In my view, Corel is right if they don't want to give out the complete deal before it is thourougly tested, especially because their product is aimed at the newbie-linux user. The re-licensing thing (claiming that they own everything blahblah) is idiotic ofcourse, but i'm sure that's not a deliberate ploy to steal software but simply a slip-up of their legal department that applied a standard-banner used normally for windows-software. Corel has allready said they will release the full sourcecode to everything they have added, so why not stop acting like spoiled kids and calmly wait to see if they hold their promise? I personally bet on it they will, and waiting a couple of weeks will cause no harm to anyone.
One of Richard Stallman's critique's on the new Qt OpenSource-license was that it forbids the internal use of the software without having to distribute the sources. So, being able to develop software in-house, based on GPL'd software and not having to distribute sources is a feature of the GPL that was explicitly put there, it's not some kind of loophole.
In my opinion the betatesting of Corel's linux distribution is internal. It is not yet a product on the market, it is spread into a _closed_ circle of people that are preselected solely for the cause of beta-testing the release. In my eyes this qualifies as being internal testing. Those things combined, Corel complies fully with the GPL. They have stated on their website that there will probably be a second beta-round that will be accessible by a larger number of people.
On a sidenote: Even if you have some personal conviction that Corel is in some way violating the GPL or some other license: So what? They have said they will release the source to the full thing when released, why not be a little flexible and wait and see if they will. Give them some time to adapt to the whole situation, i'm sure working with GPL'd software is something new for Corel too. The possible rewards of a big company like Corel successfully converting to free software as a base of their products are much larger than receiving the sourcecode to a beta product 2 months earlyer than you would have gotten it anyway. The damage done by giving the world the impression that Linux/GPL advocates are a bunch of rabid whining children that utter death-threats as soon as they don't get something they feel they are entibled to is much more damaging to the acceptance of Linux and free software as a whole than simply waiting maybe another 2 months orso for the source to be released.
From the comments i've read on this forum, i'll bet Corel has allready been buried under a large stack of rabid hatemail from drooling idiots claiming they will bankrupt the company or something. Yeah, that must be a real incentive for companies to get involved with Linux and Opensource software in general.
Corel is one of the first really-big software companies that have fully dedicated themselves to Linux. And yet, in this forum there are people speculating that this will be the first court-case testing the GPL. Isn't it wiser to save that for a real enemy instead of a company that is taking its first steps on the slippery open-source ice? Treating them like they are some kind of terrible enemy now will also be seen by other companies pondering the use of other free software. They will see how easy it is to cause a public relations disaster by making a single mistake, even when fully complying to the agreements made. They may find is easyer to go with the standard proprietary software to avoid the hassle of having to deal with a raving mass of rightious fanatics obstructing the development process.
Witnessing this, the sad thing is that they are probably right too.
I'm getting sick and tired of all these so-called industry pundits sitting on their little soapbox spouting the biggest amount of bullshit ever to be found in the universe. This article was one of the same breed, the same age-old cliche's wrapped up together in a poorly written article. "Unix is old so it must be crap", yeah sure, computers are old too, lets ditch them, they're worthless anyway. "Stallman is a communist". Oh fuck off. The same old cliche repeated over and over again. Can't they come up with something new. The moron talks about Linux as if the only useful application is emacs. What rock has he been under since he invented Ethernet? Must be a whole pile with his "windows will rule the earth" nonsense. All these articles have one thing in common, and that's that they are not written to be analytic pieces discussing something, but piles of crap written solely to get more hits. The crappier the article, the more people will become outraged and run from slashdot to the site, thus gaining a nice amount of hits for the publisher. I don't understand why anyone would want their name above such poorly written articles. It only makes them look like idiots. So the guy founded 3com. The only thing that teaches me is that the founder of 3com is a brainless idiot that's out of touch with reality. I don't understand whats the fun of producing crappy articles to get people pissed. Reminds me of throwing garbage of the top of an apartment building and laughing at the crowd below. Something for little kids, but not reasonably intelligent people. *sigh*
>>If you look at it realistically, placing the >>Linux kernel under the BSD license would have >>disasterous consequences. I wouldn't be >>surprised if in an instant several incompatible >>versions would pop-up, creating the same crap >>proprietary Unices once suffered from: >>incompatibilities and vendor-lockin.
>So why hasn't this happened with *BSD? It has, look at BSDi and all the chunks of BSD code tucked away in all sorts of operating systems like the various win flavours.
>Seriously, people here worry about Microsoft >using Linux to create their own proprietary >Unix. So why haven't they done this with BSD? Because BSD has never had the mindshare and popularity that Linux is getting at the moment. And BSD is used in all sorts of ways by companies - without giving back their modifications. So it has allready happened.
>For my stuff, which I haven't had time to work >on so it isn't out there, I will use the X >license. I don't worry about people making money >off of extending my code any more than I worry >about people making money using my code, as my >code will still remain free. Someone else's >extension of my stuff won't, but I will be no >worse off as a result. I wouldn't be bothered by releasing the stuff that i code too since they are not essential for a lot of people and there isn't much money to be made with it anyway, but when you get to things like the Linux kernel, where standards are important, the risk becomes too big to give third parties the chance to lock people into proprietary extentions. While the programmers effectively gain nothing from such a move, it opens a huge security risk. And while there's only proprietary clone of BSD, BSDI, there are lots of places where bsd pieces are used (like the network stack for example) where modifications are made without giving them back to the original coders.
To me it appears more like flamebait from a heavily biased bsd advocate. Ofcourse i'm biased too since i personally think the bsd license has its place, but it's way too vulnarable for exploitation. If you look at it realistically, placing the Linux kernel under the BSD license would have disasterous consequences. I wouldn't be surprised if in an instant several incompatible versions would pop-up, creating the same crap proprietary Unices once suffered from: incompatibilities and vendor-lockin. Lets not be so naive to think that if people have the opportunity to screw another person for profit they won't, or will give stuff back to the community from their own incentive. I have heard this argument from some bsd advocates in the past. The BSD license encourages this exploitation and the vendor-lockin tactics all too familiar to many of us who have been forced to work with proprietary software. The GPL may give some (sometimes serious) problems when mixing with other licenses which makes it sometimes very frustrating to work with, but its still the most effective license when it comes to protecting freedom in the long term.
The author of this article also calls Rms a communist extremist. That, and various other less than objective cheap comments make me believe that this is an article written by a person disgruntled bsd advocate rather than somebody honestly comparing the drawbacks and purposes of the various licenses.
Right. Emulators are illegal? Hmpftt.. HELLO Nintendo??!?!?!?! Wake up you bunch of sad fascists!!!
How do they DARE to appeal to my moral values while they persue nothing but profit on base of some imaginary intellectual property infringement, ruining the lives of a couple of innocent programmers in the process?! While i find the whole concept of intellectual property to be somewhat doubtful, the statement that emulating a computer in itsself is an infringement on this intellectual property is ludicrous! Their behavious is inexcusable, especially since this ultrahle was clearly a hobbyist project!! This is WRONG. I don't care if the law is on their side. If it is, the law is _WRONG_.
And these people should have my respect? Forget it. They just gained another enemy. In the years of following the computer and software industry my moral stand on so called software piracy has been shifting slowly but steadily. A couple of years ago it was "its not the right thing to do".
Every time i read a story like this it goes more toward "I don't care if they go broke from illegal copying, they are maffia-like rats anyway. Fsck them. Copy like hell, and lets screw them over the best way we can." I know this doesn't sound civil, nor mature. But if these arrogant software companies are to be considered civil and mature, i'll pass my share in that. I'm infuriated by this ongoing "patent this" and "intellectual property infringement that" bullshit driven by nothing but greed.
ps: i know this is an inflammatory comment. i'm really pissed off by this, but i don't feel like counting to 10 at the moment.
They have been saying that Unix is dead for the last 30 years or so. One of the most popular arguments of NT advocates is "you'd better switch, cause NT is the future". Yeah, right. I bet in about 30 years, Unix will still be dying. And i'll still boot it up happily. Large numbers of NT users only show that the majority of people are idiots, and i allready knew that.
The majority of the posts in this forum make even the zdnet forums look like a place of common sense, intelligence and well-formed opinions. At first i was agreeing with Katz' latest column about the value of anonymous cowards. Maybe he's right that Anonymous Cowards are neccesary, but no more than shit is neccesary. And i value the posts by these lame morons even less.
Reproducing intelligence in computers may be possible, but only because we define intelligence in our own narrow way. Artificial intelligence is no intelligence, it is the closest thing resembling the notion of intelligence we have at this moment. People don't even understand themselves yet. They may know the outter shell, the molecules, the plumbing, but they don't know the essence of things, they can only barely see a distorted image of the shallow surface they perceive as the truth. That, they can mimic in computers, and because their own conscience is limited they will not be able to tell the difference. This is reflected in the Turing test, which is not more than "what i see is there". Then again, if you want to get to know more about conscience maybe you should ask a buddhist instead of a mathematician. So in my opinion, this book is not much different from those people in the 60's who believed that we'd all live in glass bubbles all over the solar system by the year 2000. Evolution itsself is much more advanced than these futurists can grasp, and i believe the next hundred years will definately be interesting and bring us things we could have never imagined. But i also think they will not even resemble "spiritual computers", which in itsself is a contradiction in terms.
ps: About Deep Blue: A computer beating a chess player is the same as a bulldozer running over a flower. Brute force will get you there but it doesn't mean shit in terms of intelligence.
ps2: If i want to "merge" with something or reproduce i'd get myself a date and not some piece of metal. If you think otherwise it's time you get away from your computer and sniff in some fresh air from outside.
No reasonably thinking person can bring up any reasons for the shutdown of this site, or other sites like those carrying legacy emulation games, except for "its the law, accept it or we will totally destroy your life, because we have to power to".
These continuing fascist actions by the recording and software industry make sure that i don't lose any sleep at all over mp3's and so-called pirated software. The moment it dies i'll spit on its corpse, while it still lives i spit in its face.
Marx was right with his historical materialism, and i hope the music and software industry as we know it today will be replaced by the people with the more superior form of production, open source and mp3, before it grows into even more of an opressing monstrosity than it is today.
>I'm getting out of this country before something >extremely bad happens. >Anyone in Europe have an apartment for sale? Don't come to The Netherlands. I have the nasty feeling we will be calling eachother "comrade" in a couple of years overhere, and the clock will be put back to 1984.
They just imposed a tax on cdr's which benefits audio artists (yes, even computer cdr's) and I heard they are planning on doing the same thing for harddisks, giving the tax to software companies to compensate for loss of income due to copying. So, when you copy Linux for a friend, you're paying money to the equivalent of the RIAA here, and as soon as the fellow buys a harddisk to put it on, he would pay money to the software companies. The CDR tax is allready in effect, but I hope the source i got the info about the hdd's from was either wrong, or this law won't make it, else the bearded freak you see on tv holding a protestsign, chained to the microsoft hq's will be me.
Slashdot Mirror
In my view, Corel is right if they don't want to give out the complete deal before it is thourougly tested, especially because their product is aimed at the newbie-linux user. The re-licensing thing (claiming that they own everything blahblah) is idiotic ofcourse, but i'm sure that's not a deliberate ploy to steal software but simply a slip-up of their legal department that applied a standard-banner used normally for windows-software. Corel has allready said they will release the full sourcecode to everything they have added, so why not stop acting like spoiled kids and calmly wait to see if they hold their promise? I personally bet on it they will, and waiting a couple of weeks will cause no harm to anyone.
One of Richard Stallman's critique's on the new Qt OpenSource-license was that it forbids the internal use of the software without having to distribute the sources. So, being able to develop software in-house, based on GPL'd software and not having to distribute sources is a feature of the GPL that was explicitly put there, it's not some kind of loophole.
In my opinion the betatesting of Corel's linux distribution is internal. It is not yet a product on the market, it is spread into a _closed_ circle of people that are preselected solely for the cause of beta-testing the release. In my eyes this qualifies as being internal testing. Those things combined, Corel complies fully with the GPL. They have stated on their website that there will probably be a second beta-round that will be accessible by a larger number of people.
On a sidenote: Even if you have some personal conviction that Corel is in some way violating the GPL or some other license: So what? They have said they will release the source to the full thing when released, why not be a little flexible and wait and see if they will. Give them some time to adapt to the whole situation, i'm sure working with GPL'd software is something new for Corel too. The possible rewards of a big company like Corel successfully converting to free software as a base of their products are much larger than receiving the sourcecode to a beta product 2 months earlyer than you would have gotten it anyway. The damage done by giving the world the impression that Linux/GPL advocates are a bunch of rabid whining children that utter death-threats as soon as they don't get something they feel they are entibled to is much more damaging to the acceptance of Linux and free software as a whole than simply waiting maybe another 2 months orso for the source to be released.
From the comments i've read on this forum, i'll bet Corel has allready been buried under a large stack of rabid hatemail from drooling idiots claiming they will bankrupt the company or something. Yeah, that must be a real incentive for companies to get involved with Linux and Opensource software in general.
Corel is one of the first really-big software companies that have fully dedicated themselves to Linux. And yet, in this forum there are people speculating that this will be the first court-case testing the GPL. Isn't it wiser to save that for a real enemy instead of a company that is taking its first steps on the slippery open-source ice? Treating them like they are some kind of terrible enemy now will also be seen by other companies pondering the use of other free software. They will see how easy it is to cause a public relations disaster by making a single mistake, even when fully complying to the agreements made. They may find is easyer to go with the standard proprietary software to avoid the hassle of having to deal with a raving mass of rightious fanatics obstructing the development process.
Witnessing this, the sad thing is that they are probably right too.
I'm getting sick and tired of all these so-called industry pundits sitting on their little soapbox spouting the biggest amount of bullshit ever to be found in the universe. This article was one of the same breed, the same age-old cliche's wrapped up together in a poorly written article. "Unix is old so it must be crap", yeah sure, computers are old too, lets ditch them, they're worthless anyway. "Stallman is a communist". Oh fuck off. The same old cliche repeated over and over again. Can't they come up with something new. The moron talks about Linux as if the only useful application is emacs. What rock has he been under since he invented Ethernet? Must be a whole pile with his "windows will rule the earth" nonsense. All these articles have one thing in common, and that's that they are not written to be analytic pieces discussing something, but piles of crap written solely to get more hits. The crappier the article, the more people will become outraged and run from slashdot to the site, thus gaining a nice amount of hits for the publisher. I don't understand why anyone would want their name above such poorly written articles. It only makes them look like idiots. So the guy founded 3com. The only thing that teaches me is that the founder of 3com is a brainless idiot that's out of touch with reality. I don't understand whats the fun of producing crappy articles to get people pissed. Reminds me of throwing garbage of the top of an apartment building and laughing at the crowd below. Something for little kids, but not reasonably intelligent people. *sigh*
>>If you look at it realistically, placing the
:)
>>Linux kernel under the BSD license would have >>disasterous consequences. I wouldn't be >>surprised if in an instant several incompatible >>versions would pop-up, creating the same crap >>proprietary Unices once suffered from: >>incompatibilities and vendor-lockin.
>So why hasn't this happened with *BSD?
It has, look at BSDi and all the chunks of BSD code tucked away in all sorts of operating systems like the various win flavours.
>Seriously, people here worry about Microsoft >using Linux to create their own proprietary >Unix. So why haven't they done this with BSD?
Because BSD has never had the mindshare and popularity that Linux is getting at the moment. And BSD is used in all sorts of ways by companies - without giving back their modifications. So it has allready happened.
>For my stuff, which I haven't had time to work >on so it isn't out there, I will use the X >license. I don't worry about people making money >off of extending my code any more than I worry >about people making money using my code, as my >code will still remain free. Someone else's >extension of my stuff won't, but I will be no >worse off as a result.
I wouldn't be bothered by releasing the stuff that i code too since they are not essential for a lot of people and there isn't much money to be made with it anyway, but when you get to things like the Linux kernel, where standards are important, the risk becomes too big to give third parties the chance to lock people into proprietary extentions. While the programmers effectively gain nothing from such a move, it opens a huge security risk. And while there's only proprietary clone of BSD, BSDI, there are lots of places where bsd pieces are used (like the network stack for example) where modifications are made without giving them back to the original coders.
ps: quoting in this itty bitty box sucks
This isn't a good article at all.
To me it appears more like flamebait from a heavily biased bsd advocate. Ofcourse i'm biased too since i personally think the bsd license has its place, but it's way too vulnarable for exploitation. If you look at it realistically, placing the Linux kernel under the BSD license would have disasterous consequences. I wouldn't be surprised if in an instant several incompatible versions would pop-up, creating the same crap proprietary Unices once suffered from: incompatibilities and vendor-lockin. Lets not be so naive to think that if people have the opportunity to screw another person for profit they won't, or will give stuff back to the community from their own incentive. I have heard this argument from some bsd advocates in the past. The BSD license encourages this exploitation and the vendor-lockin tactics all too familiar to many of us who have been forced to work with proprietary software. The GPL may give some (sometimes serious) problems when mixing with other licenses which makes it sometimes very frustrating to work with, but its still the most effective license when it comes to protecting freedom in the long term.
The author of this article also calls Rms a communist extremist. That, and various other less than objective cheap comments make me believe that this is an article written by a person disgruntled bsd advocate rather than somebody honestly comparing the drawbacks and purposes of the various licenses.
Right. Emulators are illegal? Hmpftt..
HELLO Nintendo??!?!?!?! Wake up you bunch of sad fascists!!!
How do they DARE to appeal to my moral values while they persue nothing but profit on base of some imaginary intellectual property infringement, ruining the lives of a couple of innocent programmers in the process?! While i find the whole concept of intellectual property to be somewhat doubtful, the statement that emulating a computer in itsself is an infringement on this intellectual property is ludicrous! Their behavious is inexcusable, especially since this ultrahle was clearly a hobbyist project!! This is WRONG. I don't care if the law is on their side. If it is, the law is _WRONG_.
And these people should have my respect?
Forget it. They just gained another enemy.
In the years of following the computer and software industry my moral stand on so called software piracy has been shifting slowly but steadily. A couple of years ago it was "its not the right thing to do".
Every time i read a story like this it goes more toward "I don't care if they go broke from illegal copying, they are maffia-like rats anyway. Fsck them. Copy like hell, and lets screw them over the best way we can." I know this doesn't sound civil, nor mature. But if these arrogant software companies are to be considered civil and mature, i'll pass my share in that. I'm infuriated by this ongoing "patent this" and "intellectual property infringement that" bullshit driven by nothing but greed.
ps: i know this is an inflammatory comment. i'm really pissed off by this, but i don't feel like counting to 10 at the moment.
The euro parlement is the slowest, most bureaucratic, corrupt clueless bunch of morons on the face of this earth. :(
They have been saying that Unix is dead for the last 30 years or so. One of the most popular arguments of NT advocates is "you'd better switch, cause NT is the future". Yeah, right. I bet in about 30 years, Unix will still be dying. And i'll still boot it up happily. Large numbers of NT users only show that the majority of people are idiots, and i allready knew that.
The majority of the posts in this forum make even the zdnet forums look like a place of common sense, intelligence and well-formed opinions.
At first i was agreeing with Katz' latest column about the value of anonymous cowards. Maybe he's right that Anonymous Cowards are neccesary, but no more than shit is neccesary. And i value the posts by these lame morons even less.
Reproducing intelligence in computers may be possible, but only because we define intelligence in our own narrow way. Artificial intelligence is no intelligence, it is the closest thing resembling the notion of intelligence we have at this moment. People don't even understand themselves yet. They may know the outter shell, the molecules, the plumbing, but they don't know the essence of things, they can only barely see a distorted image of the shallow surface they perceive as the truth. That, they can mimic in computers, and because their own conscience is limited they will not be able to tell the difference. This is reflected in the Turing test, which is not more than "what i see is there". Then again, if you want to get to know more about conscience maybe you should ask a buddhist instead of a mathematician. So in my opinion, this book is not much different from those people in the 60's who believed that we'd all live in glass bubbles all over the solar system by the year 2000. Evolution itsself is much more advanced than these futurists can grasp, and i believe the next hundred years will definately be interesting and bring us things we could have never imagined. But i also think they will not even resemble "spiritual computers", which in itsself is a contradiction in terms.
ps: About Deep Blue: A computer beating a chess player is the same as a bulldozer running over a flower. Brute force will get you there but it doesn't mean shit in terms of intelligence.
ps2: If i want to "merge" with something or reproduce i'd get myself a date and not some piece of metal. If you think otherwise it's time you get away from your computer and sniff in some fresh air from outside.
No reasonably thinking person can bring up any reasons for the shutdown of this site, or other sites like those carrying legacy emulation games, except for "its the law, accept it or we will totally destroy your life, because we have to power to".
These continuing fascist actions by the recording and software industry make sure that i don't lose any sleep at all over mp3's and so-called pirated software. The moment it dies i'll spit on its corpse, while it still lives i spit in its face.
Marx was right with his historical materialism, and i hope the music and software industry as we know it today will be replaced by the people with the more superior form of production, open source and mp3, before it grows into even more of an opressing monstrosity than it is today.
Preserve the power on your side - F242
>I'm getting out of this country before something >extremely bad happens.
>Anyone in Europe have an apartment for sale?
Don't come to The Netherlands. I have the nasty feeling we will be calling eachother "comrade" in a couple of years overhere, and the clock will be put back to 1984.
They just imposed a tax on cdr's which benefits audio artists (yes, even computer cdr's) and I heard they are planning on doing the same thing for harddisks, giving the tax to software companies to compensate for loss of income due to copying. So, when you copy Linux for a friend, you're paying money to the equivalent of the RIAA here, and as soon as the fellow buys a harddisk to put it on, he would pay money to the software companies. The CDR tax is allready in effect, but I hope the source i got the info about the hdd's from was either wrong, or this law won't make it, else the bearded freak you see on tv holding a protestsign, chained to the microsoft hq's will be me.