The thing that scares me about this scenario is that if people choose to use such a client, their data is going to be on Someone Else's server. Personal letters, banking information, after work work that is going to be The Next Big Thing, pictures with the mistress taken during that 'business trip' last summer, the latest cuts from the Natalie Portman blowing Leonardo DiCaprio on his private yaght video... all of that kind of information would be on Someone Else's hardware. Of course, they would provide safeguards to ensure that no private information would be accessible by anyone but the owner... wouldn't they? McNealy was just kidding when he said we have no privacy, right?
Comparing Linux to OpenBSD, I too am coming to the conclusion the that the 'many eyes... shallow bugs' assertion may be wrong.
This is unfair in general. First, because the OpenBSD people made a concerted effort to single out a particular form of bug, namely security flaws. There were and still are many usability issues with OpenBSD. Second, you are grouping together Linux with all of the GNU utilities and other programs that are usually shipped with a distribution, which makes the total a far larger project than project than OpenBSD. I can think of only one security update to the Linux 2.2.x kernel, and that was fixed before any known exploits of that flaw occurred.
Raymond says:
"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" and "Debugging is parallelizable."These assertions simply are not true and are distortions of how the development of fetchmail proceeded. It is true that many people, in parallel, looked for bugs and proposed fixes. But only one person (Raymond) actually made fixes, by incorporating the proposed changes into the official code base. Debugging (the process of fixing the program) was performed by one person, from suggestions made by many people.
The author completely ignores Raymond's first assertion in his argument. Since this point factors in heavily on Raymond's second assertion, it is a very convenient omission. Also, the author's assertion that debugging consits only of fixing fixing bugs is rather... obtuse. Isn't finding the bugs to fix a big part? Maybe all that beta testing is a waste of time then...
The author then goes on making a fairly decent argument for his premise on the requirement of central control of successful open source projects.
All in all, it's not really terrible, but it could have been a lot better if he would have stuck to his main point. If I were marking this as a paper, I'd give it a C+.
The soon-to-be-released Quad Standard and DDR Quad-Standard technologies will provide for four to eight times as many contradictions in the same space. Industry analysts predict Multi-Standard Technology is clearly outpacing Logic Technology, and is set to control the market by Q3 2001.
As greater amounts of less technically able users begin to adopt the OS, then this could cause problems in that too few Linux users will actually be contributing to the maintenence and upgrading of the OS itself. Quite simply, Linux has for a long time been a small market OS that has relied on its users contributing there spare time and energy to the actual specifics of the OS. If Linux becomes a popular OS can it really attract sufficent people to ensure the OS and its applications remain cutting edge?
I really don't understand your logic here. It's flawed in all sorts of ways:
Your concerned that as the user/developer ratio ->0, Linux won't be able to compete with 'cutting edge' technologies. Now how does that ratio differ from any commercial software product you care to mention?
Even if the number of core developers doesn't grow at the same rate as the OS use, it doesn't matter. The number will grow, since the OS is open and anyone can look under the hood. Contrast this with a closed-source OS that is limited by the developer resources (money) an organization can throw at it. It's almost no contest. The open source project can expand to the practical limits bounded by the organization governing its code. No private project can match that.
I'm not even sure your base premise is even valid since:
How will more developers contribute to the improvement of the OS? Development is proceeding at a furious pace as it is. Throwing more bodies at a problem doesn't always lead to faster development.
No Debian. No Slackware. No download figures/estimates taken into account.
It seems to me that when you're dealing with a freely downloadable product, basing market share estimates on retail sales is a little... narrow. Then again, if you're concerned with how much money the players are going to make, it's not a bad place to start...
When you type a ridiculous and unfounded assertion right in your first sentence, how can you expect reasonable people to want to read on?
There is such a thing as Intellectual Property.
Then I would ask you to point out the law or the case where it is defined. I'm getting more and more curiuous over this point.
Every Napster download represents a decreased consumer demand for the audio content on legal media.
I can see that being the RIAA's point of view. It is, I think, self-defeating and false. By the same token it could be said that radio stations decrease the demand for CD's by playing the most popular songs freely over the airwaves. The fact is, radio play increases music sales, and the same goes for Napster. People are downloading music they normally wouldn't buy, listening to it, and buying the one's they like. It's like on-demand radio, and it's working FOR the music industry. But they're too greedy and/or blind to see it. The recording industry is just too used to charging people to do their advertising for them, and don't like it when they 'only' get it for free.
I find it a patently sad thing that posts like this (and his others) are marked as flamebait for the simple reason that they express an opinion that is in marked contrast to the prevailing opinion on this forum. You don't have to agree with the guy - but you should respect his right to say what he thinks without marking him a troll.
I just wish this whole lawsuit thing would get dropped so I could start playing DVDs on my laptop's DVD drive under Linux. I've bought tons of movies: its so unfair that I can't play them on the plane without rebooting. Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh.
I don't get this at all. So why don't you just use DeCSS and one of the free DVD players? Are there not enough keys available? I doubt a member of the MPAA will be looking over your shoulder to see what OS you're using, and even his he was, there's no way he'd do anything.
Without the gcc project sucking in most of the people who are interested in writing a C or C++ compiler, another free C or C++ compiler would have been made.
This is a very convenient statement to make, since it is impossible to know what would have happened in the absence of gcc and FSF. I've checked out both the lcc and vbcc sites, and those projects look pretty stagnant. The fact is the FSF started GNU before anyone even thought there was a problem with proprietary unices. When the *BSD people continued with their work on their free OSes, gcc was there waiting for them. The same goes for XFree and Linux. If they had to start their own compiler, or if a project that started later wasn't ready for prime time, who knows how far back things would have been set if not for the ready availability of the high-quality GNU tools?
Again, the primary difference is the names, the basic product was inevitable, regardless of the actions of any one individual.
This is the general gist of your argument, and it is impossilble to prove in the absence of the alternative past you imagine. The fact remains that Stallman WAS there, he DID see a need, the FSF WAS created, and their project became highly successful. Proponents of Free Software everywhere do owe these people a huge debt for the great service that they did in fact provide.
FSF propaganda made GNU high-profile, thus it sucked in more programmers than other efforts.
Could it be that people actually AGREED with the stance the FSF was taking? Maybe they actually LIKED releasing code to the community under a license that guaranteed that their code would remain open and available, and not forked off into a closed project? Even Linus released Linux under an earlier license that was even MORE restrictive than the GPL, because he didn't want people making money off of what he felt was community property. Fortunately for the kernel's popularity, he was convinced to GPL it, or we wouldn't have widely available boxed distributions to use.
That Linus used GNUtilities doesn't mean they were necessary to produce Linux. Assuming, for the moment, that nothing like the GNU utilities that were running at the time would have existed at the time, the most you can say is that they made the early development easier.
Now you'll have me proposing 'possible pasts'.:-) Linus is and was a very practical man, so it is unlikely he would have started his project without the tools with which to do it. He may have searched out what tools were available for *BSD's etc., but in the absence of the FSF, I doubt there would have been sufficient quality or quantity of tools for him to undertake the development of an OS kernel on his own 386 at home. I believe he started the project because GNU was there, and he knew he only needed a kernel to get it all going and do what he wanted to do (which, basically, was do his CS homework at home and avoid lining up for the terminal). But this, like much of your argument, is mere speculation.
It's amazing just how many of you attribute everything that's GPL'd or that has the "GNU" stamp on it to RMS. He didn't do that stuff, he didn't make it possible, he just provided some popular names (and a popular license that is the root of most license conflicts), then he went around bitching like spoiled brat when a popular piece of free software didn't include "GNU" in its name.
Never did I say RMS did it all. My view is that Stallman is a figurehead for the FSF (but a vastly more productive one than, say, the Queen of England). There were and are, obviously, many like-minded volunteers in the FSF, and many more people who contributed their code without joining the FSF. Never did I say the RMS wrote gcc, gnu tar, ls, etc. and the various libraries, etc. all by himself, or that they sprung fully-coded from his forehead. He did, however, start and lead the FSF project. He did contribute vast amounts of effort and code in promoting Free Software.
I believe too many people take the results of his work and the work of all of the other contributors for granted. Or at best they say, "thanks, now go away and take your GPL with you". That last attitude is the most annoying part of all. Noone is forced to release their code under the GPL. Noone is forced to use GPL'd software. Viewing the success of all the software released under this license as an inconvenience at best, and a hinderance at worst is quite simply futile whining. It's there, and that's the license. If someone doesn't like it, he or she is free to clone something under "Bob's Own License", or whatever. Crying to the community about the 'fanatical RMS', when the FSF takes issue with minor violations with the code they've written is a waste of time. They should have known better than to wave off the legal implications with a shrug.
Lastly, I don't think Stallman wants people to call Linux "GNU/Linux" for his personal aggrandizement. I believe he genuinely wants all of the volunteers who worked on GNU - his friends - to get the credit for the work they did. While I don't normally call it GNU/Linux, I can understand that viewpoint.
I'm not even convinced he played a significant role in any major trend except promoting the TLAs: FSF, GNU, GPL, and RMS. < snip >
If he was never born, the major difference would be that Emacs wouldn't be around.
Ok, so you're not a troll. You just really don't have a clue.
Without RMS there would be no FSF or GPL. Without either of these there would be no gcc or GNU, without either of which there would be no Linux. Add to that the fact that all of the *BSD's and XFree86 depend on gcc and you have someone who has made a VERY big contribution to computing in general.
It's amazing how many of you just have no idea how much RMS has done, and what have been the implications of all that work.
There is nothing in the summary to indicate the magnitude of the conductivity. But since diamonds are about 10 times as conductive as silver, I would expect the results of this 'breakthrough' to be at least an order of magnitude larger than that.
But then there aren't many materials with the heat capacity of water. Amazing stuff, water, and large blocks of ice generally don't have a nasty event horizon.
Utter bull. RMS told the story as he saw it, then went on to encourage the use of KDE and Qt. In no way did he ever slam the KDE programmers or the desktop environment. And this is as far as he got in praising Gnome:
But GNOME is here, and is not going to disappear. GNOME and KDE will remain two rival desktops, unless some day they can be merged in some way. Until then, the GNU Project is going to support its own team vigorously. Go get 'em, gnomes!
Promoting his own team! The shamelessness of it all! How dare he?
To me it seems that RMS is really splitting hairs. Most contracts that I've seen specify a jurisdiction under which the contract is to be interpreted.
From the Python License: 7. This License Agreement shall be governed by and interpreted in all respects by the law of the State of Virginia, excluding conflict of law provisions. Nothing in this License Agreement shall be deemed to create any relationship of agency, partnership, or joint venture between CNRI and Licensee. This License Agreement does not grant permission to use CNRI trademarks or trade name in a trademark sense to endorse or promote products or services of Licensee, or any third party.
This license is restricting the terms of its governance to the laws of one state in one country. Since Free Software is intended to be distributed far and wide (and most certainly outside of the US), I can see how the FSF would be concerned about this.
They are not 'negotiating' with RMS per se. It seems here on Slashdot a lot of you think that RMS is being too critical of licenses that try to be compatible with the GPL. What none of you seem to recognize is that he/HAS/ to. For the GPL to be a valid copyright license it has to be protected everywhere it is being violated. In all of the cases I have seen, RMS has pointed out exactly where the license falls short of being compatible, and what must be done to correct it. It's not at all like he is arbitrarily deciding what is and what is not GPL-compatible, since he gets his legal advice from a professor of law. 'Compatibility' is not bestowed with a sprinkling of 'holy geek pee' - it is determined by the GPL itself.
Re:Necessity is the mother of invention
on
GPG vs. PGP?
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· Score: 1
For instance, publishing source code for a program will severely restrict the number of people using it compared to the number that would use a binary.
Regardless of whether it is running SAMBA or HP's own CIFS, you can still configure your Linux box to print to it. The fact that HP won't/support/ it (read: answer your questions during a service call) has nothing to do with whether it can be done. Hell, I'm using a shared printer on an NT box to do my printing right now. I can see no reason you won't be able to do the same with this unit.
Multics was a multi-user OS that never really took off. Most of the guys that developed UNIX had started off with Multics. Even the name 'UNIX' is a play on the name of Multics. A quick web search will enlighten you.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing that scares me about this scenario is that if people choose to use such a client, their data is going to be on Someone Else's server. Personal letters, banking information, after work work that is going to be The Next Big Thing, pictures with the mistress taken during that 'business trip' last summer, the latest cuts from the Natalie Portman blowing Leonardo DiCaprio on his private yaght video... all of that kind of information would be on Someone Else's hardware. Of course, they would provide safeguards to ensure that no private information would be accessible by anyone but the owner... wouldn't they? McNealy was just kidding when he said we have no privacy, right?
All in all, it's not really terrible, but it could have been a lot better if he would have stuck to his main point. If I were marking this as a paper, I'd give it a C+.
The soon-to-be-released Quad Standard and DDR Quad-Standard technologies will provide for four to eight times as many contradictions in the same space. Industry analysts predict Multi-Standard Technology is clearly outpacing Logic Technology, and is set to control the market by Q3 2001.
Your concerned that as the user/developer ratio ->0, Linux won't be able to compete with 'cutting edge' technologies. Now how does that ratio differ from any commercial software product you care to mention?
Even if the number of core developers doesn't grow at the same rate as the OS use, it doesn't matter. The number will grow, since the OS is open and anyone can look under the hood. Contrast this with a closed-source OS that is limited by the developer resources (money) an organization can throw at it. It's almost no contest. The open source project can expand to the practical limits bounded by the organization governing its code. No private project can match that.
I'm not even sure your base premise is even valid since:
How will more developers contribute to the improvement of the OS? Development is proceeding at a furious pace as it is. Throwing more bodies at a problem doesn't always lead to faster development.
No Debian. No Slackware. No download figures/estimates taken into account.
It seems to me that when you're dealing with a freely downloadable product, basing market share estimates on retail sales is a little... narrow. Then again, if you're concerned with how much money the players are going to make, it's not a bad place to start...
When you type a ridiculous and unfounded assertion right in your first sentence, how can you expect reasonable people to want to read on? There is such a thing as Intellectual Property.
Then I would ask you to point out the law or the case where it is defined. I'm getting more and more curiuous over this point.
Every Napster download represents a decreased consumer demand for the audio content on legal media.
I can see that being the RIAA's point of view. It is, I think, self-defeating and false. By the same token it could be said that radio stations decrease the demand for CD's by playing the most popular songs freely over the airwaves. The fact is, radio play increases music sales, and the same goes for Napster. People are downloading music they normally wouldn't buy, listening to it, and buying the one's they like. It's like on-demand radio, and it's working FOR the music industry. But they're too greedy and/or blind to see it. The recording industry is just too used to charging people to do their advertising for them, and don't like it when they 'only' get it for free.
I find it a patently sad thing that posts like this (and his others) are marked as flamebait for the simple reason that they express an opinion that is in marked contrast to the prevailing opinion on this forum. You don't have to agree with the guy - but you should respect his right to say what he thinks without marking him a troll.
I just wish this whole lawsuit thing would get dropped so I could start playing DVDs on my laptop's DVD drive under Linux. I've bought tons of movies: its so unfair that I can't play them on the plane without rebooting. Having to keep a whole operating system around just to watch movies is pretty harsh.
I don't get this at all. So why don't you just use DeCSS and one of the free DVD players? Are there not enough keys available? I doubt a member of the MPAA will be looking over your shoulder to see what OS you're using, and even his he was, there's no way he'd do anything.
Please excuse my late reply.
:-) Linus is and was a very practical man, so it is unlikely he would have started his project without the tools with which to do it. He may have searched out what tools were available for *BSD's etc., but in the absence of the FSF, I doubt there would have been sufficient quality or quantity of tools for him to undertake the development of an OS kernel on his own 386 at home. I believe he started the project because GNU was there, and he knew he only needed a kernel to get it all going and do what he wanted to do (which, basically, was do his CS homework at home and avoid lining up for the terminal). But this, like much of your argument, is mere speculation.
Without the gcc project sucking in most of the people who are interested in writing a C or C++ compiler, another free C or C++ compiler would have been made.
This is a very convenient statement to make, since it is impossible to know what would have happened in the absence of gcc and FSF. I've checked out both the lcc and vbcc sites, and those projects look pretty stagnant. The fact is the FSF started GNU before anyone even thought there was a problem with proprietary unices. When the *BSD people continued with their work on their free OSes, gcc was there waiting for them. The same goes for XFree and Linux. If they had to start their own compiler, or if a project that started later wasn't ready for prime time, who knows how far back things would have been set if not for the ready availability of the high-quality GNU tools?
Again, the primary difference is the names, the basic product was inevitable, regardless of the actions of any one individual.
This is the general gist of your argument, and it is impossilble to prove in the absence of the alternative past you imagine. The fact remains that Stallman WAS there, he DID see a need, the FSF WAS created, and their project became highly successful. Proponents of Free Software everywhere do owe these people a huge debt for the great service that they did in fact provide.
FSF propaganda made GNU high-profile, thus it sucked in more programmers than other efforts.
Could it be that people actually AGREED with the stance the FSF was taking? Maybe they actually LIKED releasing code to the community under a license that guaranteed that their code would remain open and available, and not forked off into a closed project? Even Linus released Linux under an earlier license that was even MORE restrictive than the GPL, because he didn't want people making money off of what he felt was community property. Fortunately for the kernel's popularity, he was convinced to GPL it, or we wouldn't have widely available boxed distributions to use.
That Linus used GNUtilities doesn't mean they were necessary to produce Linux. Assuming, for the moment, that nothing like the GNU utilities that were running at the time would have existed at the time, the most you can say is that they made the early development easier.
Now you'll have me proposing 'possible pasts'.
It's amazing just how many of you attribute everything that's GPL'd or that has the "GNU" stamp on it to RMS. He didn't do that stuff, he didn't make it possible, he just provided some popular names (and a popular license that is the root of most license conflicts), then he went around bitching like spoiled brat when a popular piece of free software didn't include "GNU" in its name.
Never did I say RMS did it all. My view is that Stallman is a figurehead for the FSF (but a vastly more productive one than, say, the Queen of England). There were and are, obviously, many like-minded volunteers in the FSF, and many more people who contributed their code without joining the FSF. Never did I say the RMS wrote gcc, gnu tar, ls, etc. and the various libraries, etc. all by himself, or that they sprung fully-coded from his forehead. He did, however, start and lead the FSF project. He did contribute vast amounts of effort and code in promoting Free Software.
I believe too many people take the results of his work and the work of all of the other contributors for granted. Or at best they say, "thanks, now go away and take your GPL with you". That last attitude is the most annoying part of all. Noone is forced to release their code under the GPL. Noone is forced to use GPL'd software. Viewing the success of all the software released under this license as an inconvenience at best, and a hinderance at worst is quite simply futile whining. It's there, and that's the license. If someone doesn't like it, he or she is free to clone something under "Bob's Own License", or whatever. Crying to the community about the 'fanatical RMS', when the FSF takes issue with minor violations with the code they've written is a waste of time. They should have known better than to wave off the legal implications with a shrug.
Lastly, I don't think Stallman wants people to call Linux "GNU/Linux" for his personal aggrandizement. I believe he genuinely wants all of the volunteers who worked on GNU - his friends - to get the credit for the work they did. While I don't normally call it GNU/Linux, I can understand that viewpoint.
Ahem. Excuse my ignorance, but...
YHL=?
HAND=?
I'm not even convinced he played a significant role in any major trend except promoting the TLAs: FSF, GNU, GPL, and RMS.
< snip >
If he was never born, the major difference would be that Emacs wouldn't be around.
Ok, so you're not a troll. You just really don't have a clue.
Without RMS there would be no FSF or GPL. Without either of these there would be no gcc or GNU, without either of which there would be no Linux. Add to that the fact that all of the *BSD's and XFree86 depend on gcc and you have someone who has made a VERY big contribution to computing in general.
It's amazing how many of you just have no idea how much RMS has done, and what have been the implications of all that work.
There is nothing in the summary to indicate the magnitude of the conductivity. But since diamonds are about 10 times as conductive as silver, I would expect the results of this 'breakthrough' to be at least an order of magnitude larger than that.
But then there aren't many materials with the heat capacity of water. Amazing stuff, water, and large blocks of ice generally don't have a nasty event horizon.
Promoting his own team! The shamelessness of it all! How dare he?
To me it seems that RMS is really splitting hairs. Most contracts that I've seen specify a jurisdiction under which the contract is to be interpreted.
From the Python License:
7. This License Agreement shall be governed by and interpreted in all respects by the law of the State of Virginia, excluding conflict of law provisions. Nothing in this License Agreement shall be deemed to create any relationship of agency, partnership, or joint venture between CNRI and Licensee. This License Agreement does not grant permission to use CNRI trademarks or trade name in a trademark sense to endorse or promote products or services of Licensee, or any third party.
This license is restricting the terms of its governance to the laws of one state in one country. Since Free Software is intended to be distributed far and wide (and most certainly outside of the US), I can see how the FSF would be concerned about this.
1. The BSD license.
They are not 'negotiating' with RMS per se. It seems here on Slashdot a lot of you think that RMS is being too critical of licenses that try to be compatible with the GPL. What none of you seem to recognize is that he /HAS/ to. For the GPL to be a valid copyright license it has to be protected everywhere it is being violated. In all of the cases I have seen, RMS has pointed out exactly where the license falls short of being compatible, and what must be done to correct it. It's not at all like he is arbitrarily deciding what is and what is not GPL-compatible, since he gets his legal advice from a professor of law. 'Compatibility' is not bestowed with a sprinkling of 'holy geek pee' - it is determined by the GPL itself.
For instance, publishing source code for a program will severely restrict the number of people using it compared to the number that would use a binary.
From what I understand of patents, it is legal to duplicate a patented device. Selling it, however, is another matter entirely.
Regardless of whether it is running SAMBA or HP's own CIFS, you can still configure your Linux box to print to it. The fact that HP won't /support/ it (read: answer your questions during a service call) has nothing to do with whether it can be done. Hell, I'm using a shared printer on an NT box to do my printing right now. I can see no reason you won't be able to do the same with this unit.
*sigh* Why can't you kids play nice?
And as to your response: No.
Multics was a multi-user OS that never really took off. Most of the guys that developed UNIX had started off with Multics. Even the name 'UNIX' is a play on the name of Multics. A quick web search will enlighten you.
And SGI and NVidia did an exchange of patents when they formed their 'alliance' not too long ago.