I am sorry to see the team disbanded. I would have preferred to sell off the division, and made that clear to management, but that wasn't a reality given the current tech economy. I think the division management had originally planned to spin off via IPO, but then the market went belly up. So, here's another dot.com casualty.
Regarding Open Source for this product, sure, I'd like to see it happen and we've been discussing it for months. But I can not say anything definite and if it happens it will take a while.
This sounds like Guido and Python. He never got the licensing straight with management at CNRI and when they finally took an interest, they wanted to change the license.
The U.S. Government can not own a copyright. However, a contractor working for the government can own a copyright on work done for the government. The last Army (ARPA) contract I worked on, the contract let the researchers choose the copyright as long as they gave one copy to the Army, delivered to Fort Huachuka, so you may be in better shape than you think.
You'd better look at the contract.
There are a few courses you can take here:
Dual Licensing: let the Government do what it wants with its copy, and let the copy you have distributed so far continue under the GPL.
Pull Back the GPL Copies: legally a mess, so much of a mess that the government most likely will not want to do it once they realize what a mess it is.
Write Your Congressman: this is publicly funded unclassified research, we should have a copy available to the public. Organize a campaign for people to write their congress person about that.
I have a conspiracy theory for you: Why is this happening so soon after Microsoft announced it wanted to lobby Government not to have public funding of GPL work?
Apple included Richard Stallman on the list of people who were requested to review the license. So, they did ask something of him.
I endorsed the license. Richard did not, for good reasons that define where his own philosophy differs from the Open Source definition. I tend to generally agree with Richard on Free Software issues, but I stuck to the definition that we wrote rather than my personal preference.
It happens that I own two PowerPC Macs. OK, they were hand-me-downs from my in-laws, but you can't put me in that "never owned a Mac" contingent:-)
Yes, Apple may issue an APSL 1.3 which applies to all code contributed under APSL 1.2, but they can't stop anyone from using the old version of the license on old code. So, they could decide to close future development at any time, and they could keep your code when they do it, but they could not stop you from creating a free fork of the most recent free code. That sounds a lot like the BSD license to me, but without the right for anyone to change the license, only Apple can change it.
If you are the copyright holder of a modification and you can make that modification into something stand-alone that is not derivative, you may also separate it from the Apple code and dual-license it.
I think APSL 1.2 is an Open Source license, and I told Apple I'd endorse it as such after I reviewed it. I am not putting my personal code under it, for the same reasons I don't put my personal code under the BSD license - both licenses leave the code open for someone to take it private. Some people care about that, others, like the BSD folks, consider it a virtue that the code can be taken private. Both sorts of license are Open Source.
Well, you could get the source to Darwin before Apple came along, because it is derived from BSD. Apple put it under a more restrictive license than it had previously. Unfortunately, the BSD license lets you do that. The GPL would not.
This is an interesting case because the main objection RMS is making is to terms of the Apple license that force you to give away even more code than the GPL would! In this case, RMS is supporting your right to hold back your code if it is not distributed. This is rather a turn-about from the way these arguments usually go.
No, they don't have the right to retroactively change the license. Read the license:
7. Versions of the License. Apple may publish revised and/or new versions of this License from time to time. Each version will be given a distinguishing version number. Once Original Code has been published under a particular version of this License, You may continue to use it under the terms of that version. You may also choose to use such Original Code under the terms of any subsequent version of this License published by Apple. No one other than Apple has the right to modify the terms applicable to Covered Code created under this License.
So, you can continue to use the old version. This is the same as many other licenses, including the GPL itself.
This case is interesting in that the Apple license gives you less chance to keep your modifications private, and that is what RMS is objecting to.
Of course, Michael means the first microprocessor.
After the first 8008-based personal computers within the range of a hobbyist came out, a friend and I took the train from Long Beach (N.Y.) into Manhattan, with the goal of visiting all of the computer stores that day. There were three. The biggest was in the back of Polk's hobby shop. There, a salesman toggled a program into an Altair to make the lights go back and forth (this might even have been before the Kansas City tape interface was developed, because the computer clearly didn't have any nonvolatile media). I think one of the stores was closed or out of business, and the other store had an Altair in a box and they opened the top flap just so that we could see the top of an Altair in a box - that's all the proof they had that they were actually selling a computer. So, that one in the back of Polks was the only working personal computer in a store in Manhattan that day.
I can not make myself an authority, I can be one only in other people's perceptions. For better or worse, there are some people who consider me one. I sometimes find this perception of authority to be in excess of the reality, and thus put that disclaimer in my.sig a while back. But then, someone (was it you?) found fault in my previous.sig, too.
It would be silly for me to claim to be free of ego or self-promotion. I've tried to be an agent for constructive change, and being publicly known has been one of the tools I use. I'm sorry that offends you, but I like myself the way I am.
Mesa is under a Free Software license, why would FSF not like it? It is an MIT license (BSD without the advertising restriction). FSF accepts that as a Free Software license. Yes, the GPL is preferred because it keeps software free, but the MIT license is free as well.
The problem with giving people an award is that you can't award everybody at once. The judges were tied and one person ended up having to be the tie-breaker, which was indeed a difficult choice. But I think everyone concerned took it in the right spirit.
It's no surprise that Applixware couldn't make money. Their plan was to be the Unix Office, and too many people thought that Office was such basic functionality that it should be free and were working hard to make that so. Finally, Sun freed StarOffice and Applixware's fate was sealed.
If you aren't going to be Open Source, it had better be software so special that you don't have competition, or an Open Source project might come along and eat your lunch. This means your product should probably be in a vertical market, not something everybody needs, or something that really does not work in the Open Source model (like TurboTax). And never try to compete with the Linux folks at systems programming, it's what they are best at.
Sure, this limits how much money you can make selling Linux software. We like it that way, and we are getting all of the software that we need, thank you.
It no longer takes 16 months. That info is about a year old. They were not accepting new maintainers for a long time (when a volunteer organization gets up to 500 developers, expect growing pains). They put in a lot of automation to help them manage new maintainers as well as the existing ones.
If you think something's lacking from Debian unstable and you would like to fix it, start here.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Sorry to hear, but the Software will Go On!
on
Stormix Bankruptcy
·
· Score: 2
No, that's not what they said. But there's some truth in there. Unix got fragmented and didn't have a license like the GPL to make it possible to merge fragments. It got sold from company to company like a pork belly on the commodity market, which hardly gave business users confidence. And it was expensive, and proprietary.
No, Stormix was not a parasite. They GPL-ed their software and their package manager is now part of Debian. They had real, shipping product, not mock-ups like LinuxOne. It happens that they had one really bad executive, and an otherwise good team. But that's not what sunk them, the capital market did.
Most of that stuff is already available in Debian.
KDE is now included, but of course you can choose KDE or GNOME. Apache, sure. Apache mod_ packages for ssh, perl, python, ruby, tk, and DAV. There is a menu utility, yes. I didn't notice webmin and mod_php, but of course anyone could package these for Debian.
Thanks
Bruce
Sorry to hear, but the Software will Go On!
on
Stormix Bankruptcy
·
· Score: 4
Stormix is a Debian derivative. Right now it is being very difficult to get capital, which is what probably sunk them. However, Progeny is doing well, and with Ian Murdock (the Debian founder) and a number of the lead Debian developers there, Progeny will carry the torch for Debian in the business world. I am associated with the company and am thus prejudiced, although I am not their official spokesperson and I don't work for them - this oosting is opinion.
Reviews of the Progeny install have been very good (go to ftp.progeny.com/pub/progeny/ and download the CD image), and this ease-of-use addition will be a real boost to Debian.
I'm sorry to hear about Stormix, but there's been an ex-Storm person at Progeny for a while, and I hope the other good people from Storm get to move over.
I think they can make this, but not for the cost they say.
To make this work, you'd need one IC capable of doing all of the RF functions of the phone and implementing a microprocessor as well to do the protocol of the phone. We are talking about an 800 MHz RF signal here, and thus an IC that does both UHF linear analog circuits and digital logic functions - that is asking a lot of the IC process, unless you split it into two ICs and then you have to interconnect them. You'd need a crystal for a frequency standard. Microphone, earphone, and battery, and whatever discrete components it takes to glue this together. The rest of it is the "paper" part.
I think you can make it cheap, but I don't see it reaching the $20 price point unless the cell phone companies heavily subsidize it, which means you'd need a monthly charge.
Hams do meteor scatter all of the time. The principle is that when a particle hits the atmosphere, the trail of superheated air behind
it is ionized, and reflects radio signals back to
the ground.
The reflecting surface lasts a few seconds. Because it's not suitable for voice, hams usually use very high speed Morse code, much faster than you could send by hand, sent by computer and read off a video display. Two way communications work this way: one party sends their message repeatedly over one minute on the odd minutes, the other party sends on the even minutes. The odds are that during that minute there's a meteor where you want one and the message gets through.
What I really don't like about unions is that if you happen to have a job in a unionized industry in most U.S. states, you are forced to either be a member of the union, or if you don't want to be a member you have to pay their dues anyway. And if you don't want to be a member, the union will be working 100% of the time to have you "bumped" from your job, which the law allows them to do and they usually succeed.
I it just doesn't seem fair.
About 25 years ago I worked in retail, selling home electronics. I was given the choice of joining the retail clerks union or quitting. I told my boss that I'd rather quit. He didn't want to lose me, so he promoted me to store manager. All the time I worked there, the union employees were making very close to minimum wage and were working in horrible conditions, and the union manager was driving a very expensive car and wearing suits more expensive than any worker could afford. There were no strikes. I'm sure there was lots of corruption.
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Regarding Open Source for this product, sure, I'd like to see it happen and we've been discussing it for months. But I can not say anything definite and if it happens it will take a while.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
The U.S. Government can not own a copyright. However, a contractor working for the government can own a copyright on work done for the government. The last Army (ARPA) contract I worked on, the contract let the researchers choose the copyright as long as they gave one copy to the Army, delivered to Fort Huachuka, so you may be in better shape than you think. You'd better look at the contract.
There are a few courses you can take here:
I have a conspiracy theory for you: Why is this happening so soon after Microsoft announced it wanted to lobby Government not to have public funding of GPL work?
Thanks
Bruce
I endorsed the license. Richard did not, for good reasons that define where his own philosophy differs from the Open Source definition. I tend to generally agree with Richard on Free Software issues, but I stuck to the definition that we wrote rather than my personal preference.
It happens that I own two PowerPC Macs. OK, they were hand-me-downs from my in-laws, but you can't put me in that "never owned a Mac" contingent :-)
Thanks
Bruce
If you are the copyright holder of a modification and you can make that modification into something stand-alone that is not derivative, you may also separate it from the Apple code and dual-license it.
I think APSL 1.2 is an Open Source license, and I told Apple I'd endorse it as such after I reviewed it. I am not putting my personal code under it, for the same reasons I don't put my personal code under the BSD license - both licenses leave the code open for someone to take it private. Some people care about that, others, like the BSD folks, consider it a virtue that the code can be taken private. Both sorts of license are Open Source.
Thanks
Bruce
This is an interesting case because the main objection RMS is making is to terms of the Apple license that force you to give away even more code than the GPL would! In this case, RMS is supporting your right to hold back your code if it is not distributed. This is rather a turn-about from the way these arguments usually go.
Bruce
7. Versions of the License. Apple may publish revised and/or new versions of this License from time to time. Each version will be given a distinguishing version number. Once Original Code has been published under a particular version of this License, You may continue to use it under the terms of that version. You may also choose to use such Original Code under the terms of any subsequent version of this License published by Apple. No one other than Apple has the right to modify the terms applicable to Covered Code created under this License.
So, you can continue to use the old version. This is the same as many other licenses, including the GPL itself.
This case is interesting in that the Apple license gives you less chance to keep your modifications private, and that is what RMS is objecting to.
Bruce
After the first 8008-based personal computers within the range of a hobbyist came out, a friend and I took the train from Long Beach (N.Y.) into Manhattan, with the goal of visiting all of the computer stores that day. There were three. The biggest was in the back of Polk's hobby shop. There, a salesman toggled a program into an Altair to make the lights go back and forth (this might even have been before the Kansas City tape interface was developed, because the computer clearly didn't have any nonvolatile media). I think one of the stores was closed or out of business, and the other store had an Altair in a box and they opened the top flap just so that we could see the top of an Altair in a box - that's all the proof they had that they were actually selling a computer. So, that one in the back of Polks was the only working personal computer in a store in Manhattan that day.
Bruce
I can not make myself an authority, I can be one only in other people's perceptions. For better or worse, there are some people who consider me one. I sometimes find this perception of authority to be in excess of the reality, and thus put that disclaimer in my .sig a while back. But then, someone (was it you?) found fault in my previous .sig, too.
It would be silly for me to claim to be free of ego or self-promotion. I've tried to be an agent for constructive change, and being publicly known has been one of the tools I use. I'm sorry that offends you, but I like myself the way I am.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
If you aren't going to be Open Source, it had better be software so special that you don't have competition, or an Open Source project might come along and eat your lunch. This means your product should probably be in a vertical market, not something everybody needs, or something that really does not work in the Open Source model (like TurboTax). And never try to compete with the Linux folks at systems programming, it's what they are best at.
Sure, this limits how much money you can make selling Linux software. We like it that way, and we are getting all of the software that we need, thank you.
Thanks
Bruce
P.S. actual statistics regarding the time to become a Debian maintainer are at nm.debian.org .
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Now, aren't you glad that Linux isn't Unix? :-)
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Try progeny.
Thanks
Bruce
Reviews of the Progeny install have been very good (go to ftp.progeny.com/pub/progeny/ and download the CD image), and this ease-of-use addition will be a real boost to Debian.
I'm sorry to hear about Stormix, but there's been an ex-Storm person at Progeny for a while, and I hope the other good people from Storm get to move over.
Thanks
Bruce
To make this work, you'd need one IC capable of doing all of the RF functions of the phone and implementing a microprocessor as well to do the protocol of the phone. We are talking about an 800 MHz RF signal here, and thus an IC that does both UHF linear analog circuits and digital logic functions - that is asking a lot of the IC process, unless you split it into two ICs and then you have to interconnect them. You'd need a crystal for a frequency standard. Microphone, earphone, and battery, and whatever discrete components it takes to glue this together. The rest of it is the "paper" part.
I think you can make it cheap, but I don't see it reaching the $20 price point unless the cell phone companies heavily subsidize it, which means you'd need a monthly charge.
Bruce
The reflecting surface lasts a few seconds. Because it's not suitable for voice, hams usually use very high speed Morse code, much faster than you could send by hand, sent by computer and read off a video display. Two way communications work this way: one party sends their message repeatedly over one minute on the odd minutes, the other party sends on the even minutes. The odds are that during that minute there's a meteor where you want one and the message gets through.
Thanks
Bruce
I it just doesn't seem fair.
About 25 years ago I worked in retail, selling home electronics. I was given the choice of joining the retail clerks union or quitting. I told my boss that I'd rather quit. He didn't want to lose me, so he promoted me to store manager. All the time I worked there, the union employees were making very close to minimum wage and were working in horrible conditions, and the union manager was driving a very expensive car and wearing suits more expensive than any worker could afford. There were no strikes. I'm sure there was lots of corruption.
Thanks
Bruce