Before you all get excited about the Pixar-class films you're going to be able to make on your PC, I'd like to forecast when you will be able to do that.
For most of you, that time is, unfortunately,
NEVER.
This is not at all due to lack of technical facilities or computer talent. You can, right now, make Pixar-quality films on your PC. Some talented people make some pretty good short films, and they will go on to more. The most important talent they rely on is not skill in computer imagery, but skill in telling a compelling story using all of the tools of the visual idiom. This is what most people don't have, and it is an essential element to producing good film. I don't have enough of it either, and I did go to film school. If more of us had that talent, videotape recorders and affordable home movie cameras would have had a much greater impact than they have had.
But this is all going to be great fun for gaming, VR, simulation, and so on.
I must confess that I don't enjoy IRC. Partially because most of the people on it don't type as quickly as I. It feels like trying to force my head through jello.
I submitted the link, and I wrote the story on the register. The purpose of the link is to get you to read the story. I didn't feel that a capsule summary would be appropriate for Slashdot, so many people don't click through and read the article when they are given a capsule summary, and the quality of the subsequent discussion suffers.
When you are the dad of a two-year-old, a lot of writing gets done at 4 A.M. when kid and mom don't need your attention. So, it's not polished prose. This one was also bit awkward because the Peruvian bill calls for Free Software, not Open Source.
First, the thing will get to spend at least a year in space before it orbits Mars. Vaccumm and extreme temperatures are very good at sterilizing anything left living. Second, it's not going to land.
But I do remember those pictures of Bdale without the face mask in Kouru. It seems they didn't have one that fit him.
HP's attorneys have made a very thorough study of the way they distribute Free Software, including the disclaimer of warranty issue. They are happy with the application of non-click-through licenses.
This e100b driver is open? And nobody knows how to fix the kernel? But you know how to work around it in user-mode? It's difficult for me to concieve of how all three would be true for long.
I still don't see that the case you cited indicates that a disclaimer of warranty requires a click-through. The case you cited was regarding pernicious software that would not have been under warranty. And I don't see that a competent court is going to pass on significant damages to a free software developer who got no consideration for the software and did not do something pernicious as Netscape did in the case you cited.
Where does it say that in the OSD of which you are so proud to have written?
You told me yourself that you have been citing OSD #7 in this context. It's none too clear, I agree.
OSI was proposed to me?
By Eric, the day after the meeting at VA.
Given that RMS doesn't understand the need for selling ideas to people, he's going to turn it into a schism, yes. I don't see any alternative here.
I have been in Washington D.C. with Richard lately, and have been along with him as he's met congress people and political staffers, and has spoken before a very high-powered audience. He did very well and has shown much more understanding than you credit him for. I also just heard from the intellectual property chief at the Federal Trade Commission, who loved his presentation there. I think he's grown a bit.
This is the same Bruce Perens who is going to contribute a modification to the OSD.
Yes, to settle tonight's question, and if I can, I will make sure that it will be accepted in both the DFSG and OSD, so there will be no divergence. Who is better qualified to do that?
Care to count lines of code, Bruce?
I am more concerned that SPI is an organization with members and elections than with the ego-foo of the board members of OSI. But if you must brag about your code, Busybox has become a standard for embedded Linux, so much so that it is included in amost every embedded Linux system, and is running in many millions of commercial devices like routers, printer servers, and storage servers, where the users don't even know there's a Linux inside. It's also shipped with the Sharp palmtop. That is the result of one month of work on my part in Cathedral mode, after which it was self-sustaining. It has a robust community and has not needed me to help it grow since that first month. I'm more proud of the kids who leave home. That's real Open Source.
Regarding projects resigned, it's been a long time since I've done any of that. How have you grown in the past few years?
What were you thinking when you brought us this pack of lies, Russ? I looked at the case you mentioned as precedent. It's not germane to warranties. What are you trying to pull?
consider that all of us are volunteers. We don't go making work for ourselves.
Russ, please drop that long-suffering attitude. We didn't ask you to do the job, and a good many of us would be happier if you'd find a successor who doesn't write things like You're probably the same kind of programmer who doesn't bother to lock critical variables because "none of that lock stuff is necessary". Join Brett and Theo on BSD, where acting the way you do is accepted.
I can write a piece of software and prevent people from incorporating it into commercial products. But I can't write a piece of software and prevent it being used for military purposes.
Of course you can. Just don't call it "open source".
I wrote that particular term of the OSD because of an old license agreement used on Berkeley SPICE (a circuit simulator). It prohibited its use by the Police of South Africa. It still prohibited them years after apartheid was over.
On top of that, I didn't want to see pro-choice and pro-life software licenses, pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and so on. And I especially didn't want to see anti-business licenses.
The GPL is severable. If one of its terms doesn't apply because you haven't accepted it, the remainder may still apply. Since the warranty disclaimer is only a disclaimer, you are not being asked to agree with it.
However, where the customer is free to examine the product (e.g. read the source) before use, then that default need not apply because the user has every opportunity to exercise due diligence that the product will do what he wants it to.
That's a really good point. I'd like to see a message like that along with distributions - it doesn't even have to be a part of the license. "You are provided with source code and can perform due diligence on your own".
You can still disclaim warranties on public-domain software. Copyright is not important regarding whether or not a warranty applies. It is more important that you get consideration (payment), but even the lack of consideration to most Open Source programmers may not protect them completely.
You know what would protect us? Properly written law. Like if we could get the right text into UCITA instead of the wrong text that is there. I am not optimistic.
I accept your point that the law is a big mess. That said, I think your risk is managable, much more than (for example) Red Hat's. If you are worried, get some renters or homeowners insurance with general liability protection, it is not expensive and will protect you from much more likely mishaps like someone going home drunk from your place and getting in an auto wreck.
Regarding the middle initial, there's this scene in a 30-year-old Star Trek where a woman asks Spock what his first name is, and he says you wouldn't be able to pronounce it. That's my middle initial. It's not ASCII either:-)
It's not a business relationship, because there is no consideration. Nor, although this may be nitpicking, does the GPL license software to them to do with as they choose.
Slashdot Mirror
But this is all going to be great fun for gaming, VR, simulation, and so on.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Only kidding.
Bruce
Bruce
But I do remember those pictures of Bdale without the face mask in Kouru. It seems they didn't have one that fit him.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
I still don't see that the case you cited indicates that a disclaimer of warranty requires a click-through. The case you cited was regarding pernicious software that would not have been under warranty. And I don't see that a competent court is going to pass on significant damages to a free software developer who got no consideration for the software and did not do something pernicious as Netscape did in the case you cited.
Bruce
You told me yourself that you have been citing OSD #7 in this context. It's none too clear, I agree.
OSI was proposed to me?
By Eric, the day after the meeting at VA.
Given that RMS doesn't understand the need for selling ideas to people, he's going to turn it into a schism, yes. I don't see any alternative here.
I have been in Washington D.C. with Richard lately, and have been along with him as he's met congress people and political staffers, and has spoken before a very high-powered audience. He did very well and has shown much more understanding than you credit him for. I also just heard from the intellectual property chief at the Federal Trade Commission, who loved his presentation there. I think he's grown a bit.
This is the same Bruce Perens who is going to contribute a modification to the OSD.
Yes, to settle tonight's question, and if I can, I will make sure that it will be accepted in both the DFSG and OSD, so there will be no divergence. Who is better qualified to do that?
Care to count lines of code, Bruce?
I am more concerned that SPI is an organization with members and elections than with the ego-foo of the board members of OSI. But if you must brag about your code, Busybox has become a standard for embedded Linux, so much so that it is included in amost every embedded Linux system, and is running in many millions of commercial devices like routers, printer servers, and storage servers, where the users don't even know there's a Linux inside. It's also shipped with the Sharp palmtop. That is the result of one month of work on my part in Cathedral mode, after which it was self-sustaining. It has a robust community and has not needed me to help it grow since that first month. I'm more proud of the kids who leave home. That's real Open Source.
Regarding projects resigned, it's been a long time since I've done any of that. How have you grown in the past few years?
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Russ, please drop that long-suffering attitude. We didn't ask you to do the job, and a good many of us would be happier if you'd find a successor who doesn't write things like You're probably the same kind of programmer who doesn't bother to lock critical variables because "none of that lock stuff is necessary". Join Brett and Theo on BSD, where acting the way you do is accepted.
Bruce
Of course you can. Just don't call it "open source".
I wrote that particular term of the OSD because of an old license agreement used on Berkeley SPICE (a circuit simulator). It prohibited its use by the Police of South Africa. It still prohibited them years after apartheid was over.
On top of that, I didn't want to see pro-choice and pro-life software licenses, pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and so on. And I especially didn't want to see anti-business licenses.
Bruce
Bruce
That's a really good point. I'd like to see a message like that along with distributions - it doesn't even have to be a part of the license. "You are provided with source code and can perform due diligence on your own".
Bruce
You know what would protect us? Properly written law. Like if we could get the right text into UCITA instead of the wrong text that is there. I am not optimistic.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce