I spoke with a Corel official today. He has been assigned this issue, he committed that he is definitely working on it and that I can tell people that, he hoped to have a policy change announcement today but he ran out of time. He asked me to re-iterate what I thought he should do, and I did.
For something like 20 years now, I've been reading articles about how silly Mr. Qwerty is. Other authors wonder, in print, how magazines keep paying him and why anyone still reads him. And yet, Mr. Qwerty writes on. Perhaps just because he's the author everybody loves to hate.
Linux technically inadequate for IRC? Rubbish. No doubt 50 people will go out and prove that this week just to make Mr. Qwerty look bad.
Much of the success of Linux, by the way, might be attributed to the fact that Linux folks are busy writing software instead of hanging out on IRC. I doubt the fact that we're not the main host of IRC servers has much to do with Linux' current technical limitations.
Closed-source software is fine as long as it doesn't try to prevent the creation of Open Source software, doesn't try to pass it off as Open Source software, and it isn't a critical part of the Linux infrastructure. These databases are none of that, they're fine. I objected to Qt (before they fixed their license) because it was being positioned as an infrastructure component. I object to StarOffice because it is being passed off as Open Source. I object to software patents because they act to prevent the creation of Open Source software. If you don't want to do any of those things, we can get along just fine.
It's not at all clear to me that the beta-testers have established a consultant's relationship with Corel, and thus that it's an internal distribution. Remember, the GPL deals with distribution, not release. But let's put the legal point aside. I am author of a few things in there - part of dpkg, Electric Fence, various pieces around Debian. I put that stuff out under the GPL, and I'd feel a heck of a lot better if I had access to the modifications they are testing, even if I'm not in the beta program. So, that's what I told them. They are concerned that too many support-hungry Windows users and the press not get ahold of this software in an early state. But there are better ways to handle that than to overlay their license terms upon mine. So, we discussed those ways. Now, they are thinking about them and will get back to us.
Although their main market is up-until-now-Windows-users, they have to keep the software authors happy, too. It would be a PR disaster for them to do otherwise.
I liked the mention of the conversation thread originator, root. Very nice to give him credit. Gosh, that "root" guy really gets around. He even has a login on my system, but I don't remember giving it out! Better check your Linux system, to see if he's been there, too!
And then he talks about how it doesn't make sense to be religious about Free Software / Open Source when it's your business that counts, but the first thing you hear after that is how users got screwed because the product in question wasn't Open Source!
Now, I agree that the world can hold both proprietary software and Free Software, and that the two can get along. It's just interesting that the article makes the point that you really can't trust a proprietary vendor to stay in the market, and thus you must code as if they won't.
[Sorry if this is a duplicate - Slashdot is being balky today] Apologies for the lateness of this reply, Slashdot was so wedged that I could not post for a while.
I got through to the responsible people at Corel, we just had a conference call, and we discussed strategies for dealing with beta-tests including software that's owned by people outside of Corel. They will fix the problem.
Although I'm not always around to help, feel free to mail bruce@perens.com when this stuff comes up, and my home-office phone number is in my domain record. The SPI board has my cell-phone number.
I did also tell them they're going to have to keep their eyes on the traditional Windows crowd at their office where things like this are concerned, or they'll appear clue-less and get the authors of the software really annoyed.
Apologies for the lateness of this reply, Slashdot was so wedged that I could not post for a while.
I got through to the responsible people at Corel, we just had a conference call, and we discussed strategies for dealing with beta-tests including software that's owned by people outside of Corel. They will fix the problem.
Although I'm not always around to help, feel free to mail bruce@perens.com when this stuff comes up, and my home-office phone number is in my domain record. The SPI board has my cell-phone number.
I did also tell them they're going to have to keep their eyes on the traditional Windows crowd at their office where things like this are concerned, or they'll appear clue-less and get the authors of the software really annoyed.
I'm pretty sure it would be considered distributing - the beta-testers are not employees or contractors. You can't override the GPL with a non-disclosure-agreement.
OK, they made a few boo-boos regarding forms and generic requirements documents. Please consider that the office staff don't necessarily understand Windows or Linux, they've been given boiler-plate copy by someone who does, and they'll have to get new boiler-plate now.
They'll also have to comply with existing software licenses - which means if any Beta tester asks them for the source of an already GPL-ed program that Corel is distributing, Corel will have to give it to them. It might take a bit of explaining to get this through to them, but the Debian folks can handle that quite well. If Corel wants to put the GPL on any entirely new stand-alone software, it's Corel's choice when they do that, and they have the right to hold back the source until the GPL goes on it.
Expect some growing pains as a formerly windows-centric company ventures into Linux. Give them a little time.
HP asked for real Open Source Sun stopped short of Open Source HP decided that stopping short of Open Source didn't give them a reason to cooperate with Sun.
It's not an attempt to guilt-trip the developers. If I were to send anyone on a guilt-trip, it would be Sun Microsystems. I re-read the posting and agree with you that it left that ambiguous, sorry.
The point is that if we want to influence Sun, we can do it by not supporting them as enthusiasticly as we might otherwise. Voting with our feet, in other words.
It's much more likely that people would put in effort debugging real free software than fake sort-of-free software, though. It's not at all clear that anyone has an incentive to debug SCSL software or hardware designs while Sun really still holds a monopoly on them.
It's not clear that Intel is Microsoft's pawn any longer. Their actions in funding the Linux Merced development bely that.
Intel also has the virtue of not claiming its software is Open Source when it isn't. I don't mind pure commercial software, the world has a place for it as long as the commercial vendors don't try to restrict the development of free software. I do mind when people pose their product as Open Source when it's clearly not Open Source at all.
Bell [of HP] characterized Sun's CSL -- for both hardware and software products -- as "an obvious attempt to gain the advantages of open sourcing without the obligations."
At least someone in the industry catches that.
I found out that Sun did say the SCSL was an Open Source license at the StarOffice press conference. Of course, that's a bald-faced lie. A reporter who was there, and seems to be a responsible person, asserted that fact to me in private mail. I'd like to know if they did the same thing at this most recent press conference.
I wonder if they're just trying to buy the idea of Open Source by releasing so much almost-Open-Source software that they confuse people into believing that what Sun does is really Open Source?
I personally am not going to have anything more to do with Sun and its products while they insist on foisting the SCSL on the world. I'd suggest that people who maintain GPL-ed SPARC port of Linux and the SPARC port of GCC consider if they are really helping the cause of free software.
If they really want to be compatible, they'll need a GPL-ed driver for that modem so that it can become a permanent part of the Linux kernel source and can be maintained in perpetuity. Otherwise, eventually we're going to be stuck with a driver that isn't keeping up with the kernel and can't be maintained as IBM will have moved on to newer hardware.
Debian and Red Hat already support installing a system without network servers, or with only the network servers you ask for. On Red Hat this is one check-box, not a big deal to do. If you install a system that way, there isn't really anything different from a system that's "optimized" for the single-user desktop.
The author seems a bit systems-administration-naive to think that you'd have to design a special distribution just for this.
Articles on my site are linked from Slashdot quite often. I have a 768 megabit-per-second DSL which doesn't generally saturate from that and the fact that it's serving a 2.4 gigabyte U.S. street map database for FTP at the same time. Static web pages live on a Pentium 120, 128M RAM, running Apache. Dynamic pages live on a Pentium III 450, 128M RAM, running Zope and Apache. Zope uses a lot more CPU, as it interprets lots of Python to put up a page. Both systems run Debian GNU/Linux "unstable", which means the unreleased development version, which is darned stable dispite that. I recently left these two servers running unattended with no way to reboot them while I took a 2-week vacation, they didn't crash.
If you're serving video or audio or images, though, you might need a faster net connection - do the math regarding bandwidth-per-user and how many you can support.
IMO Debian is handling this very well and very maturely, their policies are excellent (OK, I wrote some of them but they have done a lot since then), and they are to be complimented for bringing attention to this issue.
A lot of people are bringing up DENTS. It's an alternate DNS implementation, dedicated to remaining 100% Free Software, and it's technically superior too! Take a look, it's a really cool project. It's important to have another Free Software alternative to BIND, even if BIND is itself Free Software, just because DNS is so critical to the entire Internet.
It's a mistake to put proprietary elements in IETF standards (and non-IETF standards as well). If RSA isn't willing to open this up, we're just going to have to develop an alternative to the standard (which is already in progress) and a way to gateway between the two standards.
And last, this is one of the more mature Slashdot discussions concerning Open Source that I've seen in a while. Good going, folks!
This was never going to work, and won't work anywhere else, either. They are simply going to radiate those signals into the air and what you end up with is radio.
Radiation from DSL, which uses balanced twisted pairs, much less likely to radiate, is still a problem. To think that this would work on poorly balanced, non-twisted power lines over long distances was a pipe dream.
Thanks
Bruce
P.S. My home alarm, phone, and data wiring is on shielded twisted pair.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't panic, folks, it really is being worked on.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Linux technically inadequate for IRC? Rubbish. No doubt 50 people will go out and prove that this week just to make Mr. Qwerty look bad.
Much of the success of Linux, by the way, might be attributed to the fact that Linux folks are busy writing software instead of hanging out on IRC. I doubt the fact that we're not the main host of IRC servers has much to do with Linux' current technical limitations.
Bruce Perens
Bruce
Bruce
Although their main market is up-until-now-Windows-users, they have to keep the software authors happy, too. It would be a PR disaster for them to do otherwise.
Bruce
And then he talks about how it doesn't make sense to be religious about Free Software / Open Source when it's your business that counts, but the first thing you hear after that is how users got screwed because the product in question wasn't Open Source!
Now, I agree that the world can hold both proprietary software and Free Software, and that the two can get along. It's just interesting that the article makes the point that you really can't trust a proprietary vendor to stay in the market, and thus you must code as if they won't.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
I got through to the responsible people at Corel, we just had a conference call, and we discussed strategies for dealing with beta-tests including software that's owned by people outside of Corel. They will fix the problem.
Although I'm not always around to help, feel free to mail bruce@perens.com when this stuff comes up, and my home-office phone number is in my domain record. The SPI board has my cell-phone number.
I did also tell them they're going to have to keep their eyes on the traditional Windows crowd at their office where things like this are concerned, or they'll appear clue-less and get the authors of the software really annoyed.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
I got through to the responsible people at Corel, we just had a conference call, and we discussed strategies for dealing with beta-tests including software that's owned by people outside of Corel. They will fix the problem.
Although I'm not always around to help, feel free to mail bruce@perens.com when this stuff comes up, and my home-office phone number is in my domain record. The SPI board has my cell-phone number.
I did also tell them they're going to have to keep their eyes on the traditional Windows crowd at their office where things like this are concerned, or they'll appear clue-less and get the authors of the software really annoyed.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce
Bruce
OK, they made a few boo-boos regarding forms and generic requirements documents. Please consider that the office staff don't necessarily understand Windows or Linux, they've been given boiler-plate copy by someone who does, and they'll have to get new boiler-plate now.
They'll also have to comply with existing software licenses - which means if any Beta tester asks them for the source of an already GPL-ed program that Corel is distributing, Corel will have to give it to them. It might take a bit of explaining to get this through to them, but the Debian folks can handle that quite well. If Corel wants to put the GPL on any entirely new stand-alone software, it's Corel's choice when they do that, and they have the right to hold back the source until the GPL goes on it.
Expect some growing pains as a formerly windows-centric company ventures into Linux. Give them a little time.
Bruce Perens
And Linux is just a pawn in the game.
HP asked for real Open Source
Sun stopped short of Open Source
HP decided that stopping short of Open Source didn't give them a reason to cooperate with Sun.
Can't you read it that way?
Thanks
Bruce
The point is that if we want to influence Sun, we can do it by not supporting them as enthusiasticly as we might otherwise. Voting with our feet, in other words.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Intel also has the virtue of not claiming its software is Open Source when it isn't. I don't mind pure commercial software, the world has a place for it as long as the commercial vendors don't try to restrict the development of free software. I do mind when people pose their product as Open Source when it's clearly not Open Source at all.
Thanks
Bruce
At least someone in the industry catches that.
I found out that Sun did say the SCSL was an Open Source license at the StarOffice press conference. Of course, that's a bald-faced lie. A reporter who was there, and seems to be a responsible person, asserted that fact to me in private mail. I'd like to know if they did the same thing at this most recent press conference.
I wonder if they're just trying to buy the idea of Open Source by releasing so much almost-Open-Source software that they confuse people into believing that what Sun does is really Open Source?
I personally am not going to have anything more to do with Sun and its products while they insist on foisting the SCSL on the world. I'd suggest that people who maintain GPL-ed SPARC port of Linux and the SPARC port of GCC consider if they are really helping the cause of free software.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
So, please IBM, GPL the modem driver.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
The author seems a bit systems-administration-naive to think that you'd have to design a special distribution just for this.
Bruce
If you're serving video or audio or images, though, you might need a faster net connection - do the math regarding bandwidth-per-user and how many you can support.
Thanks
Bruce
A lot of people are bringing up DENTS. It's an alternate DNS implementation, dedicated to remaining 100% Free Software, and it's technically superior too! Take a look, it's a really cool project. It's important to have another Free Software alternative to BIND, even if BIND is itself Free Software, just because DNS is so critical to the entire Internet.
It's a mistake to put proprietary elements in IETF standards (and non-IETF standards as well). If RSA isn't willing to open this up, we're just going to have to develop an alternative to the standard (which is already in progress) and a way to gateway between the two standards.
And last, this is one of the more mature Slashdot discussions concerning Open Source that I've seen in a while. Good going, folks!
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Yours truly gets interviewed in Upside Today. See their Open Season feature.
Bruce
I think Richard Stallman said it best: Carl Marx didn't invent helping your neighbor.
Bruce Perens
Radiation from DSL, which uses balanced twisted pairs, much less likely to radiate, is still a problem. To think that this would work on poorly balanced, non-twisted power lines over long distances was a pipe dream.
Thanks
Bruce
P.S. My home alarm, phone, and data wiring is on shielded twisted pair.