Let me reiterate the point that I am not an expert in Free Software. I'm conveying my understanding of the Free Software ethic that I've gleaned from the GNU page and from reading RMS interviews. Nobody has or ever will confuse me with RMS.
I would say that in the orthodox model, there are two classes of software. I don't think RMS considers 'free as in beer' any better than (or even different from) proprietary, non-free software. The point you raise about BIOS code is an interesting one. I do know that there are free bios projects out there, but I don't know whether the GNU people insist on using these themselves. At any rate, BIOS software is most certainly not gratis. The code is paid for through the purchase of the hardware. If you don't believe this, ask the people at Award how they earn their living.
My understanding is that the orthodox will use Free Software as long as it is possible, and avoid the use of proprietary software entirely if they can. So it may be that FSF members use the free BIOS codes. Or it may be that they consider the proprietary BIOS software to be a necessary evil, since their computer simply will not function without it. I do know that the Linux kernel makes very, very little use of the BIOS, but I believe the reasons for this are more practical than political.
The last suggestion you make is very interesting, and the conclusions you make from it don't seem far fetched. ANY group of people in an economic endeavor are going to generate political conflict.
I would like to point out something that seems to get lost in all this debate where people say that 'Free Software advocates just want gratis stuff'. From what I've read about RMS, he doesn't believe that software should be gratis. In fact, he seems to believe that producers of Free Software charge too little for their work. It's just that once the work is produced, there shouldn't be restrictions placed on the users' rights to do with it as they please: share it, destroy it, learn from it, whatever. Perhaps he believes that users should contribute a fee to the producers, and that in a just society this would be a logical, inevitable result. It does seem pie-in-the-sky to me, but quite consistent with the orthodox mindset.
First I'd like to say that I'm not an orthodox Free Software advocate, and am still working out my own opinion on these matters. I do think I understand the RMS-type mindset pretty well, though, and believe it is quite straightforward.
I don't disagree with your opinion that there is a fundamental difference between physical and information products. Orthodox Free Software advocates would argue that restrictive licenses simply impose an artificial scarcity where one does not exist. Worse, they impose limits on the freedom of the purchasers to share with their neighbors. In this way, they weaken society by rendering illegal what would normally be the socially positive act. There's a weird sort of logic there that's not too hard to follow.
For what my opinion's worth (last time I checked, about $0.02), I don't think it's possible to recocile your 'expensive source' licence with orthodox Free Software advocates, since it still restricts the user from sharing. That's not to say that I don't think something like that could fly in the real world. It's easy to imagine a secenario involving expensive, limited market software packages used in technical evironments where the user base could likely have the skill to improve/customise the product to suit their needs.
It'd be an interesting experiment. Release two versions of a product. One is no cost but is only the binary. One is expensive but has the source (with a restriction not to redistribute
since "free as in speech" is about having access to the source). Let's see which one gets the most copies out. Then lets see how long it takes for the source to get distributed anyway. [My emphasis]
Ok, I'll bite.
That's an interesting straw-man you put up there. Assuming the software you describe is truly useful, I believe that there are several reasons that the binary-only, gratis version would get used more, not the least of which is that people without a lot of disposable income would be sure to use it. However, the more orthodox proponents of Free Software would not be content with any restrictions placed on their right to use code, and so would scoff at both these versions. (I have little doubt that the binary-only, gratis version would have more takers, even if the source of the payed-for version was GPL'ed, but that is because the more orthodox proponents of Free Software are relatively few in number compared to the total number of users of Free Software).
You are simply missing the whole point when it comes to Free Software. Free as in speech is NOT just about having access to the source. It is about having the freedom to do what you want with the software once you have it, whether you paid for it or not. It's about having the freedom to see how it works, to correct it if necessary, to make copies of it for oneself or one's friends (the freedom to share), etc. To expand on Bob Young's automotive analogy to fit your scenario: Free Software advocates don't want a car with a sealed glass hood; they want a car with a hood they can open, so that they can tinker with the engine, and maybe give the battery to their friend if they feel like it. When I buy a car, I get the whole car. Not just the right to use the car, with draconian restrictions on who can be passengers, and what parts and accessories I can install in it. Why should software be so different?
==sigh==
The definition clearly encompasses all the aspects of fascism as it was exercised in the three most powerful fascist states of the past century: Italy (where the name came from Mussolini's fascisti), Germany, and Spain. It is also a very good fit for the regimes of Pinochet, Batista, and other Latin American dictators. Unless you can come up with some other acknowledged fascist states which don't fit the definition - and you've had plenty of opportunity to do so - you're just whining.
Ok, I read closely. I also searched with 'find' in my browser. Nowhere did the author say that it was a release candidate. His review gave the impression that that was about the quality level, though. The only hint I could see of 'pre-release-level' talk was the fact that the KDE shipped was a very late prerelease beta.
From JFK's to Reagan's tax cuts, the government tax revenue actually _increased_ significantly. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it's a well documented fact.
It's also a documented fact the national debt quadrupled during Reagan's eight years in office. Some say tax cuts had nothing to do with it...
Dead wrong. Encrypted filesystem = evidence you're obviously trying to hide = you sit in jail until court delivers contempt order = you sit in jail indefinately.
Isn't that a violation of your fifth amendment rights? As I understand it, you are under no obligation whatsoever to provide evidence that may incriminate you.
Sort of. We are talking about 200 frames per second when we talk about frame rates. Even fairly weak monitors refresh at 60Mhz (thousand cycles per second). Check out http://www.d-silence.com/video/refres h.h tm for a better explanation.
You are confused. The monitors refresh the entire screen at the vertical refresh rate. So in this case, if your vertical refresh rate is 75 Hz, it refreshes the screen 75 times per second. So if your video card is providing more than 75 frames per second, you will not be seeing all of them. I don't think this is a very big deal. As has been stated elsewhere, high average framerates are important for maintaining adequate framerates in critical situations. Or at least as 'critical' as a game can be.
The link you provided there says nothing about weak monitors refreshing the screen at 60MHz. It merely describes driver issues in Windows with regards to setting monitor refresh rates.
Yeah, well, it was just a thought. I didn't think critical servers are rebooted that often, so another opportunity for the scan was needed. I don't think once a day around 2am would be a brutal waste, but then again, how many RAM modules go bad after a period of time? Ah, bugger it. Chalk one more up to ignorance.
This is a great idea, even if you don't want to use the bad RAM. I don't know how often this would happen, but I could imagine a scenario like this:
1. The software polls every once in a while for the bad RAM and marks it when it finds it.
2. Some other software could pick up on the kernel message and send an email to an administrator,
3. Who could schedule the downtime for the replacement without worrying about the system going blooey in the next 5 minutes.
Heh. Snow. I wish. I live in Vancouver (scraping the moss off the keyboard while typing this). Seattle gets less rain than we do. As I understand it, pretty much everywhere does. Or maybe it just seems that way.
Most if not all aluminum is refined from a relatively rare ore called bauxite. I'm not sure if a titanium equivalent is necessary for this new process. General abundnace of the element isn't necessarily the largest factor in a material's value.
Here in British Columbia, I am connected with Telus ADSL, and I must say I'm very happy with it. Aside from nslookup problems with some friends connected to their older subnet, I've had nothing but great, reliable service. And the lookup problems were easily solved by adding one of their name servers to my DNS list.
I used to be on cable with Rogers@home, and ADSL is much faster in general. Ping times in online gaming seem a bit higher, but the latency is much more consistent. In downloading much files, there is no comparison. With cable, I'd usually max out at 50-80kB/s, unless it was 3am. With ADSL, I regularly pull in at 160kB/s.
Red Hat are working on their own kernel-based webserver (I'm afraid I can't remember what it's called), presumably including features required to compete with existing web servers.
I believe you (and others) are talking about Tux. There was a Slashdot article about it a while back, where it apparently kicked some serious ass. Later on, they interviewed Ingo Molnar about it's design and the rationale behind creating it.
(Though I did like how Burton used parts of Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" - the flashback of falling pearls as young Bruce's mother was shot was very well done).
Damn my memory. I think that was in "The Dark Night Returns".
He'll co-write it with Frank Miller, and it will be based on 'Batman: Year One.
This is great news! Frank Miller's take on the Batman as a tormented, quasi-suicidal nutcase who identifies with his enemies in "The Dark Night Returns" is arguably the best stuff ever written about that character. I was hoping they would use more of his characterization in the original Batman movie, but unfortunately, Tim Burton had his own ideas. (Though I did like how Burton used parts of Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" - the flashback of falling pearls as young Bruce's mother was shot was very well done).
But, what is this talk of writing it in Postscript? Are you nuts? Have you ever scene Postscript? It was not built to be edited by hand by any means. Me thinks you are crazy.
I wrote my master's thesis using Xemacs and LaTeX. There are wonderful LaTeX tools available for Xemacs. I think by 'doing it in postscript' he meant using the ability of LaTeX to embed postscript graphics. Wonderful stuff - when the postscript is generated by sane tools like xfig and xmgr - but try and use crap generated by Windows postscript print drivers. Ugh!! It was like pulling teeth.
Considering the position of Sun when it comes to Linux, I wonder whether they will put Solaris on the Colbalt machines in place of Linux - I sure hope not.
I read the article and noticed that Linux was not mentioned at all. Considering the buzzword quotient attached to Linux, you're speculation doesn't seem that farfetched.
If things get too hairy here in the USA, let's all just defect North to Canada and leave behind idiotic copyright laws. Sounds like a sound plan to me.
Alas, Canadian law tends to run in lock-step with American law on these issues. There are minor exceptions (like Canaidan Content in media laws), but for the most part the laws are about the same. Nothing like UTICA has happened here yet, but the law taxing all CD-R media that was levied recently to satisfy the recording industry doesn't bode well for the future.
Re:OT Re:History proves this type of thing wrong
on
A Letter from 2020
·
· Score: 1
What the Japanese did to the people's of Asia pales the inconveniences that Japanese-Americans had to suffer in America. It was war and in every war ugly things happen.
These "Japanese-Americans" were, in many cases, American citizens. Their rights and freedoms under the Constitution of the United of America were violated by racially-motivated, xenophobic lawmakers. It was a truly sad chapter in American history.
Nowadays you always hear stories in the media about the Japanese suffering in internment camps during WWII and about the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but there are never stories about say, the Nanking Massacre, Pearl Harbor and the Bataan death march to put the Japanese people's suffering in those camps in perspective. It almosts makes the Japanese seem victims of WWII like the jews were, whilst in fact they were the agressors.
The atrocities committed by Japan in places like Korea and Manchuria, and their treatment of POWs does not justify the equivalent crimes committed by the United States. Or haven't you learned yet that two wrongs don't make a right?
Slashdot Mirror
Let me reiterate the point that I am not an expert in Free Software. I'm conveying my understanding of the Free Software ethic that I've gleaned from the GNU page and from reading RMS interviews. Nobody has or ever will confuse me with RMS.
I would say that in the orthodox model, there are two classes of software. I don't think RMS considers 'free as in beer' any better than (or even different from) proprietary, non-free software. The point you raise about BIOS code is an interesting one. I do know that there are free bios projects out there, but I don't know whether the GNU people insist on using these themselves. At any rate, BIOS software is most certainly not gratis. The code is paid for through the purchase of the hardware. If you don't believe this, ask the people at Award how they earn their living.
My understanding is that the orthodox will use Free Software as long as it is possible, and avoid the use of proprietary software entirely if they can. So it may be that FSF members use the free BIOS codes. Or it may be that they consider the proprietary BIOS software to be a necessary evil, since their computer simply will not function without it. I do know that the Linux kernel makes very, very little use of the BIOS, but I believe the reasons for this are more practical than political.
The last suggestion you make is very interesting, and the conclusions you make from it don't seem far fetched. ANY group of people in an economic endeavor are going to generate political conflict.
I would like to point out something that seems to get lost in all this debate where people say that 'Free Software advocates just want gratis stuff'. From what I've read about RMS, he doesn't believe that software should be gratis. In fact, he seems to believe that producers of Free Software charge too little for their work. It's just that once the work is produced, there shouldn't be restrictions placed on the users' rights to do with it as they please: share it, destroy it, learn from it, whatever. Perhaps he believes that users should contribute a fee to the producers, and that in a just society this would be a logical, inevitable result. It does seem pie-in-the-sky to me, but quite consistent with the orthodox mindset.
I'll try to speak to both your posts.
First I'd like to say that I'm not an orthodox Free Software advocate, and am still working out my own opinion on these matters. I do think I understand the RMS-type mindset pretty well, though, and believe it is quite straightforward.
I don't disagree with your opinion that there is a fundamental difference between physical and information products. Orthodox Free Software advocates would argue that restrictive licenses simply impose an artificial scarcity where one does not exist. Worse, they impose limits on the freedom of the purchasers to share with their neighbors. In this way, they weaken society by rendering illegal what would normally be the socially positive act. There's a weird sort of logic there that's not too hard to follow.
For what my opinion's worth (last time I checked, about $0.02), I don't think it's possible to recocile your 'expensive source' licence with orthodox Free Software advocates, since it still restricts the user from sharing. That's not to say that I don't think something like that could fly in the real world. It's easy to imagine a secenario involving expensive, limited market software packages used in technical evironments where the user base could likely have the skill to improve/customise the product to suit their needs.
That's an interesting straw-man you put up there. Assuming the software you describe is truly useful, I believe that there are several reasons that the binary-only, gratis version would get used more, not the least of which is that people without a lot of disposable income would be sure to use it. However, the more orthodox proponents of Free Software would not be content with any restrictions placed on their right to use code, and so would scoff at both these versions. (I have little doubt that the binary-only, gratis version would have more takers, even if the source of the payed-for version was GPL'ed, but that is because the more orthodox proponents of Free Software are relatively few in number compared to the total number of users of Free Software).
You are simply missing the whole point when it comes to Free Software. Free as in speech is NOT just about having access to the source. It is about having the freedom to do what you want with the software once you have it, whether you paid for it or not. It's about having the freedom to see how it works, to correct it if necessary, to make copies of it for oneself or one's friends (the freedom to share), etc. To expand on Bob Young's automotive analogy to fit your scenario: Free Software advocates don't want a car with a sealed glass hood; they want a car with a hood they can open, so that they can tinker with the engine, and maybe give the battery to their friend if they feel like it. When I buy a car, I get the whole car. Not just the right to use the car, with draconian restrictions on who can be passengers, and what parts and accessories I can install in it. Why should software be so different?
==sigh==
The definition clearly encompasses all the aspects of fascism as it was exercised in the three most powerful fascist states of the past century: Italy (where the name came from Mussolini's fascisti), Germany, and Spain. It is also a very good fit for the regimes of Pinochet, Batista, and other Latin American dictators. Unless you can come up with some other acknowledged fascist states which don't fit the definition - and you've had plenty of opportunity to do so - you're just whining.
LOL! ... but.. wasn't Solomon Grundy a good guy?
The link you provided there says nothing about weak monitors refreshing the screen at 60MHz. It merely describes driver issues in Windows with regards to setting monitor refresh rates.
Yeah, well, it was just a thought. I didn't think critical servers are rebooted that often, so another opportunity for the scan was needed. I don't think once a day around 2am would be a brutal waste, but then again, how many RAM modules go bad after a period of time? Ah, bugger it. Chalk one more up to ignorance.
...I saw Tom Pabst skipping down the street the other day...
This is a great idea, even if you don't want to use the bad RAM. I don't know how often this would happen, but I could imagine a scenario like this:
1. The software polls every once in a while for the bad RAM and marks it when it finds it.
2. Some other software could pick up on the kernel message and send an email to an administrator,
3. Who could schedule the downtime for the replacement without worrying about the system going blooey in the next 5 minutes.
A bit more peace of mind can't be a bad thing.
Heh. Snow. I wish. I live in Vancouver (scraping the moss off the keyboard while typing this). Seattle gets less rain than we do. As I understand it, pretty much everywhere does. Or maybe it just seems that way.
Most if not all aluminum is refined from a relatively rare ore called bauxite. I'm not sure if a titanium equivalent is necessary for this new process. General abundnace of the element isn't necessarily the largest factor in a material's value.
Does Carnivore do anything more than what the FBI claims?
Here in British Columbia, I am connected with Telus ADSL, and I must say I'm very happy with it. Aside from nslookup problems with some friends connected to their older subnet, I've had nothing but great, reliable service. And the lookup problems were easily solved by adding one of their name servers to my DNS list.
I used to be on cable with Rogers@home, and ADSL is much faster in general. Ping times in online gaming seem a bit higher, but the latency is much more consistent. In downloading much files, there is no comparison. With cable, I'd usually max out at 50-80kB/s, unless it was 3am. With ADSL, I regularly pull in at 160kB/s.
Wasn't Bill G. quoted once as saying something like, "At least their pirating MY software." ?
The atrocities committed by Japan in places like Korea and Manchuria, and their treatment of POWs does not justify the equivalent crimes committed by the United States. Or haven't you learned yet that two wrongs don't make a right?