two libraries? Hardly. libc is a derivative of glibc1, and glibc2 is a better, updated version.
RMS has done more harm than good? Um, I don't think so. Do you think linux would exist *at all* if it weren't for RMS? People do what the people around them are doing, and if we didn't have RMS continuing his crusade, everyone would be writing proprietary software. Linus says that his best decision was to go with the GPL for Linux, which he did *soley* because GCC was GPLed. Guess who wrote GCC? Guess who wrote the GPL?
Trying to control OSS? I presume you mean Micros~1's initialism, 'Open Source Software.' Hardly. He's merely a voice. A voice people listen to.
Withdrawl of glibc-2.1 was done for legal issues, not because some people say gcc sucks. In case you hadn't heard, glibc-2.1 requires egcs.
RMS an obstacle? He certainly wants to be an obstacle to proprietary software.
RMS never intended to create a completely FSF OS. His life work is the creation of GNU, a free OS. XFree86, various BSD utilities, and more are fine to be part of GNU, as they are free. He only needed a kernel, and Linux fits the job of being a kernel for his OS. His objection to calling it 'Linux' isn't a matter of getting recognition or ego - it's because so many people, Linus included, don't talk about the value of freedom. GNU is about freedom. Many Linux users don't realize GNU is, and to remind people that they are using an OS, most of which is based on reaching freedom, he suggests calling it GNU/Linux.
Sure, the name isn't quite as catchy, and I think it's silly for him to be pedantic about people calling it GNU/Linux every time they speak to him, but there does need to be some way to educate the users.
Perhaps you don't care about freedom? Well at least let other people know that it exists. I think there must be a better way to do it than requiring people to call it GNU/Linux, but until I can think of a better idea, I won't complain about RMS.
It's not about credit, not about numbers of lines of code, or percent of tools or their usefulness, not even about RMS's personality. It's about freedom. Linus doesn't think freedom is important - like ESR, he thinks practical gains are more important. Thus, we have a lot of linux users who aren't even exposed to the *idea* of freedom. RMS wants the GNU name attached so that someone will ask "what's that GNU thing?" and can be told about freedom, and if they don't care for freedom, at least they'll be often reminded of the ideas of freedom which created their OS, if not their kernel (*).
(*) Many kernel developers, like Alan Cox, have a much more RMS-like idea about the purpose of free software.
Well, you can compile and run a fake login program, and hope to trick some people into giving you their passwords.
This is actually one advantage (eeeagh) of NT over linux. Of course, since on NT, logging in as any user gives you the ability to get Administrator access, it doesn't really matter...
RMS is hardly an egomaniac. He wants his ideas to get recognition, not himself.
If 640 KB isn't big enough for 100% of your computing needs, my friend, you are not sane.